Painting Challenge 4: AWESOME Terrain

October 15, 2015, 4:00 am

≫ Next: A Tale of 3 Scottish(ish) Guildballers

Hey guys! So it's month 4 of the PaintingChallenge and I have decided to try something very different:

This month I would like everyone to paint or make a piece of scenery, for any gaming system. My thinking here is that there are a lot of people (myself included!) which are trying new games and the common theme to all games is terrain and scenery. You could buy a premade bit of manufacturers terrain and paint it up beautifully, scratch built your own fantastic piece or combine both. I want this to be as inclusive as possible and encourage people to get some hobbying done, making scenery from house hold waste, actual rocks etc (think Blue Peter…) is really easy and obviously cheap.

The parameters for this will be a piece at maximum a 12”x12”x12” cube and must include NO models. This is not a diorama competition (this time…) and I want it focussed on some cool ass terrain. Using a damaged model (eg a tank) in the terrain is ok but please try to limit this and be sensible. The objective here is to get people motivated to do hobby regardless of gaming system, I don’t know about you guys but I’m sick of the division and negativity permeating the “scene” (Can’t we all just be friends and #RichLove not #RichHate??!?!?) . To get your creative juices flowing here are some ideas:

An Age of Sigmar warp gate on a blasted cliff with an objective marker holder
An Infinity bunker with flickering LED lights…
A destroyed 40k tank submerged in a boggy pit, on fire…
An asteroid field with a deep space station for battle fleet gothic.
An ancient celtic stone circle for Darklands.
A guildball goal built into a butcher's abattoir

If we get enough entrants then I will split the pieces into categories dependant on system with an overall winner but in principle I want to award the “best overall” terrain. If you feel particularly adventurous and want to do a step by step guide on how you made the terrain then I will add you up as a blog contributor and you can do an article on it! The more bloggers the better!

Commencement date is the 16th of October but if you have started recently we can be flexible about it and the submission deadline is the 9th of November 2359 GMT. Aim would be for me to do a blog post at the end of the month with all the entrants pieces shown and let the comments/votes/#RichHate begin!

Feel free to go nuts and be creative with your work but please keep within the parameters above and don’t make a diorama. Each entrant gains one vote (vote by saying your choice as a comment in the wrap up post) and innocent bystanders can vote too as long as they state their twitter or forum handle.

Please submit pictures of your Scenery via DM to me on twitter by the above stated date and time.

Let me know if you are interested in joining or have any suggestions, please sign up below (as a comment) if you want to get involved. Please tweet with the hashtag #PaintingChallenge Hope you guys like the idea!

↧

A Tale of 3 Scottish(ish) Guildballers

October 16, 2015, 4:00 am

≫ Next: Hobby Progress Update: Necrons!

≪ Previous: Painting Challenge 4: AWESOME Terrain

Hey guys!

Got a special wee blog post here with an introduction to Guildball by 3 (in)famous Scottish tournament players talking about why they love this new sports based miniature game. I haven't had a chance to play many games yet (despite painting my team months ago lol) but I am certianly looking forward to trying it out more!

Personally I love the models and look forward to painting the season 2 models in the coming months, here's my team for time being:

Here's a link to the guildball website and the free rules:

Website: http://guildball.com/

Free Rules: http://guildball.com/#downloads

Quite a few of us on the Blog now have teams too, think we have Me, Mike, Dermot, Scott, Andy, Joe, Tim, Trev and Dave. Anyway on to the content! (Thanks again to the guys for writing up their thoughts:

I love my ‘I love Ben Diesel bottle opener’.

How I got into Guildball, or ‘The Power of Persuasive Marketing’

As an avid Warhammer player, and not really anything else, I hadn’t played in other gaming systems in a long while (other than 4 games of 4th edition 40k, I don’t think I had played another game system to Warhammer in about 15 years). As a semi-regular listener of podcasts, I liked to listen to the Black Sun (who doesn’t enjoy those lovable ragamuffins, always playing unusual game systems, and talking about ginger pubes?).

Well, those plucky lads harped on about Guild ball during the Kickstarter, so I gave it a look over and, being a fool easily parted from my cash, invested into the Kickstarter, ending up with 2 teams, some basic tokens, and a physical copy of the rulebook. I didn’t give it much more thought until I got a visit from the postman…

Guildball dropped in to my life at a convenient time. WFB had just died (RIP) and, while I by no means have given up on Warhammer (the special editions on my shelf can attest to that), I wasn’t quite ready to jump in to a new edition of massed battles. Guild ball seemed just the ticket for a bit of a break. I didn’t know anyone locally who played… Luckily, I know another fool, and Trev was soon on board. With him by my side, we soon built some critical mass, getting 8 or so players in Edinburgh on board to provide regular and varied opposition. I think I only directly got Trev on board, he has been doing a lot of leg work on my behalf!

The game is great, with a really simple basic rules set. After only 3-4 games I was pretty comfortable with all the mechanics of the game. The ‘fun stuff’ really comes from individuals teams and players capabilities, and boy are there are a lot of players! While it is a lot of fun, and I think will work great as a tournament game (first one comes up in November!) I think it is really a game you are going to need to play regularly enough to be familiar with what the other teams can do. More that once I have been undone… ‘he does what!?’ (for reference, Obulous is a dickhead). But I guess that is part of the fun of the game!

There is also an appeal in the few number of models that need painting… although, let’s be honest, I am still as slow as ever!

Still feel I am taking my baby steps in to this game – I was never that good at meta analysis, much preferring to learn by doing – to this end I am really looking forward to getting tournaments, and the multiple games these entail, under my belt.

The game is still fresh, and I am very much looking forward to seeing where it goes next! (Beating Trev more, probably).

Cheers!

James Esland
Having played WFB for 20+ years, I was experiencing a bit of a hobby hiatus after AoS dropped. I imagined the effort of rebasing everything or starting a new army for a game I might not enjoy, and thought I’d wait for the dust to settle before committing the time to ‘re-invest’. Neil suggested I might want to try Guild ball - so I read the rules, got in a quick intro game with Trev and was hooked. Why?

· The rules and figures allow for a lot of personality - small differences in stats, traits, playbooks and plays make for big differences on the tabletop. I’m excited for new stuff coming out. I can buy and try models at a low cost in money, time and effort – and the majority of models are useful. It’s how you combine them into a team and how you play them that seems to matter more – and there isn’t a ‘right way’ to play; you can win by scoring, doing damage or a bit of both.

· I love a bit of resource management - balancing influence, momentum, current HP is huge – and the order of activations is a game within a game. Do you build a stack of momentum to try and get initiative next turn or burn it on flashy play? Should you put influence on your injured player and hope you get to activate him before your opponent can kill him, or leave him to get punched and give the influence to your own beat-stick and put the pressure on?

· It is constantly engaging - the alternating activations (or ‘I-go, you-go’) feels like the high-speed internet of board-gaming technology (yes I realise that high speed internet is the high speed internet of gaming technology). This keeps the pace up and allows for a very elegant game where I can see what you might be trying to do without you having overcommitted, and can counter - and you can’t execute that series of perfect synergistic moves you planned at the start of the turn. Thrust, parry, riposte… no more ‘massive swings’ where one turn changes the game. The initiative roll for the following turn, or taking an opposing player out can help you get multiple activations in a row - and you can capitalise on this – so just like politics it’s all about ‘accumulating advantage’. But the playbooks allow for luck to play just a large enough part to unseat even the best laid plans (not to worry, time for plan B… parry, riposte).

· The game plays until someone wins, and not a minute longer. Let me explain. In WFB, I spend 30 minutes getting my models out, 30 minutes deploying, 30 minutes on turn 1… if on turn 3 I realise my generals unit is 1” too far forwards or angled 5 degrees too far to the right, and I’m about to get flanked and wiped then this 1.5hrs investment has been ruined by a few seconds of sloppy play. We could play out the game but the rest of it becomes ‘what can I salvage’. In Guild Ball, if you take out my striker on the cusp of scoring it’s not the end of the world. He can jog back on (alarmingly quickly) and someone else can probably tackle you and score. If I do score – not to worry, it probably meant I was distracted and you get to take one of my players out. The game is pleasingly balanced when you play and the gains/losses are all incremental and not final. So you always get a good return on your investment of time

Trev Moffat
Similar to James the onset of AoS had me take a bit of a break from the Fantasy side of things since I wasn't enamored with a huge level skirmish game. I dabbled a little in Malifaux since there were some cool models and a relatively low number required to have a basic force. I quickly painted up enough models to enter an event. It was pretty enjoyable but I didn't know many people nearby playing the game and its also quick terrain intensive which I can't cater for at the moment.

I was informed that Guildball was the new up and coming game by Neil. I didn't back the Kickstarter (though now I wish I had) because I wasn't sure about a game with just humans as the characters (I like my goblins, trolls and other beasties). Seeing the miniatures and playing a couple of practice games convinced me though. There looks to be enough depth to keep me in this game for a long time too :)

The things which really had me hooked:

1. The miniatures
I like a lot of models across the ranges and the new models they are producing are getting better and better. I flirted briefly with a Morticians team but the Butchers were the ones for me. Slightly larger 30mm scale miniatures with a lot of individual character. I really enjoy painting and love the fantasy genre but plugging away at a unit of 20+ almost identical models is not really for me. Teams of 6 very different models (with the occasional sub) I can really get into and have painted a large chunk of a team.

It is also relatively cheap for a game. £50 will get you a basic team and about £80 gets you almost all the options you can take. The trickle new releases also mean you are never splashing too much cash at a time and you have the chance to paint up what you buy, this concept unsettles me as a mass battle player with more shiny metal and grey plastic than you can shake a stick at. Also you don't need to carry much about either.

2. Gaming
Easy to set up, especially if you have the very nice mousemat, very little terrain is needed either. Engaging and easy to pick up mechanics, it seems to pick all of the good parts from several other games. Quick-ish play time, it takes about 90 minutes for a full game which means I can easy play a game in an evening or a couple at the weekend.

The game is fairly well balanced. Apart from a few very good models *cough* Union *cough* and big guys not being all that almost all of the choices in the game are usable in some way. The designers have even hinted that new releases will be more synergistic with the less commonly used players. Basically for the most part I can play with the models I really want to use and not many games can say that!

3. Scene
Its a new game but there are events popping up regularly and has a strong scene on social media. The designers are keen to promote and support the game in tournament format which is also a huge plus, there is a structured format and regular prize support.

The buy in being relatively low has seen a lot of locals pick up teams so I've also been able to play much more frequently :)

If you haven't already considered Guildball you really should. I see this as the rising star in the current games scene. Lots of new and interesting additions are also promised.

Cheers
Trev

↧

Hobby Progress Update: Necrons!

October 19, 2015, 7:20 am

≫ Next: Speed Painted Necrons Hobby Update!

≪ Previous: A Tale of 3 Scottish(ish) Guildballers

Hey Guys, super quick hobby update. Over the weekend I managed to do the basing on my entire Necron army! First I put down a thick layer of black and PVA to give a super smooth black surface. This then took 24hr to cure after which I applied a thick layer of Martian Iron earth which also too 24 hours to fully set and “crackle”. I still have to go through dry-brushing the iron earth and then tidying up the rims with more Matt black paint but in principle that stage is complete. It’s amazing what a difference basing makes to making an army look complete! Still need to do the stone/ceramics and blues but in principle I'm making great progress with the army!

↧

Speed Painted Necrons Hobby Update!

October 22, 2015, 12:32 am

≫ Next: Insert witty crowd funding title here.

≪ Previous: Hobby Progress Update: Necrons!

Hey guys another quick update with the Speed Painted Necrons, I spent 2 hours last night putting the finishing touches on the bases (dry brushing and matte black painting the rims of the bases). I also took a few pictures of the models in the (unconventional!) round base movement trays I picked up off ebay. Personally I think it looks quite good and will certainly make moving my 80+ necrons around the board a lot easier! Definitely leaves me susceptible to blast/template weapons but having discussed this with Joe we reckoned it would be much simpler and less gamey just to say blast does D6 hits, large blast does 2D6 hits etc etc similar to the old cities of death special rules. This probably benefits him more than me with his green tide of Orks (Orcs) but it will definitely make games much more enjoyable and quicker lol! What do you guys think?

↧

Insert witty crowd funding title here.

October 23, 2015, 1:22 am

≫ Next: Battle Fleet Gothic: Imperial Fists Test Strike Cruiser

≪ Previous: Speed Painted Necrons Hobby Update!

A brief non-gaming post. Well, ish.

I've been drifting more and more into painting for non-gaming purposes. Recently I was lucky enough to win (another) competition, thanks to figone, on Facebook. The prize was a gorgeous bust and a absolutely massive, beautiful model sculpted by Allan carrasco. There's now a indiegogo campaign up for it/them. They really are lovely models, if they catch your interest I can only recommend them!

Also, coming soon, is an indiegogo campaign for what I'm guessing is gaming rules for the Smog Riders. Can't say I'm not excited for this!

Someone at some point needs to remind me to do a review of the books I've bought.

Joe

↧

Battle Fleet Gothic: Imperial Fists Test Strike Cruiser

October 26, 2015, 6:05 am

≫ Next: Imperial Fists Fleet Painted (BFG)

≪ Previous: Insert witty crowd funding title here.

Hey guys got through quite a bit of hobby over the weekend and manage to finish off all the stone on my necron armour which was a great wee hurdle. I just have the blues left to do which will take a bit of time but I have 2 weeks to get it done so it shouldn’t be a big problem!

So over the weekend I also spent some time building my Battle Fleet Gothic (BFG) Space Marine fleet which I have wanted to own for years. I got excited and painted up a strike cruiser as in the imperial fists colour scheme. I decided to go for Imperial Fists because we are planning on dabbling as a group with Horus Heresy and sparked by the teaser video on the GW website I think this is going to be huge. Andy is going Iron Warriors so this will give us a great narrative/ rivalry to build upon for our games. Im a big fan of the Horus Heresy book series so I hope this really grows into a fun story built gaming system for us all.

From a painting point of view Imperial Fists also represent a challenge in the form of yellow. I haven’t really painted much with yellow in the past so I’m excited for the challenge. I will do a blog post in the future talking more in depth about what specifically I plan to do and maybe a few test models.

Anyway let me know what you think of the test cruiser!

↧

Imperial Fists Fleet Painted (BFG)

October 29, 2015, 2:14 am

≫ Next: A Tale of one (ex) Scottish Guild Baller

≪ Previous: Battle Fleet Gothic: Imperial Fists Test Strike Cruiser

Hey guys! Last night (very late lol) I finished my BFG (Battlefleet Gothic) Imperial Fists fleet just in time for my game with Mike tonight. The fleet was great fun and super easy/quick to paint (maybe 8 hours total) and it really goes to show how much gaming value you can get out of not a huge amount of effort with BFG. A lot is said about the price of BFG ships these days but when you think about it all of the above has the gaming equivalence of a 3000pt army. The standard big game size for BFG seems to be 1850pts so you have plenty of options for games.

I have tried to paint each cruiser slightly differently and numbered them to tie in with a company number (except the 11^th which is a reserve cruiser to be requisitioned by any company in need of additional fleet support) and the Battle Barge “Hammer of Terra” which is the chapter flagship when the Phalanx cannot be present. I have gone through and named each cruiser following the list of ships on Lexicanumwhich I am really happy with!

I have also created small cards for each ship to keep track of hull points (critical damage too), leadership and stats. I made these to fit in standard card sleeves in excel (template here if you want to make your own!) and so I can write on them with a dry marker pen. Very simple to make for your own fleet so feel free to modify and if you make some cool ones for other fleets let me know and share! Also here are the Space Marine fleet rules for your reference: Imperial Fleet List

Really looking forward to my game with Mike tonight, it’s his first game so we are going to try a 750pt game and then try a bigger game if we get excited lol! Also very excited to tie these ships into 30k/40k gaming scenarios :)

Anyway let me know what you think of the ships, I need to re-do the reinforced basing for the cruisers, looks pretty messy!

↧

A Tale of one (ex) Scottish Guild Baller

October 29, 2015, 6:56 am

≫ Next: Hobby Update!

≪ Previous: Imperial Fists Fleet Painted (BFG)

Screw you guys I'll have my own Guild Ball blog, with Blackjack and Strippers.

For those that don't realise it Paint Hammered is a conglomerate of bloggers from assorted parts of the world but primarily the guys up in Scotland where Rich hails from. I used to be part of that scene but due to family (ie the wife told me I had to) reasons I moved down to the South West of England just outside Bristol & Bath.

As such Rich didn't bother to include me in the Tale of Guild Ballers (as can be seen here) I'm going to run my own tale, only now I think about it forget the blackjack.

Anyway unlike all those try hards who didn't really get into Guild Ball until after it was cool I backed the kickstarter from the early days. I first heard about Guild Ball on Fools Daily (a wonderful if slightly inaccurately titled podcast that covers all sorts of games and quite regularly has new developers on to tout their stuff, speaking of which check out the Roots of Magic on Facebook or Twitter, it looks ace!).

Anyway ramblings aside as I say I got into Guild Ball pretty early and it was listening to Mat & Rich talking on Fools Daily that I was taken with their obvious enthusiasm but also the fact it seemed tempered by a very sensible business head that made me think this game could be more than just a flash in the pan.

So I duly sunk £150 odd into the KS which netted me 5 teams, yes that's it suckers who didn't back early I effectively got 2 teams for free. I then had to live through a year of waiting for the stuff to turn up and it was about 4m delayed over their original schedule but given they had the incredible misfortune of their lead caster dying in that period not something that I was about to get upset over.

Come April/May this year I get a box in the post with my 5 teams and was faced by the tough decision of deciding what I wanted to play. I'd committed to painting up a team as soon as possible to allow me to get started. On that basis I decided I wasn't a huge fan of the Butchers playstyle (on backing the KS I didn't actually know how the 5 teams I'd picked would play, though Butchers and Fish were pretty well set out). So I would paint up the butchers as a 'get me by' team whilst I learned the rules and would then paint up nicely the teams I liked best.

Then I started to paint up the models. All of a sudden there was no chance I was doing a rush paintjob on the team. For those that haven't looked at the figures they are nice. They're metal (or resin) with the issues that brings but they're so beautifully done. Mat is a self proclaimed dynamic sculpt junkie and it shows! The other thing is the wonderful balance between enough detail to keep the figure interesting and the lack of pointless clutter on the model.

Pointless clutter is a personal bugbear of mind, GW were very guilty for a while but are now much better these days, it adds nothing to painting a model as often it's too fiddly to paint very well, it clutters up loads of space and takes loads of time for very little return on the overall effect of the model. Invariably if there are optional parts to add to models I'll leave them in my bits box.

Well with the Butchers now firmly stuck on my painting table I then turned to Union as the team I would mess about with to learn the game. The concept of strong individuals without much by way of interdependencies/synergies made them seem like a simple and straightforward place to learn and as it turns out they're also filthy good too! With that I became hooked on the game and tried to get as many locals playing as possible.

Bristol is an odd gaming scene Bristol Vanguard is the main club round here and it's always had a wide range of games being played. This makes finding people to try out new stuff generally fairly easy and the league which got set up consisted of 15 players, sadly the organiser had swept people up from various sources like facebook etc and it ended up folding as there were only about 6-7 of us regularly looking to get our games in. Apparently there is a league play doc in the offing from Steam Forged so once that is out a new league will be kicking off but for now I'm just in pickup game land.

BIG (Bristol Independent Gaming) is my local game store and has hosted one Guild Ball event (run by the local pundit Liam) and is running a second in December which is currently sold out at 32 players (this will be the biggest event in the UK to date).

So basically it seems I'm in the heartlands of Guild Ball players and loving it!

Anyways back to the painting, after getting the Butchers done, I smashed out the Union because I'd been having so much fun playing with them.

This was then followed by painting up the Alchemists because I wanted a fast scory team (as a result I chose to sell the Fishermen team from my KS). The final team I added was the Engineers, I'd largely picked this up on a whim when a clubmate was selling because they felt like a different playstyle.

That brings me to my 4 completed teams and no intent to add any more at present. 1 Bashy (Butchers), 1 Scory (Alchemists), 1 Mixed (Union) and 1 Alternative playstyle (Engineers). the other team which would make sense would be the Morticians due to the different playstyle again but I dislike the mechanic of 'I work by making you not work' so I sold them off as well.

Anyway that's my ramble through where I've gotten to with Guildball so far, season 2 is upon us and to date only Compound interests me to pick it up at present as Tenderiser seems cool but I don't overly see the need for his skillset as yet.

So there we have it my guildball blog with Strippers. Only forget the strippers... You know what screw the whole thing. (for those that don't realise the Blackjack & strippers thing is a Futurama reference, shame on you if you don't know it).

↧

Hobby Update!

October 29, 2015, 2:30 pm

≫ Next: #HobbyHeresy Painting Challenge: Lightning Round!!

≪ Previous: A Tale of one (ex) Scottish Guild Baller

After moving house and getting some more organisation into my life I have finally managed to get a small hobbydesk set up and I have got back to some more hobby. First off I was able to go down to Warhammer World for Armies on Parade on the 24th October. I took my High Elf Display Board that I made for Blood and Glory last year with an added Kharibdyss conversion. I set the board up and settled in for a fun day of gaming and socialising. I playedsome Age of Sigmar against Nathan and his Nightgoblins (got battered!) using my Warrior army. Also had plenty of time to go round and look at what was going on. Loads of gaming going on and some stunning Armies on Parade boards were on display. To cap the day off I was lucky enough to come away with the Gold medal and the staff asked to keep the army on display for a few weeks which was pretty cool.

I backed the Mierce kickstarter for the Banebeasts and I received my Dragon which I have put together, green stuffed and undercoated. The model is ace, but the resin is very fragile and I had a few scales snap off during assembly. I have also had to green stuff a lot which was a bit frustrating as its not something I am used to doing when working with Games Workshop products. However the pose is fab and its going to make a terrific Malorian for my Aelf army.

To complement the model I wanted to make a really imposing base so that it wouldn't look out of place with the existing Forest Dragon. I used the Mierce base to start with and then built it up using bark and Wills Paving. I wrapped the back with thin Plasticard to block it all in and then went to town with the Vallejo products and bits and pieces from my scenery box to add details. Thought I'd throw a cheeky Storcast shield in as well just to add some theme.

To paint it I used a lot of washes for the paving to get colour variation, and the rest was just the standard wood elf rebasing (foliage, flowers, tufts etc etc)

I have also started working on the rebasing for the Warriors army ready for the Maul and Blood and Glory. This was an interesting challenge as I have been using resin bases that I didn't want to destroy as the basing probably took longer then the models!

I ended up chopping the corners off the cavalry bases and then gluing them down and building them up with the Vallejo Lava paste and small pieces of broken cork which I superglued round the edge. For the warriors I used sand and Agrelan Earth to save time. The bigger monsters were more of a challenge. I ended up cutting a hole into the base and recessing the model inside it, then building round the edges. I then used the Agrellan Earth to tie it in with the warriors. I am also planning on using the purple lavender and white winter tufts which will match the colour scheme. I'm happy with how the army is coming along and it should be finished easily by the deadline of next Saturday!

And last but not least I got hold of some scenery dice for Age of Sigmar from www.scenerydice.co.uk. These are really big high quality dice and work really well in the game. I'd definitely recommend them if anyone wants to start adding extras to their AoS games.

↧

#HobbyHeresy Painting Challenge: Lightning Round!!

October 29, 2015, 4:50 pm

≫ Next: The Shifting Monolith from Holy Wars

≪ Previous: Hobby Update!

Hey guys! So I'm super excited to announce the painthammer #HobbyHeresy Painting challenge! As you will know GW have announced their Horus heresy boxed set and it has been confirmed that the white dwarf due to be released on the 7th of November will include a FREE MK IV plastic space marine.

I thought this would be an awesome opportunity for another Lightning Round painting challenge where entrants have a week to paint a free model to the best of their ability and vote for their favourite :)

The goal is to challenge yourself to paint something out of your comfort zone, try a new technique or just try a new paint! Official start date is the 7th of November and the submission deadline is the 15th of November (2359 GMT). Aim would be for me to do a blog post at the end of the month with all the entrants models shown and let the comments/votes/#RichHate begin!

Rough plan would be as follows:

Paint one Plastic MK IV Marine starting 7th November with Submission by 15th November (2359 GMT).
32mm round bases only and please paint your marine true to the fluff in one of the 18 legion (eg 1st founding)colour schemes (I'm doing Imperial fists!) but variants of which are cool. For example Imperial Fist veteran colour schemes are cool but Crimson Fists (2nd Founding post Heresy) is not cool. Also historic versions of legions which changed colours (eg Luna Wolves to Sons of Horus) are also cool.
Minor conversions (head swaps and small modifications eg chaosy) are allowed but please keep relatively toned down (no Paul there is not a Goblin Spider King Legion....)
Each entrant gains one vote (vote by saying your choice as a comment in the wrap up post) and innocent bystanders can vote too as long as they state their twitter or forum handle
Please submit pictures of your model via DM on twitter to me (@paint_hammer)by the above stated date and time.
I will create a Voting blog post on the 16th wth pictures as names of the entrants :)

↧

The Shifting Monolith from Holy Wars

November 1, 2015, 9:45 am

≫ Next: UPDATE Horus Heresy: Painting Challenge

≪ Previous: #HobbyHeresy Painting Challenge: Lightning Round!!

Many have asked me, "how did you make the Shifting Monolith?" in fact some have asked me to sell it or build them one. So I thought why not share how I did it? After reading this if you would like me to build you one contact me at @HolyHammerHern on twitter or via this blog post and we can talk. :)

The concept for the Shifting Monolith was born from the Warriors of Chaos map in the 8th Ed army book. When I began designing terrain for my tournament The Holy Wars GT, www.holywarsgt.com. I wanted to build tables themed around the armies of the Warhammer world and the Shifting Monolith on the map served as one of the earliest bits of inspiration.

Enough blathering on to the process!

Step 1: Materials

Holy Wars terrain is on an epic scale and I needed to make sure that the Monolith would be icon and memorable. I knew from the start they needed to be perfect rectangles and if I were to cut the foam from high density foam insulation it wouldn't be quite perfect enough so I went with styrofoam rectangles that can be found at stores like Hobby Lobby, Michaels or any craft store. I found mine at Hobby Lobby.

Step 1: Construction

The issue with this type of styrofoam is durability. The rules for the Monolith require players to move it around the table wreaking havoc on the battlefield so it needed to be strengthened to stand up to the rigors of game play. These rectangles of styrofoam are medium density and would need strengthening so I used MagiKote surface coating this strengthens and transforms into a semi smooth surface that can be sanded. This was by far the most time consuming process. It takes many coats to achieve the right surface before sanding. Here's a pro tip, I tinted mine with a bit of green so I could see how the MagiKote was going over the white styrofoam. Made it a lot easier to identify areas I missed and how well the sanding process was going. I could see when I missed an area or need to touch up an area I missed.

For the base of the Monolith I used a 4x5 block of wood this would act as stabilizer and serve as counter weight. The images below show you the scale of the Monolith.

Step 3: Painting

Painting is always the scary fun part of the process. First I needed to decide which Chaos God would be ascended and so the easy choice was Nurgle after all the love he got in 8th Ed it was a no brainer. I also knew that a typical Monoliths are black like 2001 Space Odyssey but I wanted to have something more creative than black or solid Chaos God colors. I did a bit of research on Nebulas and determined I wanted to create that type of space like gas storms within the Monoliths with bolts of lighting each colored to the corresponding God. Using wet blending techniques and simple hobby paint the whole Monolith was painted in 2 hours! The lightening was added at the end and I was thrilled with the overall results.

Step 3: The Base

After the painting was finished the base needed something added to it and I decided to do rocks around the wood base with a bit of snow. These were built using pine bark nuggets and light weight joint compound. It gave it a nice finishing touch that match the Warriors of Chaos table.

↧

UPDATE Horus Heresy: Painting Challenge

November 3, 2015, 3:01 am

≫ Next: Smog Riders IndieGoGo Campaign

≪ Previous: The Shifting Monolith from Holy Wars

****UPDATE, in light of my over excitement and believing of rumours I have modified the painting challenge to the following.****

Hey guys! So I'm super excited to announce the painthammer #HobbyHeresy Painting challenge! As you will know GW have announced their Horus heresy boxed set with some amazing contents

I thought this would be an awesome opportunity for another Lightning Round painting challenge where entrants have a week to paint a model to the best of their ability and vote for their favourite :) You may paint any single infantry Horus Heresy model on a 32mm base, this may be a basic line trooper or a character to lead your new force.

The goal is to challenge yourself to paint something out of your comfort zone, try a new technique or just try a new paint! Official start date is the 14th of November and the submission deadline is the 21st of November (2359 GMT). Aim would be for me to do a blog post at the end of the month with all the entrants models shown and let the comments/votes/#RichHate begin!

Rough plan would be as follows:

Paint one Heresy Power Armoured (Artificer is ok) Marine on a 32mm base starting 14th November with Submission by 21st November (2359 GMT). This should either be an existing forge world model or a model from the new plastic kit.
32mm round bases only and please paint your marine true to the fluff in one of the 18 legion (eg 1st founding) colour schemes (I'm doing Imperial fists!) but variants of which are cool. For example Imperial Fist veteran colour schemes are cool but Crimson Fists (2nd Founding post Heresy) is not cool. Also historic versions of legions which changed colours (eg Luna Wolves to Sons of Horus) are also cool.
Minor conversions (head swaps and small modifications eg chaosy) are allowed but please keep relatively toned down (no Paul there is not a Goblin Spider King Legion....)
Each entrant gains one vote (vote by saying your choice as a comment in the wrap up post) and innocent bystanders can vote too as long as they state their twitter or forum handle
Please submit pictures of your model via DM on twitter to me (@paint_hammer)by the above stated date and time.
I will create a Voting blog post on the 22nd with pictures as names of the entrants :)

↧

Smog Riders IndieGoGo Campaign

November 4, 2015, 6:15 am

≫ Next: Paint Hammer's new (really) Southern correspondent

≪ Previous: UPDATE Horus Heresy: Painting Challenge

So, finally, the Smog Riders campaign has hit! The character models alone have been phenomenal for painting, and improving my painting, but now they're bringing in vehicles!

They venicles are coming in at about 90euro each. They should be pretty big, given the size of the normal models, and each comes with a driver, additional character, and a mascot-esque model. There's also the opportunity to grab some bundles of the characters as well.

Personally, I'm grabbing the "Fat Bob" kit. Love me some mechs, but the side kick with it sealed the deal for me!

Even if you don't support the campaign, if any of the smog rider models catch you eye, I'd really recommend picking one up. Great fun and a refreshing change to the standard war-gaming fare that most people paint. There's a blog with all of the painting guides you get with each model on as well.

Here's my painted smog riders so far, and the pile of guides for the ones that are on my painting table.

↧

Paint Hammer's new (really) Southern correspondent

November 9, 2015, 9:00 am

≫ Next: Tumblin' Dice

≪ Previous: Smog Riders IndieGoGo Campaign

Hey there, I’ve invited myself along as Paint Hammer’s (really) Southern correspondent. While I’m not on the same painting/hobby level as the rest of the excellent contributors to this blog, I do hope to add the different perspective of a relatively recent re-entrant to the hobby.

Who am I? I’m Dan (@antipodean7), a 30-year-old lawyer, dwarf-player and Liverpool fan (yep, I’m screwed from the start – don’t blame you for clicking away now). I grew up in the UK and started Warhammer in the mid-90s by splitting the 5^thedition box set with my brother, before moving to New Zealand. Like so many, I returned to Warhammer after marriage about two years ago.

With an 18 month-old daughter, I rarely get the hobby time I would like, so I find myself cruising Twitter, listening to podcasts, buying and planning projects but never actually making much progress on them. Before I finish, I always move on to the next new shiny getting the short-term dopamine rush from the purchase but never getting the satisfaction of completing the project. For instance, I currently have on the go:

8^th ed Dwarfs - who have sat largely untouched since the switch to AoS (2,500 points done but still have Thunderers, Hammerers, Rangers, Thorgrim and more war machines to finish);
KoW Dwarfs - Brock-riding Lord, 2 regiments of Brock-Riders, Steel Behemoth, and movement trays etc to finish;
AoS Dwarfs - I’ve plans for my slayer pirates and metal pile of dwarfs in AoS but am waiting for more dwarf fluff to drop first;
KoW Kingdoms of Men – 3,000 points of random Empire and Brets that I’ve picked up over the years but need to finish assembly, painting and basing (Tom Hale has kindly agreed to help with this while he is over here);
Skitarii – I’m horribly behind in our local Tale of 40k Gamers, with only two squads base-coated and no games played so far;
Escher– 8 painted, but not based, and 4 more to paint from the Toughest Girls of the Galaxy Kickstarter;
Guild Ball– 2 teams to be built and painted (Brewers and Alchemists), plus I have dreams of building brew house, town square and field pitches over the summer;
Mordheim– a completely unnecessary Skaven warband I bought (I blame @Gas_Monkey82 and a swap meet);
Modular gaming table– 90% done, 4x4 expandable to 8x4, needs a few more coats of paint; and
Terrain– partially completed Empire table, 40k table and Hive table.

Some of the metal pile

I’ve also got my eye on an unpainted Dogs of War army (which a local guy is selling) and plans on running a KoW two-dayer in January. So far too much planned and not enough time.

I hope this blog will give me some external accountability to move through this back-log, learn some new skills and share the progress. The aim is to do less but finish more. Hopefully this can be done without making the hobby feel just like a second job.

Where I start will depend on what I plan to take to the NZ Masters (5^th/6^thDecember) and the Clash of Kings Auckland one-dayer (13^th Dec). So to list-writing it is…

Cheers,

Dan

↧

Tumblin' Dice

November 10, 2015, 2:09 am

≫ Next: Necron Army List For Winter War

≪ Previous: Paint Hammer's new (really) Southern correspondent

Hey guys, super quick post just to show off some picture from the weekend gaming at Common Ground Games. A good group of us met up to play some 40k Battle Fleet gothic and Guildball. Personally only managed to get two games in (we were having a good laugh and socialising more than playing lol) and small intro game of Star Wars Armada.

First game I played Ryan’s Eldar (He’s such a D ;) ) using my Necrons in a Maelstrom scenario (tactical objective cards) in hammer and anvil. We had a great time and we really took the piss with all the card shenanigans. If you haven’t tried 7^th edition 40k with the random cards it is a great fun system for playing with a good group of mates, super random but still tactical where blowing your opponent off the board isn’t the main or only consideration. The necron swarm list (below) I was using seemed to work really well in this system, covering the board with loads of wounds and tough to kill reanimating Decurion necrons. I ended up winning the game but ryan had utterly decimated my army killing tonnes!

Reclaimation Legion

Nemesor Zahndrek

10x Lych Guard

2 x 10 Necron Warriors

3 x 10 Necron Immortals (20 with Tesla Carbines)

6x Tomb Blades (Particle Beamers + Nebuloscopes)

Cannoptek Harvest

1x Tomb Spyder, Gloom Prism, Twin Linked Particle Beamer

4x Scarabs

3x Wraiths, Whip Coils

Cannoptek Harvest

1x Tomb Spyder, Gloom Prism, Twin Linked Particle Beamer

4x Scarabs

3x Wraiths, Whip Coils

Next up I played Mike at BFG 1850pts of Space Marines vs Necrons (me). Once again Mike tore me up (I’m terrible at BFG it seems!) and he crushed me utterly, really not sure where necrons get this reputation as filth, even without the 2x/3x victory points for necron ships he had won by a large margin. I had though my sneaky, super-fast refused flank turn 1 would win me the game (I swung my whole fleet left to concentrate on one part of his fleet) but it went horribly wrong! Back to the drawing board!!!

I also got a wee introduction to Star Wars Armada from Steve (owner of Common Ground Games) and it looks a really cool game. I think I might pick it up in the new year from Steve. Quick note guys Common Ground is an awesome venue and if you haven’t been please drop in, great shop, café and gaming area. Also helps that Steve + Team are super accommodating and make a mean coffee!

↧

Necron Army List For Winter War

November 10, 2015, 10:00 am

≫ Next: Darklands.......

≪ Previous: Tumblin' Dice

So this weekend I am going to my first ever 40k tournament at the always awesome Winter War Charity Event (please donate and find out more here: http://warhammer.org.uk/phpBB/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=130827). Quite excited to play more 40k as have enjoyed all my games and round one I am grudged vs Calum Todd (we are FINALLY going to play! Wooooooo!) a good friend using his Tyranids. Ill be bringing my necrons (which should be finished tonight or Thursday night!) and really looking forward to play new people and very likely getting crushed lol. Calum, Ryan and I have a gentleman’s competition to see who can win the wooden spoon with us all playing our tournament.

Anyway, here’s my list, let me know what you think! I’m trying to play to the undying legion of endless robotic killing machines mental picture I have built up and try to flood the board with hard to kill but still shooty Necons. This should work well for maelstrom/tactical objectives in the comp pack.

Decurion Detachment:

Reclamation Legion

Nemesor Zahndrek (Warlord)

10 Lych Guard

10 Necron Warriors

10 Immortals (Gauss Blasters)

10 Immortals (Tesla Carbines)

4 Tomb Blades

Canoptek Harvest

1 Canoptek Spyder

3x Canoptek Wraiths, 3x Whip Coils

3x Canoptek Spyders

Canoptek Harvest

1 Canoptek Spyder

3x Canoptek Wraiths, 3x Whip Coils

3x Canoptek Spyders

1850pts

↧

Darklands.......

November 11, 2015, 2:00 am

≫ Next: Painting Challenge: Awesome Terrain Voting

≪ Previous: Necron Army List For Winter War

It is the year 650, as the Christians note it, and the darkness that has engulfed the world since the Romanii betrayed the lands of the north and west only intensifies with each passing year. Established kingdoms and ruthless overlords war with each other even as they are raided by murderous pirates, once-slaves and northmen, and the brooding threat of the ice devils of the sea is matched only by the malevolent power of the inheritors of the ancient realms. In these lands of darkness only the strongest prevail in a never-ending struggle for survival against the bestial horrors man both brings to war and creates for it, and yet the greatest threat of all is perhaps the nature of man himself...

So leads the opening paragraph of The Darklands Quick starter rules and it gives you an idea of the world the game is set in.... Based upon an alternate twist of history where our darkest and most vile myths are made real and terrify the inhabitants of a bleak Europe. Each faction is based upon an ancient race or country of Europe; Norse, Angles, Romans etc etc.

I'm just about to start painting my War Daemon/Kruul model and it looks incredible! Will be doing a blog post on the process in the coming weeks.

Quite excited to learn more of the rules and story when released next year but for the time being here are some pictures of the (amazing!) models and you can read up on the beta rules here:

http://mierce-miniatures.com/index.php?act=drm

↧

Painting Challenge: Awesome Terrain Voting

November 12, 2015, 12:11 am

≫ Next: Horus Heresy "My" Legion: The Imperial Fists

≪ Previous: Darklands.......

Hey guys! so here are the entrants for the fourth painting challenge! Some amazing work here by the guys!

Anyway now for the voting, very simple: Choose your favourite (hard part!), tweet your vote to me (@paint_hammer) or as a comment to this blog post. One vote per person please and no self voting ;) Voting will close at 2359 BST on Sunday the 15th of November. Shameless self promotion and bribes are recommended and encouraged!

DISCLAIMER: Please contact me ASAP if anything is wrong, I have missed your entry or to vent #RichHate. Not everyone listened to me and didn’t submit via twitter DM (bad monkeys!!!).

Rich P

Frozen Beard

WarhammerMeijin

James Brown

Hobby Hammer

Frozen Beard

Roy Diprose

Mick F

↧

Horus Heresy "My" Legion: The Imperial Fists

November 12, 2015, 8:42 am

≫ Next: Speed Painted Necron Army: Finished!

≪ Previous: Painting Challenge: Awesome Terrain Voting

Hey guys thought I would do a wee blog post discussing my choice of Horus Heresy Legion: The Imperial Fists. So the reasoning for my choice was actually pretty simple, I’m rubbish at painting yellow and black properly so I’m going to paint a whole army of it! Also from a story/fluff point of view I really like the Imperial fists (Polux and Sigismund in particular are very cool characters and amazing models) so it fitted well. Also Andy is going Iron Warriors so we have a perfect rivalry to set our games to and “Forge the Narrative”!

The next bit is a bit trickier and will likely take a few iterations before I settle on it: What company scheme will I go for? I quite like the idea of a more evenly distributed Yellow/Black mix so I might try and balance that with one of the below veteran schemes. Will be mixing in gun metal silver to balance and accents of bronze and light tan stone for details. I think might make blue my power/eye slit colour as it should contrast with the yellow well but that would clash/look rubbish with red if I use it…. So bit of a dilemma!

With regards to yellows I plan to do a much more muted colour as I am not a fan at all of the bright “primary” yellow that GW used to paint Imperial fists. Instead I will building up to white (almost NMM) on my yellows and washing with sepia. I will also be trying some wreathing/chips on the armour to look like my imperial fists have crushed an enemy (iron warriors) fortification.

I plan to also use a lot of transfers which is also new for me to use on a large scale so that will be interesting and learning curve! Might pick up the forge world Imperial Fists transfer sheet to help me out as have heard they are awesome!

Basing is also an area of some testing, I’m going to try and do a ruined city theme with bits of rubble, twisted metal and discard weapons. Not entirely sure how I will survive without using ALL the tufts (PURPLE HEATHER NO MORE!) but I’m going to at least make a concerted effort!

Sooooo combining this all into one project will be my first test model for the #HobbyHeresy #PaintingChallenge (Challenge Linky!) by painting a Forge World Legion Praetor in Artificer Mk III armour(FW Praetor Link!), super excited to get started!

↧

Speed Painted Necron Army: Finished!

November 13, 2015, 2:00 am

≫ Next: Horus Heresy Imperial Fists: Basing Research

≪ Previous: Horus Heresy "My" Legion: The Imperial Fists

So (very!) late last night I managed to finish my speed painted necron army for Winter War. It’s been quite a slog but in the grand scheme of things painting 2400 -3000ish points of Necrons in just over a month (rough 20 hours of painting I estimate) is pretty good and I’m quite happy with the finished army. Definitely not my best quality work but probably my best speed painted army. Very excited to add to it (I have about another 2000pts half painted and 1000pts unbuilt) and plan to grow this army large enough that I can field any choice in the book in a decent quantity. Plan to break down into slightly smaller blocks of troops to batch paint (eg all the flyers in one batch, all the destroyers in one batch etc etc) but will still likely do the basing for the whole remainder of the army in one go.

Let me know what you think of the army, have you speed painted an army before?

Anyway here’s my list again for tomorrow at Winter War, really looking forward to playing Calum and having a laugh game 1 and meeting new people for the rest of my games.

Reclamation Legion

• Nemesor Zahndrekh (Warlord)

• 10 Immortals: Tesla Carbines

• 10 Immortals

• 10 Lychguard

• 4 Tomb Blades

• 10 Warriors

Canoptek Harvest

• 1 Canoptek Spyder

• 3 Canoptek Wraiths: 3× Whip Coils

• 3 Canoptek Scarabs

Canoptek Harvest