Pizzapocalypse!

To celebrate the imminent arrival of the next edition of Warhammer 40k and to send off 5th edition in rollicking style, the lads at Games Workshop Liverpool kindly organized a night of Pizza and Apocalypse goodness for their customers to enjoy.

My activity on this blog was limited this week as i frantically painted up my Sanguinary Guard army so that i'd be able to take part with a mostly painted 1500 point army. Granted my chosen army resulted in only 22 models needing to be painted, but forty wings were a pain in the backside to get finished and even more of a pain keeping them glued on.

But enough of my problems, on with the photos. Apologies for some blurring, a sad combination of a not so great camera and drinking a few cans of pseudo-Red Bull to stay awake.

 Rather impressively my Storm Raven took two full bursts from Vulcan Mega bolters wielded by those Warhounds before it plummeted to the ground in a fireball.

 Far too many Landraiders for civilized society.

 Nids! So, so many Nids.

 My staunch Imperial Guard allies. And Night Lords, but don't tell the Inquisition.

 The Blingwing, before the horror began.

 One of several allied Storm Ravens. It died.

 

 The beginning of the end for my boys in Gold.

 The last of the Blingwing attempted to get revenge on one of the Landraiders with his powerfist, only to bounce off before being barbequed like the rest of his comrades.

So thanks again to GW Liverpool and everyone who turned up for an absolute blast of a night. Now if you'll excuse me, i need sleep.

Your Friendly Neighbourhood Spider-pope.

Hmmm...i wonder what this could be a preview of...

Best start saving those pennies now.

Flames of War: First rulebook impressions

I've had a flick through the Flames of War rulebook, not quite enough to have learnt the rules - which are always best learnt through attempting to play - but enough to get the jist and to pass on my thoughts on the book itself.

First off in terms of layout and presentation, Flames sets the new standard. The book is full colour, photos on nearly every page, artwook everywhere. GW, Privateer Press et al all need to buck their game up if they want to match Flames.

Of particular note are these little boxes:

At the end of each rule description, there's a little summary box that restates the rules in bullet point form. This should be adopted by every wargame rulebook. How many times have you stopped in the middle of a game of 40k to go searching through a segment of the rules to find the key detail tucked away in the third paragraph? If your memory is as bad as mine, it'll be quite a few.
These little summaries are ideal to speed up looking up rules and for clearly laying out rules.

With every rule segment, there is a full colour picture providing an example of said rule in action. Not strictly necessary, but it certainly looks nice.


Again rather than just a page of stat lines or special rules, each unit type is provided with a nice photo example of such a unit. It's a small touch but a nice one that really improves the overall presentation of the book.

But there is always a but.

While the presentation side of things is great, the rules are well laid out and easy to understand there is a fundamental flaw with the product. And that is how well it is put together.

Simply put its rather shocking that with a book that is otherwise above and beyond the expected quality that they would skimp so much on it's binding.



This is a sample page from the book. As you can see not only has glue seeped out onto the pages themselves, they are no longer properly attached. Literally within half an hour of reading through the book, the pages were beginning to fall out.

I know there are many on the interwebs that decry Games Workshop rule books as having terribly bound spines, but usually the pages only start to become detached with their products after several months of intensive use. This started after a brief flick through.

So overall i'm mostly impressed with the rulebook. But skimping out on the manufacturing side of things has left a sour taste. All the pretty pages in the world are of no benefit if the book falls apart in your hands.

Achtung! Unboxing.

I decided to treat myself with another item that i'll likely never use and ordered the Achtung! starter set for 'Flames of War'.
As i've said before i'm not a historical wargamer or modeller by any means. My dice rolling experience is strictly limited to the skull infested battlefields of the Warhammer world and the Grim Darkness of the Far Future that is Warhammer 40k, with a few all too brief diversions into the steam powered punching of Warmachine.

So this is rather new to me. Any historical wargamers out there please forgive me for any hugely incorrect statements i make about WWII and it's forces as i unbox the game i shall likely never play that is 'Flames of War'.


A quick look at the outside of the box. Some nice artwork on the front and a comprehensive list of what you're getting inside.

What every wargamer likes to see, a box jam packed with books and sprues.

The two sets of tanks come on the familiar plastic sprues in two bags. Which for a novice like me is handy as it'll avoid me glueing a Sherman turret onto the tracks of a StuG by mistake.

*Pudgy fingers not included.

One of the StuG sprues. While not filled with extras like the average Games Workshop sprue, there are a few bits of baggage i can see. And the tank itself shows a nice bit of detail, especially considering its smaller scale.

The rulebook and a small bag of dice and oddly enough magnets. I presume that these are for magnetising components on the tanks. Should be interesting as i've not used magnets in any models i've built before.

And last but not least a shot of the innards of the rulebook. All of which is full colour with plenty of example diagrams for the rules.
I've not read the rules yet so i'll have to review them later, but all in all its a nice little starter set that provides everything one needs to start 'Flames of War'. So colour me impressed so far.

Until next time,
Your Friendly Neighbourhood Spider-pope.

Watch out, he's historical!*

* A pun or punne on hysterical. I'm here all night folks.

I've not gotten anything finished to stick on here, so i figured i'd show the denizens of the interwebs a few models that got me back into regular painting after a pretty long slump.



Assembled and painted by my friend J, they're of a historical nature. This is a side of the wargaming/modelling hobby i've never really delved into beyond a rather brief attempt at painting a few airfix miniatures.
I'm no expert, but that's a cool looking tank.
His tank painting skills, unlike mine, are pretty well developed. Nice smooth coats and finishes, whereas my own tend to reveal brush strokes at every turn.

J's been posting these up on his facebook profile for a while, which in turn led me to stick some of my own kits online and got me to pick up a brush again to keep up.

I've even taken a look at a few Flames of War kits to maybe venture into historical gaming myself. Although given i have a hard enough time getting in a game of Warhammer and 40k these days, unless i find an opponent it'll likely remain a pipe dream. J sadly has proven remarkably resistant to my attempts to pester him into taking up the wargaming side of things.

Until next time,

Your Friendly Neighbourhood Spider-pope.

Would you like to ride in my beautiful balloon...

This week i felt like showing my Dark Eldar a little bit of love. They've been sat in a box for quite a while now, in fact some are still sitting on a their sprues, unpainted and unloved. So i dusted off the box and started work on getting a Baron Sathonyx "counts-as" done since i still intend to field a Hellion based army.

The Beggar King, The Blade Itself, Daemoncursed, the leader of the Flying Polyps is known by many names. His origins are a mystery to all. He arrived unnannounced in the gang's territory deep in the bowels of the Dark City. His first action was to kill the gangs leader and seize control for himself.

He's made from a standard Hellion, with a bit of cutting done to his skyboard and some greenstuff hair added.


None have seen his face. Some whisper that he is a disfigured and disgraced Archon, others that he is some fiendish experiment of the Haemonculi escaped from their flesh pits. Some even whisper that he is a deranged clone of Vect himself. The Beggar King provides no answers to those that ask, save the kiss of a knife.

He's not quite finished yet, some details need work but hey at least he now exists in non sprue form.

Since i've had a particularly crap couple of weeks, along with this weekends releases that i'm sure everyone is aware of, i decided to treat myself too. Which led to this addition to my army:

Under his leadership the gang has vastly expanded their territory, absorbing numerous groups, including several Scourge flocks and a wing of Razorwing fighters. They have become ever more common sights in the raids against the lesser races of the galaxy.
None of their warriors ever set foot upon the ground of a prey world, always remaining mounted on their skyboards or aflight upon their augmented wings.

Yup it's a Razorwing fighter. I don't have armies able to use the three new fliers released this weekend, so it was a choice between a Storm Raven or a Razorwing when i felt that flyer itch.

It's not quite finished yet, i still need to decide and paint its armaments and choose which missiles i'll be using. But i'm quite pleased with how it looks so far. It took a heck of a lot of stippling but i think it was worth it.

Until next time,

Your Friendly Neighbourhood Spider-pope.

Fun with Fimir

A not so friendly fimir, based with a reminder of their totally NSFW background

Just a quick update today. I decided to get a little bit of painting and basing done during the brief respite from the unnatural british heat (oh rain how i've missed you), so finished off my Fimir and got him based in the hope that white flock would have the same cooling effect as real snow. Alas it does not.

On a whim i also decided to paint up one of the Epic scale Rhino's i've had laying around for a while.
Small but perfectly formed

It occurred to me that there may well be some hobbyists out there who've never actually seen an Epic scale miniature next to a normal 40k model, thanks to GW's less than stellar support of the specialist games range, so a quick comparison shot below with the Rhino next to the only tank i own, an Imperial Guard Chimera.

Size doesnt matter it's what you do with it that counts

...And an almost fanatical devotion to the pope

Continuing the theme from my last post, here's another of my recently completed projects: The first few members of an Inquisitor warband.

I've loved Inquisitor since its release many years ago, the idea of a narrative wargame has huge appeal for me. Unfortunately it didn't seem to have much appeal to many others, and quickly disappeared into the mists of Games Workshops Specialist games.

Never one to let that daunt me, i ordered a few models from Ebay and elsewhere solely to own them and to hopefully stir up some interest in the game and get some people to play it with.



First up is my Enforcer. I used the Enforcer Barbaretta model pretty much unaltered. I simply used the alternate arms supplied with the kit along with a plastic power weapon to replace her power maul, to be used as a short sword.

Next up is my henchman, this time using Slick Devlan. I added a few extra bits here and there along with a bolter replacing one of his sidearms made using the Heavy Bolter from a Landspeeder. He has bionics augmenting that arm in game, so fear not his wrist won't shatter the first time he fires his weapon.
One particularly gratifying thing was that when i uploaded this photo to Facebook, it's facial recognition software recognised the models face. Evidently my painting did not prevent the model from looking human, which is unusual.

This last member of the warband was somewhat upsetting to finish. I'd already started work on him several months ago and dubbed him P4WS after my dog at the time, Paws. Sadly this past week Paws passed away. I decided not to rename the character in memory of the pooch.

So that's my warband so far. I intend to put in an order for another member next week, although i've not decided who. At the moment it's a choice between Brother-Captain Artemis, Inquisitor Eisenhorn, Inquisitor Covenant or Preacher Josef.

Until next time,
Your Friendly Neighbourhood Spider-pope.

I just lost to myself at a card game. Now that is humiliating

Browsing through the reduced aisle of my local Forbidden Planet i came across the Fantasy Flight Space Hulk: Death Angel Card Game. Having missed out on the actual Space Hulk set a few years ago, i figured it'd be worth snagging and having a few games. If nothing else i can look at the cards and weep bitter tears at the fact i'll never own a copy of the board game. *sob*

Anyway, tearing off the shrink wrap revealed a lot of cards, some sturdy card tokens and a red dice that turned out to feature far less skulls than i would like. Along with a moderate sized rulebook.

I've always figured the best way to learn a game is to try a play through, so since it supports 1-6 players i gave it a whirl.

It's pretty complex, at least to begin with. You choose a batch of Space Marine Terminators, assemble a hand of their action cards then align them in a formation. Then using the appropriate void lock card, you assemble a set of locations along with two blip decks that contain horrific genestealers.
It's not as complicated as it looks, honest.


Then as you play action cards, your Terminators get to killing Genestealers before the gribblies get their attacks back. Within a few turns i'd already lost Brother Leon and Brother Claudio to their claws, leaving Valencio and Goriel to face the hordes alone.

Alas Brother Leon, the first to die, very very painfully.

This was thanks to the way Genestealers attacks work - roll the dice, if you roll under or equal to the number of Genestealer cards attacking that particular marine, he's dead. Diced into bite sized chunks. - coupled with what are deemed "event" cards but should really be named "F***ing B*****d" cards.
An example "F***ing B*****d" Card, this one is beneficial, so naturally didn't occur in my game.

I have only my shuffling to blame, but the bloomin' things screwed me over with every draw. Just when i thought i may survive, they'd spawn another wave of 'stealers behind my Terminators. After brave Brother Goriel fell against four Genestealers, it was the Event cards that slammed the final nail into the coffin, causing Valencio to be psychically slain thanks to a roll of a 1 on the attack dice.

And how far had i made it into the hulk? About 3 feet down a corridor into the next location.

I can certainly say that even played alone it was enjoyable and i fully intend to nag anyone i can into giving it a try. It plays fast enough that it's perfect for those times when you're stuck waiting for a board at a Gaming club or when you're sat in a train carriage waiting for the wrong kind of leaves to be cleared.

It's available from Fantasy Flight direct if you're in the US of A. Getting it shipped over here is a tad more expensive, so it's worth trying Amazon and the like. Of course if you can, your first port of call should be your Local Gaming Store if you're lucky enough to have one.

Hey look! I do occasionally finish a project!

Way, way back in the mists of time, i posted up pictures of the first Finecast model i'd bought (found here for those interested.) and set about painting it.

Then like so many of the things i blog about i didn't mention Ol' Grulgor again. Until now anyway. You see i do finish stuff off, eventually, but since i have the attention span of the average four year old i usually neglect to actually post about it on the blog.

So without further ado here's my Daemon Prince of Nurgle in all his glory. Including gratuitous ass shot i might add.




I had planned on photographing my whole Daemon army, and spent an afternoon painstakingly moving them from cabinet to table, taking roughly thirty shots of them then packing them away.

Before checking the shots.

This is a critical mistake as i found out to my cost, as when i checked the photos every.single.one. was a blurry splodge.

You may well guess that this resulted in a monumental outburst of profanity and fury that would have left Kharn the Betrayer whimpering in the corner asking for his mummy.

So that is yet to come, along with more work on my Sanguinary Guard, amongst other bits and pieces. Who knows i may even get a game in this week.

Until next time,
Your Friendly Neighbourhood Spider-pope.

Sanguinary Guard Take Two: Part Deux

Just a quick blog update with a couple of work in progress shots of my new attempt at a Sanguinary Guard force. He still needs a bit of work, namely on the banner and a few details, but it gives the basic idea for the colour scheme, less bling more wing.

Bling Wing: Take Two.

If you've read back on my blog a bit you'll see that i've attempted a Blingwing - also known as a Sanguinary Guard army - before, getting quite far along with the army. But i have to admit their look just didn't quite work. I don't think i achieved the best i could with the force, so they were quietly put up for sale on Ebay and that was that. Or so i thought.

I've recently been away from the hobby, as you may have guessed from the huge number of updates to this blog, and i've not had the chance to play anywhere near as much as i would like. This is a combination of depression, ill parent and upcoming legal fight to get access to my daughter, so understandably little painted soldiers were not that high on my list of priorities.

But under the advice of medical experts, i'm pushing to return to both painting and gaming. This has left me with a few choices. Currently i've been using a Daemon army to play both Fantasy and 40k, largely because half the time there is no one to play Fantasy against.

But i've also got a budding Beastman army that i'd like to try. Which means i needed a small 40k army i could take as well in case there was no one for my Warherd to kill. And so the search was on.

I considered Grey Knights again, but the changes made to their background coupled with just how (un)popular they are these days i would have been one Draigowing amongst many. So they were out.

Space Wolves were next for consideration, a Loganwing army is small but perfectly formed. But the Wolves of Fenris have never quite grabbed me. Perhaps it was being on the receiving end of one too many beat downs when i started in 2nd Edition.

So with those two options out, i started looking further afield. Imperial Guard, Orks and 'Nids were all out of the question, too hordey. Chaos was a possibility, but given the rumours circulating there was a risk i'd end up with an unusable force once the new Codex hit.

Necrons were tempting. That Triach Stalker is just too lovely a model for words and i will own one eventually just for the pleasure of painting it. But again their background has taken a turn for the terrible with their most recent 'dex and its the fluff that gives me inspiration.

So a long story short, coupled with much head scratching and pondering i returned to the Blood Angels, my first true army and my favourite chapter by far.

Could i paint them better this time?

We shall see. At the moment i've picked up a Finecast Dante (all present and correct with no Aero bubbles) and two boxes of the Sanguinary Guard. I learnt much from the last batch, namely don't stick the wings and jump packs on prior to painting (too many crevices).

The debate now, as i glue my hands together and possibly some miniatures too, is whether to go gold again or go red. I've always been a traditionalist when it comes to the Blood Angels - if they ain't got a black shoulder pad trim, they ain't Blood Angels - so having regular Marines apeing Dante's blingbling look did niggle at me. I'm considering going for a classic Honour Guard scheme, red with Gold Helmets, this time around.

****

As a small bonus i'm also going to briefly review some of the new paints. I grabbed the Red Glaze, Red Foundation and Snow Texture Citadel paints and gave them a whirl on some Daemons.

The new red foundation is slightly lighter than the old Mechrite Red, but does seem to cover even better. The red glaze is also pretty good, enhancing the Blood Red i applied it over and really making the red pop.

The texture paint though, i am iffy about. Firstly thanks to the bits of whatever in it, you get bugger all paint in a pot. The texture is a bit sparse once you start painting with it and it just doesn't quite work. So far i can't see myself buying more to use on bases when the old methods work better.

Perhaps i'm using it wrong though. If anyone is still reading this blog (cue tumbleweed) please drop a comment if you have found a use for the new textures.

Until next time, i remain

Your Friendly Neighbourhood Spider-pope.

Jake and Fimir

So looking back through my blog so far, i have noticed a tendency for me to start a project, post a few starting pictures and then not really mention it again. Perhaps not the best approach to blogging about the hobby.

So to rectify this situation, this post is dedicated to all those projects mentioned last year but that i completely got distracted from and forgot to mention again.

First up, my Fimir. I bought a couple of these old Heroquest models ready to add to my Fantasy forces for some good old fashioned Storm of Magicing. This was of course before Forgeworld released their exquisite models that put all past fimir to shame. But ho-hum. Now one of the issues with the Heroquest version was the size. It's teeny tiny compared to what it should be. So to give it some oomph i had a search through the interwebs to find something suitable to stick on its base to give it a bigger profile, and came up with this:

Not the best photo's thanks to my cameras limited capabilities at the moment. But its a woman chained to a chunk of Warpstone. It was a freebie from an online mini company and fits the Fimir's 18 rated background.

Moving on, heres a smallish update on my Beastmen. Collecting them has been slow, because i have vowed not to buy anything more for them until i'd painted what i had. A vow i then broke when the pestilent joy that is the Nurgle warrior was released. I grabbed one, stole an idea from Warseer and hey presto a new Pestigor for my brayherd.
It's basically a simple headswap with a bit of fur greenstuffed onto the legs. Credit goes to ArtificerArmour on Warseer who first posted the conversion.
And last but not least my Beastmen "army so far". I've been insistent that i not buy any new models for the army until i've painted what i've got, in order to avoid the situation i find myself in with my Daemons.

As a result the herd is tiny at the moment, but it'll grow hopefully consistently and will remain a fully painted force.

That's all for now, feel free to leave comments as always.

Until next time,
Sheesh y'all, 'twas a dream

Your Friendly Neighbourhood Spider-pope.