Mind blowingly unproductive! yes! that’s me!

Yes, it’s true. I haven’t picked up a paint brush in a few weeks now… That pesky thing called ‘real life’ keeps getting in the way. Inbetween remodelling my bathroom, birthdays, financial/work related stress, consistent travelling to the future-in-laws and then a double whammy of being told that my home is now worth only 50% of what I paid for it, painting has been far from my mind. Actually, not strictly true. I just finished ‘Age of Darkness’ in the Horus Heresy series, and wasted no time in starting the Blood Angels omnibus. I’ve actually wanted to be painting, but just could not be arsed to do it. Oh, and then there was that other small distraction that I have had lately – playing Space Marine on the Xbox. How frakkin’ good is that game? i’m addicted!! I was getting a little bored of just dealing with greenskins and got a total nerd boner when frakkin Chaos marines turned up, even some Blight Drones! So, I guess in a sorta roundabout way, I have been keeping my hand in the hobby… sorta…

Although I haven’t been committing brush to miniature, I have been constructing. I based up a bunch of my Flames of War chaps on some sweet scenic bases that Gale Force 9 recently put out. I also assembled my Wolf Priest for my fledgling Space Wolves force and I also picked up the Finecast Emperors Champion, which I felt needed a little extra ‘something’.

I lucked out again, as it seems that this mini had no issues in the quality control area, so assembly was a snap (and thankfully nothing snapped). I decided to put him on a scenic base, rather than a standard one and add sand. I dug around in my bits drawer and found a MicroArt Studios base which I thought would do the trick nicely. I pinned him to the base, putting a little hint of an angle in there to hopefully give the image of movement. He is stepping forward and I wanted it to look as though he was going to step over the piece of ruin on the base.

Given the medieval feel of the Black Templars, and especially this miniature, I felt that he was missing something. I find it hard to believe that this guy would just march out into a battlefield without some other form of protection other than his battle plate. So, I gave him a shield. This was from the Scibor range of 40K friendly accoutrements. It’s big, and it fits the image perfectly, so, I cut off his hand and repositioned it, then added the shield. I made a green stuff handle as well, to make it look like he’s actually holding it:

I know it’s not a game legal piece of kit, but for decorate purposes I think it looks bad ass. I’m hoping to make a start on him this weekend, but we’ll see…

Ta ta(s) for now!

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Tomb Kings Prince Apophas – my first Finecast

I just finished this chappy tonight. I have to say, I’m pleased with the paint job (although not too pleased how the pictures came out). I painted the pumice sand up onto the bottom of the figure, to give the impression that he’s just burst up from beneath the sand (as he does in the game). This was my first foray into the world of Games Workshop’s new Finecast material. It’s a little odd to work with. It’s like working with resin in some respects, and not in others. I think that  once they work out the kinks in their quality control(?) department, it’ll be awesome. The stuff goes together well, and takes paint well. I have heard horror stories that this stuff will melt though, so don’t leave it in your car in the middle of summer…

Anyhoo, onto the mini:

I just realized I need to tidy up the blue wash on that blade a little…

The fact that this dude is made up of swarming bugs appealed to me. He sort of epitomizes the essence of what got me into fantasy gaming when I was younger.

I like the contrasts of the darker blue of the scarab carapaces and the light blue of the tilework on his gear.

 

 

I love the posing, like he’s about to grab some poor bastard before sending their soul to the Usirian depths…

While painting Tomb Kings, I find it helps to listen to these chaps:

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WTF Wednesday – Sisters of Battle – underwhelmingly ‘meh’

 

Honestly, WTF? Originally I was going to post something about an incantation of Doomrider, which read very much like a Judas Priest song, complete with double entendre lyrics. That was, until I just opened my email now and saw a newsletter from Grim Workshop. The heading read thus:

‘Divine intervention – the full Sisters of Battle range’

Now, having that subject line got me excited, blown into the beyond as quickly as it arrived upon opening said email:

‘Whether you’re looking to start a new Sisters of Battle army, or wanting to add to your existing one, games-workshop.com has the full range of miniatures available to you. Head on over now to see the Sisterhood in all its glory.’

Seriously? are you frakking kidding me? I own ALL of the minis from the range, in multiples too, why the frak would I need more of the old shit? HELLO? the secondary market took care of my Sisters needs, getting a squad of sisters for the price of two blisters. Boring miniatures, boring poses, but hey! check out the website for all the shit you’ve seen already, but we took down for a few months!

Vampire counts have stolen any blood and thunder that could have been used to push the Sisters. Even the GW Facebook page is dominated by VC stuff, with barely anything pushed about Sisters, with the exception of a picture of some >yawn< cosplayers in Sisters gear.

I am now hearing that GW have themselves even said that they have no intention of releasing new minis, or indeed releasing the old shit in Finecast even. What the hell??

I know, i’m just having a belly rumble, but while everyone else (except Necrons and Tau) have new or newish books, minis, plastics etc, we Sisters fans are being royally fisted, and i’m not happy about that. I dunno, maybe Sisters have too much ‘original’ flavor to them still, and that doesn’t fit in with GW’s thinking any more. RARGH!!!!!

 

3

Sisters of Battle… What is happening?

Sister Wishlister
Hmmm. Suffice to say, I was deleriously excited when I saw the inside back cover of last months Games Workshop Monthly Release Catalogue White Dwarf and I noticed the little box that declared ‘Next month – Part 1 of the Sisters of Battle Codex!’. While I was disappointed initially by the fact that my girls only seemed to warrant a Chapter Approved WD codex, I got over it and moved on. I rushed up to my FLGS on Wednesday to purchase the latest issue (even after reading all the venom online about the codex) to see wtf all the fuss was about. I was pretty disappointed that a vast majority of the issue was devoted to Vampire Counts. The Sisters debut of the ‘new’ rules were stuffed at the back of the magazine almost like an embarrassing afterthought. A whopping 14 pages out of 120… I can only hope that next month will see the Sisters maybe even gracing the cover and taking center stage, although with the preview of next month being focused on Ogre Kingdoms, i’m not too sure. We are promised at batrep of the Sisters Vs. Orks, although elsewhere they said it was against  Tyranid Hive Fleet Leviathan, so either they will publish more than one batrep, or they just did a shit job proofreading before going to press.
 
Now i’m not about to launch into whether this new set of rules is going to make them more competitive etc etc, as there are a deluge of blogs out there who are already doing that (and very well, I may add). I’m just trying to get my head around what exactly GW are doing with this army. A cursory glance at the first part of the glorified pamphlet Codex shows us a little bit in the way of the origins and key conflicts, then jumps straight into the Army Special Rules. I wonder if newcomers to the game will look at this and think ‘holy shit! this looks awesome! sod the other armies out there with their shiny books packed with background fluff, i’m rolling with these ladies!’. I guess I have to ask, has this been put together with current non-sisters players in mind, or are they simply appeasing an older crowd who play them? If it is the latter, then I’d be suprised, as i’m sure GW will want to milk as much moolah out of it as they can, so if it’s the former, it’s not particularly impressive. Shit, they’re even regurgitating old artwork for filler.
 
I’m not sure how I feel about the new Faith Points system. At the start of the Sisters player’s turn, a D6 is rolled, and this is the amount of Faith Points available for that turn. As mentioned on many other blogs, it makes little sense to have this the same for forces of any size.  A 3000 point Sisters army would have a max of 6 Faith Points available? Seems a little goofy, considering the religious fervor these ladies are supposed to have…
 
Gone are Inquisitiors and their retinues, as well as allied forces of Imperial Guard or Space Marines. We do get Priests, with ‘Ecclesiarchy Battle Conclaves’ which is where Crusaders, Arco Flagellants and Death Cult Assassins have now been lumped. If I remember correctly, weren’t the arco’s weapons in the previous Codex classed as power weapons? They have added Feel No Pain, which I guess is pretty cool, and gone is that bloody horrible ‘stim injector death’ rule.
 
We don’t see an entry for the Repressor in this list. This was one of the things that was getting me excited about the new lists, was the posssibility of plastic sisters, and a plastic Repressor (any one who has attempted a FW one will know how much of a pain in the arse it is to put together). In fact, the only minatures in the book are old ones, so are they saving that up for the next issue? will they get new minis or will it be the old range redone in Finecast? No fire points on an Immolator now? No 12 inch ride-and-fire either? wtf?
 
Gone is Lord Karamazov on his toilet Throne of Judgement, and back is Arch-Confessor Kyrinov and Uriah Jacobus, who have returned from a well earned break between Codexes.
 
There are some interesting little tweaks here and there, but the army seems to be lacking the somewhat ‘medieval’ feel they had to them before.
 
On the whole, it seemed pretty anti-climatic. I can only hope that GW redeem themselves by releasing new minis, vehicles etc in the next issue, and while i’m not going to be sending my army off to Ebay just yet, their days may well be numbered.
 
4

WTF Wednesday – GW hates GW employees who like GW products? Threat level RED!

GW seem to be synonymous with terms such as ‘bizarre’, ‘unusual’, ‘seriously?’, ‘how much?’, ‘broken’, ‘wot no sisters?’ etc etc. As though created from the very pages of their own volumes of Lost and the Damned, GW seem to be themselves a great slab of the Immaterium, the warp, chaos…

Again, thanks to my deepthroat ‘Frank’ for finding this for me. It’s a little old, but the absurdity of it left me scratching my head. I’d be intrigued to know, dear reader, what your thoughts are on the matter.

Essentially, long story short, a GW employee, who likes the company, loves the product (and probably sinks most of his paycheck back into the company) finds a copy of ‘Ere We Go’ and ‘Freebooterz’ (some Rogue Trader era supplements, you know, made by the company he works for…) on Ebay. So, he arranges with the seller to meet with him to pick up the books, at a GW store. Harmless enough you say? well apparently not. While waiting for the seller to turn up, he gets talking the manager of that particular store and gets around to telling him why he was there…

I won’t spoil the story for you, you should read the whole account, which you can find at http://www.notsounwashed.com/2009/11/very-dangerous-remove-immediately/ It almost reads like some sort of Shakespearian drama full of hope, intrigue and betrayal… It certainly left me scratching my head, and adding another notch on the ‘hate’ post for the love/hate relationship I have with this once glorious company.

Seriously GW, WTF?

GW 'black shirt' (blue balls?) deals with another pesky fan boi...
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WTF Wednesday – either it is, or it isn’t… make your mind up!

The anniversary of the day of my appearing on this planet is rapidly approaching, and I was asked to put together a list of a few things I would/need for my gaming stuff. I usually take advantage of the offer and order some Forge World stuff.

So, as I was perusing the website and happened upon the Dreadnought pages. Eyeballing the Space Wolf venerable dready I just happened to look at the description. See for yourself (click on the image for full size).

Now, ‘complete resin kit’ would suggest to me that it includes everything you would need to make a complete dreadnought model. If I bought a complete resin kit of a Focke Wolfe, I would kind of expect the wings to be included in the kit. Apparently not. I understand that people will want different configurations for loadouts, so I suggest one of two options: Either re-word your description so you’re not confusing people (yes I am aware of the rest of the sentence in the description) or, up the price to include the loadouts of the customers choice. Seriously Forge World, WTF?

If you have anything that would be a good entry for WTF Wednesday, send me an email at whencannonsfade@gmail.com and i’ll include it, with full credits of course 🙂

*Disclaimer – FW images used without permission. The WTF Wednesday series is supposed to be a light hearted bit of fun. Don’t take it too seriously. Dig it.

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WTF Wednesday: One of these things is not like the other…

Thanks to Frank for putting me onto this one. I was literally WTF-ing all over the shop when I saw it. Now, before I get cries of being a meanie, and that someone may have scratchbuilt one of these and put a lot of time and effort into it(i’ll let you guess), its the finish thats got me scratching my chin. WTF?

If you’ve gone as far to scratchbuild a rhino and make sure you got the shape somewhat near, why would you finish it like this??

Baffled.

4

Double Whammy – Finecast Review and SOB Rumors

Honestly, I can’t believe where time is going. June already?? wtf? Apologies for those of you who frequest my humble pigeon hole in the intehwebs for my lack of posting lately. Work has been grinding me into the ground, and i’ve been more absorbed with playing Indiana Jones Lego on Xbox. While i’m on that subject, Happy Birthday Indy, who, 30 years ago today, graced our screens in Raiders of the Lost Ark. My 3 year old has just started getting into Indy, so as a father and big Indiana Jones fan, this makes me very happy. For 30 facts and unusual trivia about Raiders, clicky here: http://blog.moviefone.com/2011/06/12/raiders-lost-ark-30th-anniversary/

Citadel Finecast

Anyway, down to business. This weekend I picked up my first Citadel Finecast miniatures, a box set of 3 bow wielding Ushabti for my Tomb Kings army. The sticker price of $49.50 made me cringe a little, but considering 3 metal ones would have been nearer to $60, I didn’t feel so bad. Of course the first thing I noticed when I picked up the box was ‘is there anything in this? did I grab a display?’. The material is very light. It is apparently some kind of plastic/resin hybrid.

As we have had a spell of cooler weather, I wanted to get these assembled and undercoated without the fear of fuzzy paint (eff you, humidity!) so Saturday afternoon, hung over from the show I played the night before, I set to work. I was intrigued as to how this new matrial would be. It’s quite flexible, meaning if you inadvertently knock it off the table, chances are the only thing that will need repairing will be your underwear.

If you haven’t seen the presentation yet, the new Finecast minis come on a sprue, thus:

At first glance I thought ‘balls, I thought there was supposed to be minimal flash and cleanup?’ Well, this stuff is actually really easy to work with. You need virtually no pressure with clippers to take the mini off the frame, and there is actually not that much in the way of cleanup. A mold line here or there, or a bit of flash but because of the medium, it’s effortless. Literally within 5 minutes, my forst Ushabti was ready for assembling:

 

Gone are the days of shitty lugs that won’t fit into the holes they are supposed to, and also the days of you holding metal pieces together for 10 minutes with superglue with no effect. Gone, also, are the days of weak joints. The lightweight nature of this makes this a dim and distant memory. This resin is superglue’s best friend. Assembling took literally a couple of minutes:

Within a half hour, I had all three assembled….

The only negative point I have so far is with the chap on the far left in the picture above. His hand obviously has been miscast, and a portion of the cowling behind his head is missing too. Hopefully this won’t be an ongoing problem for Finecast. I left it, with the train of thought of ‘its an ancient statue, and the Necrotect has’nt got to him yet to repair it…).

Then, onto prep for painting, using Duplicolor Sandible Primer:

…and voila! ready to be painted!

From box to fully primed in less than an hour, quite impressive, in my opinion. It shows just how user friendly this new material is.  You don’t need to wash it in soapy water before priming, and apparently is not toxic like Forge World resin (not that I would advise eating/inhaling it anyway). I’m personally quite excited to work with this new medium, although some of the prices did shock me a little. Individual characters are now pushing the $20 mark, while I noticed that a certain Lizardman kit that was $49 in metal is now $66 in resin.

I guess the proof is in the pudding, and we’ll just have to see what happens with Citadel Finecast.

Sisters of Battle Rumors:

Pathtyphon/TastyTaste over at Http://bloodofkittens.com has given up some rather tasty rumors regarding new Sisters of Battle rules. Sadly enough, it does appear that they will be a ‘White Dwarf Codex’, but i’m not going to rule out that a new book will not be forthcoming. Here is the info:

‘As always let us start with the easy ones that pretty much everyone figured was going to happen.

Allies gone
Inquisition gone
Faith streamlined
USRs updated to 5th
Cheaper Unit costs
Inquisition elements gone

So let start with the big one and perhaps most controversial change to Sisters of Battle: Faith

I am amazed reading around the Net how quite few people had great guesses on how the new faith works. One caveat about the faith rules: I only have most of the story so let us hope someone else can pluck the rest from the aether. The only thing that really stays the same is only faith producing units can use faith. Gone is the over and under rules based on model count and gone is faith powers that everyone can use. It is replaced with every unit has its own unit specific act of faith to call upon.

So for instance Repentia Act of Faith allows them to always land an attack even if they are killed before they can swing. They are little bonuses like re-rolling to wound and hit, no USRs. Now this if fine and dandy if you just pop a faith point and bam! power goes off, but not so fast. Acts of Faith require that you roll 5+ to activate . This makes faith much more unreliable… maybe. In addition every unit that can get faith generates 1d6 faith points per turn. This also means that a new faith pool is generated each turn with no storing of past faith. As well faith can be activated in multiple phases of the game, so for instance you can re-roll to hit in your shooting phase or in your assault phase. What is not clear is a few things. Like how many dice can you throw at a single act of faith? How many times can you attempt to activated a power? If you get an act of faith to go off in one phase does it carry over to the next phase? If you fail an act of faith does that mean you cannot try again in another phase? I don’t have the answers, but what do you think?

Random tidbits

All Faith generating units get +6 invul save
All units that can get transports get Immolators or Rhinos
Assassins gone (Death Cult still in)
Wargear with the same names as GK wargear stay and get changed over. (e.g. Psybolt Ammo)
Karamazov gone
Priests in, pretty much same as before.
No change to the general Bolter, Melta, Flame concept of the Sisters

Specifics

Sisters have about 5 HQ choices including Special Characters

St. Celestine: Same price as a Grand Master you get 2+/+4 saves, WS/BS 7 Jump Pack, Fleet, Power Weapons always wounds on 4+ Has the power to come back like GK Thawn if killed.

Confessor: Takes the slot of the old Inquisitors. Cheap HQ (Warboss). Can create a henchman band using most of the henchman found in the GK codex. What makes the Confessor extra deadly is the ability for it to re-roll hits and wounds for her and the squad. This is the translation of the rumor matrix. So think for one second about her and the Death Cult together?

Repentia: Cheaper close to SM cost. FNP, Rage, Fearless, 6+ invul, no transports

Battle Sister Squad: Cheaper 10-20 unit size (no combat squads), but has access to Immolators which begs the question… Immolators either get increased transport capacity or Sisters break the rules concerning model count and buying transports. Multiple acts of faith.

Exocists: Pretty much same as before.

This is it for now gents and dames. If you have any questions let me know I can see if can get them answered sometime this week with another post.’

So there you have it.

Until next time…

0

How to… Paint Tomb Kings – max results for minimum effort

In honor of the new, and rather delish Tomb Kings release last weekend, I wanted to post up a ‘how to’ article on painting up your undead forces in double quick time in readiness for battle.

As you may have seen in the current issue of White Dwarf, they give you some ideas for different techniques for painting your skeleton warriors. They look great, but are rather in-depth, probably too much so for those of you, like me, who are not only a full time computer masher during the day, but also a full time dad and part time rock star. My point being, you don’t have too much free time to paint.

Part the first:

Once your skellywags have been assembled (arguably the most time consuming part of this) you’re going to want to spray undercoat the little buggers. I’ve used Duplicolor Sandable Primer, matt white, which costs about $6 from any auto store, and is far superior to the expensive shite that Games Workshop tout as spray paint. I leave them overnight to dry, although they are dry to the touch in a few minutes, but I’m usually doing something else, yay for multitasking.

You should be looking at a nice, white skellie, yes? Good, then we can move onto…

Part the second:

Get a pot of Devlan Mud*, insert your wash brush, or other larger brush, then liberally slap it on all over the mini. I tend to do a second coat on things like the face and ribs, as they have the most detail. Try not to pool it if possible. Set aside to dry. I have been working on a unit of horse archers, as you can see. The GW washes dry, so by the time I have washed one, moved on to the second, the first is already dry.  You’ll already start to see things taking shape, thus:

Some of you out there may choose to stop at this stage, which is fine, but they still need to pop a little bit, IMO. This leads us nicely into…

Part the third:

This is where your little creepers will come to (un)life.  Get your brush that you use for drybrushing, open your Bleached Bone paint and drybrush them. This will give that extra dimension to them (whoah! 3-D!). It’ll pick out the ribs and facial features a little more, plus give them a little more ‘dry’ and sun bleached feel. You could even add another drybrush step here with Skull White, which I did, as I do it on just the face and ribs, very lightly:

The bone parts are done! Simple, eh?

Part the fourth – details:

You’ll still need to paint your quivers, bows and other bits after this, but again I keep it simple. For the bows I use a Mechrite red base, washed with Devlan Mud. The quivers with Hawk Turquoise washed with Devlan Mud (this is to give the overall feel of wear and dirt over a couple of centuries). The quiver flap and straps are base coated in Chaos Black, and a quick line highlight of Greatcoat Grey (PP3) and then Codex Grey . DONE! You can add details like hieroglyphs and what not, but the aim of this is to be quick, right?

Part the fifth – finishing touches:

Base ‘em! I use a pumice filler for the bases, as it looks like that dry, parched desert ground. Once it’s applied then dried, it’s basecoated with Snakebite Leather, then drybrushed with Bleached Bone, then a little bit of Skull White. Add a couple of tufts of desert flock and you should have a nice looking painted unit, ready to deal some serious arrow violence on your enemy:

 

Following this should get you your mass troops done in next to no time, allowing you to spend a bit more time on your character figures.

Let me know how you get on – good luck!

*I just bought a new pot of Devlan Mud the other day, as my other pot had run out. To my dismay, I find that it’s a slightly different shade, and almost looks like it’s got either Ogryn Flesh or Gryphonne Sepia in it. Bollocks!

63

WTF Wednesday – How much????

Welcome to a new, but irregular spot called WTF Wednesday. This will be where I showcase things from the gaming world that literally make me cry WTF????

Our first contender….

You may (or may not) know that the Tomb Kings battle magic cards are super sold out. So, I went to the Bay to score a set, not before I saw this though:

Really?

(Click on the image for a better view)

Insanity prevails! By the gleaming jock-strap of Ptra I hope no one is a sucker enough to spend that kind of money on these.

More to come soon!

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