Starting a WFB army

Hi all – no posts from me in a while...not because I haven’t been making progress with the Weemen, but more that I am rubbish at getting round to take pics.

Following my xmas exploits in Warhammer World, I made the decision to start a Warhammer army and picked up a Warriors of Chaos battalion boxed set.

I have chosen to dabble in WFB as the majority of my local GW obsessed friends play WFB more than 40K, so I thought I would join in the fun. In fact – they are so WFB oriented that I had trouble picking an army that wasn’t already being played. I think I had the choice of Skaven, Ogres, Beastmen, Brettonia and WoC…and still having 100+ gaunts to paint, I decided to go for an army that wasn’t high-volume.

Since picking up the battalion box I have managed to finish a unit of Warriors and a unit of Warhounds – and I have almost finished a Sorcerer, a unit of Knights and a unit of 20 Marauders.

Chaos Warrior Command

Chaos Warrior Unit

War-poochy

War-poochy Unit

As you can see – I have decided to go for the “Khorne-blood red” theme for the warriors that will continue throughout the army. Although the army looks like they are dedicated to Khorne – they aren’t. I will typically be playing an undivided army and will only have one or two units that are dedicated to a specific god. I chose the colour scheme because I like it and it complements the tribe’s name – "The Children of the Crimson Tide" (I thought it sounded a bit Conan-ish).

I had a couple of small games with the battalion to learn the WFB rules – which went well and led me to go on a bit of a spending spree. In the space of a week the army bulked up to:

Chaos Lord on Daemonic Steed

Chaos Sorcerer

Chaos Hero

24 Chaos Warriors (12 Hand Weapon/Shield and 12 Halberd/Shield)

40 Marauders (20 Hand Weapon/Shield and 20 Great Weapons)

8 Marauder Horsemen

20 Warhounds

10 Chaos Knights

10 Chosen (inc. Command)

Chariot

All that comes to about 2600pts when you start tooling everyone up and provides a solid core that I can add too bit-by-bit.

I also had my first full sized game recently, facing off against a gun-heavy Empire army and was pleased to win approx 2300 – 670; by the end, most of my units we pretty decimated, but still holding strong (including a unit of 3 Warriors who suicidally charged a unit of 40 swordsmen), whereas the Empire army was all but tabled (a lone Hellblaster Volley Gun lay just too far away to charge in the final turn).

What’s next? I am thinking about bulking up both Marauder units (to about 40 each) and adding another unit of Warriors…and probably a Hellcannon.

Relictors Mortis Pattern Rifleman Dreadnought WIP

Ever since I saw Ron's FTW Rifleman Dred I've thought it looked proper cool and deserved to have a place in my Army.

I love the idea of 2 Autocannon S7 Twin-Linked shots (4 shots and re-roll) taking down Pornstarjedi's Ultramarines or transports or more importantly, enough strength to take down a Reaver's Void Shields (AV 12) on a roll of a 5-6.

So here is the progress so far. Guns just Boltgun Metal drybrushed.

Finished Pics here: Rifleman Completed

Relictors Terminator Assault Squad II - Finished

So I have finally finished the Terminator Assault Squad with Lightning Claws to complement the first Terminator Assault Squad posted here. Now finally I can give Pornstarjedi as good as I get when he fields his Termies.This is the Sergeant from Space Hulk with a few alterations and greenstuff smoothing over unwanted icons and battle damage from those pesky stealers. Unpainted view here.

Last two pics are the rest of the Squad. I think I like the Blue Power Weapons look, it took ages to find a colour and method I was happy with and it's easy to do. Enchanted Blue basecoat, heavy Badab Black wash, drybrush with Enchanted Blue, then Hawk Turquoise and a final extreme highlight drybrush with 50:50 mix of Hawk Turquoise and Skull White.

Bigger pic of squad in sidebar Album 'Finished Relictors'>>>>>>>>>>

Relictors Terminator Assault Sqd - WIP Update again

Nearly there with these guys. One more to finish then these will be the first i've completed this year. Wow! Progress has been slow with too many other distractions.

Working on another surprise for the weekend Apoc battle... a little bigger than a Termie but not a Titan by any means...

Relictors Terminator Assault Squad - WIP Update

So, back from sea now and putting the finishing touches to more of this squad.

Only got 3 more arms to do before I'll post the whole squad together - only taken 6 months off and on. Damn real life getting in the way ;)

Off to Pornstarjedi's next weekend for an Apoc battle of extreme nasties - Reaver Honorum and Warhound Canis Bellum will be out to play and try not to get killed in the first turn like before!! Alas, Pornstarjedi will have other plans...

Some Slow Progress

So I am still away at sea however, I have made some very limited progress. Something is better than nothing isn't it?

Looking forward to getting home soon and maybe having some time to weemen again...

Ultramarines Movie Review

I recently had chance to check out the Ultramarines movie and thought I would share my thoughts.

Hopefully in the near future Pornstarjedi and Siph will also get a chance to watch it and offer their opinions (Pornstarjedi being Marneus Calgar’s No.1 fan will of course not cloud his judgement whatsoever….) and because of that, I will try to be as spoiler-free as possible.

Where to start? Ok – I watch quite a lot of films – in fact I am more of a film geek than a GW geek, so I’d like to think my opinion is based on my view of Ultramarines as a film and not viewed through rose-tinted glasses. That said, I watch lots of indie and low budget productions (particularly horror), so I try to keep an open mind and am more than willing to look past sub-par effects/visual quality if the makers have a quality story they are trying to tell.

I think this film was always going to be about the resources the film-makers had and what they did with them (I’d love to see the Battle of Macragge in the epic scale of Lord of the Rings…but its not going to happen any time soon).

Overall, I would say that they didn’t do a bad job, although I feel that ultimately, the film is let down by it’s average plot (something happens somewhere, a team of bad-asses are sent in where they are picked off one by one and then there’s a bit of a twist) that we have seen a hundred times before. Many would say that the fluff is what makes GW so great - and this generic plot wouldn’t even feature as a filler story in a codex.

Visually, the film is inconsistent. The main character models are stunningly detailed and really do justice to the Ultramarine canon and associated art work. The Land Speeder and Chaplain were particularly noteworthy.

However, that level of detail does not spread throughout the rest of the film – the “supporting cast” and environments really do vary in quality – from good, to looking like they belong in a PS2 game cut-scene.

The key to making a quality film on a budget is “use what you have”, which is why I hoped that the film-makers would have been more innovative and used the IP more effectively.

Although I loved the voice actors – I have to ask myself what they could have done with that money instead? Develop the story more using decades worth of source material? Perhaps spread the higher levels of animated detail throughout the film more?

The film has a limited niche appeal and the addition of high profile actors won’t help it to spread to a wider audience (the plot makes no attempt to explain the 40K universe and the CG visuals cannot compared to the likes of Pixar – things that the fans will look past but the general public wont). We are the target audience and we were going to watch the film regardless of the fact that it stars John Hurt, Sean Pertwee and Terence Stamp.

I am definitely not disappointed with the film – I just feel that the film makers had a wealth of quality material and with a little more vision, could have created something that was “surprisingly good” rather than “expectedly average”.

Regardless of what I think - if you are reading this blog then the film is for you. So watch it and leave us a comment to let us know what you think.

Happy New Year from the Hive!

Happy New Year All! As Siph and Pornstarjedi have said, we have all been really busy over the silly-season and posts have been a little thin on the ground in December; however that doesn’t mean that the Hive have gone into hibernation.

As an xmas surprise, me and my geeky gaming friends had been organised a visit to the Games Workshop HQ by our respective other halves. Not only that – but they had also booked us the best gaming table to play on!

Having a little advanced warning, I have been pretty much painting non-stop for the whole holiday period to get the Hive looking their best. Better pics will be coming shortly, but here is my finished Tervigon hunkering down on an objective:

As well as the Tervigon, I also managed to finish my Warriors brood and Tyranid Prime and get a ton of basing done (still got the best part of 100 Gaunts to go though….).

Arriving at Nottingham for a day of gaming goodness; we managed to check out the artwork, gorgeous GW painted mini’s, get a pint of Bugmans Beer and then have a game on this:

This is a table from Gamesday a couple of years back that is now in the gaming hall and can be played on – and its by far the most gorgeous table I have ever seen – complete with battle fortress, destroyed titan and loads of tiny but awesome details.

We played a 3000pt pairs game with Nids and Tau teaming up against Blood Angels and Space Marines for a Capture The Objectives mission. Unfortunately we were all too excited to write a battle report, but we did take a few pics and it was an awesome game (it turns out the combination of assaulting Nids and long range Tau work well together – who’d have guessed that?).

Unit of the match went to my Tervigon which bolstered the table with more than 50 additional Termagaunts. I say more than 50 additional Termagaunts – but what actually happed was me rolling 10+ each turn for 5 turns without rolling a double…in the end I was sending Termagaunts on suicide charges just so I had the models to be spawned the following turn. This many troops against the mech-heavy opponents just swamped the objectives.

Even a valiant last stand of a Terminator squad teleporting directly onto the front lines couldn’t slow the green tide.

While I was there, I also picked up something different for me to start playing with – more to come soon on that.

2011- the year of the Reaver!

Hi all, - and a happy New Year.

2010 had its highs (terminus, vanguards-pictures to follow) however the epic fail was an inability to finish (and before you say Siph- start) my forgeworld Reaver Titan. I've decided that 2011 will be the year I get the bad boy complete!

Currently the model is washed, scrubbed and ready to go. I have decided to go for a base for the model, based on the GW battlescape terrain piece. I'm also going to try and magnetise the arms to allow different wargear options. I'm also looking to acquire, and convert the load outs that aren't currently available through the FW website- including a vortex missile option.

Currently there are no definite paint schemes- I did contemplate the idea of a half red/half black with the distinctive yellow head. I've got got plans to include an unfortunate Relictor (not sure what yet) and a dead tyranid (sorry Siph- the 6th degree!!)

Sorry for Lack of Updates

Hi Folks,

Sorry Blog has been slow, Pornstarjedi and 6th Degree are somewhat busy with work and I'm working overseas away from Weemen. But I did manage to do a bit of this...

Beautiful but deadly. Gotta love these sharks, an endangered species because of the human fear so they are slaughtered (as in Egypt this year) because of the unknown and out of ignorance.

Btw, best shot I could get with man and beast... plenty of whopping great close up Great White shark pics if you want me to email you. Drop me a message with your email and i'll get them to you

in Feb.