Production Line of 'Nids!

So the girlfriend is on nights, meaning she got in at 7am this morning, I got up and have had to be quiet for the whole day. So it's Mancave and a production line of building Gaunts.

Started about 9 this morning;

By 11am I'd made 17 Termagaunts with Fleshborers (to go with four more still primed white from my earlier batch) and 10 Termagaunts with Devourers.

As I want to try out the dipping tonight (hopefully) I've primed up 12 Gaunts with Fleshborers in the Skeleton Bone. Got to love a camera phone pic!

Just a short update as I'm now about to start the Hormagaunts before she wakes up at 3!

More Nid Progress!

So, tonight I've spent the night doing more Nids. After deciding on the Hive Fleet Kraken my Army Painter Skeleton Bone and Strong Tone Quickshade has arrived. I thought if I've got a huge swarm to paint I may as well find a quick and easy way to paint them.

I did make an initial mistake with the primer, unlike normal primers you have to keep moving the can as if you were fogging the models rather than spraying directly onto the model. I should've tried a gaunt as a sample to see how the spray worked but in my eagerness I chose three Warriors and a Carnifex. Unfortunately I've applied the primer a little too heavy, trying to cover up certain spots that weren't primed I didn't cloud them and instead focused on certain areas. It's not too bad but definitely learnt my lesson and the next four warriors I primed looked a hell of a lot better!

Yeah I know it's cheating using a coloured primer but it's so much quicker. The models look great with all the skin done already and it's a whole lot easier to paint them, so I can see a huge swarm being done in pretty quick fashion.

I also purchased the Army Painter Wargamers Most Wanted Paint Set, it includes a Regiment normal brush, a Insane Detail Brush and a Small Drybrush. The stem of the paintbrush is triangular though and straight away I could feel the difference in being able to control my brush strokes compared to the GW brushes.

So here's the warrior, pretty simple of Mephiston Red on the Carapace, Moot Green on the vents, gun and tounge and that's about it. I've not done any shading yet as I'm not sure whether to paint it on or dip it. I think for mess-sake I'll be dipping. Though I want to test it on a Gaunt this weekend and see what happens. I also want to try the GW Seraphim Sepia wash over the Skin to see whether I need to use the Strong Tone Quickshade.

The Carnifex I've only done the Carapace at the moment and after using the large Drybrush I've made a little mess on the skin, it's not too bad though and can easily be touched up using Ushabti Bone. You can see the priming error on the front of the large carapace where I've applied too much. Hopefully once the shading is on and the rest of the model is painted it'll still look good on the battlefield, and if it doesn't? Well I've still got another four in the display cabinet to use! The previous bloke who sold me the Nids converted the guns to give the twin-linked Devourers more of a lethal look rather than the short stubby ones that the Carnifex normal have and I quite like it. I won't be doing it on the others but it does make this one unique. I'm not too sure on what colour to make the ends of the guns though, I'm thinking the Moot Green again will really make them pop and look alien like but also leaning towards one of the purples I've used in my Tau.

Anyway second training game tomorrow using my Tau at GW Metrocentre, should be good fun. Then got my second tournament in Fantasy at NAG on Sunday. We're doing a random table tournament where armies are already set up on the tables and we're drawn to a table, roll off and the highest picks whichever army they want and then we play. It'll be quite fun and hopefully I can try out some random Fantasy armies I've not played yet. The tables will be set up with the following armies on them;

Table 1 - Lizards vs. Demons
Table 2 - Wood Elves vs. Beastmen
Table 3 - Warriors vs. Empire
Table 4 - Dark Elves vs. Ogres
Table 5 - Warriors vs. Skaven
Table 6 - Skaven vs. Dwarves
Table 7 - Dark Elves vs. Demons


Knowing my luck I'll get Ogres and Empire! Cheers for reading again and comments on the Kraken will be Kraken!...(cracking...kraken...get it? I'll leave now)

The Start of the Swarm

Ahoy fellow readers, it's good to see I'm getting a sturdy flurry of readers each day, would be nice to have some comments too....anyway I've had a productive weekend, firstly my first squad of six firewarriors have been painted and based, along with the three stealth suits. So I'm making a pretty decent start on my Tau. Next training game is on Thursday night at GW Metrocentre so I'm hoping it'll only be a short while before I'm knowing the rules quite well for 40K.

But most of all the Tyranids came out of their huge box and I got to work building some of my many Termagaunts. I basically wanted to knock up a few give them a good prime, while the weather has continued to be nice, and then get to work working on some colour schemes.

Well the first couple of steps was pretty simple, Friday I made ten of the Termagaunts using just the normal Fleshborers, think for my final models I'll be using the Devourers. The models were pretty simple to build and getting a chain going I soon had all ten built in record time. Saturday they were primed white and sorted for painting on Sunday.

This is when the trouble started I thought using these models I could test out different colour schemes but can I find one that I like? I wanted to try and stay away from the traditional Hives of the Hive Fleet Kraken and Leviathan and create my own Hive but I cannot seem to get anything that looks good. My first few attempts I tried washes on the skin which looked good and pretty simple/quick to do. But then it came to the Carapace and I couldn't get a single Tyranid looking good against the skin. Here are some examples which were very rushed and I know there are sections missing paint/bits merged in together but these are mainly samples to test out the skin and the carapace. Once a finalised version is determined I'll make sure they're all up to scratch.

Mr Bright Nid

 So Mr Bright Nid first, I do quite like him but he was such a faff to get up to this standard the thought of doing a full Swarm of these and then all the big 'uns is pretty demoralising from the off. I want something that'll look good on the tabletop while being pretty simple to get into the painting chain to churn out quantity and quality.

Ice Nid

Second Mr Ice Nid, ignore the base, it was an experiment which has obviously gone wrong. The skin was washed with a Drakenhof Nightshade shade, carapace was painted black and then used Administratum Grey and Stegadon Scale Green as the layered design on the carapace. He's ok but something just looks a little odd with him.

Beginning of Jungle Nid

Lastly the Jungle Nid. I've always been a huge fan of the Moot Green colour, I've never used it before but I just love the vibrantness of it. So I painted the skin Moot Green, shaded with Coelia Greenshade and then went back over with Moot Green. I wasn't too sure on the colour of the carapace and tried a black but after that couldn't get any other colour to go with it. I tried yellow but it just looked too odd. I was going to do Purple but after painting my Tau army in purple I don't want to be doing the same colours over again.

Kraken

Finally and annoyingly I painted the Hive Fleet Kraken paint scheme and really like it. Pretty simple task of Seraphim Sepia wash over the skin, Mephiston Red on the Carapace with Evil Sunz Scarlet brightening up the edges of the carapace. I used Moot Green for the tounge to give it a little alien-ish pop and then washed the carapace with Carroburg Crimson. I'm actually really liking this and could easily see a whole army painted up like this. I've even ordeed some Army Painter Skeleton Bone spray, and Army Painter Strong Tone to speed up the process of colouring and shading the models, so it'll be spray, red carapace, shade and then highlight.

Which do you guys think I should choose?

Whoops!

So I've kind of been a bit naughty....

Browsing the Warhammer forums back end of last week I saw someone positing about selling a Tyranid Army worth £575 at retail for around the the £300 mark. I've always been wanting a Tyranid army despite even the rather sour reactions from the recent codex.

The Swarm is Coming!

But at £300 I wasn't going to drop that much money on models in one go. So I kept an eye on it, the seller kept dropping the price before Thursday he wanted £275 before he split it all down for the joys of eBay. Sensing someone wanting to get rid asap I cheekily offered £200, using a chunk of my end of year bonus from work and he accepted! So I managed to get £575 worth of Tyranids for a £375 saving! I know I'll get bollocked if the Mrs finds out but hey-ho you only live once right? Well unless you believe in reincarnation... 

So what did I get in this bumper box that arrived yesterday?

Well;

1 Codex Tyranids (New One)

The Tyranid Swarm Box Set
10 Gargoyles(Plastic, unbuilt)
4 Ripper Swarms (Plastic, unbuilt)
40 Termagaunts(plastic, 20 partially Built)
40 Hormaguants(Plastic, 4 Built)
1 Carnifex (Plastic, unbuilt)

2 Carnifex Broods 
4 Carnifexes (Plastic, 2 Built, 2 unbuilt)

Warriors
12 Warriors(Plastic, 12 Built)

Hive Tyrant
1 Hive Tyrant(Plastic, Unbuilt)

Harpy
1 Harpy(Plastic, built)

Termagaunts
25 painted Termagaunts

Hormagaunts
15 painted hormagaunts

Genestealers
8 Painted Genestealers

Raveners
3 metal Raveners

Characters
1 Old One eye

So yeah quite a lot and the majority of it is unpainted and unbuilt. Looks like I'll be having a busy busy few weeks getting this all together. I'm going to have a look at the painted models tonight and see whether it would be worth stripping them so I can have all of the army in the same paint scheme. I'm thinking of some sort of black caprace and bright green colour scheme for these but I'll obviously need to get some primed and try out a few techniques to get these spot on.

The Harpy is a huge model, the previous owner has tankfully added magnets to the wings so it can easily be dismantled and stored when carrying about. God knows what I'll be doing with 5 Carnifex at least I can do a variety of weapon loadouts and not have to worry about magnetising and swapping them all out! I've already seen some extra things I want to get but it wont be any time soon, Tervigon, Biovores, both a Trygon and Mawloc but hopefully I can magnetisie this so I only need one!

But don't worry my Tau won't be put to bed just yet, I'm always a fan of having a couple of armies for each game. It makes you not get bored with one force, see my Ogres, Lizardmen and Empire for Fantasy. Though only having enough Ogres for 2400pts it does get a bit boring using the same force week in and week out.

So Tyranid swarm project ahoy! Time to get unboxing and planning tonight me thinks....

Chalmers

The Past Week's Adventures

Ahoy fellow readers, what a busy week I've had all things wargaming. So what have I been up to....

My Flames of War Volksgrenadier are coming along nicely. They're not anywhere near finished as much as I'd of wanted this week but they're getting there! I'm still aiming for an end of March finish for everything but I think I'm being rather optimistic with that date, it may very well be April by the time everything is done (boo! hiss!).

Hammerhead

I actually spent alot of this week building the rest of my Tau army after I had my first 40K training game against Carl's Dark Angels at Games Workshop Metrocentre on Thursday night! Rather than doing a very basic HQ and Troop choice we both made limited 1,000pts lists from what we had and went straight into a battle. I was kind of stuck to what I could field with what I had but my list looked something along the lines of this;

HQ
Cadre Fiberblade

Troops
6 x Firewarriors

6 x Firewarriors

Elites
3 x Crisis Suits (mix of weapons)

3 x Stealth Suits

Heavy Support
1 x Hammerhead (Rail Gun)

1 x Broadside (High Yield Missile System)

1 x Broadside (Twin-Link Rail Rifles)

Plus a few wargear options and some drones. It was limited and I really need to get some extra Firewarriors and some Pathfinders to bulk out my army. I did end up picking up a Riptide last week mainly because I know Riptides are great for the Tau and most importantly it's an amazing looking model! It's still wrapped up in the box at the moment but I'll definitely get building and painting it soon!

Coming to the Display Cabinet Soon!

I tried my hand at magnetising the weapons for the Crisis Suits which was an experience to say the least! I learnt from the first one that the magnets need to be the right way round for all the weapons to attract on both arms. It was fiddly and having to use the GW Hobby Drill to drill a 2mm hole and then use a 3mm drill bit my hand to finish drilling wasn't ideal but in a couple of hours I had all three Crisis Suits and one full set of weapons magnetised for Thursday night. The rest of the weapons I need to go back to and get sorted out.

Old Style Broadside

So the game itself...was quite fun and pretty easy to pick up. Having come from Fantasy it was pretty straight forward but at times completely different and I know it'll take a few games/weeks to get my head around all the rules. We didn't go over anything about shooting at tanks, did a tiny bit of assault and nothing about Psykers. I can see it being fairly straight forward though and I enjoyed it alot especially with the majority of missions revolving around mission objectives which you have to hold and defend. I realised mid way through that drones should always be the first models in front of the rest of the squad. I learnt the hardway as one of my Crisis Suits needlessly died as it was ahead of the two drones supporting the team. I've got a week off this week as Carl is on holiday but the following week we'll be picking it up again, now to see if I have enough time to make the Riptide!

I actually did some priming too this week! With the weather taking a turn for the better on Friday I managed to get all my built Tau primed black ready for painting! Hopefully the weather holds out and I can get the majority of my un-primed models all undercoated and stock piled for when the weather inevitably takes a turn for the worse, let's be honest it's Britain it's going to happen!

Saturday night as the other half was on earlies and went to bed at 8pm I test painted my first Firewarrior and before I knew it I had it fully painted, based and tabletop ready by midnight! It's a pretty simple colour scheme using Naggaroth Night as a basecoat and Xereus Purple on certain parts of the armour to give it a distinctive look and finally washed with Druchii Violet. The cloth was basecoated with Vallejo German Camo Dark Brown, washed with Agrax Earthshade and then drybrushed with Balor Brown. The Rifle was mainly the same as the armour but with the end of the gun and the scope given a Temple Guard Blue coat to give them a pop. It's not the greatest standard but it's tabletop standard and after getting a squad of 6 all done over the weekend they really look distinctive and eye-catching from the battlefield.

So apart from the Tau and 40K yesterday I was up at Blyth for the normal Sunday NAG games. I managed a couple of Fantasy games at 2,400pts with my Ogres against two lots of Elves which I've never played against before. The first was against Jim's High Elves, an army that used lots of small units and he kept redirecting and blocking my big units of Ogres and Ironguts with his Hawks and smaller units. My deployment really mucked up my first couple of plans here as I was struggling to get my units walked across the table. I had 3 Sabertusks this time around and putting my normal 2 on the sides I stupidly put the other one in the middle. It meant I was constantly trying to keep the 6 inch panic bubble away from it which gave me a very limited area to deploy everything else.

The Mournfang yet again proved their worth and continued to mow down units with ease. The most suprising was his White Lions which charged the front and a huge block of spearmen which charged the flank. The Mournfang held out for two rounds before wiping them out and finally dying in a battle against the Swordmasters. My big Ironguts unit almost got rear charged by his General, BSB and big unit of Calvarly but thankfully they managed to swift reform to face the charge and then proceded to smash face, including my Slaughtermaster taking on the General in a challenge. After the dust settled I had very marginally won thankfully with my Slaughtermaster, BSB and most of the Ironguts block still left.

After that we welcomed a new player Dom to the club and I took on his Dark Elves, I didn't realise how many shots the Dark Elves can produce from their repeater crossbows, and straight from the off I had lost a couple of Ogres and Ironguts. But then my luck changed, I actually did something with the Cannon! Dom had brought his General with a Manticore to the game and he'd moved him bang into the middle of the battlefrield. Thankfully my normally untrusty Ironblaster hit home and wiped out the Manticore first turn, leaving his General just on his own in front of a big block of Ogres. The Mournfang were the star of the show again though being charged on one turn by the Hydra, Cold One Knights and the General who opted for the Mourfang's flank rather than taking on the block of Ogres on his own. After the battle suprisingly the three Dark Elves units had only managed one wound on the Mournfang, the Ogres didn't let the Dark Elves off as lightly wiping out the Cold One Calvary and Hydra and sending the General running for the forest!

After a couple of turns and the two blocks of Ogres and Ironguts marching and crushing everything in their path, Dom called the game. I felt quite bad as he was just getting back into Fantasy and I don't think he was expecting such a one sided game, nor did I to be honest. But with the Mournfang running the show, the Ironblaster cannon finally working and a series of unfortunate rolls on Dom's behalf I could see how the game turned out the way it did.

So overall a decent weekend of gaming and a pretty busy week of wargaming overall. This week I'll be cracking on with painting up the Tau, probably building the Riptide and trying to crack on with the Volksgrenadier. Fun times ahead for sure!

Chalmers

Bring on the Summer!

I really hate the British weather at the moment, one minute it's sunny and the next it can be pouring with rain. This gives me and my modelling side of wargaming a massive headache. Take today for example, I got up sun was shining and for the first time in months I thought I'd be able to get a good portion of priming done today....

So I set up a block of 40 Saurus warriors from my Lizardmen army in my spraying box, came downstairs and what would you know the heavens opened and spray painting was called off! Unfortunately I've not got a garage to do my spraying so everything has to be done either outside or in the shed at the back of the garden. So recently I've been building and building but now my cabinets in the backroom are filled with plastic models just begging for a lick of paint.

Thankfully with my Volksgrenadier Flames of War army their small enough to paint on primer using Games Workshop Imperial Primer, you can control the amount of primer you apply and make sure you get all the knooks and hard to reach places with a brush. But the thought of trying to prime 40 Saurus using this technique just makes me shudder. Hopefully with it being March already the weather will get better and the nights will get lighter meaning I'll have more opportunities to spray and prime!

But most of all just bring on the Summer, the plan will be to spray and prime everything I've got built so even when the next Winter comes I'll not be running out of things to paint!