Monday 12 November 2012

It's been a while, but...


Been a busy month here in Norway.
Little Sebastian had his Christening
 and his first Halloween.

So hobby time has been thin on the ground. Here is a little summary of the progress that has been made though:
The Kernewek Guard received their first Heavy Weapons Teams

Some entrenched for suppressing fire.

Others on the run to rear shot Land Raiders.
 
In training for #ForgeWorldOnly, MkVI's from the bits box.

The real action has been going on at the hands of Brother (Captain) Tiberius, a new member for his Deathwatch Killteam.

A unit of Bloodletters to become allies for a CSM army.



And the first unit for the CSM army of his, the Adherents of the Dragon (catchy name) have been built and painted.


He even detailed how he's done most of the work on the Adherents in case anyone else wants to join his rusty, Dark Mecanicum loving badasses.

Brass work:
Base Coat Scorched Brown/Rhinox Hide
Layer Tin Bitz/Warp lock Bronze
Layer Rune Lord Brass
Wash Badab Black/Nuln Oil
Highlight Mithril Silver/Runefang Steel

Blades and Horns:
Base Coat Chaos Black
Dry Brush Blood Red
Dry Brush Blazing Orange
Highlight Fortress Grey
Glaze Blood Letter

Purity Seal

Base Graveyard Earth/Steel Legion Drab rim and grass/sand flock mix.

Please let me know what you think of these models, Tiberius would love to read any comments I'm sure. Plus I'd like to know if people like the idea of the occasional guest spot from friends of mine, and if so how should they be done? Should I get people to write a piece themselves? Do you want lots of pics or plenty of text?

Wednesday 24 October 2012

#ForgeWorldOnly: Second, Third or Fourth? Jungle or Boarding?

#ForgeWorldOnly: Second, Third or Fourth? Jungle or Boarding?: These are the questions that I'm struggling with at the moment  so I thought I'd turn to the community for advice. Some time soon my first T...

What colour will the pad trims be?!

Saturday 13 October 2012

#ForgeWorldOnly: Welcome to the #ForgeWorldOnly Blog

#ForgeWorldOnly: Welcome to the #ForgeWorldOnly Blog: Welcome to the #ForgeWorldOnly blog. Here a number of the #ForgeWorldOnly participents will be posting ideas, wip's, photos, queries and all...

Wednesday 10 October 2012

The Mantis' Strike - #ForgeWorldOnly

Well a few folk have blogged about this over the past couple of days. Richard the #Warmonger from Twitter’s idea that he threw out last week and that really blew up since then, first Knibbler joined him and now we number a dozen. All of us who are going for it are agreeing to a very slow build 40k army using only (or as near to it as possible) Forge World resin figures. There is a good range of different armies on the planning block right now so we can expect some interesting looking forces to start developing in a year or so.

Personally I’ve chosen the Mantis Warriors Space Marine chapter, specifically the Imperial Armour 10: Badab War part 2 force.
Mantis_Warriors_Battle-Brother
I’ve been a fan of these guys ever since I saw the Tranquillity Campaign snipers back in the day (White Dwarf 101, released a couple of months before I first played Warhammer).
Then I read the Deathwatch novel Warrior Brood which made the Mantis Warriors out to be pretty awesome and victims of their own honour.
Tranq Vet

So with this kind of interest in the chapter I’ve gone to the IA10 book and started studying. The #ForgeWorldOnly plan involves buying units individually and not buying the next one until you’ve completed the painting on the first. The first goal is a 1750pt list, which I will be making up from 1st Company Veterans & the remnants of 4th Company after their savage fighting against Genestealers. This places them at the start of the Badab Wars.

OK, more on the details of my lists and fluff is to come, for now I recommend anyone to search #ForgeWorldOnly on Twitter and check out Richards blog Forge World Only. Let me know below what you think about the idea, the army and any other thoughts you may have.

Saturday 29 September 2012

Chickhammer: Piper and the Yellow Dog Project

Chickhammer: Piper and the Yellow Dog Project: I'm not going to cross post often between my blogs, but this is one of those rare times. This is not at all Warhammer related either, and I ...

Dark Vengence: The Novel - Review

Over the past two days I’ve read this book and whilst everyone else is out there giving their opinions on the Hellbrute figure and how best to paint the bone of the Deathwing I thought I’d give a quick review of Dark Vengence: The Novel, the Black Library’s offering for the new edition.

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Hard bound, as looking at the Chaos Space Marine codex will be the way of things during 6th edition, and penned by CZ Dunn (also known as an editor by the name of Christian Dunn). The story is clearly intended to be accessible to younger readers, with a large spaced typeface that barely fill up the 126 pages and short attention capturing chapters. This is not said as a complaint, but is worth noting so as people know what to expect.

In fact the short chapter style is probably the books greatest asset, as it provides the perfect opportunity for a very broad range of viewpoints to be explored in so few words. In greater and lesser amounts we get some story from the points of view of seven Dark Angels, two Chaos Space marines and two Chaos Cultist Leaders. The last two are only single chapters that go into depth on the characters backgrounds, detailing how they came to be fighting alongside the Crimson Slaughter Chaos Space Marines and tying them into the box set figures nicely.

It’s the story told through the Marines views that drive the narrative forwards. Between the White Dwarf (Sept. ‘12 – 393) and the contents of the box the outline of the story and some salient details about the characters are fairly well known, and I won’t spoil it all any further. Suffice to say that the story is simple and fast paced.

The story’s best part in my opinion were the flash back scenes that detailed what characters had been up to before their arrival at Banes Landing, the books setting. The tale of Sergent Arion’s good fortune in the Fourth Company before becoming a member of the Ravenwing or learning some of the details behind Mortis Metalikus’ creation were great parts. I feel also,that Dunn captured the mistrust, secretive and layered ways of the Dark Angels at all levels of the chapter with uncertainty and duplicity being constant in the ways the Dark Angels handle things. However all these flashbacks add to the fact that the central story is brief at best, token at worst. Not the biggest crime for a little add-on to a main product, but at £12rsp it is expensive for what you get.

I’ll give this a 5.5/10. The story was enjoyable though brief and the characters were interesting though underdeveloped individually. The biggest problem I have with the book though is the price, it seems too much for 126 sparse pages to compliment a box set, although if you get a chance to read it the little time you’ll use will not be wasted.

Thursday 27 September 2012

The Works of the Inquisitor– A Cygnar Journeyman Warcaster

Well a few days ago I posted a summary of Doc Bungle's Cygnar lists for a tournament. I found his posts a true inspiration and I thought I'd post a little about my Cygnar force. So here are some details on my recent move in to the Iron Kingdoms of WarmaHordes.

Last October I joined the Journeyman’s League that Privateer Press organised, held in Outland, Oslo’s FLGS. I knew some of the others that were entering and had been looking for a while to try out the game. I’d been hearing more and more about it after the ‘collapse’ of the Fantasy scene in Australia and the related podcast fallout and the D6Generation’s mixed views on the game so I jumped at the chance to get involved in an organised fashion.

Cygnar Logo 1

I looked at the options for quite a while, a few faction in both games looked good Khador, Circle & Mercs all having some appeal, but it was the Golden Swans that won me over, I liked the idea of a dark looking Cygnar force trampsing through a Khador town (having now read some more fluff that doesn’t seem likely to occur). So I picked up a Battle Box for my week one games and got glueing…

Cygnar BB Day 1 Cygnar BB Day 2 002 Cygnar BB Day 5 001

I ended up with two Battle Boxes (the things a dedicated hobbyist finds in his Bitz Box) so used some parts of Micro Arts Studio figure (Wolfgung I think) to make my second Stryker into a Journeyman warcaster. Then on the next Sunday I got in my first few games. Turns out Warmachine is really fun!! The Khador opponent (and other Khador players) beat me so many times during the league I added something special to an upcoming base. Over the next few weeks I played a lot of games (23) and achieved an almost 40% win ratio. On the Beasts of War forums I kept a bit of a record of my progress, so if after reading this you'd like to see more photos including wip pics and some thoughts after battles please feel free to follow this link and have a browse. I also almost scored the most points for painting during the period, so here is the rest of my Cygnar force as it stands today.

Cygnar BB Day 15 01 Cygnar BB Day 34 002 Cygnar BB Day 34 003
Cygnar BB Day 20 012 Cygnar BB Day 46 001 Cygnar BB Day 35 002
Cygnar BB Day 20 016 Cygnar BB Day 20 015 Cygnar BB Day 42 002

So you see for a six week period I went in pretty heavy, conversions, big figures, scenic bases, the works. Since then things have of course slowed down, most of what I started is finished, I need to finish the Stormswords and Black 13th and I’m working on my Stormclad and a Stormcaller.

Cygnar Stormclad 001 On the left is my attempts at creating an electro leap effect around my Stormclad, which up until a few minutes ago I was very pleased with. Having now stumbled upon Modelpainter.com’s Cygnar page I feel I need to up my game on this front.

Awesome inspiration…
411_Cygnar_Heavy_Warjack_Stormclad_fx

Again I’d love to get comments back, what do people think about my models, my painting, my ramblings?

Tuesday 25 September 2012

What I Read (Focused)–Doc Bungle’s Tournament Prep


Over the past few weeks Doc Bungle over at Miniature Musings of a Bear has been showcasing his Cygnar forces that he took to his first tournament this past weekend. I’ve been following the articles with real joy, not only because the choices he has made are similar to the one I would have but also because he has given such great reasons behind the choices. This series may not be an in depth tactica but it really is interesting, thorough and clear. On top of that Dave’s army looks great and filthy. Below are a few pictures from his posts and links to the different articles he posted.

DBJourney Intro Post
Squire
Stormguard
Stormclad
Journeyman Warcaster
Strangeways
Aiyana & Holt
Ol’ Rowdy
Gun Mages
Storm Strider
DBNemo
DBSquireReinforcements
Warcasters

The great hobby bear has also promised us a write up about his tournament experience soon.
By all accounts he did alright.
DBStormclad
DBStormguard DBAnH DBStormstrider

Seeing all this inspires me to put together a ‘Works of the Inquisitor’ post about my own Cygnar force and my limited experiences with Warmachine.

Saturday 22 September 2012

‘New’ White Dwarf Review

“At the end of the epic quest lies daemonhood, spawndom or a bitter hate-filled death”

White Dwarf Header

So Thursday afternoon I picked my post out of the mailbox and found the new White Dwarf had arrived. Two happy days early. Smile Having avoided Twitter and most blogs for a few days now so as not to tarnish my first impressions I was very pleased to receive it two days early. Now normally White Dwarf reviews are WarLlama’s area not mine, but this is something special so I figured I’d stick my oar in. And I mean it, this issue is really something special. This is a change on the level of ‘Fat Dwarf’ if not bigger.

First of all some external changes that have gone on. This is the October 2012 issue, not issue 394. Looks like there will be no more numbers, not a big problem but perhaps a little sad given how high a number we had come to. The general layout of the cover has taken a change, bold headlines, new (pictured above) logo and back to a quote on the spine. Speaking of which, where is the rest of my Dark Angel spinal image? Whilst my WD collection is not as impressive as Nick Simmerson’s I have about 100 issues lined up on display and I gave this years issues their own box for display.


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The cover doesn’t just look different, it feels it as well. Thicker paper for the cover and gloss images on the front and the back, it’s a very fancy affair.


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IMG_1725 And whilst it’s clear from the outside of the issue that this isn’t your granddads White Dwarf it’s the content that is what really matters, and it has changed that much is sure. As we’ll see throughout the magazine there is a pretty dense, photo heavy layout. At 152 pages this is 25% larger again than the previous issue. The new releases section of the magazine and the back section that covers hobby centres and independent stockists are larger than ever but beyond that there is only one, double page spread that could be described as a true advert. I’m not saying that the entire magazine doesn’t try (quite hard and effectively) to sell GW products, but everything else is slotted neatly into articles and features. Those there are plenty of.

So after the preamble comes the New Releases section, 46 pages of it. The focus is on the new Chaos Space Marines codex and figures coming out, some stunning stuff, but the focus of this review is White Dwarf itself. However to get a nice photo of some new models here and show off something pretty special from the magazine I present this…

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On top of this we see that White Dwarf has a four page, opening up spread, quite a way to display new products. Each featured model includes a description of it in terms of fluff and a ‘discussion’ on the model from a visual standpoint and a little about gameplay. These write ups were done by various members of the White Dwarf team and are initialled to indicate who wrote it. I feel that this is one of the many little touches throughout the new WD that give the feeling of a much more modern, mature and ‘professional’ magazine than we’ve received before. Alongside all of the new Chaos releases are multiple pages about Black Library and Forge World releases, plus a double page on Relic from Fantasy Flight Games, the 40k version of Talisman. Plus a mention of the upcoming Blood Bowl: Chaos Edition coming soon from Cyanide. There is another two pages about digital products, most notably White Dwarf Digital Edition, that’ll be a discussion for another day…

Army of the Month is the first true article, it provides a look at Ben Johnson’s (formally of the Bad Dice Podcast) Skaven army. The introduction to the piece includes an explanation as to their plans for showcasing armies from the studio as well as armies from the larger community. Ben’s Skaven was a great example, a fantastic and detailed looking army.

The images that fill this issue are almost all tagged by a little number (Ben Johnson’s Forge World Vermin Lord is number 3) that matches with one of the small sections of text, this provides a greater amount of detail than a simple caption and a description and purpose to every picture. A considerable amount of information is included in these blocks throughout the issue. IMG_1728

Jervis’s two page write-up about some part or another of the hobby (this time comp. and army limits) is in there the same as it ever has been (recent article about how the focus of his focus has changed over time aside), and is as enjoyable, amiable and ‘hippie’ as ever. Again the new formatting, and mug shot add to the feel of a more mature magazine.

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Can you imagine anything more GQ in your White Dwarf

Next up is a battle report, no spoilers here about the results, a whole world of conspiracies exist to debunk the meaning of ‘winning’ a bat. rep. any way. Andrew Kenrick (the previous WD editor) as the Alpha Legion vs. Adam Troke (40k 6th. designer) as White Scars. This is a 1,750 point battle where they openly and up front say they want to showcase the new things for the bad guys. So not a very narrative game but a pretty decent battle split up in to first turn, mid game and end game. Again there is some serious photo density across the pages with bullet point descriptions and a mixture of third person and first person looks as to what was going on. I enjoyed the report and the style, it felt like a good game of 40k played between generals who were both trying to win.

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The Rivals was a discussion between a Warhammer Fantasy Vampire Counts general and a Dark Elf general, I’ve only browsed through it as neither army interests me a great deal. However the format was that of a discussion between the two with point and counter point raised and debated. A very interesting idea for the future, and again read like an FHM group interview article.

You’ve probably already seen the video of Angron the first of Forge Worlds Primarchs to be released for their upcoming Horus Heresy book. But here is a picture of him and a description of how Simon Egan went about sculpting him. The rest of the cover article about the Horus Heresy goes in to some details about the upcoming book, ‘The Betrayal’ and the Horus Heresy series of Black Library novels. It is a light read that I as a fan of the series and figures found to be enjoyable if not overly ground breaking. The side bar about the HH’s real life timeline was interesting, now I want the Horus Heresy CCG that was launched at the end of my ‘get a girl and life’ absence that so many of us take from the hobby. IMG_1732

Bringing out all of the big guns for this premiere issue we also find John Blance weighing in with a Blanchitsu and a lovely self portrait, done in the style of a 40k Inquisitor that I’m sure many will recognise. Then his article goes on to discuss John’s Inquisitorial Warband, the art he has whipped up for them, the figures he has converted and the lovely archaic accoutrement he has assembled to go with it all. A really inspiring little article that continues to show that no matter your opinion on his art style, he has a real mastery over the aesthetics of the GW games.

Also a popular series of articles from the ‘old’ White Dwarf is the Citadel Hall of Fame, and returning here is a double page on the Necron C’tan The Nightbringiner. With a whole page going to a picture of the studio figure and then a couple of close-ups as well, there is not too much text here, nominated and defended by ‘Eavy Metal’s Anja Wettergren and accepted by the figures sculptor Alex Hedström. There is comment about what a joy the model is to paint and the lovely flowing lines, all well and good and true. What I’d like to have seen is some images of other versions and uses of The Nightbringer, especially as comment is made as to how many times and how effectively The Nightbringer has been used as the base for detailed and varied conversions.

Parade Ground & Kit Bash are both showcase articles, the first looks at loads of varied figures from the collections of members of the studio team. To call these figures basic would be a disservice, but at the same time they are for the most part simply examples of well done, out of the box units from GW’s three games. Lacking any great focus it’s hard to pick much to stand out here, although Duncan Rhodes’ dragon skull bearing Peasants are fun. I’d have rather seen a varied selection of figures about a theme of some kind, one army, one figure, one painting style, etc. Kit Bash was exactly that, three different Ork Bombers, again more detail could have been added, but for those looking to kit bash their own Bombers, or any other Ork vehicle there is definitely inspiration to be found here.

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Battle Ground give the detail about a project that I’m talking about, six pages describing the pieces, effects and idea that went into the Urdek Refinery; one of the themed boards that was used in the 6th edition 40k rule book. This has the mixed blessing of being made up almost entirely from GW terrain pieces, meaning that it is nice and clear what has been used to do what and anyone could recreate or take direct inspiration. Of course the down side is the fact that only those working for GW can afford to work on this kind of scale. Still the article does contain a lot of great ideas and goes through the thought process behind a lot of the decisions. A lot can be learnt here, I really hope that alongside massive pieces like this the future of Battle Ground pieces include ideas for small scale and home made pieces of terrain. Also note the red word at the start of each section heading, that is carried out throughout the entire magazine and is another of the little touches that add to the smart feel of the design.

IMG_1745 Continuing the useful hobby tips section as we near the back of the magazine, is Paint Splatter. The focus here is on Chaos Space Marines. Various Legions are described in the format to the left here along with rust techniques and detail on how to copy the studios different Daemonfire (chaos glow) techniques. Also included is a section on Ork Dakka Jets and tips from Ben Johnson from the start of the magazine on how he painted his banners and warpstone for the Skaven. The image to the left is a Sons of Horus Forge World marine, they also cover Emperor’s Children, World Eaters and Death Guard in their heresy-era colours.

Jeremy Vetock, occasional stand-in for Jervis, GW games designer and all round ‘hobby champion’ also has his say in this issue, he talks about dreaming big and wanting to make his games as epic and perfect as possible. The article itself is an interesting read, I hope that if he stays a regular contributor his articles include a little more in the way of details on top of the inspiring but vague thought.

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After 17 pages of store listings, recommendations for going to a Hobby centre, following them on Facebook, subscribing to White Dwarf et cetera, comes the final section of mini articles, This Month In… Covering four different operations, White Dwarf, The Design Studio, Forge World and Black Library. These are great little reads, just a few pages each. I felt they really captured a lot of what I wanted to hear about things in general and also really gave the right feel about the hobby from White Dwarf and some honest to God decent information about the other teams’ work.

All in all I’m very pleased with the new White Dwarf. There are facets that can improve and I hope the quality of thought behind the articles continues. I like the lack of advertising throughout the entire magazine and I wouldn’t even begrudge one or two article appropriate half pages more if they felt they needed them, although they can hold off on the full barcode and price point idea of previous terrain articles for example. Not being  the hardest of reviewers I’m going to give this issue a 8.5/10.

For WarLlama’s sake here is a picture of the issue’s advert, I know how he loves them. Plus the last page image, I guess we all know what the focus of November’s issue will be (to be released on October 27th).

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"A wizard is never late!"