Heroes of Armageddon

Fruits of My Labours

2010-04-08T17:04:00.004+01:00

Hi folks!

I just got an email linking to some pictures of the Salamanders Master of the Forge commission all painted up, so I thought I'd share it.

http://teamsnakeeyes.blogspot.com/2010/04/army-showcase-salamanders-headquarters.html

Personally I think they've done an awesome job, it's always very rewarding to see a commission turn out so well and to know that it's in good hands.

In general news, my attempt at reviving the WoT project pretty much flopped, no interest from others old or new, so I'm shelving it again and spending time and money on stuff I'll be able to play. I had an unexpectedly productive week where I managed to paint my 2 Firestorm Armada fleets and a hefty amount of Centauri ships for Babylon 5 (and even scratchbuilt a Centauri colony station and Shadow Planetkiller). 40 ships in total! I've been at my most productive in my university studies too so naturally I'm feeling quite good about life at the moment. :)

Take care!

Busy Busy Busy!

2010-03-19T21:58:00.003Z

Hi folks!

Uni's been horribly busy and I recently had a bit of an unpleasant break-up (is there any other kind?), hence the month of quietness. And it's likely to continue, I just don't feel like blogging once I get home every night, having been sat in front of a computer all day.

What I have been doing is getting hobby work done. My Khemri Blood Bowl team is finished and I have assembled a new Orc team from WHFB Black Orcs and WH40K Ork Boyz boxes. I've also assembled and started painting Terrain and Dindrenzi fleets for Firestorm Armada and what struck me about them is just how large they are for spaceship minis. Brilliantly detailed too and well worth the money.

I've also raked out an old project of mine. I'm a big fan of Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time books (no spoilers in the comments please, I haven't read the latest one yet!) and wanted to fight his battles on the tabletop. Since nobody seemed to have done it before (except for an RPG and a Mordheim supplement) I decided to take on the project and chose GW's LotR game to do so. It had everything I needed - a good skirmish system with mighty heroes, magic, monsters, sieges and so on.

I started with the first book and wrote all the rules, profiles and scenarios needed for it. I even got started on the minis, a few of which are below. I designed the supplement in two parts. The first was a core rulebook which included all the extra rules required to represent concepts from the WoT novels. The second was the profiles and scenarios needed to depect the events in the first novel: The Eye of the World. The plan then being to make one supplement for each novel, and having a central set of additional rules shared between them to save repetition.

Here are a selection of the minis I made:

Whitecloak:

Shienaran Lancer

Myrdrraal:

Trolloc:

Unfortunately a small team (i.e. 2 people) and busy schedules killed it off early last year. However, now I'd like to finish playtesting it so that's what I'm doing. I'm buying up the minis starting from where I left off. If anyone out there wants to join in, I have a forum for the project here:
The Black Tower

And the latest revisions of the two parts for the supplement are here:
Core Rules
Eye of the World Supplement

I won't be blogging much in the near future but I will be active on the forum so if you want to keep up with what I'm working on, that's where to go.

Take care. :)

Babylon 5 RPG Figures

2010-02-18T07:54:00.002Z

Hi folks!

I've had a busy week so I missed posting when I'd have liked to. Nevertheless, here are my latest batch of RPG figures.

Officer Lou Welch:

a MedTec:

and Psi-Cop Ms Kelsey:

I haven't really done any hobby activities this week except for getting in a couple of games of Firestorm Armada. In short, I found it incredibly fun so I'll be picking up a fleet next month.

Babylon 5 RPG Figure: Londo Mollari

2010-02-09T07:32:00.002Z

Ambassador Londo Mollari of the Centauri Republic.

I'm aiming to post these three per week from now on. Let's see how I get on with that.
In other news, I placed an order for the Firestorm Armada rulebook this weekend so it should be getting here shortly. I've been wanting to pick this up (and a Dindrenzi fleet to play with) since it came out but there was always something else a bit more important to spend money on. I'm going to try it out with the paper cut out fleets before I buy a fleet box.
I also managed to win three boxes of B5 RPG figures on ebay which will give me some generic Centauri, Narn and Minbari figures for my games.

Babylon 5 RPG Figures: GKar, Ironheart, Kosh

2010-02-06T11:02:00.003Z

Hi folks, I missed a few days so to make up for it we have 3 figures today.

Narn Ambassador G'Kar:

Rogue telepath Jason Ironheart:

and Vorlon Ambassador Kosh:

There's plenty more of those to come over the next few weeks. :)

In general news, I finally have the last 3 minis I need for my Blood Bowl Khemri team, so once they're done I'll post those too. Our league was supposed to start this month but there's a couple of club events which might postpone it until March. Which might not be all bad since I need some practice games with my team.
Speaking of club events, we played the second and third turns of our Babylon 5 campaign last week. I forgot the camera so no battle pictures but I'll post a writeup soon anyway.

I'd love to hear from you all, as always. :)

Babylon 5 RPG Figure: Delenn (plus general update)

2010-01-29T17:42:00.001Z

Hi folks!

Another of my finished RPG figures, this time Ambassador Delenn of the Minbari:

I've tidied up the column on the right a little, since it was getting a bit bloated. I've removed the labels list and replaced it with a number of quick links to the major series of posts about my various projects and such. I'm hoping to tweak things a little more in the weeks to come. If any of you have any suggestions, please feel free to let me know. :)

Babylon 5 RPG Figure: Dr Franklin

2010-01-28T17:07:00.000Z

Dr Franklin from the Babylon 5 Collector's Series by Harlequin Miniatures.

As always, if anyone out there has any of these collector's boxes spare, please get in touch! :)

A Bit of Everything...

2010-01-26T21:16:00.004Z

Hi folks!

Things at uni (and at home for that matter) seem to have calmed down a bit so I should hopefully be able to paint and post more. If not, I have a small backlog of painted figures that I can post up one or two at a time every few days to keep this thing looking alive!

This week I finally "finished" my Company Command Squad for my Steel Legion. Although they're tabletop ready, I want to do a bit more work on the banner so I don't consider them finished finished.

The next four figures I'm not sure if I've shown here before or not, but I'll post them anyway since there has been some rebasing and whatnot. Presenting a Commissar, an Officer, another Commissar and a Priest:

The latter three are fielded when I feel like getting up close and personal. Although it's not a conventional (or extremely cost efficient) strategy, I have found it to give some overconfident opponents a bit of a nasty surprise and taught them to be careful what they charge (or let charge them) in future.

Up next we have a test figure for my D-99 army. I've been wanting to give them a couple of hard hitting units so I set aside a little money this month to give them some support. Part of which is a unit of Stormtroopers (for when I use Codex:IG instead of the IA4 list), the test figure for them is below:

I'm using the Heavy Infantry models from Pig Iron Productions because I think they fit the Elysian look more than either of GW's offerings. I'm especially keen to avoid the older "vac-suit" versions which are being used alongside my Steel Legion.
I think these models take the scheme quite well and will look good alongside the regular guardsmen/veterans. They look more heavily armoured than the standard Elysians and still maintain that high-tech look (especially with the weapon). I'm hoping to put together two squads of these. Hopefully I'll have more to show from my Elysians soon...

Finally, I've been mentioning my growing interest in the Babylon 5 RPG from Mongoose Publishing, now sadly OOP but still very easy to find on ebay and the like. I've been putting together a collection of figures to use for keeping track of positions in combat and such. Now that a few are finished, I'll be posting them up occasionally. The first is one of the Rangers:

A samurai with a simple weapon swap and some minor green stuff work has resulted in something which I'm quite poud of. The background is part of a modular corridor set I'm putting together to go with them.
I now have 5 of the Harlequin Miniatures Babylon 5 boxes but with at least twice as many still to get, I'm always on the lookout for more. If you have any spare, or know anywhere to get some, please do get in touch because I really, really, really want to complete that collection. The same goes for the small line of B5 RPG figures produced by Mongoose (except the Vorlons, I really won't be needing 6 of those!)

Finally, I'm once again taking commissions (see this post for details). However, I will only be taking on small groups of up to three human-sized 28mm figures or one monstrous creature/dreadnought/sentinel sized model per client, with a maximum of six on my workbench at any one time (the larger models count as three). No squads or large vehicles since I don't have the time to spare to work on too much. This means I'll probably be working on heroes, RPG figures and the like. Contact details are in the post linked to above if you are interested.

As always, your comments are welcome. I'd particularly like to hear what you think of the Elysian Stormtrooper. :)

So I'm Playing 40k Again...

2010-01-14T23:53:00.005Z

...well, sort of.

I decided I'd had enough of my Steel Legion lying around in cases, neglected since the first few weeks of the new IG codex. But I'm not 100% happy with the 40k rules as some readers may remember.

The solution - fix 'em!

As the Most Important Rule (rulebook, page 2) states, the book is simply a guideline, and players should feel free to alter the rules as they see fit. So in the same way as one might convert a model to be more suitable for their army, I'm tinkering with the rules to make the game more suitable for my enjoyment. I created a 5 and a half side document of tweaks and changes to the rulebook then gave my brother a quick 1000 point game, IG versus Necrons. An IG victory but the balance was beginning to tip towards the end, just for the record. :)

We both agree that the rules are much more to our taste. There were a few kinks to be ironed out as expected - most as a result of the shakeup of the turn sequence, which is a blend of those used in Urban War and LotR.

So the plan is to continue playtesting these changes and in a few weeks (if we're happy with all the changes) I'd like to do a quick walkthrough of them on a battle report here to show them off.

I'm not going to host them anywhere for the moment, but if anyone would like a look at them you can email me at eek107(at)hotmail(dot)co(dot)uk. They do require the current 40k rulebook (since it's an "errata" of sorts) and codices. Obviously there are going to be a lot of questions as to how they might interact with codices so player discretion is also important.

Anyway, this little game has been enough to fan the 40k flames again. I've almost got my Steel Legion HQ section finished, only the standard bearer needs to be painted. I've also started a squad of Storm Troopers and a bit of retail therapy to deal with some midweek stress is bringing some more reinforcements through the post!

My next post will likely have some Steel Legion pictures. I'm thinking of going back to my "Heroes of Armageddon" theme again, do you guys prefer that or my current theme or should I change back?

Gamers' Indecision Strikes Again!

2010-01-13T19:01:00.002Z

Hi folks! I've got a mixed bag for you tonight!

First up, a pair of Babylon 5 fleets. The first is my entire Earth Alliance fleet, minus fighters. My favourites include the Poseidon (big carrier in the centre at the back), Explorer (huge ship out on the left) and the 4 Omegas & Warlock (just in front of the Poseidon).

Second we have the Vorlons, one of the oldest races in the galaxy. Of particular note is the Planetkiller (the big one):

Apologies for the dodgy camerawork. I'll have to take some close-ups in the future to do them justice.

Next we have Blood Bowl! I managed to paint no less than three teams over December. Orks, Chaos (for my brother's christmas present) and Humans:

So that's put a few more images in my blog which have been sorely lacking for months!

In my next post... well your guess is as good as mine at the moment. I've hit one of those (frequent) moods where I have no idea what to paint. What I want can change in the blink of an eye, and it's slightly infuriating! I've actually got some Steel Legion on the table right now so we'll see if I can get them done. I also converted a 28mm samurai figure into a Ranger (like Marcus in the middle) from Babylon 5. However, I'm waiting on some textured plasticard to base him and my other B5 RPG figures.

So we'll see what I post, when I post it! ;)

"And so it begins..."

2010-01-03T07:02:00.003Z

Hi folks, hope you had a great new year and that 2010 is a good one for you! :)

Now that everything has calmed down I'm about to launch myself back into my projects! Christmas has been good hobby-wise, with the main gift being a huge order of Babylon 5 Fleet Action ships. I have now collected enough to complete my Minbari, Vorlon* and Shadow* fleets, with Earth, Narn* and Centauri* only needing a handful of extras to round out their fleets. (*still need a few more fighters) In addition, I got a bunch of the RPG figures (two boxes of characters and one of Earthforce personnel) and a guide to the Babylon 5 station complete with deck maps. Finally, I also got a KR Multicase black aluminium carry case (I highly recommend that you all check them out, I've used them exclusively for years) and a bunch of money from various relations. All in all, a great boost to my projects.

Unfortunately we did not manage to play the next turn of our Babylon 5 campaign because our December club meet was cancelled due to bad weather. The next is on the last Sunday of January which gives me plenty of time to build and paint my new ships, so I'll finally be able to take pictures for proper battle reports! I'm sure the players will also appreciate replacing their cardboard counters with proper minis too!

Looking forward, this month is going to be dedicated to my new Babylon 5 ships, and spending will go towards materials for creating terrain - planets, asteroid fields and possibly a nice big black cloth that I will paint a starfield on.

In my next post I will show more of what I have painted so far, which will mostly be my Earth fleet and a few RPG figures.

How was your holiday, what hobby-related gifts did you get, and what's first in line for your hobby activities this year? As always, I'd love to hear from you all. :)

Looking Ahead to 2010

2009-12-21T00:01:00.003Z

Hi folks!

I know my blogging has slowed down a lot lately. No excuses, I've been lazy! But now that I'm off until mid-January I might have more motivation... we'll see. For now, I want to take a look at next year.

2009 has been another year of flitting between projects. I think a large part of that has been my growing dissatisfaction with 40k after finding other games that I enjoyed more. However, I think I have finally settled on a number of projects I would like to see through to completion, and I intend to dedicate 2010's hobby activities to that goal.

The first big project is of course Babylon 5: A Call To Arms. I have now reached the point where most of the buying is done. I have almost finished my Earth fleet, with both Narn and Centauri looking very healthy too. My Minbari fleet is about to be finished off with the order that is on its way, along with complete Vorlon and Shadow fleets (minus fighters) and a few League ships.
What remains is to buy the last few capital ships for earth, Narn, Centauri and the League. Then comes the scratchbuilding and kitbashing. Both the Psi Corps and Raiders fleets will be a mix of existing models and some conversions and scratchbuilds, so they will come first. Space stations also fit into this category. The Drakh will need to be completely scratchbuilt so they will come later.
Along with that I need to build terrain, in the form of planets and asteroid fields. I have already started on some average sized planets, which I will later add to with some gas giants and moons/dead rocks. For asteroids I have been using printed terrain, but I have been planning out a more 3d version.
So that will be the main focus of the early year. Assembly and painting of such small minis doesn't take too long and the terrain is also fairly basic so hopefully I can wrap that up in the first half of the year.

A side project of this is the Babylon 5 RPG which I have been looking at. I already have a number of the old Harlequin Miniatures Babylon 5 boxed sets, as well as the rulebook and a sample adventure so I'm looking to expand on that slightly. What I'm aiming to have is a set of corridors, rooms and such for combat encounters and the like, and enough figures to represent a good variety of characters that are likely to be encountered. Given the rarity of the aforementioned boxed sets, this is an ongoing background project.

The second major project is a game that has recently taken my club by storm: Blood Bowl. I'm a bit behind the rest on getting into it but I bought the game last month and have become hooked on it. I'm assembling a Khemri team and am painting my way through the starter teams. This is a project for the first few months of the year and I aim to have the Khemri team finished by February in time for the league my club has planned. I'd like to make a custom pitch for them but that depends on how much use I'd get out of it.

After that I have two projects in the pipeline that share a few resources so I will tackle them with what remains of the year.

The first is one of my half-finished projects - the Wheel of Time supplement for the Lord of the Rings SBG. I have written all the rules, profiles and scenarios for the first book and collected a portion of the minis already. All I need are the rest of the minis, terrain, and playtesting. Whether or not I tackle the later books afterwards, I cannot say. I would like to, but it's not something I will commit to.

The second is also an LotR SBG supplement, this time based on the PC game Mount & Blade. It's gameplay is almost exactly like the Battle Companies rules for the SBG, so I would like to convert them to the tabletop and expand the Battle Companies rules a little as well. This was on my list of possibles for a while but after winning a set of suitable minis in a recent painting competition, I am giving it the go ahead. Again, I have written most of it so it's mostly minis and terrain that are required, but this can share a good portion of the WoT supplement's terrain so a lot of the work will have been done already.

So that's the general outline for 2010. Starting with babylon 5 and Blood Bowl, and moving into LotR supplements once they are done. Hopefully I can stay focused, but no doubt I'll wander as I am prone to do.

What about you, dear reader? I'd love to hear your plans for next year, either in the comment or a link to a full post. :)

Babylon 5 Campaign - Turn 1

2009-12-05T16:11:00.001Z

ISN - The Galaxy's Most Important Network

Good evening, we interrupt this evening's broadcast with this breaking story. Open war has broken out between several major governments in the newly explored Sector 950, raising tensions between already hostile factions.

After the construction of a jump gate and several colonies in the system, several alien governments have taken an interest in the area and have now begun forcefully claiming the system. Early reports indicate that renegade Earth ships, Minbari, Vorlons, and a previously unknown race reported to be called the Shadows are now openly fighting each other. Rumours also indicate that the Narn Regime has also sent ships into the area, although no confirmed sightings have been made.

Hostilities began when a small Shadow fleet was spotted near the mining outpost in the system. A number of Vorlon ships carried out a disastrous hit and run attack, with both fleets losing most of the ships participating in the engagement. The mining colony remains intact.

(ISN exclusive picture of a wounded Shadow scout vessel)

This quick show of force by the Vorlons was followed by an attempt by the bulk of their fleet to capture the jump gate. President Clark's elite forces deployed almost their entire fleet in response, resulting in the Vorlons retreating rather than risk another costly battle.

(Vorlon fleet emerges from hyperspace)

Clark's forces then went on to secure the system's trade station, ensuring that many loyal citizens will remain safe in these perilous times.

The Minbari took control of the scientific outpost, giving them access to advanced ship refitting systems. Although they are of Earth design, experts agree that the Minbari will easily adapt them to their own technology.

(Last transmission from the outpost showing an approaching Minbari warcruiser)

Renegade Earth ships moved to seize control of the industrial world but their small fleet was thwarted by a hit and run Minbari attack. The renegades lost two capital ships in the engagement and although no Minbari ships were destroyed, they were severely damaged by the Nova-class ship Hercules. Both fleets lost several squadrons of fighters in the battle.

(Renegade Starfuries move to engage the Minbari fighters)

As always, our thoughts and prayers here at ISN go out to those innocents caught between these vast struggling powers, and especially to our brave, loyal men and women of Earthforce fighting to protect them.

We will continue to broadcast reports from the frontlines as they come in. For now this is ISN signing off.

Facelift and General Update

2009-11-03T22:23:00.004Z

Hi folks!

Well it's been busy as expected, but things have been progressing steadily.

First, and most noticeably, I have given my blog the long-needed overhaul. The layout is much the same as before simply because I see no reason to change it, but I've updated the theme to reflect the nature of my hobby a little more. Long-term readers will have noticed my drift away from 40k into the more general realm of sci-fi wargames, and now 40k occupies a small amount of my time. I felt that my blog should reflect that. I have chosen more of a Babylon 5-ish theme, since it currently dominates my gaming efforts.

Which leads nicely on to the main chunk of the update. After a long time of planning, buying, building and painting, I am now ready to launch my Babylon 5 A Call To Arms campaign. 5 players (including myself) have so far opted to take part, and that will likely still be the number when we make our opening moves at the end of the month.

The campaign will be fought in Sector 950, during the Earth year 2261. At this point in time, both the Shadow War and the Earth Civil War are in full swing, and almost the entire galaxy is in turmoil. Sector 950 is in a relatively quiet area of space, and is home to two settled planets, a trade station, a mining colony and a scientific outpost. With many untapped resources in the sector several governments have dispatched fleets to take control of the system to exploit them, in an attempt to give themselves the upper hand in their war efforts.

The way it works is simple. Every campaign turn, each player will nominate one of the system's 10 targets to attack. If it is unoccupied and nobody else decides to contest it, the target is theirs. If another player owns it or decides to contest an attack against a neutral target, then a battle is fought and the winner takes the target. This process continues until there is a clear winner (either taking the whole system or enough of it that we agree their competitors have little hope of winning).
Each player starts out with a sizeable campaign fleet, chosen from one of the many available factions. As the campaign goes on, ships will be lost, surviving vessels will gain upgrades and experience, and resources generated from the targets can be used to buy reinforcements and carry out repairs.

We will be playing a couple of campaign turns at the end of each month, the number depending on how much fighting goes on during these turns. I will be providing reports from the frontlines here afterwards. I hope you all enjoy them. :)

And finally, to give a taste of the action...

It Lives!

2009-09-29T11:44:00.004+01:00

Hi folks!

Yes, I did take a bit of an extended break recently. Things have been trundling along as usual, jumping from project to project as I am prone to do!

However, I have been sticking at one thing. Space Hulk. Although I was a little too young to catch the original, I've heard so much about it over the years I just had to buy this one as soon as it was announced. Since a couple of days after it arrived I have been painting the minis and sprucing the game up a little. I bought some velvet dice bags for picking the Command Point tokens and Blips from, and went around the edges of the cardboard pieces with marker pens - which I recommend that every Space Hulk owner does, since it improves the appearance massively.

Despite painting for almost 4 weeks now, I have not even finished half of the Terminators yet - I'm not a fast painter by any means as I'm sure regular readers will know by now! I've been following the guide in the recent White Dwarf and am very pleased with the results. Here are my finished ones so far:

Sergeant Lorenzo

Brother Deino

Brother Goriel

The remaining two members of Squad Lorenzo (brother Valencio and brother Zael) are on the painting table now. I will have Brother Valencio finished this week at my current rate, and will at least be close to finishing Zael.

Unfortunately time is not a luxury I will have quite as much of from now on. Summer is well and truly over and I'm back at Uni. This is my fourth and final year and not only have we been thrown right into the work but this is my last chance to really learn and prove myself before being thrown into the big, bad world. So I'm pulling out all the stops this year which is unfortunately going to have a major impact on hobby time.
On a related note, as part of our Honours Project (which is basically the focus of our final year), we must maintain a blog of our progress. If any of you would like to follow it, you may do so here:

http://ianshonours.blogspot.com/

The blog's purpose is to show both our teachers and fellow students how we're doing and give them an easy means of providing feedback and ideas. However, input from others is welcome too, so if any of you want to say anything feel free to leave a comment.

I will try to also get back into the habit of posting here, but we'll see how it goes. Take care! :)

Commission: Salamanders Master of the Forge

2009-08-04T00:31:00.006+01:00

Hi folks!

I know I've been horribly quiet, but I did take a bit of a break from the hobby just to relax a bit.

Anyway, I'm posting up some pictures of my latest commission. The client let me know today that it has arrived safely and that they're very pleased with the result. And that's like music to my ears!

The client (one of my readers) requested a Master of the Forge belonging to the Salamanders chapter, armed with a Conversion Beamer, with a volcanic themed scenic base. Apart from that, I was given a pretty free reign with the design, so I set about sketching up how I envisioned him. Here is the first sketch:

As luck would have it, we only had a few minor details to work out, mostly concerning how the weapon would be held. In addition, we decided to magnetize the left arm to account for all the options available for secondary weapons (Thunder Hammer, Power Weapon or nothing), just in case. With those details sorted out, I ordered the bits and got to work.

Here are a couple of the first WIP images I sent along to the client.

Regular picture updates like this are absolutely crucial when you're working on figures for someone else. In discussing these, we both agreed that the Conversion Beamer had to be lowered a little more into the arm, and that the cloak might look better underneath the backpack.

With those revisions in mind, I returned to my workstation to make these alterations and start bringing the model together. The following pictures were taken a day or two before completion:

At this stage most of the pieces were still loose, and I had sent them to make sure everything was fine for gluing together. Fortunately, it was, so I put it all together and added a few finishing touches before attaching him to a scenic base as requested.

And so I present the finished product; a Salamanders Master of the Forge. Shown with all of his alternate arm options.

Once again, it was a great opportunity to work on a project that I didn't have any immediate plans to do for myself. It was especially fun to work on a Salamanders piece.

If any of you are interested in commissioning a figure or number of figures, for conversion, painting or both, see this post for full details.

And now for more general news. This past week has seen me veer back towards the realms of fantasy. Our club is starting to drum up enthusiasm for Blood Bowl and (hopefully) working towards a league. I started a Tomb Kings army last year so I'm gathering up a Khemri team to learn the rules and take part. As well as that, I picked up some extra second hand Tomb King stuff at the Claymore wargames show. If I don't go mad from painting skeletons, some pictures might make their way here.

Take care!

Quiet Spot

2009-07-19T01:31:00.003+01:00

Hi folks!

Well it's been one of those weeks where I've posted absolutely nothing. Several reasons for this.

The first is that I'm not really into 40k much any more. Fear not, my IG, Sallies and 'nids hold too much sentimental value to be sold off or forgotten about, but my passion for the game itself has pretty much died out. I hope to find a good enough set of rules for them to hit the tables again someday.

The second is probably my lack of money. I currently live off a student loan... at least for one more year (after which I hopefully start raking in a five figure salary). Of course, that only comes in during term-time, and I then coast through the summer. I do currently have a bit of free cash, but at the moment I'm saving it for the Claymore wargames show in Edinburgh next month (gimme a shout if you're going!)

Third. My folks went down to Devon again this year, and having felt that I'd done all there was to do last year, I decided to stay home and look after the place. Along with the additional (brief) responsibilities of keeping a (relatively empty) house running, I was also deprived of the digital camera. I did actually do a couple of hobby-related things, but had no means of showing them!

And fourth, other projects. The first is the scenario pack for Urban War. I've been tasked with making my fan-made scenario pack a little more official, which includes testing and tidying up a few scenarios the guys at Urban Mammoth were working on. All my recent gaming time was devoted to that cause, and I've still a lot to do.
I've also started doing a little programming. Because I only have a year left until I'm thrown into the big bad world of the computer games industry, I need a good portfolio of programs to show off my abilities. The summer is the only time I really have to pad it out a bit.

Anyway, now that the family have returned, I hope to update you all with my recent exploits this week. I have almost finished a Babylon 5 scratchbuild (my first), the No Go Zone minis I mentioned in my last post are going to be shipped on Monday, and then tere's my latest commission piece as well.

Take care!

No Go Zone

2009-07-09T01:10:00.003+01:00

Hi folks!

I recently came across this charming little boardgame called No Go Zone while researching a potential project idea. The rules were just under £4 ($6) on Wargame Vault so I figured what the heck, it's worth a look.

No Go Zone depicts the hijinks that ensue when the pubs close on a Friday night in pretty much any given town or city in the UK. One player plays as the side of Law (Police & Paramedics) and the other Chaos (vandals, "ladies of the night" and hooligans), and they both compete to fulfill their various conflicting victory conditions. The game can slowly escalate from a couple of coppers keeping a few vandals and roaming drunks in check to a full-on riot.

Selling points for me are
#1: miniatures - full starter set of 24 for £40, and they're full of character. In particular, the upcoming football hooligans are bang on
#2: no dice - players use a modified rock-paper-scissors mechanic called "throwing signs" to resolve actions, with bonuses for winning with certain "signs". It completely removes luck from the equation so it all comes down to the players

Having plenty of spare funds due to an impending birthday, I've placed an order for the"Friday Night" starter set of miniatures, rulebook (because I like having a proper printed copy) and a set of Riot Police. I'll give a full review of minis and gameplay when I've assembled, painted and played.

While I'm waiting, I'll be building the cardstock vehicles and board tiles which are free downloads from the site.

Quick warning though, this is most definitely not one for the youngsters. Recommended age by the publisher is 16+, and I quite agree with it. Still, it looks like a bit of slightly silly fun for adult gamers, so it's well worth a look if you're old enough.

Urban War: Viridians

2009-07-08T11:58:00.007+01:00

Hi folks!

Today I'm oing to post up something I promised a while back but somehow got pushed aside, and that is the first of my Urban War collection: the Viridians.

The Viridians, commonly referred to as VAF (presumably Viridian Armed Forces but I haven't had that confirmed), are the military arm of a commercial empire. They have the financial backing to field very well-trained and highly-equipped troops - consequently, they protect that investment by specialising in fighting at range to minimise casualties.

I first picked up the Viridians just under a year ago at the Claymore wargames event in Edinburgh (this year's is just around the corner, 1st August). I picked up three Metropolis boxes giving me two squads of Marines and a squad of Snipers. Between various other wargames events and a few online orders I've fleshed them out considerably and can field the vast majority of their unit types.

First up, we have the basic Marines. Each Viridian strike-team must have at least four of these, using up at least 80 of the standard 300pt allowance - so it's wise to learn how to use 'em. Their Gauss Rifles provide good reasonably accurate short-mid range fire, and their combat blades go some way to helping them in close combat.

Next are two models I tend use as "Veteran" (i.e. higher CAL) Marines.

Here we have the Marine Sergeants. These guys (and girls) make for good, cheap leadership in a Viridian strike-team.

Now we move on to one of my favourites, the Sniper. Most Viridian forces tend to field at least one of these. They are very expensive, but are highly accurate and can take down even heavily armoured units with a bit of luck. They are great for reliably taking out enemy leaders or specialists that are causing problems.

The next unit, the Marine with a Heavy Gauss Rifle, is something I haven't really made much use of yet. They do have a bit more firepower han the standard Marine up close, and they're something I intend to try out more often.

Now we move on to the support weapons in the Viridian arsenal. The Heavy Machine Gun team is a common feature of Viridian armies. It is an affordable means of laying down a good amount of long ranged firepower, and adding more cheap loaders keeps it in the fight even longer.

Mortar Teams are another useful unit. being able to fire blindly, their area of effect shells mean that they should be able to at least hit something if they scatter. In my last couple of games they really made back their investment, and then some.

On to the more specialised stuff now. Here we have a Special Forces trooper, his Gauss Carbine making him a good short range fighter. These guys can act as spotters for Mortar Teams, improving their indirect fire accuracy, and can also be equipped with camouflage to conceal them from long ranged fire.

Another widely-used unit are the Shock Marines. A slight oddity in the Viridian forces, these guys are close combat specialists. Their Vibro-scythes cleave through armour like it was paper, and between their armour and Negatron Shields, they're pretty tough too.

Urban Interdicts are quite a tricky unit to use. They can drop in almost anywhere on the battlefield after the game begins, and are equipped with a pair of Gauss Pistols for close range firepower.

Up next is a Saurian Rider. They are essentially faster Marines with an extra wound and slightly more expensive. I haven't quite found a niche for them yet, but I suspect I will once I get one or two more to fully explore their uses.

With the release of the CLAU Team Actions supplement, heavy battlesuits entered the fray, and Viridians as usual have some nifty tricks. I have both of their suits, but the only one I've painted up is the Sabre. Which is basically a giant Shock Marine.

The other, the Tomahawk, is equipped with an upgunned Mortar.

A useful feature of the CLAU rules is the ability to upgrade it with an ejection system, allowing the pilot to bail out and continue the fight. The advantage of this is that the CLAU won't count as a casualty unless the pilot is also taken out. Here is the Viridian Land Pilot.

So that's my painted collection of Viridians. I still have the Tomahawk CLAU to do, as well as some basic Marines, a few Snipers, another Mortar Team, some Special Forces an a Bazooka Team. Future posts may eventually see them, but th next few will more likely show off the other factions I have.

Commission Work: Space Wolves Finished

2009-07-01T13:07:00.005+01:00

Hi folks!

I first showed my work on these guys a few weeks ago. Quick recap: the client requested three Space Wolves character models: one in power armour, one in terminator armour and a Wulfen, and provided links to artwork to base the designs on. They were to be assembled, primed black and given snowy bases.

I received confirmation at the start of the week that they arrived safe and sound, so now I'll post the final pictures from my end. First up, the power armoured hero (banner missing from the picture - I still had some finishing touches to do):

Next, the terminator armoured hero:

And finally, the Wulfen:

More pictures available here.

The client is delighted with them, as am I. Especially because this was my first attempt at snow bases, which has been quite a learning experience. I used the profits from this commission to fill out my bits box for future projects.

If any of you would like to request commissions, full details are available here.

Something that's driving me nuts...

2009-06-30T02:13:00.001+01:00

http://musicofb5.thegreatmachine.org/the_face_of_the_enemy-bar.zip

I know it's a long shot, but does anybody know who sings this? I kinda like it but I've exhausted my googling skills and found nothing, and now it's starting to bug me...

This Week's Pictures!

2009-06-28T21:51:00.002+01:00

Hi folks!

As promised, some long overdue shots of what I've been up to lately.

I'll start by showing the colour scheme of my Tyranid army. I've decided on the colours used in Imperial Armour 4 - bone for the exoskeleton and either green or brownish red for the carapace. I simply spray white, dip in brown wood stain, then paint the carapace. Here's how it looks:

Now, in my last post I said I was using this on the "smaller" critters. And to clarify, I mean smaller than this:

Yep, a Barbed Heirodule. This poor beast has been sitting in a box for a year and a half, so I figured it was high time I get it painted up. That has taken the better part of last week, and I still have the arms to do.

Now, on to something considerably smaller. Many of the new scenarios I've written for Urban War require objectives and, of course, I couldn't just settle for the cut-out ones I designed. I had to go and make something a little more interesting:

Out of those, only the smallest counter is a scratchbuild. The next size up are teleport homers from the Terminator sprues, and the two largest ones are resin accessories I bought online - part of a set of three but the third picture didn't come out. :(

This Week's Activities

2009-06-27T21:06:00.002+01:00

Hi folks!

First of all I'll apologize in advance for the lack of recent pictures... I've got a couple of things to finish off which I'll post soon.

This week I had a little rummage for a project to take my mind off things and found one of my boxes full of Tyranids. "Haven't looked at these critters in a while" I said to myself so I sat down to work on them for a bit and before I knew it, I had a horde of the beasties on my table. I assembled the last few gaunts that were on the sprues, sorted out a bunch of second hand stuff I'd bought a few months ago, magnetised two carnifexes, and just tonight I've done the same with a trio of warriors. I got some painting in as well, which I'll probably show pictures of tomorrow.

I'm dipping the vast majority of them to save time, and it gives them an appearance that I'm happy with. Only the really big stuff gets the full paint treatment, and that's what I've been doing this week. I'd like to unleash them in an Apocalypse game sometime this year since I've never used them at that level, and dipping the gribblies is the only way I'll ever get them done without going insane.

In other news, I finished Homeworld's campaign for the first time ever - I was mighty impressed. For the fellow fans out there, I came across a (legal) download of an extra "official" mission, which you can get here. It was cut from the final game, but it's quite fun, if a little unpolished compared to those that were kept. The download is basically a demo the first 4 original missions plus the extra one, doesn't require the original game so anyone who has a bit of free time should check it out.

Finally, I've also been working on a community project for Urban War, putting together a collection of extra scenarios for the game. The rulebook contains four basic scenarios, and we've created a further twelve in order to give players more choice in their games. The forum topic (the scenario pack is an attachment to the first post) can be found here.

Looking forward to next week, I'll be doing more work on Tyranids and the scenario pack most likely.

Disaster

2009-06-22T15:34:00.002+01:00

Hi folks!

Feeling pretty bummed out right now as last week it has come to my attention that a large package I sent out to an ebay buyer a few weeks ago has gone missing, worth about £90. I've refunded him and will make a claim with the Post Office which should get me £40 compensation, but unless it eventually turns up I'm £50 down.

That's put a huge dent in my Babylon 5 project since I was planning to place a large order this month. I'm going to have to postpone it for a month and pray that the ships I want are still in stock by then.

All this has had a knock-on effect and I can't bring myself to even pick up a paintbrush at the moment. I did paint a few ships before the weekend though, so I'll probably post them up sometime, and I'm still "in the zone" for Homeworld stuff.

Anyway, I hope everyone else has had better luck than me this weekend!

Distractions...

2009-06-18T23:08:00.004+01:00

Hi folks!

As of late it seems this blog is increasingly covering non-40k material, which pretty much reflects my hobby situation at the moment. I'm finding that 40k as a game isn't much fun any more, it just seems a bit shallow compared to other games that I've been playing. At the moment I'm actually looking to other rulesets to use my models with - I still like the background too much to give them up. Stargrunt II is looking like the primary candidate for a replacement.

Anyway, that's not really my main topic for posting, but it's something important that's going on. No, tonight's topic is, for the moment, not quite hobby related.

Over the past couple of days, I've found myself getting sucked back into Homeworld, an award-winning space RTS from about 10 years ago. It's pretty much space strategy at its finest - full 3d movement, dozens of ship classes (some of them are pretty awesome), great graphics for its time, beautiful soundtrack and an epic single-player campaign.

As with any of these brief obsessions of mine, between gameplay sessions I tend to hit google and see what turns up. Among the results were mods (such as the excellent Babylon 5 mod and I remember there being a BFG mod in the works for HW2), and background info and debates including a fascinating topic on working out ship sizes. But by far the most interesting to me was the discovery of paper models. Between this and another couple of sites, they seem to have pretty much everything covered. I've printed off the Kushan Assault Frigate and Carrier to try them out.

I'm toying with the idea of statting them up for Babylon 5: A Call To Arms and miniaturizing the paper plans. I've plenty of spare plasticard for the latter, but it will probably be more difficult balancing stats for a system I'm not fluent with yet - especially since it's not a traditional points-based game.

Speaking of Babylon 5, I've made about £150 from ebay sales (after fees), so I'll be ordering more ships soon. It was tough deciding what to put on my shopping list, but I'm aiming to get my Earth, Minbari, Narn and Centauri fleets up to campaign level so we can start playing games with more varied fleets. After the summer I'll round out the collection with the other races, and the ships I need for the special scenarios in the book.

Finally, with the decline in 40k-related material on my blog, I'm thinking about giving it a facelift. No solid ideas yet.

That's all for now, take care guys!

Commission Work

2009-06-11T14:04:00.006+01:00

Hi folks!

As I said a couple of weeks back I'm taking commissions in order to earn a little extra money with the abundance of free time I have this summer. I had one client request three pieces, and with his permission I am showing what I've done so far.

My client asked for three characters for his Space Wolf army, based on artwork he had found on deviantART: specifically this, this and this. After a quick rummage around bits sites and ebay I felt that I could pull them off. He also requested that I give them snowy bases and prime them black before posting them out to him. I've never modelled Space Wolves before, nor have I done snowy bases, so I was looking forward to these new challenges. I decided that I would pin (not glue) the models to their bases so that they could be finished separately.

Here's where I'm at now.

First up is the power-armoured hero. For this I combined elements from the Blood Claws box (head, torso, banner, powerfist, backpack) with a couple of regular marine bits and a cloak from the Warriors of Chaos box. The ruin on his base is from the Cities of Death sprues. I've still to tidy him up a bit, but he's probably the closest to finished.

Next up is the terminator-armoured hero, by far my favourite of the three. Bits came from many sources including 40k Orks, WHFB Orcs, 40k Chaos and WHFB Empire, and obviously the FW Space Wolf Terminator conversion kit. In a slight deviation from the artwork, the client wished me to convert a chainaxe for him. I've still got to finish off the wolf pelt and the tusks on the skull, as well as make a scenic base.

Finally, the Wulfen. This one required the least work, with most of the conversion going into his victim. After seeing these pictures I've decided to alter the join so that the Wulfen will have a grip on the corpse's collar as well, in order to make it look like a more "natural" hold. Again, the base is still to be made.

My client is delighted with the pictures so far and hasn't requested any changes or bits that need re-doing, and if he's happy I'm happy. I'm aiming to finish these by the start of next week.

I'd love to hear what you guys think of them as well. And if any of you want to hire me to make a special centerpiece character or squad, this post here has all the details.

Urban Terrain

2009-06-06T14:16:00.004+01:00

Hi folks!

It's been a very quiet week on the 40k front, since I've been working with the online community on some new Urban War scenarios, and then on modelling a few bits and pieces that they require.

So today I'll show something that can fit in both 40k and Urban War, which is some of the terrain I made recently. I went for pieces that are cheap, light, durable and yet look good on the table, and I think I managed.

First up is a pretty standard intact building, constructed entirely out of foamboard - even the base. That stuff is amazing for this sort of project. It's light, easy to work with, and durable enough for gaming.
I took my inspiration from some of the Helghast bulding concept art from Killzone 2.

(Urban War Viridians shown for scale)

Next up are my two ruined buildings, again constructed from foamboard. The rubble is simply cut-up sprues, passed through one of those old metal meat grinders. It's quite hard work to grind it all up but the results are fantastic. It's also a great workout! :D
I finished them off with a couple of ladders from the Cities of Death sprues. The one thing I see missing on many ruins is a way to get up to other floors so I made sure not to miss that out on mine.

Finally we have some chemical storage tanks. These were made from Pringles tubes, so if ever you need an excuse to eat lots of Pringles, then just say you're making terrain! I finished off the look with some pipes from the Urban War Bio-Toxin Plant terrain set. The sprues are packed with pipes, platforms, storage tanks and stuff so it's worth buying if you're ever making industrial terrain. I also added some pools of "stuff" by generously glooping some Army Painter Quickshade on the base with a brush.

I still have some supplies left so what I'm thinking of doing is making a few more ruined buildings, with multiple levels, rooms and such. Something a little more interesting than the corner with a bit of floor left that most tabletop ruins end up being.

Urban War Events 2009

2009-06-03T01:47:00.007+01:00

Hi folks!

I've decided to drop the "Other Projects" prefix on my, er... other projects posts since I seem to be posting as much about them as 40k.

Anyway, today's post is another focusing on Urban War, in particular the events I've attended this year.

The first was Urbanisation. This event took place in February, hosted by [elg] (Edinburgh League of Gamers) and was to be a sort of "Urban War Convention" with a tournament, retail stand, demo games, tables for non-competition games and a seminar with the Urban War developers - they succeeded with all but the last due to time constraints.

I signed up for the tournament as early as I could, as did my brother and one of our friends. I brought along my Viridians, and my chosen strike-team was as follows:

Colonial Marine (CAL 0) x5
Colonial Marine Sergeant (CAL 2)
Sniper (CAL 1)
Shock Marine (CAL 1) x2
Special Forces (CAL 1)
Colonial Marine HMG Team (CAL 0, 1 gunner, 1 loader)
Total: 298pts

I decided to go slightly in favour of numbers, so that my team can take a few more hits before reaching breaking point, as well as put out a good amount of firepower. The Sniper and HMG Team would be placed under Lock-Fire orders during most turns and would set up the best firing lanes I can find, in order to funnel the enemy forces into close combat with my heavy hitters - the Shock Marines (or kill anyone who decides not to go along with this little plan). The Shock Marines tore through all opposition in the testing games, and I never leave home without them. I would assign one Colonial Marine to both the Sniper and the HMG Team on Overwatch to try and interrupt anyone who takes a shot at them, hopefully killing the attacker but suppressing them to deal with later would be acceptable. The Sergeant, Special Forces and remaining Marines would either offer close-ranged support to the Shock Marines, or take the fight to another area of the field, depending on how things went.

The scenarios were all the standard "Scuffle" scenario in the book. Teams deploy 24" apart and fight until one side fails their withdrawal check (starting at 50% casualties) or is wiped out.

My first opponent was Martin, who had VASA. His team consisted of a solid base of Suppressors, with a couple of the fast-moving Archangels and Black Legion in support. Both sides advanced towards the centre steadily, with sporadic fire claiming the occasional casualty, including one of the Black Legion taking a nasty headshot from my sniper.

My main cluster of marines suffered a moment of panic when one of their number was picked off, as the Shock Marines closed into close combat. However, the VASA team's resolve broke as they reached the 50% casualty mark, netting me a Minor Victory.

My second opponent is known as "wodger the wobot" on the Urban Mammoth forums, and he'd travelled a long way to take part. He brought a brutal Syntha team, smaller on numbers but featuring a few large 'bots with an ungodly variety of templates.
As expected, he stayed back and bombarded me with all kinds of horrible blast weaponry, giving me no choice but to advance through a hail of missiles and plasma blasts. The Shock Marines made good progress, but the ordinary marines supporting them were less fortunate, getting a little shaken when their Sergeant was picked off by a stray shot.

My HMG consistently failed to do damage to anything on the right flank, a performance matched only by my sniper out on the left.

The Shock Marines eventually hit his lines, charging through a hail of firepower. One of them managed to deal a wound to one of the Macrosynths, before my team failed their withdrawal test. A Minor Defeat for me.

Game three saw me face up to Grant's Triads. He brought quite an elite force with a couple of Hatamotos and an Oni Class Shogun Battlesuit backing up his Retainers.

Both sides advanced - his were the more cautious and because of that I struggled to draw a bead on his forces with my HMG and sniper to give supporting fire. Both sides managed to pick off the occasional unit.

After suffering losses in the advance, I tried to consolidate my position behind what little cover was available. I thought it was all going to end badly as his Triad Boss sneaked round the forest and charged the HMG team, but the loader managed to fend him off until the end of the time limit. Both sides suffered moderate casualties, resulting in a draw.

In the fourth and final round, I battled against Craig's Koralon. He had a mix of nasty, hard-hitting close-combat critters, small in numbers but tough to kill. I took advantage of the buildings and placed my HMG and Sniper on higher ground to maximise their LOS. As always, the Shock Marines were poised to advance supported by the main body of marines.
Straight off the bat, the advancement of my Sergeant caused his Hydra to emerge from it's vent close to my lines, right in front of my main marine cluster, who proceeded to open fire.

It took a wound, and as my Shock Marines advanced, the Koralon opened a portal nearby and brought in reinforcements that had been hiding away behind the buildings. A few were picked off in the ensuing fight, thanks in no small part to the sniper's deadly accurate fire.

The Shock Marines were eventually overwhelmed by a second wave coming from another portal, and the Koralon went on to cut a swathe through the marines supporting them.

Once again, the Viridians withdrew at 50% casualties, resulting in another Minor Defeat.

So overall, I achieved a Minor Victory, a Draw, and two Minor Defeats. This placed me eleventh, which I'm pretty happy with bearing in mind the quality of players that were present on the day. First place went to Wodger, and I think we all agree that is was well-earned. The guy knows his stuff!
I've heard horror stories about the types of players and behaviour that tournaments can bring out. However, everyone was in good spirits and it was a relaxed, friendly atmosphere. We were all playing to win, but not at the expense of having fun and we all enjoyed it immensely.

There was also a painting competition on the day, with categories for Strike-team and Individual Models. I placed second in the Strike-team category with my Syntha team. The prize for that was a silver Urban Mammoth medal, and a couple of 50mm resin scenic bases. I've already put them to use on some of the new stuff I bought on the day.

So big thanks to Andy, the rest of [elg], Urban Mammoth, and everyone who turned up for making the event as great as it was. Here's hoping Urbanisation will continue in future years!

The second event of the year took place just a couple of days ago, when I ran another tournament. Many of those who took part in Urbanisation were there, but we had a couple of new faces as well. Rather than post the full rundown here, I'll post this link to my writeup on the Urban Mammoth forums.
Overall, the event went off very well. Everyone was on good form and had fun, and we have a host of players eager to come back next year for another shot!

From my experiences so far, the Urban War community is one I'm proud to be a part of. Everyone I've met has been an excellent sportsman and very friendly, both in their online community and the local(ish) tournament scene.

In my next post I'll show some of my Urban War collection, which includes strike-teams from about half of the available factions.

Whew...

2009-05-31T20:20:00.003+01:00

The Urban War tournament I ran was a great success! I'm afraid I'm a little too drained to post much more for now, but part of me is glad to get it out of the way. Now I can work on my regular hobby projects without feeling guilty about putting off the extra terrain I was building. Speaking of which, I got plenty done, and we managed to pack all our tables with plenty of suitable scenery. I'll post up some of my favourite pieces this week.

How has everyone else's week been? Any plans for the week ahead? I'm probably going to get some work done on my latest Babylon 5 ships since I don't have any games of 40k lined up to paint stuff for. My pair of Shadow Omegas, on the other hand, are screaming out for a dark and scary paintjob.

eek is now taking commissions!

2009-05-30T00:31:00.009+01:00

Hi folks!

Yep, that's right, in an effort to earn myself a bit of income over the summer without getting a "real" job, I've decided to take commissions. I've been approached once or twice already and had a couple of satisfied customers, enjoyed the time I spent on their projects (of course, getting paid was good too) so hopefully I can make this work.

What I'm offering is a small-scale converting and/or painting service, primarily for clients who want a centerpiece for their army. I can assemble and convert each model as requested, and I would go so far as to say that's my specialty (see Vulkan He'stan and Kor'sarro Khan). I will also paint to the same standard as shown here on my blog - if it ain't good enough for me, it ain't good enough for my client. ;)

I'm willing to take on jobs for any game system in any scale and any period, although I vastly prefer working in the sci-fi and fantasy genres, especially the former.

However, I won't be doing full armies. I'll be taking a maximum of 15 28mm human-sized figures per client at any one time - enough for a squad, or a force for a skirmish game, or even just a single figure. In the same scale, I will take 3 "monstrous creature" sized figures or light walker-type vehicles, or one regular tank. No superheavies. Quantities of other figures will be determined by their size and complexity.

Now the important bit - prices. For standard troop figures, the price will be £4 per figure for either a conversion or a paint job, £6 for both. Hero figures and "monstrous creature" sized figures will be double that (£8 and £12 respectively). Tanks will be £15 for either conversion or paint job, £25 for both. But, for every four requested figures of the same type, I will offer to do a fifth for free, so that's up to 3 free if the figure count is maxed out.
The client will have to supply the figures and/or parts, or pay upfront so I can order them. I will shop around to find a good discount from a reliable seller. A selection of bits from my bits box is available, but I will have to charge for any of these components used based on the going rate on bits sites. The client will also pay postage and packing, which will vary according to destination and how many figures have been commissioned. Material and postage charges are exempt from the fifth free figure deal. I will provide a full breakdown of all the costs for the client's approval before any payment is requested.
All payment will be carried out through paypal. Payment will be half in advance (plus materials if necessary), with the other half plus postage upon completion, or the full fee upfront if the client prefers.

Before taking on a job I will discuss the exact specifications with the client, making sure we both know exactly how the end product will look. This can be anything from the client providing reference images and artwork, to me drawing up my own sketches. I will not place any order or make any requests for money until we are both completely satisfied with the design. After I start, I will provide periodic photographic updates as the project progresses. I will ask if I am permitted to show this work here on my blog, and keep any photos for my portfolio - the client will be free to decline permission for these if they wish.

If anyone is interested in commissioning a figure (or number of figures), please feel free to email me at eek107@hotmail.co.uk for more information. For pictures of my previous work, simply click on the "Commissions" tag at the bottom of this post.

Finally, I invite anyone who is interested to visit my ebay and Warseer feedback pages, and if you like you can contact me there to confirm it's me.

Other Projects: Babylon 5 Fleet Action

2009-05-27T00:04:00.005+01:00

Hi folks!

Some time ago I mentioned this project - in fact I think it may have been my first look at my non-40k projects. With the license to produce Babylon 5 miniatures expiring at the end of June (although the producers can still sell remaining stock afterwards), I am putting almost all of my available funds into collecting all the ships I will ever need for the Babylon 5: A Call To Arms game. This means collecting sizeable fleets of Earth, Minbari, Narn, Centauri, ISA, Vorlon, Shadow and League of Non-Aligned Worlds ships, with a few Raiders, Civilians and such thrown in for good measure.

I got off to a good start. My Earth fleet was already a good size, and a number of ebay auctions and Warseer trades netted me a powerful Minbari fleet. However, ultimately I would have to go to Ironwind Metals and pay full retail for some ships.

Now, if I had $10, I could buy a single Minbari Tinashi War Frigate:
(for an idea of scale, it is mounted on a small GW flying base, the sort you'd find on a Tau Gun Drone)

Or, I could buy three Fleet Action scale Tinashi War Frigates!

It didn't take long to dawn on me that doing so would allow me to complete my collection for about a third of the price. Or as I prefer to look at it, I can afford to buy more ships!

Some ships are even better for this. For example, I can get four Narn Heavy Cruisers in Fleet Action scale for the price of one in full scale, and the detail on them is actually more accurate to the on-screen ships:

The Centauri Primus is another I can get four times as many of:

So I can have more ships, they're easier to store, and I don't have to worry so much about the plastic stems snapping due to weight. I'm saving my metal flight stands because there are a couple of large miniatures in the range, such as the Babylon 5 station and the Vorlon Planet Killer.

I took the opportunity to test both remaining sources for these minis, Ironwind Metals and the Agents of Gaming site (the original manufacturers who went under, but still have some stock left). From Ironwind I bought two each of the Primus and the Narn Cruiser, and from AOG I bought some civilians. First up is the freighter (one of four in a pack, with rear cargo pods added by myself):

And then the tanker (of which I have six):

I'm feeling incredibly optimistic about this project now. I'm in the process of selling off my large scale fleets for considerable amounts, and pouring those funds back into Fleet Action ships. This week my Narn and Centauri will be getting a considerable boost, and my Earth fleet will also be started. I think my next set of purchases will be Vorlons and Shadows. These two are ancient and powerful races with a relatively small selection of ships, so won't take as much money to complete as the rest. They're also some of the most amazing looking ships in the game.

I'm also looking into making some cool conversions now that I have a bit more freedom. First in mind is creating Babylon 4 from a Babylon 5 mini. After that I'd like to make a Shadow Planet Killer and Earth Force One. There are also some things I will need to scratch build since they don't appear in the Fleet Action range, such as the Victory-class Destroyer and the Raiders capital ships. More scratch builds will be needed for scenarios and campaigns such as Civilian Liners, space stations, defence satellites and the First Ones. All are made much easier and more affordable thanks to Fleet Action scale.

Salamander Reinforcements

2009-05-21T19:34:00.006+01:00

Hi folks!

I got in some hobby time over the weekend and spent most of it adding the finishing touches to what I'm showing off here today.

Up first is a recent purchase, having come into a little money from selling stuff on ebay. In games where I won't be using He'Stan, I need something to replace him, and since I've never used one before, I thought a Librarian might be a good choice. To make up the points, I'm running him in Terminator Armour with an extra power. Here he is:

I wanted to go for a volcanic look on the staff, and while the detail is inverted (the "lava" detailing is raised), I'm happy with the look.

But the real "meat" of the post is the "special unit" I've been hinting at for several weeks now, and working on and off over that time finishing it. Well, I say finishing, what I really mean is getting it to a fieldable level, I've still got some extras to do. Anyway, here it is:

Chapter Master Tu'Shan. Equipped with a Thunder Hammer, Combi-flamer and Artificer Armour.

And again, this time in Terminator Armour, converted from Mr Calgar. I'm mostly going to be using this variant for Apocalypse games to really stand out from the crowd.

What is a Chapter Master without his Honour Guard? Converted from the Ultramarines verson with plenty of extra special bits and pieces to leave no doubt that they are the finest warriors of the Salamanders Chapter.

Here is a WIP Honour Guard with a Combi-flamer. I have another couple in the works as well.

And finally, I have put together a set of rules to use him in a more characterful way than using the bog standard Chapter Master entry. Of course, I've made sure that I pay a premium for his abilities, and for his slightly more intimidating Honour Guard. If you like, you can see them here:

Chapter Master Tu'Shan.

I'd love to hear your thoughts about them. As Master of one of the First Founding Chapters, I wanted him to be roughly on par with Calgar in terms of effectiveness. I felt that a straight up copy of He'Stan's Chapter Tactics was a little uninspiring, so I put in a little nod to the legendary stubborness of the Salamanders Chapter, giving the player the choice between the two. Finally, I thought that his Honour Guard deserved a little something extra to give them a bit of clout, so gave them access to a couple of extra items of wargear that are a bit more flavourful, but would also make them quite expensive if taken!

Chapter Master Tu'Shan is going to be the first of a series of Heroes of Armageddon I will be visiting in this way. As I work through my armies,I will be introducing more that were mentioned in the war, but never got any further than the background. I'm already putting together a couple of familiar faces in the IG.

Again, I'd love to hear some feedback on the rules and models. University fnishes tomorrow, so I might be able to squeeze in a few more posts around my preparations for the tournament at the end of the month. Come June things should hopefully be back to normal. I certainly hope so, I need a break!

Broken World

2009-05-19T02:54:00.006+01:00

This is why my posting has been a little "on and off" for the past few months. What you see here is a gameplay video we took of our group project at University for a presentation a couple of weeks ago, we've done a little extra work to it since then. We were going for a sort of post-apocalyptic RPG with a couple of twists. It has taken us since January to get this far, while having to learn how to use the development tools with little to no documentation or support.

About the choice of music. We needed to test if the audio was working and this was one of the sample sounds provided for our audio module so we used it. It's kinda grown on me, and since I'm the sound guy in these closing stages (now that my original task, AI, has been finished), I'm thinking of putting it in playing on one of the radios of the many ruined trucks, as an "easter egg" of sorts.

1500pt Steel Legion List

2009-05-08T13:48:00.006+01:00

Hi folks!

I don't normally make two posts a day but I couldn't help myself. My shiny new Imperial Guard codex came clattering through the letterbox a while ago so after a quick flick through it I decided to write up an army list to see just how my army could look. Here we go...

Company Command Squad: 167pts
Company Commander w/ Bolt pistol and Power Weapon, Veterans w/ Laspistols, Medi-pack, Regimental Standard
Master of Ordnance, Officer of the Fleet

- The Company Command Squad is geared for a support role. It will stay out of sight near the back and use "Get Back in the Fight!" to catch any squads that might fall back off the table. The advisors offer more support for the army, hindering enemy reserves and acting as a "second Basilisk" so to speak.

Infantry Platoon: 332pts

Platoon Command Squad: 42pts
Platoon Commander w/ Bolt Pistol, 2 Flamers

Infantry Squad: 55pts
Grenade Launcher

Infantry Squad: 55pts
Grenade Launcher

Heavy Weapons Squad: 105pts
Lascannons

Heavy Weapons Squad: 75pts
Heavy Bolters

Infantry Platoon: 332pts

Platoon Command Squad: 42pts
Platoon Commander w/ Bolt Pistol, 2 Flamers

Infantry Squad: 55pts
Grenade Launcher

Infantry Squad: 55pts
Grenade Launcher

Heavy Weapons Squad: 105pts
Lascannons

Heavy Weapons Squad: 75pts
Heavy Bolters

- My two line platoons. These will set up a solid gunline. In objective missions they will advance to any objectives close to my deployment zone, or deploy directly on them, and hold their ground. The Lascannons will headhunt big threats under "Bring it Down!" orders, while the Heavy Bolters lay down anti-infantry fire where needed. Infantry squads will shoot under "First Rank Fire, Second Rank Fire!" if the enemy gets close, and the Command Squad is a last resort counter-assault unit.

Infantry Platoon: 357pts

Platoon Command Squad: 152pts
Platoon Commander w/ Bolt Pistol, Commissar, 2 Meltaguns
Chimera w/ Heavy Stubber

Infantry Squad: 120pts
Grenade Launcher
Chimera w/ Heavy Stubber

Infantry Squad: 120pts
Grenade Launcher
Chimera w/ Heavy Stubber

- My third platoon will be used for objective grabbing into enemy territory, and is entirely mechanized in order to do this effectively. The Chimeras will protect the infantry and lay down a lot of anti-infantry fire, even on the move. The meltaguns should add enough punch to remove any stubborn resistance remaining after a bit of "softening up" from the rest of my army.

Leman Russ Squadron: 170pts
1 Battle Tank, Heavy Bolter Sponsons

Ordnance Battery: 140pts
1 Basilisk, Enclosed Crew Compartment

- Finally, we have the big guns. With plenty of Lascannons elsewhere, I have opted to field a standard Leman Russ with full Heavy Bolter loadout for a primarily anti-infantry role. This will keep the pressure on enemy infantry should the worst happen to the Battle Cannon, or to fire at spread out or tough multi-wound targets where the Battle Cannon would be less effective. The Basilisk is an old favourite of mine, and in keeping with the Steel Legion background it is sealed off to protect the inner workings from Armageddon's harsh environment.

Total: 1498pts

My general strategy will be quite aggressive, using the foot platoons to draw a solid line of bodies and guns, directing their heavy weapons at the appropriate oncoming threats. The Leman Russ and mechanized platoon will act as an assault force, to advance and capture objectives or plug any gaps if the line starts to buckle in Annihilation missions. With the Leman Russ accompanying the Chimeras, the enemy will find it difficult to prioritize between so many armoured targets and stop them all effectively. The Company Command and Basilisk will offer long range support, softening up objectives or significant enemy threats for the assault force to move in.

Or at least, that's the plan...

Overall I'm very happy with the new codex. I can fit quite a bit more into 1500pts than before in terms of both infantry and armour, and I can make more effective lists that are faithful to the background. For example, I'd never have been able to mechanize just a single platoon before, and precious few points would be left after all those Chimeras for support units.

What do you guys think of the list? Any thoughts on performance and representation of the background? Personally I can't wait to try it out!

Alternative Bases

2009-05-08T11:20:00.004+01:00

Hi folks!

With the new codex requiring that heavy weapon teams be fielded on 60mm bases, I have a lot of work to do. I have a mortar squad on a mix of 40mm (gunner + weapon) and 25mm (loader) bases, plus goodness knows how many missile launcher teams to rebase. More than my collection of spare 60mm bases.

So I rummaged on ebay to make up the numbers and came across Fenris Games, who make a whole range of curved edge resin bases. I was introduced to these bases through Urban War and prefer them to the standard slotta bases, so I bought a pack of 25mm ones to try them out. Here's how they look:

I'm quite happy with this, so I think I'll rebase the rest of my army to suit. They come in sizes from 25mm to 60mm with plenty in between, so it should be fairly easy to get a unified look.

Let me know what you think!

Painting Tutorial: Steel Legion Guardsman

2009-05-06T17:48:00.007+01:00

Hi folks, and welcome to another of my tutorials. This time we'll be tackling the staple of my army, the humble Steel Legion infantryman.

Because I have so many infantry (as every Guard player should) I have opted for a relatively quick and simple scheme to paint them all within a reasonable amount of time.

The colours required are Adeptus Battlegrey, Badab Black, Bleached Bone, Boltgun Metal, Bubonic Brown, Calthan Brown, Chaos Black, Dwarf Flesh, Graveyard Earth, Kommando Khaki, Orkhide Shade, Mechrite Red, Scorched Brown, Skull White, and Snakebite Leather.

First, prime the model black.

Step 1: Greatcoat

The greatcoat is basecoated with Calthan Brown, and highlighted with Snakebite Leather. It is then given two highlight stages of Bubonic Brown. Bubonic Brown often requires two coats for a smooth finish, so I use the first of these as an extra layer of highlights.

Step 2: Major Details

This step is the real time saver. Paint the boots, gloves, mask, straps and pouches Scorched Brown. The helmet and trousers are painted Orkhide Shade. The metallic areas are given a basecoat of Boltgun Metal, and the goggles are painted Adeptus Battlegrey. All of these should then be given a generous wash of Badab Black. Finally, tidy up the lasgun casing with Chaos Black.

Step 3: Minor Details

The flesh is basecoated Calthan brown and highlighted Dwarf Flesh. There is very little exposed skin on Steel Legion models, at most the ears and eye region, so detailed highlighting won't have much impact.
The bedroll is painted Graveyard Earth and highlighted first with Kommando Khaki, then with Bleached Bone.
Finally, paint the background of the Steel Legion patch on the shoulder Skull White, and the lightning bolt Mechrite Red.

Base him and he's done! Using this method, whole platoons of infantry can be churned out in relatively quick order, and still look stunning when deployed in numbers.

Unexpectedly Productive

2009-05-04T22:23:00.002+01:00

Hi folks!

I've been busy lately! I managed to get my courseworks handed in on time which was a relief, leaving me the weekend to relax and recover.

Last weekend I had a very enjoyable game of 40k which put me back in the mood for painting. I rolled out my Steel Legion to get into practice before the new codex hit (I played under the old one that day, though), and cheerfully trounced a marine army in Annihilation. Highlights of the match were my eerily accurate Basilisk nuking no less than two five-man squads with direct hits, and my close combat Command Squad of Doom tearing his command units a new one (Commie and HSO with Power Fists and a Priest with Eviscerator, 4 veterans with laspistol and CCW, 10 PF attacks with re-rolls to hit on the charge... mmm...).

Anyway, I sat down this weekend and put on some tunes (Voodoo Glow Skulls and Streetlight Manifesto if you're curious). Fast forward to tonight and (despite a severe case of Man Flu) I have assembled a Chimera and a Leman Russ I had stowed away in the cupboard, and there's a painted Steel Legion squad staring back at me asking to be based. Not only that, but I've stripped the paint off of a squad and a half of Stormtroopers that I got from ebay last year. They'll be going into the Steel Legion, but I also want a squad or two painted up in my Elysian scheme since a test model turned out pretty well.

I want to finish off a platoon of infantry before I get started on the terrain work I have to do this month. I'm saving up to order materials at the weekend so I should get something done at least. I've also got a few fluff ideas knocking around in my head so I think I'll get those jotted down and fleshed out soon as well.

How has your weekend been?

Oh, if any of you are heading to Cannonade this weekend, gimme a shout and I'll keep an eye out for you. Officially I'm with the Kirriemuir Wargames Club table but chances are I'll have wandered off to do some spending and chatting at the Urban Mammoth stand! ;)

'Ere, he says he's not dead.

2009-04-30T20:26:00.003+01:00

Hi folks!

I figured I'd warn you all in advance that this is going to be an incredibly busy month for me. I have two Uni projects due this week (no sleep for me tonight), and another I want to finish next week, an exam on the 14th, the Cannonade wargames show on the 9th, and between all that I've to fit in terrain building time for the upcoming tournament, and our club chairman has given me a number of pieces that are in need of a little repair as well.

So if I don't post for a while, it will be one or more of the above to blame.

Other Projects: Urban War Introductory Batrep

2009-04-24T13:41:00.022+01:00

Hi folks, and welcome to an introductory battle report for Urban War. Unfortunately it's not as presentable as I'd like, being fought over a kitchen table with WIP terrain, but hopefully it proves enjoyable enough nonetheless. As with my previous report, this one will take time to explain key game mechanics in more detail as they take place during the game. I's a long-ish post, so grab a drink and something to eat, and enjoy. :)

For this game I decided to use two strike-teams from the starter sets in order to keep things quick and not get too bogged down by special rules. I chose Gladiators and Viridians for this match. Their play styles are quite different, and it gives me the opportunity to explain all the fundamental aspects of the game.

The Gladiator team consists of a CAL 2 Retarius (front left), CAL 1 Amazonia Decurion (front middle), CAL 1 Myrmillo (front right) and four CAL 0 Secutors.

The Viridian team has a CAL 1 Marine (front left), CAL 1 Sergeant (front middle), CAL 1 Sniper (front right) and three CAL 0 Marines. I replaced some of the starter models with others from my collection for a little variation.

Team Selection: Each strike-team must consist of a minimum number of basic troops. In addition, you cannot have more models at CAL 1 than CAL 0, no more at CAL 2 than CAL 1, and so on. CAL is a measure of a unit's experience and skill, and we shall see its effects as the game progresses.

In Urban War, a lot of terrain is vital because shooting can be extremely brutal. Only the very heaviest of units get an armour save, and those are modest at best. You must ensure that there are plenty of places to take cover and hide, otherwise shooty armies will have far too much of an advantage. However, terrain-heavy boards do not hinder them as much as in 40k, so the more terrain you can use the better! Here is the setup I used:

Models are set up one at a time alternating between players, with a roll-off to determine who goes first. The Gladiators won and elected to go first.

Their attack was divided into two flanks. The first featured the Retarius, Decurion and two Secutors. This would rush forward and engage the enemy in close combat, hopefully making the most of the Retarius's speed. The remaining models set up on the right flank, using the two Secutors to cover the Myrmillo. His flamethrower represents a huge danger to the enemy, so they would either have to avoid him or take him down quickly.

The Viridian forces spread out to gain as many firing lanes as possible. They concentrated on the right with the higher CAL models, which would help them get more shots in against the close combat units on the far flank, and also take down the Myrmillo before he could to too much damage.

The Basics: Similar to many games, Urban War uses an Initiative system - both players roll off and whoever wins chooses who moves first. Play alternates between them, with each player activating one model at a time. Before rolling for Initiative, both players must give their units Orders. Urban War uses D10s instead of D6s, allowing for a more diverse range of probabilities for stat checks and the like.

Orders: Orders have a major effect how a player's units will act in the coming turn. They don't represent specific actions, but more of a vague state of readiness and adaptability. There are three types of Order.
Snap-Fire: Models under Snap-Fire orders are on their toes, ready to react to changing conditions quickly. Snap-Fire models are the first to activate. However, they often suffer penalties to their actions, such as less accurate shooting as they are doing so "from the hip".
Lock-Fire: Lock-Fire models are focused on carrying out a specific task. They often gain bonuses to their actions. The downside of Lock-Fire is that no Lock-Fire models can be activated until all Snap-Fire models have been used.
Overwatch: Models under Overwatch orders are on the look out for enemy actions, ready to react to them. Overwatch gives the model a chance to interrupt one enemy activation and act against them, for example they could fire at an enemy as it rushes across a street. Overwatch models can only be activated to interrupt an enemy.

Turn 1 saw the Gladiators obtain the Initiative, and they forced the Viridians to go first. The Sergeant sprung into action and took a snap shot at a Secutor, but failed to hit. She used her follow-on action to get a little closer to cover.

Follow-on Actions: Models of CAL 1 and above may attempt Follow-on Actions under Snap-Fire orders. If they pass a Command Check, they may carry out another action. They get one additional Follow-On Action for each point of CAL, but must pass a Command Check each time. If they fail one, then any further Follow-on Actions that may have been available cannot be attempted either. While they may be able to kill multiple models in one activation, they can also leave themselves vulnerable if the player takes too many risks.

Both sides advanced and sporadic fire criss-crossed the field, but none of the troops under Snap-Fire landed a hit.

The Gladiators elected to carry out their Lock-Fire actions first, and the Myrmillo rushed forwards, reaching cover.

Rush: Rushing allows a model to move at double their Movement value, and is available under Lock-Fire. models may take a Command Check for every point of CAL and for each one they pass, they can add an extra 50% of their Movement value to the maximum distance moved. The Myrmillo has a Move of 4, so he can Rush 8" and gain an extra 2" for a total of 10" if he passes the check.

On the other side of the field, a Marine took aim with his Gauss Rifle and opened fire on the Secutor hiding among the storage tanks. His aim was true and he took down the enemy, causing the nearby Retarius to lose her nerve.

Panic: The sight of nearby friendlies being killed can be very unsettling. If a model is taken out, all friendly models within 6" must take a morale check. If they fail they are Panicked, which reduces their odds of hitting the enemy with ranged and close combat attacks, and prevents them from charging. They can attempt to Rally when they are activated, with bonuses for being far from visible enemies.

As the Amazonia Decurion rushed forward into cover, the Viridian Sniper lined up a shot at a distant Secutor. He scored a glancing hit, not enough to kill. But it was enough to Shock the Secutor and suppress him.

Shock: Shock represents the effect of suppressive fire. If a model takes a hit from a ranged attack and fails a Shock check, they lose their next activation as they are distracted by enemy fire and concern themselves with keeping their head down, or lose their cool.

The remaining Gladiator forces rushed forwards, eager to get to grips with the Viridians in close combat.

By the end of turn 1, the Gladiator advance has begun. Although the Viridians earned first blood, they will have to work hard to survive the close-range strength of their foes.

The Gladiators retained the Initiative for turn 2. The Myrmillo moved out into the open to attempt a shot at the Sergent before she reached cover. However, the Sniper on Overwatch took a shot at him.

Overwatch: A model on Overwatch may interrupt the enemy activation at any time, but must pass a Command Check to do so. These are popular orders for snipers and machine gun teams.

Unfortunately, the Sniper missed his shot, and the Myrmillo got his chance. Flames poured from the flamethrower and engulfed the Sergent. Although the first shot was off-target, the Myrmillo got his Follow-on Action and killed the Sergeant.

Templates: Unlike 40k, flamer style weapons in Urban War can still miss. If the to-hit roll is failed, they can either deviate to the side of the intended target or have no effect at all. The traditional Circular Templates follow the same rules, although they scatter more randomly.

Commanders: Each team must choose one of their number to be a Commander, either the model with the highest Command stat or a certain model may be designated as such by the rules depending on what you recruit to your team. The Commander gives any friendly units within 9" a +1 bonus to Command Checks and having them Panicked or killed will result in a -1 penalty to the Initiative roll.

The Sniper failed his Panic Check but the nearby Marine held firm and returned fire, suppressing the Myrmillo but failing to kill him.

As the Gladiators continued their advance, once again the exchange of fire failed to cause any further damage on either side. The Retarius managed to Rush an almighty 12" (her Fast special rule grants an extra 50% of her Move value to Rush moves, and she passed one Command Check). Things are about to get a lot more tense now that the Gladiators are in striking distance!

Turn 3 and once again the Gladiators won Initiative. Taking advantage of this, the Retarius attempted to reach combat but failed her Follow-on Command Check, leaving her staring down the gun barrels of two Marines. As the CAL 1 Marine opened fire on a Secutor (failing to wound or Shock him), the Amazonia Decurion charged one of the Marines aiming at the Retarius. He saw her coming and struck first, but she easily dodged his attack before killing him wih her dual pistols.

Close Combat: Models can only charge into combat under Snap-Fire Orders, and can only be issued Snap-Fire Orders if they are still engaged at the beginning of a turn. The order of attacks is determined by a First Strike roll-off, with bonuses available for things such as charging and CAL. Rolling to hit and wound is similar to most other popular games, cross-referencing the appropriate stats on a table for a target score.

Seeing his friend cut down Panicked the nearby Marine, and he failed to Rally. He nevertheless took a shot at the Retarius but missed completely. Meanwhile, the remaining Marine on the other flank killed an advancing Secutor, Panicking the Myrmillo.

Things have heated up now that both strike-teams have engaged in close-range fighting. When games reach this stage, gaining the Initiative becomes even more crucial so you can get your Snap-Fire Actions in before the enemy.

The Viridians finally took the Initiative for turn 4. The CAL 1 Marine sprung into action and opened fire on the Myrmillo through the fence.

As the enemy's body fell to the floor, the veteran trooper turned and, using a Follow-on Action, took a shot at the Retarius, making a second kill. His actions struck a severe blow to the Gladiators, eliminating two of their best units. Rare cinematic moments like this really make Urban War a very satisfying and exciting game to play!

Even as this was going on, the Decurion charged the remaining Marine and killed him. However, she failed her Follow-on check.

The Sniper failed to regain his cool, but the Secutor nearby did, and rushed towards him.

Both sides are now getting close to breaking point. With so few models on either side, each kill will be crucial, and even Shocked models will be a severe hindrance.

The brief control the Viridians had was stolen as the Gladiators retook the Initiative. The Amazonia Decurion, furious at the veteran Marine for killing her men, charged him and cut him down in a furious round of combat. The one remaining Marine near the Sniper opened fire on the approaching Secutor, suppressing him.

The Sniper finally regained his nerve and took careful aim at the approaching Decurion. He scored a successful headshot, and her lifeless body slumped to the ground.

Sniper: Viridian Snipers are one of the most feared units in the game. When taking an Aimed Shot (available under Lock-Fire Orders), any model may take a Command Check per point of CAL to gain a +1 bonus to hit with shooting. Combined with the bonuses granted by a Sniper Rifle, this makes them extremely accurate.
However, their true power comes from the Marksman rule. For every two points that they clear the minimum to-hit roll by (in this case, they need a 6+), they gain an extra to-wound dice. The Sniper's bonuses gave him a total score of 10, granting him two extra to-wound dice against the Decurion.

With only two units on each side, they had both reached the 66% Break point.

Strategic Withdrawal: Before the game, both players agree (or the scenario dictates) on a Break Point. This is a casualty threshold, commonly 50% or 66%, and a team that reaches this must take a Command Check at the start of each turn. If they fail, they withdraw from the field and the other player wins.

The Viridians would be testing against the Sniper's Command of 5 (requiring a 5+), but with only Secutors remaining, the Gladiators would need a 7+. They failed and the Viridians passed, granting victory to the Viridian forces. But it had come at a high price - two thirds of their team had been taken out of action.

Even this quick game has been enough to show off everything I love about Urban War. The integrated turn sequence creates a much more dynamic game than 40k and similar systems, allowing players to react to each other's actions as they unfold. Players must carefully consider what Orders to issue at the start of the coming turn. Do they go for Snap-Fire to go first, or wait for Lock-Fire and hope they survive long enough to be more sure of success? The fact that both players hide their Orders from each other until the unit is activated (with the exception of Overwatch, which is revealed before anyone else takes their actions) only makes this more tense.
Shooting and close combat are both very quick, brutal affairs, with few armour saves available. Units must maximise cover and support each other, but at the same time not cluster up too much lest they be Panicked or hit by a Template. The psychology of Shock and Panic add another means of attack, meaning you don't always have to kill to neutralise immediate threats over the short term.
CAL is a major influence on the game, and a key decision in the list-making process. Although high CAL models can be extremely effective (as the Marine demonstrated), they are expensive, just as easy to kill as low CAL models, and Follow-on Actions can be an incredible gamble.

One of Urban War's greatest strengths is its balance. There aren't any "power builds" or units that the community considers "broken". Any given strike-team can beat another in an equal-match up if a player is skilled enough. Each faction does have its strengths, but these aren't so overbearing or one-dimensional that they define every strike-team of that faction, they simply make it slightly easier if you play to them. Most games I've played tend to swing back and forth several times, even within a single turn.

I hope you have enjoyed reading this battle report as much as I have making it, and that you might consider looking into Urban War. If so, I highly recommend paying a visit to Urban Mammoth's website. The rules for Urban War, the expansion CLAU-Team Actions, and its bigger brother Metropolis are all available to download for a small charge (a mere £2.50). Their forums are active, and the developers (I've met a couple of them in person, they're great guys, really enthusiastic) frequently drop by to answer rules queries, get involved in discussions, and even drop little hints of what's in the pipeline. Upcoming expansions include vehicle rules for Metropolis, and rules for more interesting and dangerous terrain features. There have also been vague whispers of a campaign system in the works. The folks at Urban Mammoth do everything they can to get involved in and support the community, offering discounts to purchases for gaming clubs, running demo sessions, going to many wargaming shows, and supporting tournaments with prizes and such.

Next week I'll post some pictures of my collection, and after that I will post a write-up of the recent Tournament I attended.

Urban Terrain WIPs

2009-04-23T21:16:00.004+01:00

Hi folks!

I've spent this week churning out terrain for next month's Urban War tournament, and will likely still be making it until the day. Here's a little look at what's on the go at the moment.

The larger pieces I've been working on are some storage tanks. These are made from emptied Pringles tins (a tough job, but someone's got to eat them ;) ), stuck on a foamboard base and detailed with some parts from the Bio-Toxin Plant set. These kits are great value for money, with a bunch of sprues jam-packed with pipes, tanks, platforms and such. I have still to spray the tank (saving up for some coloured sprays), after which I'll probably apply some Army Painter Quick Shade to finish it off.

Next is something I don't see much of: chain link fences. most terrain seems to block line of sight and hinder movement, but I figured these would be more interesting as they hinder movement, but wouldn't really protect models from enemy fire. Again they're very simple, just a 6" x 2" rectangle of wire mesh with two bits of sprue attached for the posts, and stuck to a plasticard base. The ends of the base taper so that two sections can be placed at an angle to create corners without the need for special corner pieces.

Next on the agenda is buying in some foamboard to get some buildings made, although I'm going to stray away from the traditional gothic ruins and go for something a little more hi-tech and industrial. I'm also working on a tower with three platforms on the outside. Should be an interesting piece for snipers and such.

Weekly Update #8

2009-04-19T23:44:00.003+01:00

Hi folks!

It's been a busy week. By day I've been sacrificing what remains of my Easter break to finish off our group project at Uni, and we're getting there. At home I've been laying the foundations for the Battle Company.

I have stripped all the painted Space Marines that I received last week successfully, and have managed to salvage three full Tactical squads with a handful of leftover marines. Not only that, but I have fully assembled the two Assault Squads I require, including magnetizing the sergeants.

However, it will be a while before I do any more with them. For the past few months I've been making arrangements for an Urban War tournament at the end of May, and roughly 20 people will be taking part. So between now and then I will be putting the last arrangements into place and cranking out extra terrain. Urban War is a very terrain intensive game, and while our club's collection is more than enough for the regulars, it can't quite cope with 9 or 10 extra tables! Since the terrain is of the sci-fi urban variety, I'll be posting it here as it gets made.

I'd like to ask if any of you have any suggestions for good terrain pieces I could make? Things I can make from items lying around the house are a plus, because I'd like to keep costs minimal. Since Urban War is a skirmish game, we can make full use of multi-level pieces and whatnot, so any suggestions for urban terrain will be appreciated, by me, the tournament participants, and the club (which I will be donating the terrain to afterwards).

Other Projects: Urban War

2009-04-17T21:19:00.007+01:00

Hi folks!

This week in my Other Projects segment, I'm going to introduce you all to my current favourite wargame: Urban War.

Urban War is a skirmish-level sci-fi game published by the Scotland-based company Urban Mammoth. It is set primarily on the war-torn planet of Kyklops, a world covered in ocean but for a single continent, whose entire surface is one huge city - Iskandria. Four galactic powers each have a share in this world. Ironglass, and their convict legions known as the Junkers. Syntha, who believe that blending man and machine is the next step in humanity's evolution. VASA, an interstellar peace-keeping force. And Viridian, a powerful corporate-funded army. Initially, they were at peace, with each faction granted their own sector in the city leaving a "free zone" in the center.
The invasion of the alien Koralon on Kyklops shattered this peace. Their arrival provoked the Syntha into unleashing their secret robotic army into the city, throwing it into chaos. Now Viridian, VASA, Ironglass and Syntha fight over the battered city while trying to defend their holdings from the Koralon invaders.

There are seven playable factions in Urban War:

Gladiators

The Gladiators are an offshoot of the Junkers. These are pit pighters who in times of peace provided entertainment for the masses in arena fights. When war broke out, they were either drafted into Junker legions, or formed bands of their own to fight for their freedom.
Gladiators specialise in close combat and short range firefights. They have many skilled specialists available, as well as the ferocious Pit Beasts.

Junkers

The convict legions of Ironglass are vast and brutal, if not very sophisticated. Even the pettiest of crimes sentences the perpetrator to a stint in the legions, so there are no shortage of recruits to throw into the fray.
Like the Gladiators, the Junkers prefer close range engagements. However, their line troops are more disposable, and their specialists tend to have heavy armour, firepower, or both.

Koralon

The Koralon are an advanced alien species who have mastered many technologies, including teleportation. The hordes of "purestrain" creatures are further bolstered by hybrids - mutated and corrupted life forms from worlds the Koralon have conquered.
What Koralon forces lack in firepower, they make up for in speed and close combat brutality. Waves of cheap hybrids can tie up the enemy while the heavy hitters use portals to get to where they are needed.

Syntha

The Syntha are guided by the artificial intelligence Prime, on their homeworld of the same name. They believe that the advancement of technology is the most important goal, and their forces reflect this with a mixture of robotic soldiers and cyber-enhanced humans.
Syntha forces are durable and can pack an incredible amount of firepower. They also have access to a few close combat units. Their key weakness is that their robotic units can be slow and inflexible.

Triads

The Triads represent Iskandria's criminal underworld. However, they only become apparent to the rest of society when it gets in the way of their goals. They believe in honour, clan loyalty and skill-at-arms.
The Triads are a flexible force, with a mixture of good ranged and close combat units, a few of which are highly maneuverable. What they lack is advanced technology and heavy armour, making them potentially fragile.

VASA

VASA are a very powerful intersteallar peacekeeping force, patrolling the trade lanes and taxing merchants heavily for the favour. Many do not welcome their almost overbearing presence, but few would be capable of standing up to their mighty fleet and armed forces.
VASA strike teams have a solid core of decent troops to choose from, both ranged and close combat. These can be supported by heavy firepower, rapid assault units, or heavily armoured battlesuits. But all of these come at a cost.

Viridian

The corporate armies of the Viridians are well equipped and trained for ranged combat. They prefer not to engage enemy forces up close in order to minimise casualties, which are highly detrimental to the government's popularity back home.
Strike-teams from Viridia rely on superior ranged firepower to win the day, and have access to a wide variety of powerful long ranged units. They have a very limited close combat ability, and can be at a disadvantage against fast foes.

As with my Babylon 5 posts, I will introduce the game mechanics with a battle report next week. What I will say about them here is that they are elegantly simple and intuitive, and yet offer a lot of depth. They place a great emphasis on tactics, so much so that you have to try really hard to handicap yourself with force selection. The true challenge is using your chosen team effectively on the field.

So next week, expect a battle report to talk you through how the game works. In further posts I will talk more about how I got into it and where I want to go, show the forces I have collected so far, and give a brief report on the tournament I attended in February.

Salamanders Battle Company: Progress Chart

2009-04-13T23:38:00.004+01:00

Hi folks!

Here's a quick chart I put together using the Bolter & Chainsword Space Marine Painter - thanks guys! I'll be using it to chart my progress through the Battle Company as I finish off the various elements, colouring them as I go. Here it is, with the relevant squads from my 1500pt army coloured (click for full size):

This should help motivate me to finish them even more, and give both you the readers and myself an idea of just how far/close I am to the target.

Salamanders Battle Company: The List

2009-04-13T17:01:00.005+01:00

Hi folks!

I've begun the long road towards collecting the Salamanders Battle Company by setting out a list of what squads I need and how they will be equipped. I chose what will hopefully be a range of useful loadouts, giving me plenty to chose from and yet keeping each squad focused. Here is the list:

Captain 155pts

Thunder Hammer, Combi-flamer, Artificer Armour, Digital Weapons

Chaplain 140pts

Combi-flamer, Jump Pack, Digital Weapons

Command Squad 190pts

3 Veterans, Apothecary, Company Champion, Company Standard, Thunder Hammer, Flamer, Meltagun

Tactical Squad 175pts

10 Marines, Meltagun, Multi-melta

Tactical Squad 175pts

10 Marines, Meltagun, Multi-melta

Tactical Squad 170pts

10 Marines, Flamer, Missile Launcher

Tactical Squad 170pts

10 Marines, Flamer, Missile Launcher

Tactical Squad 170pts

10 Marines, Flamer, Heavy Bolter

Tactical Squad 185pts

10 Marines, Plasma Gun, Plasma Cannon

Tactical Squad 185pts

10 Marines, Plasma Gun, Plasma Cannon

Assault Squad 255pts

10 Marines, 2x Flamer, Thunder Hammer, Storm Shield

Assault Squad 250pts

10 Marines, 2x Plasma Pistol, Power Fist, Storm Shield

Devastator Squad 270pts

10 Marines, 2x Heavy Bolter, 2x Lascannon

Devastator Squad 230pts

10 Marines, 2x Missile Launcher, 2x Heavy Bolter

Devastator Squad 270pts

10 Marines, 2x Multi-melta, 2x Lascannon

Total: 3000pts

(+ 10x Rhino w/ Storm Bolter, Razorback w/ Twin-linked Assault Cannon, Storm Bolter & Extra Armour +550pts)

All wrapped up at a good, rounded points value. The vehicles will come at a much later date, due to the cost of both them and the Forge World doors I always give them.

How does the list look? Is there anything that jumps out as being wrong with it?

Weekly Update #7

2009-04-12T19:08:00.003+01:00

Hi folks!

This week, I found myself missing the assembly and painting of Salamanders already. So I've been working on a couple of small units to expand my choices a bit so that I'm not playing the same 1500pt list week in week out.

Coincidentally, my brother found a whole pile of unfinished Space Marine stuff from an army he wanted to start last year. He has since moved on to the forces of Chaos, so he handed them over to me. I have gained 20 Assault Marines (4 built, rest on sprue, half without jump packs), 2 Rhinos, 5 unbuilt Scouts and about 3 Tactical Squads (one still on sprue). A few minis need stripped, but that won't be a problem. Adding that to my current force leaves me just 2 Tactical Squads, 2 Devastator Squads and a Command Squad short of a full-strength Salamanders Battle Company. Of course, as soon as I realised this I couldn't shake the thought, so now the Steel Legion are shelved as I get to work on this latest goal. The IG will be my summer project.

Having a full Battle Company will not only give me plenty of options, but also bring my Sallies up to Apocalypse level like my IG. For now, they'll be footslogging since buying enough Rhinos just isn't an option (even without the FW doors which I simply *must* give them).

I'll sell some old stuff to raise the extra funds required to get the squads I need - since this was slightly unexpected I haven't made allowances for it in my budget.

So that's how things have been going this week. I think I'll put together a list of how I want the company to be equipped and post that up later this week, as well as pictures of the extras I've been working on.

Have any of you guys found that you just can't quite call an army "finished", even when you have other projects in the pipeline?

Other Projects: Babylon 5 Battle Report

2009-04-11T15:45:00.003+01:00

Hi folks!

I managed to get in a couple of Babylon 5 games at the club last night, so as promised here is a report of the first. I will annotate the report with a few in-depth looks at some of the game's main mechanics to make things a little clearer.

This week I received a large Minbari fleet which I'd won on ebay, so I thought I'd put part of it through its paces. The only other fleet that could match their strength was my Earth fleet, so with the participants chosen we opted for a simple Annihilation mission. My brother chose the Minbari so I took command of the Earth fleet.

The Minbari fleet consisted of a Sharlin warcruiser and a Tinashi frigate. Earth had two Omega-class destroyers (the Agrippa and the Alexander) and two Hyperion heavy cruisers (the Midway and the Trafalgar). Deployment was as follows:

Turn Sequence - In this game, players alternate moving one ship at a time. At the start of the turn, both players roll for Initiative (similar to LotR and Epic), whoever scores the highest chooses the order of movement. After all movement has concluded, ships may then fire their weapons, again alternating between players. The final phase of the turn is the End Phase, used to move drifting ships, carry out Damage Control and other miscellaneous actions.

Turn 1 saw earth gain the Initiative, and I elected to have the Minbari move first. The Sharlin glided forwards before turning to bring its front weaponry to wear against the Alexander. I responed my moving the Agrippa forwards and lining it up for my boresighted laser cannon.

Firing Arcs - Each ship has four 90 degree arcs: Fore (front), Aft (back), Port (left) and Starboard (right). In addition, there are fixed Boresights in the Fore and Aft arcs, which require the attacker to be directly lined up with the target ship. Most weapons are limited to firing in a single arc, although a few turret mounted weapons have full 360 degree coverage.

The Tinashi also moved aggressively, closing on the two Hyperions, to the remaining three earth ships lined up their weapons and prepared to target it.

The Agrippa was the first to fire in the Attack Phase, but the Minbari's Stealth technology prevented them from getting a lock. In return, the Sharlin opened fire on the Alexander, dealing significant damage to the hull and crew. Its side weapon arrays also opened up on the Midway, again dealing it a massive blow as the beam tore across the hull. Fortunately, the Alexander managed to lock on to the Sharlin and return the favour with its heavy laser cannon. The Tinashi finished off the crippled Midway, leaving it a drifting, flaming wreckage. This left only the Trafalgar to fire, and its ageing tracking systems again failed to lock on to the enemy ships.

Stealth - The Minbari fleet (and some others) use Stealth technology to disrupt the targeting sensors of hostile ships. In game terms, this means an attacking ship must beat the target's Stealth score in order to be able to fire at it. These two Minbari ships have Stealth 5, so the Earth ships have to roll a 5+ to even be able to fire at them! Some special abilities can negate Stealth, and ships within 8" get a +1 bonus to the roll, as do any ships firing after one has already locked on in the same turn.

In the end phase, each remaining Earth ship launched a flight of Starfury fighters, and the Sharlin launched a flight of Nials.

The Minbari gained Initiative in turn 2, and the earth fleet was forced to go first. The Alexander called the All Stop! special action, bringing his ship to a standstill. As the Tinashi was in full sight of its front weapon arrays, the frigate moved away and used its superior maneuverability to bring its weapons to bear on the Alexander while avoiding the boresight weapons. As the Agrippa powered forwards to avoid exposing its flank, the Sharlin also bore down on the damaged Alexander. The Trafalgar maneuvered to bring its boresight laser cannon to bear on the Sharlin, and also have its broadside weapons target the Tinashi.
The Starfury fighters swarmed around the lone flight of Nials, initiating a Dogfight.

Special Actions - A capital ship may attempt to call one of a number of Special Actions instead of moving. If the Crew Quality Check is passed, they will be able to carry it out. These range from bringing the ship to a halt, launching extra fighters, or even making the supreme sacrifice and ramming an enemy ship - an action which can only be carried out by an already crippled ship.

The Sharlin's beams tore great holes in the hull of the Alexander, with Critical Hits causing additional damage to the ship and its systems. Once again the Minbari's Stealth proved troublesome, but the Trafalgar managed to score a few hits on the Sharlin. However, the Tinashi finished off the crippled Alexander, rendering her a stationary burning hulk.
Surrounded by enemy ships, the Minbari Nials stood no chance and were completely wiped out by the Starfuries.

Critical Hits - When a hit is scored on an enemy ship, the player rolls on the Damage Table. On a 1 there is no effect, 2-5 deals one point of damage to both the hull and the crew, and a 6 results in a Critical Hit, damaging one of the ship's systems. In addition to the point of damage and crew, this can have additional effects such as reducing the speed (Engine critical), reducing weapon effectiveness (Weapon critical), or even severely hitting one of the Vital Systems such as the Bridge or Reactor. With most weapons having multiple Attack Dice and so being able to score many hits, Crits are fairly common when larger ships bring their heavier weapon arrays to bear.

In the end phase, the Agrippa launched another flight of fighters as the wreckage of the Midway drifted past.

Turn 3, and once again the Minbari gain the upper hand. The Agrippa began to turn to bring itself back into the action, but such a slow lumbering ship would take time to get into an optimal position. The Tinashi powered forwards, and the Trafalgar reacted by bringing its broadside into view of the rear of the frigate. The Sharlin also continued moving forwards. The Starfury fighters decided to get clear of the larger ships, lest they become targets.

Movement - Ships must move at least half their speed in a straight line, representing the momentum they have gathered. Only after this can they turn. Ships are limited in how fast they can turn, some can make multiple turns in a movement, others only one, and all are limited in the angle of each turn. In addition, after turning there is a minimum of 2" movement before making the next.

Both fleets traded fire once more. neither side could cause more than a small amount of damage and a couple of minor engine and weapon criticals.

The Minbari took Initiative in turn 4 again, and the Agrippa continued its slow, curving path, with the drifting hulk of the Miday now in front of it. The Sharlin brought itself to a halt in order to make a tighter turn later, and the captain of the Trafalgar took advantage and closed in on its flank - avoiding the deadly weapon arrays on the front of the warcruiser but still exposed to the broadside. The Tinashi, like the Agrippa, swung out of the main fight in order to line itself up for another attack run.

The Tinashi opened fire and again caused minor damage to both Earth ships. The Trafalgar managed to get a lock on and its laser cannon tore into the Sharlin's flank. As the beam tore across its hull, it damaged the engines and crippled the mighty flagship, but didn't destroy it. Even as the Trafalgar was firing, the warcruiser responded in kind and tore it apart, leaving its burning, lifeless wreckage to drift through space.

Turn 5 saw the end of the game as the Tinashi and Sharlin finally brought down the Agrippa. The Starfury pilots surrendered, having no hope of getting past the Minbari's advanced anti-fighter arrays.

The Minbari won, but at a heavy cost. The mighty Sharlin warcruiser would likely have been destroyed had the Agrippa been able to target it, and the Tinashi suffered more than 50% damage. In the end, though, their Stealth proved to be too troublesome, and prevented much of the enemy fire from having an effect. The earth ships, on the other hand, had nothing to counter the Minbari's deadly beam weapons.

I hope you've enjoyed this battle report, and stay tuned for future reports, pictures of painted fleets, and in the distant future, a campaign for the control of an entire system.

Tomorrow, I'll give you an update on the main project.

A Blast From The Past

2009-04-06T18:51:00.003+01:00

Hi folks!

After stumbling across some old pictures a few weeks back, I thought I'd take a break from the usual schedule of looking at what I am doing, and look back at what "brought me here", so to speak.

I was introduced to the hobby at a friend's house in 1999, when the Armageddon campaign was about to kick off (which is the sole reason I remember when I started). Between he and his brother, they had IG, Tyranids, Chaos, and a couple of Space Marines, of which they gave me a tactical marine.

By the end of that year, I had a 2000pt army of Black Templars under the list in Codex: Armageddon, with both a Land Raider and a Crusader, among other things. I had started off with Ultramarines (as you do) but the release of the Crusader, the limited edition Emperor's Champion model, and their knightly feel got me hooked and so I resprayed my blue marines black and fleshed them out a bit.

I sold this army a couple of years back after having left it packed away for a long time. Of course, you never know how much you'll miss something until it's gone, and soon I wanted to play BT again. Now I have 1000pts worth of troops once more, primed a few months ago but I never got round to finishing them. They're probably next after my IG, and I want to build them to be fairly similar to my old army.

Anyway, to finish off this trip down memory lane, here are the pictures I took for my ebay auction. I've come a long way in 10 years.

How about you guys? Are you on your first armies right now? Or for the more experienced hobbyists, are your first minis still tucked away in a box somewhere, or passed down to another? I'd love to hear about them.

Weekly Update #6

2009-04-04T14:43:00.004+01:00

Hi folks!

It feels good to be getting on with the Steel Legion again. Having spent months painting green marines, it's a welcome change.

First up is the progress on my first infantry platoon.

Command Squad:

Infantry Squad:

Group Shot:

The simplified colour scheme is holding out well, letting me make swift progress while still having a look that I'm happy with. Just to clarify, only the command squad is last week's work, the rest were done several months ago.

I have more infantry on the painting table right now, as well as this WIP command HQ:

Both the standard bearer and the officer are inspired by a couple of pieces of official artwork.

Finally, I found my WIP Yarrick through the week, so I intend to add the finishing touches soon:

Once I get another squad or two of infantry finished, I think I'll get to work on some Chimeras. I'm going to need quite a few, so it's best to get a headstart on them. I know I'll definitely be buying some more in the coming months.

I'm itching for a game with the guard, so either next week or at the end of the month I'll take them to the table. Hopefully that'll motivate me even more to get them done. I'm writing up a 1500pt list today so that, as with the Salamanders, I have a definite goal to aim for. I'll keep it fairly basic so that I don't have to do too much to it when the new codex arrives.

As always, all comments are appreciated! :)

Other Projects: Babylon 5

2009-03-31T20:36:00.006+01:00

Hi folks, and welcome to the first of my weekly spots on the other hobby projects taking up my free time. Like my regular posts, there probably won't appear at the same time every week, so expect them when you see them.

I'm going to begin with a game which was my first foray into the world beyond Games Workshop. This game is Babylon 5: A Call To Arms. It is a fleet combat game based on the epic (and in my opinion, vastly underrated) 5-year long sci-fi series that ran from the mid-90s. I only got into it a few years back when my dad started watching the dvds, but now I'm a die-hard fan, having watched it right through at least four times.

I happened upon the game during a google search in the middle of a B5 phase, and quickly bought a starter set, which contained the rulebook and a set of card counters representing the ships. The game itself is remarkably simple and yet full of depth, and faithful to the series. As a result, I moved on to collecting the miniatures.

Here are a few samples of my collection. Up first is the White Star, without a doubt the most elegant and beautiful ship in the series. It is a combination of both Minbari and Vorlon technology, both of these races are very advanced, particularly the Vorlons. They are very agile and pack a considerable punch for their size (that little bump with the yellow bit on top of the ship is the bridge). The White Star becomes the iconic "good guys" ship from season 3 onwards.

(Steel Legion infantryman shown for scale)
Next up is the current workhorse of the Earth Alliance fleet, the Omega-class Destroyer. These bad boys pack a huge punch with batteries of pulse and laser cannons. However, they are pretty slow and not very maneuverable. These ships feature a very distinctive rotating secion in the middle which at the time was Earth's only means to generate artificial gravity. This is probably one of my favourite ships, both in the series and the game.

Here we have the Hyperion-class Heavy Cruiser, which was the mainstay of the Earth Alliance fleet before the Earth-Minbari War. Like the Omega, it uses both pulse and laser cannons, but less of each, isn't as well armoured, and cannot generate artificial gravity for the crew. However, it is more maneuverable.

Finally, we have the Starfury, the main fighter used by Earth. These craft are highly maneuverable, and have the edge when dogfighting all but the most high-tech of ships.
These are normally supplied six to a base, but I ordered some custom bases which fit three, meaning I only need to buy half as many (or I get twice as much, depending on how you want to look at it). For an idea of scale, the black base is a 1" square.

So that's a quick taste of how it looks. The centerpiece of my collection is Babylon 5 itself - I managed to find an old model kit of it on ebay. I'll save that for my next post, in which I will also give a battle report in order to introduce how the game works (I've always thought it was the best way to show and explain a game to those who haven't played).

The game has had a few ups and downs, with the biggest down of all almost upon us - support is being pulled in June. The license will expire and Mongoose Publishing have no plans to renew. This means the miniatures will also no longer be produced, and as such I'm pulling out all the stops to grab what I can. I want to have a decent fleet for each of the ones seen in the series: Earth, Minbari, Narn, Centauri, Vorlons, Shadows, League of Non-Aligned Worlds (primarily Drazi, Brakiri and Vree), ISA and Drakh, with a few Raiders, Civilains and the First Ones. A lot of the ships in the game have been made up to flesh out the fleets a little, but I want the bulk of each to be made up of official ships. I'll also be scratchbuilding/kitbashing space stations for each race (except Earth, who have one in miniature already), as well as the Vorlon and Shadow Planetkillers. The ultimate aim is to be able to run club campaigns using the rules provided in the book, with all these races available to the players, and to be able to play all of the "historical" scenarios based on events from the series.

If any of you know anyone who is selling off Babylon 5: A Call To Arms minis, please let me know as I'll be glad to make a deal with them, especially if they're in the UK.

At present, I'm actually stripping the White Star in order to give it an improved paintjob, brightening it up a bit and adding a green tint to be more faithful to the on-screen version. After that, I'll attend to my Earth fleet, and order some more bases to get all my fighters done as well.

I hope you've enjoyed this little look at something different, and stay tuned for next week's introduction to the game mechanics with a battle report (probably Saturday).

1500pts Salamanders: Complete!

2009-03-26T19:41:00.005Z

Hi folks!

At long last, I have reached the lofty goal of a fully painted 1500pt Salamanders army. It's taken longer than I'd expected but boy, has it been worthwhile.

The weather held just long enough for me to get my varnishing done, and has now returned to the usual wind and rain you'd expect from a Scottish springtime (or indeed any time).

So here is the last unit to be painted for the army, the Terminator Assault Squad:

In the end, I decided to keep their cloaks simple, and not extend them out further as with He'Stan's. As with the vehicles, the Forge World accessories made life so much easier. No fiddly decals to worry about, and plenty of detail to bring the mini to life. I suspect I'll be visiting Forge World again when I expand my Sallies in the future.

And of course, I had to set out the full army to see how it all looks together:

I can't wait to take them to the table on Sunday. I'll try to remember to bring my camera along to make a battle report or two.

With the Salamanders now done (well, almost... I've one last special treat in store for them for now...), I'll be moving on to my Steel Legion next. With a bit of luck, I'll have made a start to a second platoon by this time next week. I also have quite a lot of terrain to make, both for an upcoming Urban War tournament at the end of May that I'll be running (~20 participants, give or take), and a 40k map-based campaign I've been planning and putting together for a few months. I think I will end up donating most of the terrain to my club, partly because I don't have the room to store it, and partly because that's where I play most of my games anyway.

So that's the agenda for the next few weeks, and you can expect to see it posted here as always. With the easter holidays starting at the end of next week, I should have much more free time to spend on the hobby, so hopefully I'll get more posts in as well. As always, I'd love to hear from you all.

Other Projects

2009-03-24T21:02:00.005Z

Hi folks!

I was thinking about how little I post here compared to some other bloggers, and I concluded that it's down to one thing. This is a pretty focused blog. Heroes of Armageddon is one project of many, and since I'm a fairly slow worker, that means updates just sort of trickle in.

I want to post more. I'd love to be able to do the likes of editorials, tacticas and such, but I haven't really used my armies enough to consider myself an expert by any means, nor do I get enough games in (only a couple every fortnight). Battle reports will help now that I feel like I can show off a whole army (and figured out how to stop my camera making silly noises whenever I use it), but I want more.

I thought what I'd do was have a weekly slot where I post a little bit about what other projects I'm working on as well. Initially I had set up another blog to do that but updates aren't really frequent enough to maintain it. So what I think I'll do is "merge" it into this one, and post once a week on other stuff. It could be about other games I play (such as Urban War and Babylon 5) and any associated armies, battles and campaigns, or stuff that's going on outside the hobby if I run out of gaming things to blog about.

I'd love to hear what you all think of the idea, it's you that's going to be reading it after all. I'll post up a non-project item this week as well to see how it goes.

On the topic of progress so far, the Terminators should be based tonight, and varnished tomorrow if the weather is suitable for spraying. I'm also finishing off a platoon of Steel Legion I started last year, with only the command squad to finish painting.

Weekly Update #5

2009-03-22T19:15:00.007Z

Hi folks!

Again we see that this hasn't really been a series of "weekly" updates but I'll try to get them back on track. At least I've managed to keep blogging at a rate of slightly over once a week, so that's something.

This week has been a bit of a quiet one up until the weekend. It's the run up to the Easter holidays, after which my University courseworks have to be handed in, and I'd rather not have to work over the holidays. To that end, I've been putting in the hours and ended up rather exhausted come home-time.

But this weekend I've spent a lot of time painting. Here's what I have to show for it so far:

In fact, since taking that picture I'm about 75% done with the fourth. I'll probably finish him tonight, and try to get home earlier tomorrow afternoon to finish the sergeant, otherwise he probably wouldn't get done until next weekend. Basing and varnishing (assuming the weather co-operates for that) never takes too long, so I'm confident of a mid-week finish on these guys, and thus my 1500pt army. Assuming that gets done, I think I'll put together a battle report to celebrate having them fully painted (or maybe two reports, depending on how many games I get). I've only ever fully painted one army before, and I sold that off quite some time ago. I've still got the ebay photos, so I'll post them up later this week.

So where will I be going after that? Well with the new Imperial Guard codex looming on the horizon, I want to make a headstart on my Steel Legion. You might not think it if you just started following my blog this year, but I do in fact consider them my main army, and the "core" of this blog. Last year I found a method of painting them that gave the right look and let me churn out a squad a week - which is fast for me! So that's what's next on my agenda, getting a solid base of Steel Legion infantry, and maybe some tanks, so I can start putting a painted army on the table when the new codex hits. It also lets me get stuck right in to buying and painting some of the new toys that will be arriving with it, instead of having to wait until my core force is done.

I'm also planning an Apocalypse game for the end of April, to see out the old codex. I want to have a sort of "Bunker Assault" mission, and since I've been preparing some IG-themed bunkers for a map-based campaign I'm also planning for later this year, it will be a good excuse to get them done too. I might be able to convince my opponents to combine all our Tyranid forces for a proper themed fight, rather than Imperium vs everyone else. We'll see...

For now, I'll get back to painting those Terminators...

Final stretch...

2009-03-16T21:55:00.003Z

Hi folks!

A little later than promised, but here are shots of my finished Dreadnought and Devastator Squad:

I took some extra time to try out my new varnishing regime on them. Two coats of gloss for protection then a layer of dullcote to kill the shine. I'm really pleased with the finish, and it should stand up to regular use.

With them done, I have 1000pts fully painted:

It's coming together quite nicely. And because I kind of jumped the gun and did the Redeemer early, I only have 5 Terminators to paint to reach 1500pts. Not bad at all. Should have them done within a couple of weeks, I reckon. Along with the special surprise unit. :)

So it's back to the painting table for me!

Some Minor Technical Difficulties...

2009-03-14T13:58:00.003Z

Hi folks!

As you may have guessed, the title refers to the family computer, which has finally decided it can no longer go on with life. We're still trying to find out what's wrong with it. Luckily, we have everything backed up. I'm currently on my brother's computer, and it looks like I'll have to transfer all my stuff onto here for the next few days, or possibly weeks.

On the other hand, it's one less distraction from my army, which has already had results this week. I've finished both my Devastators and my Dreadnought, so all that leaves is the Terminators. It's too windy today to get my varnishing done, so if it hasn't died down by tomorrow I guess I'll just have to photograph them as they are... but I'd rather show them off as I want them to look.

The Terminators are getting a little extra treatment. Originally I was just going to leave them as-is, with FW shoulder pads to spruce them up a bit. But I've decided to go all-out and convert them with salamander cloaks. It'll take a while but I think it will be worth it.

Finally, once they reach 1500pts I'll be making one last special centerpiece unit. I'm keeping it a surprise for the moment but I think you'll all like it. I know I do already. ;) I've gathered most of the bits I need and made a headstart already - there's a lot of work to be done.

Thanks to everyone who chimed in last week when I suffered painter's block, it seems all the suggestions have well and truly demolished it. Kinda like how my Sallies demolished my brother's Necrons last night. I have the 1500pts assembled so I took them for a test run. We rolled Dawn of War deployment, Annihilation mission. I ended up losing my Terminators, but not before they crippled and drove off a 20-bot Necron squad with an attached Lord (with a pesky Res Orb). With that out of the way, the rest of the army managed to wear down the enemy and phase them out, with only 5 further brother marines lost. I've got another game coming up in 2 weeks, so my aim is to complete the Terminators by then so I can take some pictures of the game. My bro's stuff is fully-painted, so it should be a good sight.

Expect another post tomorrow with pictures of my week's work and a 1000pt army shot. Until then, take care. :)

Conversion Tutorial: Sculpting Scales

2009-03-08T15:17:00.005Z

Hi folks!

After sharing the Vulkan He'stan conversion, I've had a few questions about how to sculpt scales. I touched on it briefly during the conversion tutorial for He'stan, and I'll expand on that with this tutorial.

All you need for this is green stuff, the surface you want to cover in scales, and a sculpting tool. I prefer to use one with this head:

Please note that I will be deliberately sculpting the scales larger than I normally do for this tutorial, so that you can see the procedure more clearly. I will also be sculpting them onto a 40mm base.

Right, let's get started. Mix your blob green stuff and spread it over the area you want to put the scales on. You should apply it with a thickness of about 1-2mm.
Tip: Remember to discard the thin strip of blue and yellow parts where they were in contact with each other in the packaging. Sometimes parts of it can set along this contact line, leaving you with little hardened chunks in the green stuff.

Next, use the sculpting tool to press a small, straight line in the green stuff, like so:

From the end of this line, sculpt another at an angle, and from the end of that, another...

...until you have the first scale. Tidy up the edges if need be.

Press in some more lines coming from that scale...

...to make more. Again, tidy these up, and keep building the scales off each other until you have filled the desired area.

Remember, it's a good idea to vary the size and shape of the scales to avoid making a regular pattern. Unless your army has a bee-ish theme. ;)

Leave it to dry overnight and then it's ready to paint!

Slump.

2009-03-05T14:07:00.004Z

Hi folks!

Sorry for the lack of updates lately, I've been feeling a little uninspired towards 40k these past couple of weeks. An overdose of Urban War didn't help matters much. Speaking of which, I wrote up a report of my day out to the Urbanisation tournament (complete with pictures) here.

I have done a little bit of work though. Here's how the Devastators are looking:

Their three buddies are currently still in the "primed" stage. I really want to try and finish off my army either this month or, at the very most, next month, depending on how much else I have to do besides them. I've got an Urban War tourney to host at the end of May, which means kicking up terrain production into high gear, as the club's collection is a little small.

So how do you guys get over your "painter's block?" Those days when you just can't move yourself to pick up the brush, or at least find some other project that little bit more appealing. I'm thinking I need a good ol' game of 40k with my Sallies to get me back in the mood, since I haven't played in a month or two.

Forgefather Vulkan He'stan

2009-02-20T15:21:00.003Z

He's finally finished! I'm pretty happy with how well he turned out - I don't think there's anything that stands out as being something I'd change if I did it all again. And considering how much work it took, I don't think I would want to!

So now I've moved on to the last 5 Devastators. After them, it's just the Dreadnought and Terminators to finish up and I'll have a fully painted 1500pts army. I don't think I've had one of those since my old BT army back in 2000.
I'm not sure if I'll have anything to report on Sunday's weekly update though. With the Urbanisation event in Edinburgh tomorrow (check my other blog for info on that) taking up the entire day I won't be getting any painting done I should imagine. We'll see how it goes...

Weekly Update #4

2009-02-15T16:38:00.003Z

Hi folks!

Hopefully now I can get back on track with this project. I'm going to move my weekly updates from Fridays to Sundays, because Fridays have now become significantly busier at Uni, and when I get home the one thing on my mind is sleep. Sundays, however, should remain as lazy as always.

On to the important stuff. Last night I finally finished the Predator. I managed to solve the problem of magnetising the sponsons. They ain't perfect, but they look good enough and let me swap them out, which is all that matters. Here it is:

I'm still stuck for a name but I'm sure something will come up eventually.

Now that the Predator is out of the way, Vulkan He'Stan has finally reached the top of the painting queue. Here's how he looked earlier today:

I've since started work on the metallic areas, and added a pattern to the scaled cloak. I decided that since the cloak is made from the scales of a Fire Drake from Nocturne, I'd go for something similar to our own Fire Salamanders:

So far I think it's turned out quite well. The fiery yellow gives a good contrast to both the black and the green. I should be able to finish him this week, so I'll hopefully be able to post him up within that time.
Assuming I finish Vulkan, the next project for the coming week will likely be the second half of my Devastator squad. I'm arming them with Lascannons for a bit of long ranged punch.

Just a quick plug once more of my new blog: http://eeksimplethings.blogspot.com/
Only one post at the moment, but I intend to make a post during the week about Urban War, and possibly another about my Babylon 5 situation.

Take care!

New Blog!

2009-02-11T23:22:00.003Z

Hi folks!

I mentioned a while back that I'd be creating a new blog. My hobby extends beyond this project, so I felt it wise to separate these extras from this, and add in some general musings and ramblings for good measure. I will, of course, be continuing this one at the same unpredictable pace as usual, and the other is likely to be the same. If you want to pop along, you can find it here:

http://eeksimplethings.blogspot.com/

I hope you can pay it a quick visit, the support I've had on this one has been fantastic so far. Thank you. :)

Back to Work!

2009-02-10T11:23:00.002Z

Hi everyone!

First of all, I'd like to apologise for missing a week. Between University and painting my Urban War strike-team, I hadn't had much 40k time until the weekend. But now that all my UW stuff is painted (ok, I tell a lie, all the stuff I need) I can get back to my Sallies.

Before the interruption, I'd started on my Predator, and last night I got a terrific amount of work done. I'm working on the main coat of Snot Green, and I've magnetised the turret. Here's how it's looking:

(that's my brother's Urban War strike-team sneaking in to the picture on the left)

However, I'm currently at a loss as to how to magnetise the sponsons. I'd prefer to magnetise just the guns, but the Predato's design doesn't seem to lend itself towards that idea too well. I want to avoid magnetising the whole "door" section, since if I did that I might as well just buy another Predator to get the other sponson option. Anyone got any suggestions or links to someone who's done it before? They'd be much appreciated.

I'm hoping to have most, if not all, of it finished this week. Although the club is on this week, I probably won't be using it (even if it's game ready) as I'm going to be getting in some practice games of UW.

Take care!

Vulkan's Fist

2009-01-27T17:56:00.004Z

Hello again readers!
As promised, here are a few shots of the Land Raider Redeemer, "Vulkan's Fist". It performed pretty well in its debut (despite attracting insane amounts of anti-tank fire), and here's hoping that trend will continue. I'm particularly happy with the Forgeworld doors - these things really set a Land Raider out from the competition, and despite the detail they're surprisingly easy to paint.

All comments welcomed! :)

The Season of Fire

2009-01-26T20:50:00.002Z

Hi everyone!

First of all, I'd like to say I'm glad to see Ron coming back to head FtW once more. Many tanks to Pete also for running it in the meantime. Hopefully FtW's new approach will make it even more successful!

And now on to news on my end. First of all, I finally finished my Land Raider Redeemer on Saturday. It performed very well in its debut game, delivering my Terminator Assault Squad into the heart of the enemy army (homebrew SM chapter), who then proceeded to cut a swathe through it as usual! The LRR was immobilised in short order, and lost one of it's flame cannons of doom (from a combination of most of my opponent's anti-tank firepower), but still proved to be a thorn in the enemy's side with the multi-melta and twin-linked assault cannon.
In short, it's a keeper. I think I'll name it either "Vulkan's Fist" or "Fist of Vulkan"... I don't know which one flows better to be honest. Anyone got any input on that?

Secondly, I shall likely be slowing down progress over the next couple of weeks. On the 21st of February, there is going to be a tournament/con held for the skirmish wargame Urban War (as well as CTA/Metropolis open tables). Now as a big fan of Urban War (bigger even than my love for 40k - it's that good!) I can't resist, so I need to get my strike-team up to tournament size. So some hobby time will have to go towards that. I've been planning an additional blog for my other projects and general ramblings on life, so I'll plug that here when I get it up and running.

I'll get some pictures of the Redeemer up within the next few days, but until then, take care everyone!

Weekly Update #3

2009-01-23T21:16:00.003Z

Hello again everyone!

As you'll no doubt be able to tell from the lack of updates, it's been a rather quiet week on the hobby front. The workload at Uni has picked up now that we've got some technical issues sorted, so the big project is going ahead - in fact we're having to play 2 weeks' catch-up.

Nonetheless, I have made progress. My workbench this afternoon:

Between taking that picture and now, the Frag Assault Launchers have been finished and attached, as has one sponson. The second is half-painted. By the looks of thing's, she'll be ready for a few coats of varnish tomorrow, assuming it doesn't rain. Wait, who am I kidding, this is Scotland...

Speaking of the LRR, here's how she's looking (well, was earlier on today):

I just finished up applying the waterslide transfers before coming on to post this, so it's positively alive with Salamander iconography.

Assuming I do finish up tonight, the Predator will be out for undercoating tomorrow while the LRR get's varnished. I doubt it'll be playable by Sunday, although I might be able to get enough of the hull together. If not, I'll probably use the Red Scorpions Razorback I've got lying around somewhere. I could do with giving my 1500pt list a bit of a test run.
So looking ahead to next week, I'll be working on the Predator, and probably not much else. It shouldn't take as long as the LRR, but with less hobby time... we'll see how it goes, eh?

I also received my new army case specifically for the Salamanders. More on that in a future post, but I'm more than happy with it. Should be perfect!

Until next time, take care!

Blast From the Past

2009-01-17T22:24:00.003Z

Hi folks!

I meantioned last time that I was expecting a package from ebay. Well this morning, it arrived!

Yes, the classic GW board game, Battle for Armageddon. I managed to pick it up for around £30. All pieces are there and in great condition, but the box has admittedly seen better days. Still in one piece though. It seems to have been a good deal, seeing as how I saw one site trying to sell it for £75 with a few missing bits and a box held together with tape. Or maybe they're just insanely optimistic. Anyway, I'm happy to pay £30 for it.

So this evening, my brother and I cleared the kitchen table and set about fighting for the planet of Armageddon. I'm pleased to say we both thoroughly enjoyed it.

The game is fairly simple, and within 10-15 minutes we'd pretty much learned it. It plays kind of like Risk, but with a lot more detail. The board depicts a map of the continent of Armageddon Secundus, split into a number of territories (such as Hive Cities, factories and open wasteland, each with their own effects on the game). Armies are depicted by small tokens, each of which represents several companies of men, tanks or even titan legions. Each player gets two action phases per turn (alternating between the two players using the classic Initiative system like LotR and Epic), and in each of those phases they get two actions as chosen from a number of strategy cards at the start of the turn. Each card has two of Movement, Combat or Building, in various combinations. In other words, you have to commit to a plan at the start of the turn, and pray that you get the chance to pull it off. Helping with this is a second deck of what are called Special cards, which have a variety of useful tricks and strategems you can use when the time seems right. Timed well, these can turn the tide of battle.

Each side has quite a difficult objective to achieve in order to win. The Imperial forces have to hold all of their cities, as well as eliminate the Ghazghkull Thraka army token. The Orks have to take and hold three of the Hive Cities, and have only 8 turns to do so.

All of the game mechanics are really simple yet elegant, only 6 of the 24 pages in the booklet are given to instructions (including diagrams and examples). Attacks are carried out against adjacent territories (units from multiple territories can converge on one), and combat itself is a case of adding up the attack values of the attackers, the defense values of the defenders, rolling a d6, then cross-referencing the attack:defense ratio with the d6 roll on the relevant table, which gives the result (attacker loses a token, defender wiped out, etc). One game feature I particularly like is the supply lines rule. Basically, if an army cannot draw a line unbroken by enemies/impassable terrain to any of their side's supply territories, the army is destroyed. It really makes you think not only about making sure you don't over-extend your reach and get isolated, but also about cutting off troublesome enemy armies too. There's a few little things like that really make this a game full of strategic subtlety.

So how did it go? My brother chose the Orks, so I gladly took up the Imperial side.
The first turn, as expected, was pretty harsh on the Imperium. With the Orks having the initiative and attack bonuses on the first turn (representing their surprise attack), as well as a massive numerical advantage, the thin defensive fortifications were quickly swept aside. I had placed the mainstay of my army just behind this, and although they were a bit more durable, they too were being pushed back. The greenskin advance continued until turn three, when my reinforcements arrived in two forms. The first was the production queue I had going (both players can build reinforcements with Building actions, but the Imperium can produce much more at a time so as the game goes on the balance tips in their favour), which allowed me to place some much needed defences in my cities and factories. Secondly, dropping from the skies came Space Marines from the Blood Angels, Salamanders and Ultramarines chapters, all led by Commander Dante (commander tokens - Dante, Yarrick and Ghazghkull - grant small bonuses to your armies). This coincided with me getting the Drop Pods special card, allowing me to place them exactly where they could do the most good. I placed them south of the mountains which had split the Ork attack, stopping that half of the greenskins' advance in its tracks.
However, my brother had some tricks of his own. Pushing ahead over the next turn or two, he managed to take enough of my factories (as well as Hive Infernus) to begin producing his own units to replace his losses, and used a card which granted him 2d6 extra reinforcement tokens to bring back from his casualty pile. No less than 10 fresh Ork armies surged forth, pushing the Imperial forces back once more. Hive Hades succumbed to an overwhelming attack led by Ghazghkull himself, even Yarrick's presence wasn't enough to hold back the greenskins.
But once again, the superior Imperial production showed through. A fresh batch of units allowed me to push towards Hive Infernus and recapture it. Just as the Orks razed Hive Acheron in the last turn of the game, I also managed to wrestle Hades back from them. When the dust settled, the game was a close-fought draw, with the battered Imperial forces holding all but Hive Acheron and Ghazghkull still at large.
Looking back, both of us made early mistakes due to our unfamiliarity with the game. I had left my defensive line too sparsely occupied, and he didn't push forward through their ruins as quickly as he could have. Once we got going though, the game swung back and forth as reinforcements came, Special cards were played, and unexpected strategies left entire armies high and dry with Combat orders and nobody in reach to attack!

I'll definitely be playing this quite often, as well as taking it to the gaming club next week. And if any of you (or anyone you know) have it stashed away in a cupboard somewhere, it might be worth getting it out and having a go. I certainly enjoyed it very much, and it's given me a few ideas to incorporate into the map-based campaign rules I've been working on. If you don't have it and are curious, 5 minutes with google will no doubt turn up the free .pdf that GW had hosted for a while but has since vanished. It's well worth a look.

Weekly Update #2

2009-01-16T15:15:00.005Z

Hey folks!

Quite a busy week this time, all things considered. I'm back at University, although woth some crucial software not working I haven't been able to do the amount of work I should. In fact I've instead spent more time travelling to/from Uni than actually doing work there. Crazy!

But, this does mean I've been able to crack on with painting. So what does my workbench look like tonight?

These FW LR doors are an absolute joy to paint. There's so much detail it's almost unbelievable - they practically paint themselves! Unlike some FW stuff I've built in the past, these seem to be devoid of any mould release at all. So it's going good! The top panel of the LR should also be there, but unfortunately it blends in too well with the paint pots in its primed state!
So what did I get done? I built up the Kor'sarro Khan I said I would for a friend, and he's immensely pleased with it, so I am as well. I'll be handing it over and collecting cashes next Sunday, at the next gaming club session. After that, I soldiered on with the Land Raider Redeemer and made good progress:

My bro said it's playable by our standards (we're fairly loose in that regard; proxies, half-assembled minis and such aren't rare), but I'm still aiming to roll out the finished product next weekend, and by the looks of things I'm on target. If I finish it, I'll get to work on the Predator, which is the only thing left that isn't in a "playable" state (i.e: still boxed).
I was actually hoping to have a project-related package from ebay this week, but it seems to be taking its time. When it does arrive, I'll reveal all. I promise you'll love it!

That's all for this weekly update, see you next time!

Commission: Kor'sarro Khan conversion

2009-01-12T20:54:00.005Z

Hi folks!

This entry is pretty much unrelated to my project, seeing as how I don't collect White Scars, nor indeed is the following mini even intended for myself. If there's any issues with that... well... the White Scars were at Armageddon for the Third War, so nyaaaaaaaah! :P

Right, so what's this all about then? Well, after seeing what I'd done with Vulkan He'stan, one of my regular opponents asked me if I'd be willing to convert Kor'sarro Khan for him. Seeing as how he asked nicely and was willing to pay, I accepted. A few bits orders, two days of work and we have this:

Given the choice of foot and bike-mounted versions, he decided to start off with the foot option to see how it goes. Also, it would have cost quite a lot more!

I didn't take any WIP pictures so there won't be a tutorial, and he's painting it so I won't be showing that off either. However, when I eventually start adding battle reports, he'll probably appear. Anyway, if you want to build your own, I'll list the parts I used here. Shouldn't be too hard to figure out where it all goes.

Master of the Watch
WHFB Warriors of Chaos cloak
WHFB Chaos Marauder Horseman head
Dark Angel helmet wings
SM Company Champion power sword
Bolt Pistol from Tactical Squad (I'd have used the Commander one if I'd had spare)

Depending on how he does, I'll likely be asked to do a bike-mounted version in the future. Not sure how I'll go about that one, nor what his bike would even look like, but that's quite a long way off so I don't have to worry just yet!

Take care!

Painting Tutorial: Elysian D-99 Veteran

2009-01-09T23:48:00.007Z

Hi everyone, welcome to another of my tutorials. Here I'll be tackling the D-99 Veteran in jungle/swamp colours. This scheme is as close a match as I can manage to that shown in Forge World's Imperial Armour Volume 4's Elysian artwork.

Colours you will need:
Adeptus Battlegrey, Boltgun Metal, Calthan Brown, Camo Green, Catachan Green, Chainmail, Chaos Black, Codex Grey, Dark Angels Green, Dwarf Flesh, Elf Flesh, Fortress Grey,Graveyeard Earth, Knarloc Green, Kommando Khaki, Mithril Silver, Orkhide Shade, Red Gore, Skull White, Snot Green.

The miniature is primed grey. No special reason for this, it just happens to be the colour of Halfords car primer I picked up - GW spray doesn't take to the resin quite as effectively as this stuff.

Step 1: Fatigues
Paint the fatigues with a basecoat of Catachan Green. This is first highlighted with a 50/50 mix of Catachan Green and Knarloc Green, followed by pure Knarloc Green. Finally, the extreme edges are highlighted with a mix of Knarloc Green and Camo Green.

Step 2 - Flak Armour
The armour is given a basecoat of Adeptus Battlegrey, then highlighted with a mix of Adeptus Battlegrey and Codex Grey. Finally, highlight the edges with pure Fortress Grey.

Step 3: Face
The face is basecoated Calthan Brown. Highlight first with 50/50 Calthan Brown and Dwarf Flesh, then pure Dwarf Flesh, and finally a mix of Dwarf Flesh and Elf Flesh.

Step 4: Leather & Metal
The leather boots, straps, gloves and gun are all basecoated Chaos Black. The boots, straps and gloves are then highlighted with a mix of Chaos Black and Codex Grey.
The bare metal areas of the gun are painted Boltgun Metal, highlighted first with Chainmail then Mithril Silver.

Step 5: Details
The visor is basecoated Orkhide Shade, then highlighted with Dark Angels Green. The edges are painted Snot Green.
The pouches are painted Graveyard Earth, then highlighted with a mix of Graveyard earth and Kommando Khaki followed by pure Kommando Khaki.
Finally, on the left shoulder pad the platoon number is painted on with Skull White, and on the right a stripe of Red Gore is added to indicate Veteran status.

And there we have it. Again, basing will be covered in a future tutorial. In this case it will be swamp basing.

Weekly Update

2009-01-09T15:00:00.005Z

Hello everyone!

Looking back two entries, you'll notice my second New Year's Resolution was to update this blog once a week. In order to make this easier, I've decided to make a weekly summary post every Friday. This will contain, at the very least, a picture of how my workspace is looking, a summary of what I've painted over the coming week, WIP pictures of the week's project(s), and a look ahead to the next week's work. I've chosen Fridays because my local gaming club meets on the second Friday of every month (7pm-10pm) and the last Sunday of every month (9am-3pm), so I update before I pack everything up to go.
This doesn't mean I'll only be updating on Fridays though! There will be other posts through the week at my usual pace (i.e. whenever I feel have enough to say to be worth an update!)

Okay, so on to this week. First, a picture of the workspace:

This is my setup for the forseeable future. This year I'm hoping me and my dada can get together and buid something a little more suitable, but right now it's pretty comfortable.
What have I donethis week? Well, at the beginning of the week I managed to finish off converting Vulkan He'stan with his new, more accurate head which I got in a trade from a friend, who also asked me to magnetise a squad of Assault Terminators. Then I moved on to completely finishing off my second Tactical Squad, which are now done. Finally, I began painting the Land Raider Redeemer, starting with the pieces required for stage 1 in the instructions. Quite a productive week indeed! WIP picture of the Land Raider:

I'm fully painting the interior, even areas that probably won't be noticed. If I don't cut corners there, I'll be less likely to cut them where it is noticeable!
Not forgetting pictures of my completed second Tactical Squad:

And now a look ahead to next week. Well University starts up again, which will have some impact on hobby time. However, I have Wednesdays off and there's a possibility of having Thursdays off too, so that's still plenty of free time to get stuff done. So I'll be getting more paint on the Land Raider Redeemer, and starting to put the bits together as well. I want to have it ready to use against my opponents at the club in 2 weeks' time. Also, unrelated to this project, a friend (from the aforementioned trade) has commissioned me to build him a Kor'sarro Khan after seeing my Vulkan He'stan. I ordered all the bits I'll need earlier this week, so I should be able to get him done too.

On a final note, the completion of the second Tactical Squad also marks the arrival at 500pts of fully-painted Salamanders, and I've taken this opportunity to take an army shot of the force:

It ain't much, but it's a good start nonetheless!

So that's it for this first weekly update. Hopefully I can keep these up so the project progresses and I keep a New Year's Resolution, which would be a first! Later I'll be posting up a tutorial on painting my Elysian D-99 - I had a question about it earlier this week and since I need a tutorial for my own reference, I may as well kill two birds with one stone.

Until next time, take care!

Conversion Tutorial: Vulkan He'stan

2009-01-06T16:17:00.009Z

Hi folks!

There's been some demand to see a tutorial for my Vulkan He'stan conversion, and seeing as how I haven't had much to show off lately, this seems a good time to post it. I hope you enjoy it!

The aim of this conversion was to capture the imagery from the new codex as closely as possible. It takes components from quite a few sources, so it won't be cheap. If you can, go to bits box sites for individual pieces.

The components you'll need are:
Techmarine body
Grey Knight Terminator right arm with halberd
Terminator left Lightning Claw arm
Dark Elf Corsair cloak
Space Marine backpack
MkV Power Armour helmet (Assault on Black Reach missile launcher marine)
Forge World Salamander Terminator Shoulder Pads
Plastic tubing (I took mine from headphone wire)
Green stuff
40mm round base
Wire for pinning

Tools you'll need:
Clippers
Files
Craft knife
Dremel or other rotary tool
Saw
Sculpting tool

Okay, let's get started. Note that since finishing the conversion I have swapped out the previous head for one more faithful to the artwork, as you can see in the final image.

Step 1: Main Body prep
First, trim all the mould lines, flash and such from everything. Take the Techmarine body and remove the head and Ad-mech iconography. I highly recommend using the dremel to do this, otherwise it'll be long, difficult, messy work - especially for the head.

Step 2: Right Arm
Take the Grey Knight Terminator arm and trim the shoulder detail off until it fits the Forge World shoulder pads. Again, a dremel would make quicker work of this. Keep your shoulder pads handy to check the fit.

Step 3: Left Arm
Take the left Lightning Claw arm and trim off the claws. In their place, glue four small pieces of plastic tubing, about 2mm long or so.

Step 4: Backpack and Cloak
Remove the collar and torso parts from the Dark Elf Corsair cloak. Cut off the bottom section of the Space Marine backpack, and glue the remaining part to the top of the cloak. You will see in the last picture that I pinned them together for security (as I did with every joint in this conversion).

Step 5: Basic Assembly
Pin the backpack and cloak to the body, and pin the body to the base.

Step 6: Basic Sculpting
Extend the cloak around the sides and add a tabard using green stuff. Since we will be sculpting scale details over these, they don't need to be incredibly detailed or perfectly smooth. You will also see that I have added pins for the arms.

Step 7: Sculpting Scales
Now we sculpt the scales on the cloak and the tabard. To do this, spread a 1mm layer of green stuff over the surface. Next, press in the outline of a scale using the scupting tool. I tend to make irregular 5-6 sided shapes for the scales. Continue pressing in the lines, building up each scale from those already created. I recommend working on a small patch at a time instead of doing the whole surface in one go. I will be writing a more detailed tutorial for this shortly, so if you're not sure about the technique wait until then.

Step 8: Final Assembly
Attach the arms, pinning them in place to make sure they are firm. Finally, remove the head from the AoBR missile launcher marine and trim it until it fits in place, then stick it on. All that remains now is to attach the shoulder pads and paint him up! I have decided to paint the shoulder pads separately, letting me get into the difficult areas of the model more easily.

And there we have it, a quick guide on how to create a Vulkan He'stan miniature which, in my opinion, is very faithful to his depiction in the codex artwork. I hope you've enjoyed this tutorial! Please feel free to ask for more detailed descriptions or pictures if you need them.

Happy New Year!

2009-01-01T17:49:00.002Z

Hi everyone, hope your 2009 got off to a good start. And, seeing as how I didn't post much then, I hope you had a good Christmas (or whatever you celebrate) as well!

The holidays have been good to me. Most of my stuff was non-40k but I did get some FW Red Scorpion bits and pieces. Yay! Unfortunately the festivities have eaten into my hobby time somewhat, but the Tac Squad is really, really nearly finished. Honest!

So, looking forward. I see many fellow bloggers (and indeed, hobbyists and humankind in general) making their resolutions for the new year. I'll attempt to jump on this bandwagon, hopefully staying on longer than is traditional. So, here's my project-related list:

1. Focus on getting one army at a time fully built and painted to 1500pts.

2. Update this blog at least once a week.

Okay, short list, and pretty much what I said I'd do a few posts back, but still... it's what I'm gonna resolve to do.

Also, having forgotten to mention it in past posts, I'd like to take a moment to outline a little "side project" in this blog. The recnt series of articles on Bell of Lost Souls have rekindled the spark I had for Epic: Armageddon sometime over the last year, so I hauled it out from the depths of my cupboard once more and gave it another whirl at the last gaming club session. I think it went down fairly well, so I'll be tracking my Epic exploits alongside the 40k ones here. Essentially, I'll be collecting mini versions of my 40k armies, starting with Sallies, then going on to BT and Steel Legion. I'll go into more detail (including pictures) in future posts.

Anyway, I can't wait to see what 2009 brings for us all. Take care, and best of luck to those who have made resolutions this year!

Curses!

2008-12-19T14:40:00.002Z

Hi folks!

Just a quick update today on how things are going. First of all, my Forge World doors arrived today, so now everything's in place to get my Salamanders done.

Or it would be, if I hadn't come across a small nugget of information out there on the interwebs. I saw a forum post mentioning that He'Stan's helmet is a MkV (I think?) and that the Missile Launcher guy in Assault On Black Reach has that very helmet. Of course, now that's beginning to bug me that my conversion doesn't quite match up with that. Luckily, I have a friend with AoBR so with a bit of luck we can set up a trade. Curse my perfectionism!

A Taste of Things to Come...

2008-12-18T23:45:00.003Z

Hello again readers!

I've finally finished at Uni for another semester, which means three glorious weeks of free time await. Well, there's a little "homework" to do but not much. Anyway, what I'm getting at is that I'll have much more time to build and paint my Sallies, so fingers crossed I'll have them done by the end of my holidays. Assuming my Forge World bits arrive on time that is (Land Raider and Rhino bits).

As it is, I have (or have ordered) everything needed to create the 1500 point list exactly as I'd like it. Now, I'm looking to tweak it slightly, I'm thinking I'd like to drop a Terminator in order to let Vulkan ride in the Redeemer, so any suggestions on where to spend those extra 45 points I have left over would be appreciated. I'm stumped.

Now this week has been a little busy with courseworks and whatnot, but I have managed to squeeze in some painting time. I'm now more than halfway through the second Tactical Squad, so if I put in the effort then I reckon they could be done by the end of the weekend.
Secondly, I've put together my own rendition of Forgefather Vulkan He'Stan. I couldn't find any info either way on whether or not he'll see an official release so I decided to play it safe and build one myself, sticking as close to the artwork in the Codex as possible. And here is the result:
After taking these shots I've tidied him up a bit, but that's basically the finished conversion. I'll be writing up tutorials in due time, one for the conversion and another concentrating on the scales, which I've already had requests for. I'm really proud of how he's turned out, it really was a labour of love. I can't wait to paint him but he'll be my "reward" for finishing the Tactical Squad.

So that's how things have been going over the past few days. Not sure what I'll have in store for next time, but I can guarantee it will be Salamander flavoured. Until then, take care and have a good holiday!

Painting Tutorial: Salamanders Space Marine

2008-12-12T17:32:00.007Z

Hi, welcome to my first painting tutorial.

This and the others I'll be putting up as the project progresses are mainly intended as a personal reference, in case I decide to add something to an army months after I last painted it and have forgotten the exact colours used. That said, I'll be writing them as regular tutorials in case anyone else can make use of them. Remember to click on the pictures for a full view.
Feel free to request more detailed pictures if these aren't clear enough. They've just been quickly cropped and adjusted in photoshop, and I still have the originals on-hand.

So on with the tutorial. This will cover the painting of a standard Salamanders Tactical Marine.

Paints you will need are: Badab Black, Bleached Bone, Blood Red, Boltgun Metal, Brazen Brass, Chainmail, Chaos Black, Dark Angels Green, Graveyard Earth, Golden Yellow, Knarloc Green, Kommando Khaki, Macharius Solar Orange, Mithril Silver, Orkhide Shade, Red Gore, Scab Red, Scorched Brown, Scorpion Green, Shining Gold, Skull White, Snot Green, Sunburst Yellow and Tin Bitz.

I'll just briefly touch on my assembly process because it is relevant here. I assemble the entire marine before painting, with the exception of the boltgun and the backpack. These are painted separately in order to allow access to the torso. Basing is done after the whole marine is finished, and will be covered in another tutorial.

Step 1: Priming

Prime the entire model black. I use The Army Painter's black spray nowadays, but that's ust a matter of preference.

Step 2: Main Body

Firstly, basecoat the power armour Dark Angels Green. Don't worry about being neat, that can be fixed later. Also, don't fuss over getting a smooth, even coat. As long as the recesses are the right colour, that's fine.
Next, paint over it with Snot Green, leaving Dark Angels Green in the recesses. It's better to use multiple thin coats than one thick coat, and I find that three coats gives good, smooth coverage.
As a final highlight, paint the edges Scorpion Green. You don't need to paint all of them, indeed it looks better if you paint only a select amount of them.
Finally, paint the shoulder pads and joints Chaos Black. I have also painted the left kneepad black to demonstrate the squad leader's markings later (I always have two per Tactical Squad, the sergeant and another, so each Combat Squad has a designated leader).

Step 3: Gold Detailing

Next up the gold details on the main body; the chest eagle (or whatever decoration is on the torso), and the helmet details. Basecoat these details with Tin Bitz.
Highlight them with Brazen Brass, and then again with Shining Gold.

Step 4: Helmet Details

The eyes are painted Golden Yellow, then highlighted with Sunburst Yellow. A quick drybrush of Boltgun Metal finishes the mouthpiece.

Step 5: Purity Seals

The parchment is basecoated with Graveyard Earth, which is then highlighted with Kommando Khaki. Bleached Bone is applied as an extreme highlight.
The wax seal is given a basecoat of Scab Red, highlighted first with Red Gore and then with Blood Red.
Finally, small dabs of Chaos Black are applied for the script.

Step 6: Small Details

The grenades are painted Orkhide Shade then highlighted with Knarloc Green. Ammo pouches are given a basecoat of Scorched Brown followed by a heavy wash of Badab Black.

Step 7: Flame Markings

The flame markings feature on the right shoulder pad and the squad leader's left kneepad. First, paint some rough guidelines with Macharius Solar Orange to show the overall shape of the flames, then flesh them out a bit. Over this, paint Golden Yellow, leaving the orange on the outside of the flames. Sunburst Yellow is applied next, and finally a small amount of Skull White right at the base of the flame.

At this stage the main body is finished. I've added the squad number to the right kneepad in Skull White.

Step 8: Boltgun

First paint the metal areas Boltgun Metal, then highlight them up with Chainmail and Mithril Silver. The small eagle insignia is painted in the same way as the chest decoration on the torso. Finally, tidy up the casing with a coat of Chaos Black and attach the gun to the marine.

Step 9: Backpack

The vents are all painted using the same colours as the metal areas of the Boltgun, and again the decorations are the same as the gold details on the torso. The main casing is Chaos Black, and after painting that attach it to the marine.

So there you have it, a battle brother of the Salamanders chapter painted to a good tabletop standard. Waterslide transfers and basing will be covered later.

The Sons Of Vulkan

2008-12-10T11:24:00.000Z

Hi everyone!

Since I'm starting out with Salamanders, I figured I'd get right down to putting down a little of my history with them and laying out my plan. I've got plenty to get through.

They first came to my attention just a short while after getting into 40k way back in '99. My first ever White Dwarf was #248, which was packed full of Third War for Armageddon content. I was bowled over by both the Steel Legion and the shiny new toy for Black Templars players; the Land Raider Crusader. I went on to start armies for each of them shortly afterwards, but the seed for the Salamanders was planted by their Index Astartes article.
Fast forward about 7 or 8 years or so, during which time I left 40k for LotR, dipped in and out a few times then finally came back for good last year. I'd sold my old Black Templars but still had some Steel Legion, and wanted to pick them both up again. One look at the Elysians and I was sold, and so this project was born.

I've flitted between a few chapters since coming back, and this summer I finally settled on the Salamanders after re-reading their background in the Index Astartes article. Of all the chapters out there, I think their background appeals to me the most. They're one of the few willing to put their lives on the line for the "little guys", the common civilians and Imperial Guard. They place great value in self-reliance and craftsmanship. I like their play style as well, with lots of up close firepower using the likes of flamers and meltaguns. So I started them during the summer, and here I am now working towards their first milestone level of 1500pts.

Speaking of which, I've written up an army list for that level, as well as 500 and 1000pt levels all drawing from the same pool of units. And here they are:

----------------------------------------------------------------

500pts

Space Marine Captain: 155
Power Weapon, Storm Shield, Artificer Armour, Digital Weapons

Tactical Squad: 175
Sergeant & 9 Marines, Meltagun, Multi-melta

Tactical Squad: 170
Sergeant & 9 Marines, Flamer, Missile Launcher

Total: 500pts

----------------------------------------------------------------

1000 pts

Forgefather Vulkan He'stan: 190

Tactical Squad: 175
Sergeant & 9 Marines, Meltagun, Multi-melta

Tactical Squad: 170
Sergeant & 9 Marines, Flamer, Missile Launcher

Dreadnought: 115
Multi-melta, Heavy Flamer

Predator: 85
Autocannon, Heavy Bolter Sponsons

Devastator Squad: 270
Sergeant & 9 Marines, Heavy Bolter x2, Lascannon x2

Total: 1005pts

----------------------------------------------------------------

1500 pts

Forgefather Vulkan He'stan: 190

Tactical Squad: 175
Sergeant & 9 Marines, Meltagun, Multi-melta

Tactical Squad: 170
Sergeant & 9 Marines, Flamer, Missile Launcher

Dreadnought: 115
Multi-melta, Heavy Flamer

Predator: 85
Autocannon, Heavy Bolter Sponsons

Devastator Squad: 270
Sergeant & 9 Marines, Heavy Bolter x2, Lascannon x2

Land Raider Redeemer: 250
Multi-melta

Terminator Assault Squad: 240
Sergeant & 5 Terminators, Thunder Hammers & Storm Shields

Total: 1495pts

----------------------------------------------------------------

As you can see, I've gone for an army faithful to their background. They have plenty of close range flamer and melta weapons, which between them cover both anti-infantry and anti-tank roles. The Tactical Squads will be split into Combat Squads in most games. The heavy weapon portions will either provide cover fire or hold objectives closest to their deployment zone, while the special weapon will be sent with the others to take the fight to the enemy. They'll be supported by the army commander, and the Dreadnought and a Land Raider full of Terminators at higher levels. The Devastators will provide a solid firebase in a similar manner to the heavy weapon Combat Squads, and the Predator will give a little mobile anti-infantry punch.
My general approach will be to set up overlapping fire lanes with the heavy weapon squads in order to soften up the enemy while the close assault elements get in amongst them and do their stuff.

So that's the overall plan. I've ordered the last elements of my army this week, so I'll soon have everything I need to finish it.
Currently, I have a Captain, Tactical Squad and half the Devastator Squad painted up and ready to use. Indeed, they did see some use under the old codex but under the new one the Tactical Squads are set up differently, meaning I can't split it up as I used to. Anyway, here are the pictures:

Captain

Tactical Squad

Devastator Squad
As you can see, the Sergeants still have their old equipment. Luckily, I decided to magnetise their arms so I could swap out their wargear at a later date, so all I need to do is paint up a couple of Bolt Pistolor Boltgun arms and they'll be ready.
I've gone for their traditional skin tone, simply because I don't like Games Workshop's new bright idea of making them black in the literal sense, which just looks silly.

On the workbench right now is my second Tactical Squad, and after they're done I'll begin working towards the 1000pt milestone. I'll work on a painting guide while doing this squad, mostly for my own reference but if anyone else can make use of it then all the better!

Until next time, take care!

Rebirth

2008-12-09T15:03:00.000Z

Hi folks. 11 months is inexcusable neglect... I'll be reporting to the Commissariat for Summary Execution in due course. But before I'm administered The Emperor's justice, I'd like to at least attempt to revive this blog somewhat, by first reflecting on past mistakes, and then setting out some sort of plan in order to make some decent progress in this project. So we'll see how I get on.

Right, so, mistakes. Made plenty of 'em I did. My main one, which I make far far too often, is sheer over-ambition. I've stretched myself beyond the limit of what I can do, and become disheartened by the sheer amount of work I've given myself. In fact that's pretty much the one thing I've done which all else is a result of. It drains away all motivation, meaning I don't want to paint or it becomes a chore, and by extension so does providing regular updates. I'm sure many 40k players have been there. If not, lay out all your unpainted stuff on a shelf in clear view, you'll see it happen. Or maybe it's just something wrong with me! :p
My second crucial mistake is similar, in that I have also taken on non-40k projects at the same time. I won't go into too much detail but suffice to say, playing another couple of games at the same time only makes the first problem worse, especially during University term time, and especially when coursework deadlines are looming.

Fixing it is simple. Scaling back. I'm going to cut out a lot of the work I'm putting into this project. Not to say I'll be doing anything half heartedly, I'm just bypassing all the unnecesary work that, in the end, I don't feel adds to the result. And more importantly, working on one thing at a time!
Secondly, planning! Planning planning planning! As usual, I jumped in without thinking about any kind of goals or end result, and I'm the kind of person who needs clearly defined goals and structure in order to finish anything. Give me any kind of freedom of choice and timescale, and I'll never make up my mind and thus continually end up getting nowhere fast, flitting from one idea to the next. So I'm going to address that as well.

Now, what are these goals? Well, pretty similar to what I started out with. I do want to sample the delights of various armies that feature prominently in the Third War for Armageddon.

My Steel Legion (the 21st Mechanised) are, of course, the #1 priority and won't be going anywhere. I'll be writing up a list of things I want to have for them, which will basically be a 2000-ish point army plus at least 1 of each unit available in the codex that couldn't fit (minus the likes of Ogryns and Ratlings, which don't appeal to me), and the Baneblade. I'm also going to considerably downsize the conversions to units and models that aren't available, such as Rough Riders, guardsmen with Flamers, Mortars, Standard Bearers etc. The standard guardsmen won't be converted for the most part. With the new IG codex coming sometime in the new year, I can't get a definite list down for them, so they won't be the first army to receive my attention.

My Elysians are to remain. They are still going to be dual use, being built with both this project in mind and for playing through the scenarios in Imperial Armour 4. To that end, the list will feature all the Elysian stuff required by those scenarios, plus whatever else will bring them to a milestone points level (1500, 2000 etc). Again, with the IG rumoured to be getting plastic Valkyrie kits next year, the actual gathering of that army will be added to the queue until I'm certain one way or the other, although I will be able to plan them out a bit in terms of what the collection will comprise of. The scratch-built Valkyries and Vultures are simply too much of a hassle to be worthwhile for me, so they're getting scrapped. Should the plastics turn out to be mere wishful thinking (unlikely I should imagine, given the amaount the rumours have cropped up) then it'll be off to Forgeworld (I hear my wallet crying out in terror).

Moving away from IG and on to the Space Marines. The two prominent chapters I have stuff for are the Black Templars and the Salamanders.

Now the Salamanders are something I put together in the months between this and the last update. They were sitting pretty at 500pts under the old codex (two 5-man tac squads, a 5-man dev squad and a captain), but the new one has forced a bit of a reshuffle. But it's not all bad, because they have given us plenty of new toys including the special character Forgefather Vulkan He'Stan, and the Land Raider Redeemer. With no miniature yet released for Vulkan, I'll be converting one myself. I've already ordered everything I need for him, and to bring my army up to the 1500pt level. So completing my 1500pt Salamanders army will be the first milestone in this project's full revival. I will likely come back and revisit them after giving attention to the others though, simply to try out the things I really wanted to put in 1500 but just couldn't quite fit (such as drop Pods, Assault Marines, Librarian etc).

My Black Templars are at 1000pts-ish of assembled and undercoated but not fully painted stuff. They will likely be given attention after the Salamanders because I'll probably have finished them before the new IG codex surfaces (which most of this project is going to be waiting for). I just need to figure out what I want to include to take them to 1500 like the Sallies and I'll be able to get them done as well, again revisiting them when everyone's had their fair share of attention.

Back on to IG, and the Armageddon Ork Hunters. Again, they're to stay, and will be done after the Steel Legion and Elysians, aiming for 1000pts. Like the other two, they're waiting on the new codex for a definite list.

After that comes all the stuff I don't have. The two further IG regiments that featured prominently in the White Dwarf magazine on this subject are the Death Korps of Krieg and the Savlar Chem Dogs. I really, really would like at least a little of both, probably about 1000pts or so. However, time and budget will factor into this. The Death Korps will be horrendously expensive since they're Forge World, and the Chem Dogs will likely be sourced from a variety of ranges for that rag-tag appearance so they'll be a bit more time-consuming. So both of them are still up in the air, and won't be considered until 2010 at the earliest.

So there we are. I don't know if anyone's still even following this (if so, it's more than I've been doing, haha!) but either way, many apologies for letting it slip into a 10 month coma. I'll post up a detailed entry on my Salamanders, with pictures of what I've done so far, army lists for 500, 1000 and 1500pts, and I should probably write up a painting guide if only so I don't forget it myself.

Thanks for reading, and I'll try not to neglect the blog for too long again!

Roll Call!

2008-02-11T15:07:00.000Z

Hmm... kinda been a while since I updated this. But it'll be worthwhile, there's a lot to get through.

Firstly, and most significantly, I have decided (like most people) that my resolution was pointless, unachievable, and far too much of a punishment. The main reason for this being that I have an Apoc game coming up in 2 weeks, with the possibility of fielding 7000pts, (yes, 7000!) by myself! :D
So yeah, that's out. Instead, I aim to make 1000pts of fully painted stuff from my three main regiments: Steel Legion, Elysians and Armageddon Ork Hunters. I think it's very achievable.

And now the best bit, pictures! Because of the Apoc game, I needed to find out how much I had so I cleared my shelves and set it all up. And here it is (descriptions read from left to right):

Command Platoon, Infantry Platoons 1, 2 and 3

Sentinels & leftovers, Last Chancers & Chimera & Inq Solomon Lok, Elysians, Conscripts & Stormtroopers & Yarrick

Baneblade, Russ & Exterminator, Russ & Vanquisher, Russ & Demolisher, Basilisk & hellhound, 2 Chimeras

Not pictured here are my Ork Hunters (just started this week), a Griffon, 2 unassembled Russes, 3 unassembled Chimeras, an unassembled Basilisk and about 7 or 8 unassembled Sentinels

Next up is the first of my newly converted guys to be painted:

Going for the classic Steel Legion scheme here, and I think it really turned out well. He'll be based once the rest of the squad are finished as well.

Thirdly, and probably the biggest part of the update, is the arrival of the Elysians! Two Veteran Squads, a Command Squad, Snipers, and two Sentinels (with another to come). And to go with them, I'm scratchbuilding some flyers. Here's progress so far:

Army shot (minus Sentinels, Steel Legion Conscripts and Stormtroopers to the right)

Painting in progress on the first squad (5 of 10)

Sergeant of the second squad (converted GL on the lasgun)

Undercoated second half of second squad, and command squad minus a meltagunner.

Assembly of the first Sentinel underway.

Progress on my scratchbuilt Valkyries.

I'm going for the D-99 scheme so I can field them as those. Otherwise, they will represent a detachment of veteran Elysians assigned to fight alongside the Armageddon Ork Hunters in the planet's jungles, using their mobility to eliminate Ork forces before even the Ork Hunters would be able to do so.
I'll also be sculpting a few pilots for the flyers. Just to be a pain in the ass during VP missions, I'll be fitting them with ejector seats, but unfortunately my googling has turned up no decent pilot minis, so I'll make my own. I've done a bit of sculpting before, so I'm petty sure I'll be happy with the result. I might even cast a few up for selling on ebay too.

Speaking of Ork Hunters, I managed to get my hands on one of the new Ork boxes, and made a start to them:

Really pleased with them, and the rest of the ones I've done so far (about a squad's worth). I'll be replacing a few Imperial weapons with looted Ork ones (see, we can do it too! :P ). For example, Burnas represent Heavy Flamers, Big Shootas represent Heavy Bolters, Shootas represent Bolters etc. These guys use the Xeno Hunters: Orks, Hardened Fighters, Die-hards, Jungle Fighters and Iron Discipline doctrines. So basically, they've become D-99 that Infiltrate instead of Deep Strike, which fits in pretty well for me.
Purchases for this week will be more Orky boxes, probably some boyz and burnas to fill out my Ork Hunters.
For the next update, I'll try to get some work done on that first Steel Legion squad, as well as the Elysian Sentinels and get some more Ork Hunters assembled, and maybe a couple of test models painted. And, of course, a battle report of the Apoc game will be posted.

Until next time...

The End of an Era...

2007-12-30T17:48:00.000Z

Hi peoples!

Just signing in to update my slow progress through the army. Firstly, I've finished converting the first squad of my first platoon, all they need is a good paint job and a fancy set of bases and they'll be ready:

Secondly, I've begun work on a squad of Storm Troopers/Grenadiers:

The Hellguns are going to take on the appearance of M16s to look more advanced and powerful than the standard issue weapons, as it should be.

Oh, and there's a veteran sergeant in the works too. Might include a picture of him next time.

So on to more general news. Most important of all is the fact that I've spent in excess of £150 this afternoon on more Imperial Guard goodness, in the form of Elysians (and Inquisitor Solomon Lok... I couldn't resist that fantastic model, and I had some spare cash after the Drop Troops). So that's something new to look forward to soon. Also today, I fought my last battle with unpainted guardsmen. 1500pts against Necrons, Recon mission, ended up pulling a draw. To sum up, both sides got caught in a massive meat grinder in the middle, my attempt to race down the left flank failed horribly, but my Sentinels on the right flank really did themselves proud, and were the only two scoring units I had left at the end. He had two half-strength (~5 strong) squads, so we called it even. Everything else was pretty much destroyed. A very good game. So from now on, finished stuff only... it'll be my New Year's Resolution.

I think that's about all for now. Thanks for reading!

P.S. Pics ae bad because my desk lamp broke, meaning I have to rely on natural daylight for best results, and slowing down my progress a bit. I've done what I can with Photoshop. Luckily I'm getting a new one on Monday.

'Twas The Night Before Christmas...

2007-12-25T02:02:00.000Z

Hello everyone.

In my family it's a kind of tradition to open one present on Christmas Eve, and this year was no exception. Carefully inspecting many of the packages beneath the tree, I selected one from my parents which was rather book-like.

Beneath the wrapping paper was Imperial Armour Volume 4: The Anphelion Project. OH YEAH BABY!!

Can I just say that this is one of the best 40k source books I've ever read. The story is fantastic, the background on the units and armies involved is really deep, and the Elysian D-99 list is to die for. I love it to pieces. Only two units in that list do not Deep Strike: the Valkyrie and the Vulture. And being flyers they get a much better means of attack anyway. Everything else is either a vehicle or a Veteran. Yep... BS4, LD8 (with NO modifiers... I don't think they ever suffer any, period) Deep Striking goodness. The only downsides are the lack of heavy weaponry and, of course, the fact that you can't reliably bring the army to bear when they're being dropped. But I can live with those.
So this afternoon I whipped up a quick combat patrol list (10 man squad with flamer, 5 man squad with missile and melta, 3 sniper teams, a heavy bolter sentinel and a multi-melta sentinel), grabbed some Steel legion guys as proxies, and took on my bro's Tau (which were also proxied, all he has assembled is a Devilfish. he had 24 fire warriors split between 2 devilfish, 1 squad with rifles the other had carbines). Both of us were using these armies for the first time, and going up against them for the first time. In the end, we got one victory each.
The first clash went wrong for me. I infiltrated my snipers and dropped the rest (we decided to allow Deep Strike in this mission, for obvious reasons). Unfortunately, things arrived piecemeal and I hadn't quite got the hang of where to land the incoming units, so they were caught in the open and wiped out. All I did was stun one devilfish and destroy the other's weapon.
Second match used the same lists. I infiltrated the snipers again, but this time put my missile squad inside a ruin to start with. He deployed one squad of FW's outside their transport. They blew up one of his devilfish near the end. This time I managed to get the HB sentinel in opposite some fire warriors, killing 4 before they blew it up. The other got off a couple of shots but didn't really do much. The flamer squad landed right in front of the deployed fire warriors
and shot them to pieces with a shotgun/flamer combo. Bringing up the others didn't help either... despite killing all but 4 of my men, my guys stood firm, shot a few, then proceeded to kick serious ass in combat, driving the battered remnants off the table.
So... what did I learn? That sentinels are so much softer without ACC (but oh so much cheaper!), the key to dropping in the men is to either land them in cover or deploy them where the only enemy that can realistically deal with them will get shot to pieces when they arrive.
Anyway, once I figure out just how much I can afford, I'll be getting some. I revised my list and bumped it up to 500pts, and those will be my minimum purchases. If I can afford more men, all the better!

In other news, my Conscripts arrived today. A mix of Orlock and Delaque gangers from Necromunda, totalling 20 men (how convenient!), with a few more Delaques in the post. I can see this being a very good time of year for my Imperial Guard, yes indeed...

Not much work done... I got started on my Conscripts, putting in a few conversions and making sure they're all ready for painting. They probably won't be in the competition, simply because I don't think they need any converting for the army. There's enough character and unique poses already, and all I've done is added a couple of special weapons.

Anyway, I hope you all have as good a Christmas as mine's shaping up to be!

Slow Progress

2007-12-23T01:42:00.000Z

Hi again peeps!

I must apologize for my complete lack of progress. There's many reasons for this: exploding computers, tidying bedrooms, broken desk lamps... but chief among them is sheer lack of enthusiasm. I don't seem to have any motivation to do any conversions right now (not just because my lamp fuses all the sockets in the house when switched off). I'm not going to have a combat patrol made in time, all I've done since the last update is make a veteran sergeant. :(
Looks like it's 'nids and Epic on the 30th.

But I haven't fallen behind overall. This week I purchased Imperial Armour: Apocalypse, which is probably the best £20 I've spent lately. In particular, the Elysian Drop Platoon has really caught my fancy. For those who ain't seen it, it's basically an infantry platoon mounted in Valkyries, with an optional Vulture thrown in for good measure... all flying in the board in the guard player's first turn. Lovely! Having datasheets for both aircraft is the icing on the cake.
So I rattled off a set of templates for each (thank you bwc) and my Valk is progressing very nicely. I'll get some pics up when it has both wings. The Vulture... well, the template ain't so accurate with regards to the cockpit, so I'll have to just take the Valk's and replace the troop compartment with an engine.

Other purchases this week have been foamboard for making buildings (and basing my troops... COD kits are too pricey ;-) ), 36" of green stuff, some Epic bits and bobs, Steel legion Sentinel bits, and several lots of Necromunda gangers from ebay,which will be pressed into service as Conscripts (as with the Hive Gang Militias of Codex: Armageddon).

Finally, with the addition of the Reaver Titan templates to bwc, I'm contemplating changing my titan building entry to that instead... the Warlord is an awful lot on top of what I'm doing already. And I really want a Reaver too.

Anyway, until next time...

Combat Patrol, 1st Monthly Target

2007-12-18T03:09:00.000Z

Hi folks. More on my first monthly target. To begin with, I shall assemble and paint a 400pt Combat Patrol force, to be used at the wargames club on the 30th. My list shall be as follows:

Hardened Veterans - 146 pts
Veteran Sergeant Jack Martin - Bolt Pistol, Power Weapon, Trademark Item
Veteran - Vox-caster
3 Veterans - Meltagun
5 Veterans - Laspistol and Close Combat Weapon
Frag Grenades

Armoured Fist Squad - 188 pts
Sergeant Malcolm Price - Lasgun
Vox-caster
Heavy Bolter team
Grenade Launcher
Chimera - Heavy Bolter turret, hull Heavy Bolter, Pintle Heavy Stubber
Rough Terrain Modification, Smoke Launchers

Sentinel - 65pts
Autocannon
Armoured Crew Compartment

Total: 399pts

20 Infantry and 2 vehicles shouldn't be too taxing over 2 weeks, given that I already have an almost-built squad (during a week that I was working on two uni assignments, I must add). Any of that which isn't finished by the 30th won't be used, which means I'd be fighting at a disadvantage. Either way, I'll bring the camera and make up a battle report of how well I do, whatever I end up fielding.
As well as working on the models themselves, I'm also writing up some background on my characters. Sergeant Martin will be the first to get this treatment, and should he prove good at his job, he'll be up for promotion as the army grows. But we'll see how it goes...