WIP - Life on an Ocean Wave

I have been away at sea for a while, but not idle - whilst serving the greater good, making the oceans safer and hunting for downed aeroplanes, I have been busy in my free evenings doing a little work with the brushes, dependent on sea state and ship roll, I made some good progress on the new Tactical Squad plastics, made some progress (finally) with some of my Necrons and started on another squad of Centurions, this time Assault Centurions.

The pennies add a nice stable weight to the underside of the bases, a top tip!

I'll be progressing with various projects whilst back home, including a StormRaven with Chapterhouse extension plus finishing these of course!

How I've been stripping my 'Nids

I’m sure most people will be familiar with how to strip minis; but whilst I was recently looking around the interwebs for tips, I noticed a lot of articles and posts were very US-centric – so I thought I would post some tips for the Uk’ers.

First of all, the criteria I’ve used:

• Whatever I use has got to be readily available in the UK (and ideally cheap).
• It’s got to be “me-friendly” (basically I don’t want to get cancer by looking at it).
• I need to be able to use it on metal and plastic minis without destroying them.

If you have a search for “how to strip models”, you will probably get “Simple Green” back. We can’t really get that over here so we need alternatives. After working my way through various suggestions I crossed off anything that would melt plastic, kill me or would require import/exports and I was left with Fairy Power Spray and Dettol.

Apparently Fairy Power Spray is the bee’s knees and I have a friend who has repainted his entire army 3 or 4 times and swears by it...but my local supermarkets don’t stock the stuff so I ended up trying Dettol. I got a 500ml bottle for about £2.50 which was enough to fill a container holding 3 medium sized models (think 40mm base) and can be reused. (Fairy Power Spray is awesome - try big supermarkets - Siph) (I found it in the end - it does work really well, just spray it on and leave it for an few hours! - T6D)

I tested it using some Gaunts that I could bear to lose if they turned into a puddle of plastic-y sludge; I just threw them in a jam jar with enough Dettol to cover them and left them overnight.

The next morning I gloved up, took them out and ran them under some warm water and paint just fell off (including the sand on the base that was stuck on with PVA glue) leaving the plastic mini unharmed. The paint turns a bit tar-like and any bits that stuck to the detail were quickly dispatched with a straightened paperclip. I tried using an old toothbrush but it gunked it up really quickly.

 After rinsing and drying they were ready for a new paint job – easy peasy!

Magnetized 40K Turn Marker

Just a short post with something simple, I often lose track of what turn we are on in a battle, is it turn 4 or 5, or what do I need this turn for Reserves roll? So, I dug out the turn marker and painted it. I've magnetized the arrow so it doesn't come loose.

The colours I chose reflect the colours of my Relictors, simple but a lot better than the garish green plastic I reckon. Just a simple way to make my games a little more enjoyable. Thanks for reading.

Spam Warning - JHouston791

Hi, just got a comment from a JHouston791 asking me to contact him by email to post a link to his website. Don't bother. It's spam just like the chinese stuff that keeps appearing. I googled his name and guess what - we are not the first gaming blog to be asked... I've deleted the comment to the spam folder.

Jeez. Come on blogspot, block this crap.

Vraks PDF Emperor's Fist Tank Company - Pt. 5

So after my last Vraks PDF post, John Lambshead from John's Toy Soldiers was asking about how the Army Painter Quickshade worked out for me. Well John, not too bad.

As you can see from the pictures, after leaving for 48hrs to dry as it is an oil based product (and the Purity Seal will shrink and crack), the shine prevented me from seeing the true results. Furthermore, although you can paint straight on to the Quickshade, it was fairly easy for me to rub the Citadel paint off so I've decided to matt varnish (GW Purity Seal) before continuing to do the detailing, started in the next photo.

As you can see from this photo the Quickshade results arn't all that bad and save a ton of airbrushing/applying washes. I would liken the Strong Tone Quickshade to a wash of GW Devlan Mud. There was a little pooling along the base of the track units however most was dabbed away with a piece of kitchen towel whilst wet, the remains will be covered up by weathering/mud splatter anyway.

Now just ten tanks to detail, highlight, further washes and weathering... oh boy.

Vraks PDF - Emperor's Fist Company Project Pt.4

So a quick update as this is a time consuming job for me. I thought rather than buy a heap of GW washes and spend ages brushing on or using that GW airbrush (which imho is a pain in the ass and very temperamental) i would try out a new (to me) product.

I was ordering some Army Painter Grey Primer to speed up my Relictors painting, which btw is a great match for Codex Grey, so I thought I'd get some of the quickshade too. I bought the strong tone as it recommended it for reds and browns and got to work.

The quickshade is designed for dipping, however a Leman Russ is a bit bigger than the tin so a normal paintbrush (DIY) was used. To prevent getting my finger prints over the finished tanks I also used the lids of the car sprays to act as holders on the underside and this had the added benefit of allowing drops of excess quickshade to drop away rather than pooling on the track bottoms.

So far, so good - i'll look tomorrow as it takes 24hrs to dry, and this stuff is oil based to you will need some white spirit or paint stripper to clean the brushes afterwards. Once dry I'll try Citadel paints onto the quickshade surface but if adhesion is not brilliant, a quick coat Purity seal should take the shine off and give a good surface to continue with the highlighting and detailing. It has the added bonus of acting as a varnish too so that should seal the car spray camouflage real nice.

Whilst we are on the subject of Army Painter, this was one coat of Grey primer on a bright red plastic mini. Not bad, only a few touch ups needed so i'll spray another coat before going straight to Badab Black washes and highlights and detailing... hopefully this will speed up the rest of the army painting!

Apocalypse Hints and Tips

From my first apocalypse battle, and boy was it a massive apocalyptic battle!! Stompa's, a Reaver titan, a Gargant and Thunderhawk Gunship plus millions of troops!

I feel that an apocalypse battle needs good planning beforehand, the guys at Games Workshop had organised the whole event and sorted a clear battle plan and history for the battle. They supplied the tables, terrain, and in a game with over 20,000 points you need lots of terrain!

I planned my army the week before, as the initial plan was for 4,000pts per player. However, on arrival I was told that due to the Imperials being down a player that I could have more troops. Queue a mad dash home to pick up more tanks!

In my mind, there are a couple of key points that I took away from the battle which I would like to share:

• Time- We only had 2 hours play, and we were strict with the half an hour turn rule. This helped to keep the game moving. - It would of been good to have more time so look to have your battles over the course of a day/weekend
• Organiser- We had one of the guys from GW monitor the game for any issues/problems/bare knuckle fist fights etc- Having a strong organiser is essential for a smooth game.
• Space- We had 4, 8x4 tables so lots of space for all the weemen! - You also need to be able to reach models in the centre of the board, therefore having lower tables is best
• Communication- Talking to both your team mates and opposition is vital. Any roll you make needs to be done whilst one of the opposition watches to avoid any 'what was that roll for?' and 'how did you kill my super-heavy??)
• Dice, Dice and more Dice... I found it useful to have several different colours of dice.
• Having further space to keep you reserve units save, and out of the way.
• Troop choices are essential, simply these guys are needed to grab the objectives.

Hope that these points are useful!!

Hints and Tips Part 1

Part of my role at work relates to staff training, (what's this got to do with weemen you may ask??) I handle my modelling and painting in the same way I deal with training.

"Efficient training, might not be effective training."

This relates to making sure that the training is done to a level that the person doesn't need re-training in that aspect. (again, what is the relevance?!)

Right- In terms of modeling and painting, I'm relating to making sure that you don't need to repaint a model due to ineffective painting. I like to not rush projects too much and I think that's what I mean with the quote...

"Efficient modeling might not be effective modeling."

You can rush to get a model finished ready for an upcoming battle, however, by rushing the model it may require more work on it to achieve the desired look at a later date. I think that planning is key, plan the pose of the model and make sure that the model ties in with the overall look of the squad. I also like to plan ahead with any extra details. Making sure that extra additions don't spoil the models overall appearance (like having hair blowing one way, and a banner the other). It's little things like these that make a good model look great!