The Joys of Diecast

Well let me just start and say Diecast miniatures are some of the loveliest models about, so much wonderful detail. So it should come as no surprise to you then to know that I'm planning on using a few of these to supplement the plastic kits im using for my new army "The Forsaken".

However as wonderful as they are it can be a love/hate relationship. Diecast when its already the way you want it great... but god help you when you want convert the blasterd things... an hour later, much stuffing around and a nice gash in my right thumb and here you can see the fruits of my labour.

Now my problem was a distinct shortage of "Beakie" helmets. As the first Assault marine squad is going to be visually identifiable by those helmets I found myself having to keep the metal one off this mini. Now i have spoken before on the power a hand tool like a Dremal can be and I tell thee that without it I wouldnt have even attempted this. In addition I used whats known as a razor saw (the culprit for my wounded thumb) as well as a X-acto knife and what ever else came to hand at the time.

As with a lot of my pics this is high res, so click away if you want a closer look... and yes that guy on the far right now has the Diecast head!

Anyway the first squad has for the most part got its base colours down, everyone is now assembled (bar a few jump packs left off for ease of painting) and I shall soon have these guys up to scratch painting wise, in the mean time here is a WIP shot of the squad to date!

Good Gaming! 

Thats just too Bad...ab

Wow, its about time Games Workshop or at they very least their affiliate Forgeworld took the time to finally cover in detail what I feel is the best fluff in the 40K universe. Now some people claim Horus Heresy as the bomb, others like Vraks ( heres looking at you Sons of Taurus :p ) but in my opinion its the Badab war that holds the most grip for me. Its new, its gritty, its Space Marine vs Space Marine, its the birth of one of the most bad ass chaos villains and its realistic. A planetary system doesn't want to Tithe to the yoke of an oppressive yet unsupportive distant overlord empire, as a result the empire launches and investigation and they fight back.(just as an aside, has anyone stopped to ask what the hell exactly is "Gene Seed"... last time i checked the only "Seed" I know of that contains Genes isnt exactly something im rushing out to aquire...)

Now I think my modelling reflects my attitude towards Heroes, Anti-Heroes and Villains, and let it be noted for the record that if anything has a real dark villain, then god help me thats what i want to do... I had a wonderful child hood, i wasnt beaten much (except for caning Tuesday's) and well quite frankly was a happy go lucky child who has always rooted for the bad guy. Its a video game, im playing the bad guy, board game the same... reading a book I want the bad guy to win or at least get even. So I founded the Astral Wolves to slate my thirst for evil doers, A chapter founded by Huron Blackheart. Now I find myself doing an ex Lamentars chapter who are still siding with the bad guys (loosely, its complicated) who are affiliated with Huron Blackheart... a week later they release the news about IA:9 and a pretty picture of Lufgt Huron. Obviously they have been monitoring my weekly spend and have decided that I personally have not bought enough models...

Lastly its my birthday next week, im turning the big 30... so what are you getting me HUH! but in all seriousness the blog may or may not get some new model pics before but certainly after as I know im getting at least 3 kickarse models... YAY!

Until then,

Good Gaming

High Elves Oh My!

So while Im waiting for the release of IA9 and the host of amazing models from Forgeworld (pretty much decided the next part of the army will be Forgeworld for everything but the tanks) I decided to revisit the very 1st Gw system I played.

But as a quick note OMG OMG OMG badab war anyone!

Way back in 1995 I was given Warhammer the box set,  very quickly I built a empire army and a dwarf army.  I then in 1998 I went to the UK on a holiday to visit Family and came home with a huge amount of Wood Elves that caused security at Heathrow to think I was trying to smuggle something illegal out of the UK. The image of an 18 year explaining what they where to two very large security guards while two other guards with machine-guns stood buy still makes me laugh, I was saved by a staffer who played Warhammer and he was able to explain all this metal in my backpack :P

Those armies are gone now, they where sold off or donated to others as I delved more and more into historical  wargaming with my Napoleonic's.  But lets be honest who could ignore the current push by GW and aside from all the marketing hype that GW is pushing, you have to admit that the new models are really amazing, from a production point of view.  To me the high elves really struck a chord with me so I decided to take a closer look at the range in whole and I have to say I was not surprised at the quality.  Im hoping in the long run the amazing production values that GW put into the plastic ranges they have is replicated in the rest of the industry.

To be honest I know that allot of people including me are never really happy with some of the prices GW charge but I guess you pay for quality, and say what you like about the rules and yeah they have some serious moments of WTF ! the models they produce are amazing.

I have only one gripe right now about the Australian chains and is the shift to mail order for allot of the metal ranges.  I have to say I'm frustrated about the fact that the front line shops don't stock  allot of the metal models in blister form. Now I may be spoilt as Eureka Miniatures which I use for Historical gaming has their whole range available for me to browse through  not 10 minutes from my door, but I think it royally sucks that I cant go down and pick up a model I've been looking at on the net from their retail store.

ANYWAY I digress,  so I painted a High Noble and by george I liked It here are some shots of the 1st tester model.

Oh no more lemmings... no wait those are rats!

So with the upcoming release of the Island of Blood boxset my best friend has expressed a desire to start square basing... I dont know, is that a new dance? do I have to learn to do the nutbush?

Really the similarity's between Lemmings and Skaven are scary... 

all jokes aside I have to admit im really digging the Skaven which is handy cause my mate likes the elves... with some upcoming new additions in the works for the Astral Wolves, a whole army to prepare and paint (The Forsaken) and an Ork army in the pipe line will Fantasy ever be able to get a grip on me? Only time will tell if painting what will be an ever growing horde of little brown guys will be a good idea...

A rose by any other name.

Well its been a little quiet around these parts for a couple of weeks now, with sporadic posts, few game reports and what has been very little model painting done (procrastination thou art thine sinister foe) and all this due to the demands that full time study, part time work and full time goofing off...

But im not here to wail and moan, instead lets talk about the hobby! All this while ive been plotting, thinking and well... just musing on what to do about my newly forming codex Blood Angels force im creating. So far I know im going with a blood red and light grey quarter theme utilising the Templar symbols as a quasi Crusade knights templar based chapter... But what to name them... what fluff? what theme should I run through the army and how can I get the blighters to not die every time I play them.

Well first off the name. Now this can either be easy or hard, Sometimes you can look at an army/colour scheme and think "I'll call them the Arse Kickers of Steel Toe 9" and be done with it... in fact thats pretty good... Right well that was easy... Oh no wait I wanted theme or something...

So ive found myself looking at my list for inspiration, As a basic rundown im going with a fast strike force comprising of;
Bikes, Jump Infantry, Land Speeders, Winged Heroes and a Storm Raven in a pear tree.
So its blood angels and im not putting in bloody Death company... On top of this Ive been trying to think of ways I could get my new army to field on table with the Astral Wolves for 3k-4k games at apoc level, A feat which has been proving harder than I thought. So I backtracked my history, the Astral Wolves are founded by Huron Blackheart, who is the Tyrant of Badab. during that war he was allied with the Lamenters. Now the Lamenters were forgiven by the Emperor and paid penance in the form of a hundred years of crusading but were rumoured to have been wiped out to the last by hive fleet Kraken at the battle of Devlan.

Now here comes my part to this long story.

"The Lamenters were outcasts in the imperium long after they had been forgiven by the Emperor for their sins during the Badab war, in their quest for atonement they drove themselves to ever greater feats to prove to each other and to the galaxy that they were deserving. However at the battle of Devlan they were left for dead, no other chapter would come to their aid, battered and beaten they escaped from that death world from hive fleet Kraken on the badly damaged Strike Cruiser 'Tempest's Faith'. Since that day they have realised that the Emperor left them to die on Devlan, in their darkest hour they swore revenge on that false God, they have sworn to rid humanity of his curse and rise the empire of man back to its former glory. As such they have taken up the cross of a Holy Crusade and the colours of Blood and Purity. Blood for the mortal nature of man and Purity to rid the universe of the plague of the Emperor. In keeping with their roots they kept only the yellow helmets of the Lamenters and are now known only as ' The Forsaken'."


So its a work in progress and as of this moment the mad ramblings of a man sleep deprived but its a start! The Forsaken will be crusaders and in keeping with the purity of the Lamenters unable to field Death Company. At this time they are a ravaged chapter, unable to field heavy weapons like tanks and land raiders and will rely on speed to achieve thier goals. They have no homeworld but rely on their Priests to take the truth to the universe on convert the willing to the cause. In keeping with the Badab War and their unaffiliated status they will thusly be able to ally with Huron Blackheart who they now see as the oracle who forsaw the downfall of their once idol. They can strike anywhere at any time in the hopes of bringing the truth to the worlds the touch and have been known from time to time to join forces with renegade chapters to achieve their goals.

Currently the forces of The Forsaken will number only the 1st company (1750pts) and will be comprised of
Chapter Master (Reclusiarch on bike)
Bike squad (4 bikes, 1 sergeant, 1 attack bike)
Sanguinary Priest x2 (one on bike the other with Jump pack)
10 Assault Marines x2
Librarian in termi armour
Furiso Dreadnought
Honour Guard
Stormraven gunship

For a total of 37 models. From there I will build them up to 2500pts later down the track, maybe with another Storm raven (which I have something very individual planned for, more on that later)
If this army works well on the table I will be surprised but heres hoping :P

Until Next time,
Good Gaming!

The fine art of Dirty Hammer

Well up until 10 minutes ago I thought this term to be purely for gaming purposes... boy was I wrong! I highly recommend you dont google "Dirty Hammer" unless your up for the more... liberal.

Anyway im here to talk about our favourite social past time (not that one!) and where the line falls between competitive play and down right dirty tricks. At what cost do you place winning?

Now recently I played at a local tournament to good effect, finishing in the top 15 and all with friendly play. But being nice across the table didnt mean I was nice on the table, to be fair I did not play any tactics that would have been considered down right nasty that day. Has this stopped me from playing those tricks in the past and had those self same things down to me before? Hell no!

Let me clarify for a moment what is meant by "dirty tricks", for instance loading dice, affecting dice rolls by "dropping" the dice or any other form of dice manipulation is in my book not on. The great gods of probability frown down upon those who try to turns fates hand, if the dice arnt going your way that day then so be it. Rule manipulation is also a no no, telling someone the wrong thing about your army to gain an in field advantage is just low, in my books thats grounds to never play that person again (and I realise that at times your bound to get the rule mixed up as long as you learn, apologise or clarify at the time thats ok) but gaunts do not have rending and dreadnoughts do not take shooting hits always on front armour.

I personally am one of the gamers that appreciates the sublime, continuously thinking of ways to achieve tactical surprise in an element that shows all your cards on the table from the get go. Its a method of making your opponent focus on something to such a great extent that the little things fall from their vision (go go chaos raptor's!). Im sure all of you have had that sneaky rhino contest an objective at the end of a game and if anyone played against the Doom of malantai pre faq (about time) you will know what a dirty trick entails.

So where do we draw the line? when does a finely tuned army become a block of cheese? Ive seen my mate go through those moments of roller coaster emotions during a game when you thought you had the win in the bag, only to realise that due to a tactical error on the part of misdirection or being in the moment that they have not only not won but are about to suffer a loss, recoup to a draw and then lose. I admit that im a hard player at times, I have studied strategy, tactics and battlefield deception for many years and attempt to apply them to the game, but at times I feel perhaps the loss would have been the morally better place to stand. As I said to a friend I was teaching the game to the other day "These tactics will win you games not friends"

So where do you all stand? Is it the win that drives you? Will you play dirty to get that sense of pride? would you rather play a straight down the line game and walk away the prouder?

Feel free to share your experience's playing or being played, your favourite units for sneaky and anything else you may think relevant.

Good gaming!

A Homage to Ed "Big Daddy" Roth!

So you might wonder why your looking at a picture of Ratfink riding a chopper...Well needless to say I couldnt help myself when I saw the Ork Warbikers... I hope I can do Big Daddy proud with this one!

So as you can see its still very much WIP, The handlebars are yet to be finished and wont be until the rider and seat area are finished so I can glue him in place and GS the handle bars into the correct position, However there is already a multitude of ye olde GS in place already, but Im not going to say where ;) see if you can spot it!

I will say ive been messing around with my camera and light setup recently, so some pics im taking now are better and some are still fuzzy, bear with me as I iron out the kinks.

Now as Im on the subject of bikes and I did promise to post some pics of a special bike I did for my friend a while back!

As they say "If you love it, set it free. If it loves you, it will come back to thee". Truer words have never been spoken, I love bikes and this one was both a pain and a treat. Wouldnt you know it im now the one doing a bike wing and this beauty has come back to me! Of course there are some finishing touch's that need to applied but until the Roth special is done it will have to wait. In the mean time enjoy the other angles of what will be a Blood Angels Librarian (or Reclusiarch, not sure which yet) in my new army!

Before I leave you for this installment that Big green bikie needs a name, left to my own devices im sure he will end up with a suitable one but in the mean time I find myself open to suggestions, so drop them in if your so inclined and if I find them fitting your name could be written onto the base of the diorama when he is done!

Good Gaming!