31 Dec 2012

Terrain and Scenery - Manufactorium Ruins

Continuing the terrain drive I have recently been on, this is the latest and last of 2012. A cities of death GW terrain piece, a ruined Manufactorium or whatnot.
The bulkheads have been painted in the same style as the Wrecked Landraider by simply undercoating black then heavy drybrushing Macharius Orange followed by Boltgun Metal (or whatever the new names are...) This way you can get great looking terrain painted rapidly and join the fight against plain grey plastic scenery!! Bases are optional, mine make the pieces sturdy and can rulewise delineate the 'moves through cover' etc. It is cut from a sheet of hardwood (fibreboard) and sanded at the edges to give a smooth curve.
I painted the Mechanicum symbols in the traditional white and black and weathered with some washes, a lens here and there, some dials and a screen by the doors, and voila.
The base was as usual Calthan Brown, Kommando Khaki and Bleached bone drybrush and the customary flock patches to add some splash colour.

Previous terrain pieces can be found at the following links, Stone Ruins, Bastion, Fuel Tanks, Objectives and Tank Traps. Make 2013 your year to fight over scenery worthy of your beautiful painted weemen to battle over and join me in the fight against plain grey plastic buildings!!

29 Dec 2012

Terrain and Scenery - Stone Ruins

Continuing my painting war against basic grey plastic scenery, some more stuff has been painted this festive season, here is my latest finished article, some stone ruins, from Pegasus Hobbies, one half of the Gothic Ruins set. The set comprises of enough pieces to make two ruined corners of a building. They are a great alternative to the City of Death GW ruins and add a little more bulk to ruins.
 These were base coated with some roughcoat to give a nice texture before being painted Charadon Granite with a Codex Grey and Fortress Grey drybrush highlight.
To add some detail, chopped up pieces of sprue were added to the hardboard base to simulate piles of fallen masonry and the tiles were painted black and white cheques washed with Gryphonne Sepia to add some interest. The base was painted the same as all my bases with Calthan Brown / Kommando Khaki and Bleached Bone drybrush to bring out the texture and some burnt grass flock to add some spot colour.
Currently working on a Mechanicum themed ruined building next. Hope you like, and we hope you all had a good Crimbo and I end by wishing all our readers a weeman filled new year!

Previous completed terrain pieces can be found here (Landraider Wreck) here (Fuel Tanks) and here (Bastion). Hope these give you some good ideas of your own!

21 Dec 2012

Terrain and Scenery - Fuel Storage Tanks

In my continuing battle against fighting over grey plastic terrain with our 'beautifully painted' weemen, I've completed my latest offering, an Imperial Fuel Depot, or fuel storage tanks. Some decent LOS blocking terrain.
This is made from a watch tin, a CD-ROM stack container, some plastic plumbing and a barricade to add interest made from some old spare rhino bits and a lengths of sprue. Plus an oil barrel to match those of my objective marker (seen here).
Here is a close up of the barricade, note the Ultramarine rhino wreck door - a hint to Lord Halfpenny's Ultramarines I usually battle against when not getting whacked by his now updated hardcore Daemons...
And lastly an aerial shot showing the Leman Russ tank hatch and a 40mm base on the watch tin lid.

This may be the last post before Christmas, so from all of us at Weemen, seasons greetings and I hope Santa brings you lots of weemen for Crimbo... we look forward to reading your blogs to find out!

19 Dec 2012

the 6th degree at Red Steel Daemon painting competition



So as I mentioned in my last post, I have been busy painting up a Forgefiend for the last few weeks to enter in my gaming clubs painting competition; Red Steel Daemon, this weekend.


There were four categories:
·         Single miniature (up to 30mm base)
·         A bit bigger miniature (up to 60mm base)
·         Lots of miniatures (a squad/unit)
·         Big stuff (bigger than a 60mm base)
There were also entries for under-18 and Worthy Painting staff...but neither applied to me.

I had decided the Forgefiend and Hellbrute were being entered in the medium and large categories and my girlfriend picked some minis to enter in the single and squad categories (I wasn’t optimistic...).

There was a huge turn-out on the day with 70+ entries I think and lots of them to a super high quality.


My single and squad entries didn’t make it to the finals (I didn’t think they would – I don’t paint faces...which doesn’t help in painting comps...) but my Hellbrute and Forgefiend both made it through. I was really happy to make it through to the finals as this was my first competition, but wasn’t too hopeful on winning anything seeing as there was a massive great Ork Stompa that was really nice to compete with.

Saying that...after the final round of judging, my Hellbrute came in 2nd in the medium category and the Forgefiend took first place in the large category! Woot!

The rather nice pics are courtesy of the Red Steel Preston team (I cant get over how nice the Hellbrute looks in the pics...mmm...might have to get them to photograph more stuff of mine).


A definate shout-out should go to GreyLamb who has recently decided he actually likes painting and submitted a rather nice Malifaux diorama...I’m sure it will be up on his blog shortly.

15 Dec 2012

Iron Warriors - Forgefiend

Here is the latest project that I've been working on - a Forgefiend for my Iron Warriors.

I was going to leave some of the larger pieces like this until later in the project, but Worthy Games/Red Steel Preston (my FLGS) is having their first annual painting competition and I wanted something to enter in the "big" category.
The model is magnetised up to take both the Hades Cannon and Ectoplasma Cannons.
The model was pretty fun to paint, with scope to try out a few new techniques to me - the main one being my first real bash at object source lighting/glowing effects. I think they turned out a little crude, but it was good practice.
The overall pose of the model is very static, so I decided that a scenic base would make it stand out more from other Forgefiend models and give me something else to play with.

The basing theme for my Iron Warriors is trench/siege-works, so the large oval based models give me scope to make some trenches and add a few extra details.
The base was carved in polystyrene and the trench section cut out and the planks made using balsa wood.
We'll have to see how it does in the painting comp now...

10 Dec 2012

Terrain and Scenery - Wrecked Landraider

Continuing my progress in the fight against grey plastic scenery for our Weemen to fight over, I've just completed a rather expensive piece of scenery - A Forgeworld Space Wolves Spaced Armour Landraider!
Fear not, this was purchased on the cheap with a load of space wolves which I eventually sold, making a nice profit on the Wulfen I might add, and this part of the lot was missing the weapons and  headlights and top hatch so I added a spare hatch and then hatched a plan...
I got my Jigsaw saw out and hacked off a slice of the landraider from one side, used the hacked pieces as wreckage / thrown tracks and painted it up as a wreck. The model was basecoated black then given a liberal drybrush of Macharius Orange to simulate rust before a drybrush of Boltgun Metal/Leadbleacher before targeting bits like tracks or viewports or SW markings with some spot colour, a hint of Astronomican Grey on some larger panels to hint at it's long lost Chapter heritage and then based as my normal reciepe of Calthan Brown with a Kommando Khaki and Bleached Bone drybrush.
The front view shows the angle the Jigsaw hacking acheived, giving the illusion of being half buried and forgotten with some dirt resting in the crevases etc... hope you like my quick and easy method of doing a rusting hulk themed piece of scenery to fight over.

If you like this, check out my Tank Traps or Bastion or Objectives or click on the Terrain link below to bring up all the Terrain featured posts...

6 Dec 2012

LordHalfpenny @ Blog Wars 4


 So the dust settles across the plains of Mansfield, armour dented, swords broken ego's shattered- (apart from Venerable (Sons of Sanguinius) who is now 4 tournament wins from 4..)  following another amazing Blog Wars tournament, again big thanks to Alex, From the Fang  for organising the event!

It was a last minute change of plans, (and a 'yes dear you can go' from the wife) that I decided to take my forces to BW4, with a faint hope of bettering my tally of played 6, lost 4, drawn 2- and that the weeman spoon wouldn't be heading home with me..

Following several battles with my daemons against Siph, I decided to go for a 4 god list, using key units from all of the powers. My special character was a 'no brainer' Fateweaver, he is a beast when it comes to the amount of firepower he can dish out- as well as aiming for more than one unit.. The rest of the army fell into place, the core army was based on 3 fliers- Fatey, a bloodthirster and a daemon prince with wings - the plan was to get them onto the field as a wave - and hit the opposition hard.

The Force:
 

Fateweaver                                                                   
Bloodthirster unholy might/blessing of the blood god  
5 flamers                                                                
3 flamers                                                                
3 bloodcrusher 1 fury of khorne                                                                       
8 bloodletter                                                            
7 plaguebearers                                                      
5 pink horrors                                                         
5 pink horrors plus changling                                 
3 screamers                                                             
5 seekers                                                                 
1 Deamon Prince, with wings, breath of chaos iron hind          
1 soul grinder phlegm                                             


Battle 1 -John, from Blood Claw (Blood Claw) Ultramarine 1st Company and IG allies (Dark Angels rules)

So the first battle saw my daemons taking on an Ultramarine force (hmm- my first 40k love, vs my new 40k love... )

Mission- Objectives
  • My preferred first wave hit home, and landed as plan to the most part- flamers, DP and Fateeweaver opening up killing marines
  • No further reserves apart from my seekers for two turns due to poor dice rolling (plus the +1 to reserve rolls- curse that warlord trait!)
  • lots of shooting and close combat on both sides, resulting in few numbers on both sides
  • Fateweaver scored 2 boon of mutations- (so glad I painted up 2 Chaos Spawn just in case)
  • my 5 reserves all arrive in turn 4, with the plaguebearers and bloodletters arriving to claim two objectives
 A win for Lord Halfpenny, on VP's and KP's. really good first game, Terminators are a pain against flamers.. my first BW victory!

Battle 2-  Rob, from Generation 40k (generation 40k) Grey Knights/Blood Angels force 
Battle 2 saw me taking on Rob again, we fought at Blog Wars 3, were my Khorne daemons didn't fare to well..

Mission- Relic 
  • The chaos dice gods deserted me for this game, thus wave 2 arrived- all my troops and lightly armed units!
  • GK/BA took control of the battlefield, leaving very few units left
  • reserves arrive, taking control of the centre, Suol Grinder arrives and mishaps onto the build in the daemon deployment zone (very king kong)
  •  Dante and Sang guard arrive in the centre to battle the daemon prince, with support from a furiso dread and a dreadknight. The DP is slain, however all the sang guard are killed. 
  • End of game, relic is unclaimed.
A win for Rob on VP's, and KP's- a really good game which could of gone either way..

Battle 3- Morrbane from midtable-obscurity (midtable-obscurity)Tyranids

Mission- Purge the Alien

  • Correct wave 1 arrives turn1, taking the centre of the board, again lots of shooting taking gaunts out,
  • fliers ended up getting into combat too early, ending up getting 'tar pitted' 
  • Fateweaver 'boon's' the Doom- toughness test failed.. 
  • soulgrinder tears into the gargoyles
 This battle was on a knife edge, I was done on KP's- I needed some luck- thus the final decison- fateweaver is going to 'Boon' that Tervigon.. needing anything but a 6 tom survive Morrbane rolled a 6! the result, a new spawn, KP's for the Tervigon, and for the resultant loss of 2 gaunt squads! a win on the last dice roll!

A win for Lord Halfpenny- very lucky, and very narrow it has to be said!
  
Thoughts from BW4 -
  • the daemon force worked well when the correct wave 1 arrived as planned
  • the key units performed superbly through the tournament
  • Fateweaver was a beast, however I should use him as a flier only- he isn't great in CC
  • Boon of Mutation is awesome when it works..
  • more flamers maybe... 
As I write this, I am already planning my force for BW5... Please can we use Forge World models next time?


4 Dec 2012

The6thdegree at Blog Wars 4

So myself and LordHalfpenny have returned back to our normal lives after weeks (ok...less than an hour in my case) of preparation for Blog Wars 4.
Yet again, Alex from From The Fang, held a great tournament – with many of the participants now being regulars and I recognised a lot faces (although I‘m admittedly, really bad with names).

My Iron Warriors are nowhere near ready for playing yet, so I took my ‘Nids (list here). I’ve got to admit, that through no real fault of their own, I have gone off them a bit; they really need a complete overhaul painting-wise, I am now focused on the Iron Warriors and these were a bit of an unwelcome distraction and after looking at some of the lists, a lot of folks were taking advantage of allies and the overall competitiveness seemed to have increased – something ‘Nids don’t get to do.

Despite this, I rolled up bright (read cold and dark) and early, just a little exhausted after a late night and untimely drive down south. I found my table and waited for my first opponent to turn up:

Game 1: Necrons
I’ve only played Necrons once and it went well, so I was (stupidly) optimistic...until I read the name on my opponents shirt...Dave Symcox...of the 40KUK podcast and the England ETC team. Oh well, that’ll be the first game lost.

And lose it I did! Dave brought Oberon, a shed-load of Wraiths, some Croissants and shooty-tank things (maybe I shouldn’t have been so confident against Necrons...). The mission was objectives and I set up to be able to jump on three in the middle straight away and go from there. Then the Wraiths hit and tied up my army for most of the game (a 3++ and W2 really annoys monstrous creatures). The definite low-point, other than having the worst rolling of any game I’ve ever played, was Swarmlord getting Mindshackled and beating himself to death for three turns. I was tabled by turn 5 – but Dave was a great opponent and it was useful watching someone play who knew exactly what they were doing. I also think I might be in an interview in the next 40KUK podcast – so keep your ears open.

Game 2: Squats (Imperial Guard)
This game was against Grazers Squat army that I’d been hearing about since the last Blog Wars – and it was awesome! Grazer quite rightly won the best painted army award. The game on the other hand didn’t go in Grazers favour and despite being initially worried by his 5 tanks that spewed out high strength/low AP large-blasts and it being the first game of Relic I had played – things went really well for me.

The Swarmlord managed to grab the Relic by turn 2 and his psychically-buffed unit was able to hold it for the rest of the game. The Flyrant worked perfectly; picking apart the armoured contingent, as my Gants, Tervigons and Dakkafexes marched up to the Squat front-lines and proceeded to eat their face. I managed to only lose the 30-odd Gants I spawned as meat shields and a Hive Guard brood – the rest of the army was still alive by the end of the game on turn 5.

Grazer was a great opponent and the game was hugely fun and cinematic as the little Squats bunkered down behind their Aegis Defence Line as the hordes swarmed in.

Game 3: Space Wolves

This was the final (and most fun) game of the tournament for me – against The Damn Dice’s Bennet Morley. Bennet was rocking Njal, a unit of of Long Fangs and a ton of squads in Drop Pods with an Aegis Defence Line. The game was Kill Points and in an effort to reduce the number of easy points, Bennet decided to carry out the very fluffy and noble tactic or hiding all his units in a blob, defended by the Aegis and waiting, whilst dropping empty Pods in the far corners of the table...lol. Alex the TO (a long-time Space Wolf player) confirmed that this was in fact, a tried and tested Space Wolf technique that had won many a battle on Fenris.

The game went as you would expect – the ‘Nids plodding forward taking their hits and losing a few Kill Points (about 9), until finally in turn 4, they hit the front lines and overran the cowering space puppies! The next two turns was a nail biting back and forth of me trying to catch up with the kill points and Bennet minimising losses and praying for the end of the game. Those last turns were frantic as I wiped out whole squads in his deployment zone – to realise that his Drop Pods were in my deployment – negating Linebreaker VPs. The final turn came down to Swarmlord and Njal face-to-face...obviously Njal died before he even knew what was happening, scoring me 3 VPs and taking me in the lead! With only a couple of Marines and a Rune Priest left, there was no way for the Space Wolves to catch up...was there? Oh yes – an against-all-odds Jaws of the World Wolf, which wiped a Dakkafex and Tervigon off the board and pushing Bennet ahead for the win by 1 VP!
At the end of the day I ended up in the mid-table, with 1-0-0...so at least I’ve been consistent across all the Blog Wars events. Congrats to LordHalfpenny, who finally took the shrinkwrap off his Daemons and impressively placed in the top 10!