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)

Start of the Tau

So I thought with the first day of the holidays yesterday I'd make a start on my Christmas projects. The Infinity starter set are built and took a hell of a lot longer than I anticipated. So many fiddly metal bits for each characters and so much flash it took ages to trim everything off and stuck. Though they do look good hopefully I'll be able to get them primed in the next couple of days (as long as the weather stops raining!).

Unfortunately it meant my plan of making the Fire Warriors was a non-starter yesterday, hopefully I can make them today with the possibility of priming them on Monday. I did begin on my Hammerhead that I bought for a tenner off eBay. Being pre-built it was missing some of the weapons but did come with unattached Railgun and Ion Cannon. So I'll be magnetising them so I can switch when needs be.

I've decided a Purple Tau army is on the cards, I was sick of anything Red or Blue what with both my Ogres and Empire armies being those colours and I'm not too confident on painting White or Yellow colour schemes yet. The other paint scheme I was thinking of was a drab green however I'm thinking a mid-year project of Nurgle-Themed Chaos Space Marines might be on the cards using the Dark Vengeance box set so I didn't want to reuse that.

So here's the start of the Hammerhead. Still got a long time to go but I thought I'd do an update. I base-coated the whole Hammerhead Naggaroth Night and then gave the grooves a wash of Druchii Violet. After they dried I used Xereus Purple to be the prominent bright colour. I've still got a few sections to do this colour and I'm still deciding whether to use a grey in the colour scheme?

So here's the Hammerhead in it's current state. Still alot of work to do this week on it. Unfortunately at the moment I'm only using my iPhone to take photos. I'm getting my girlfriend a Digital SLR for Christmas so I'm sure I'll be stealing that to photo my models in the New Year!

Working Out Empire List

So as I mentioned I've got a battle on Thursday night at Games Workshop Metrocentre, 1,000pts of my 

Empire against a 1k Beastmen army. I've been slowly putting a list together with the models I've got so far but still trying to finalise what to put in.

So far I’ve got this as a list but still need some help;
 
Lords
Battle Wizard Lord (in Handgunner Detachment)
Lore of Life or Beasts, Wizard Level 3

Heroes
Warrior Priest (in with Halberdiers)
Additional Hand Weapon, Heavy Armour, Helm of the Skavenslayer


Core
Halberdiers x 24 (Full command)
Detachment - Handgunners x 9
Spearmen x 20 (Full Command)
Special
Great Cannon (120pts)

Rare
Helblaster Volley Gun
Now this comes to 874pts, I could add 5 x Knightly Orders Inner Circle plain (no command) to make it 999pts.

Other models I’ve got at the moment that I could add;
Battle Wizard
Witch Hunter
Master Engineer
More Handgunners
10 x Archers
Mortar

Still need some tweaking, I'm thinking maybe an extra Handgunner Detachment for the Halberdiers and then a Dispell Scroll for the Wizard and Shields for the Spearmen. To get the full 1,000pts.

The Armies So Far

So since July I've acquired quite the collection of Warhammer Fantasy models, I started with an Ogre Kingdoms army; something a bit bigger than normal Fantasy armies to get used to painting again and also an army that doesn't need as many models as 'normal' forces to be complete.

That doesn't mean it's not a huge force, I've so far got the following;

1 x Firebelly
1 x Slaughtermaster
1 x Bruiser BSB
12 x Ogres
6 x Ironguts
4 x Mournfang Cavalry
8 x Leadbelchers
1 x Ironblaster
1 x Thundertusk
3 x Sabretusks
20-odd Gnoblers

The majority are fully painted, I've still got a couple of Ogres to finish off along with the Slaughtermaster. I'll try and get some photos up in the next couple of days.

Recently, since September, the Metrocentre GW store has been running a Winter Crusade where everyone starts a new army and then as long as we have a fully painted 1,500pts army for the end of Jan we're all off to Warhammer World to use our new forces. Now I've always been a huge fan of The Empire, something about the regimental core mixed with the blackpowder warmachines that really grabbed my attention as a kid so it was obvious that would be my next army for The Winter Crusade.

While I'm still slowly building Henry Krtuz Altdorf Relief (working army title) the army is already bigger than 1,500pts and I've still got Christmas, where I know the girlfriend has bought me some more Empire-goodness, to go!

I've been re-learning the rules with my Empire army working out what works for my force and what doesn't and so far this is the collection I've amassed, again pictures to come in the next few days;

1 x Warrior Priest with Extra Hand Weapon
1 x Kitbased Witch Hunter
1 x Mounted Wizard
2 x Wizards
1 x Master Engineer
24 x Halberdiers (20 troops and a 4-man Wizard Unit-Filler)
20 x Spearmen
20 x Handgunners
Handful of Archers and Crossbowmen
8 x Knights
1 x Great Cannon
1 x Mortar
1 x Helblaster Volley Gun

So yeah quite a list with alot more to come after Christmas Day! I really need to get on painting the models I've got at the moment because I can easily see January being a month of constant painting. Rather than going for the half and half down the middle for the uniform I've gone for the easier to paint Red top/Blue Bottoms or Blue Top/Red Bottoms.

I'll get some pictures up soon along with my next battle report which is my Christmas lesson on Thursday night 1,000pts vs GW Carl's pesky Winter Crusade Beastmen!

Welcome!

Welcome to Magic, Bolters and Rifles, my brand new blog featuring my escapades into Wargaming!

I've only recently got back into Wargaming; since July this year actually and slowly bit-by-bit I've been re-learning the rules and getting used to painting and modelling once more. To be honest the last time I played was about 10-12 years ago so it is safe to say I've forgotten basically everything.

A big props to Games Workshop Metrocentre who have been a huge help in the past few months of reintroducing me into Warhammer and also giving me hints and tips on what to get/potential army lists. Almost every Thursday evening has been spent in a tutorial lesson for Fantasy and it's safe to say that they've been so valuable to me.

So here we go, my forray back into Wargaming. At the moment it'll mainly be focusing on my Warhammer Fantasy escapades but I'm soon beginning to learn Flames of War and then in 2014 I'll be entering the realms of 40K, I've already got a Tau Battleforce still in its cellophane ready for assembling.

Hopefully I'll be updating this on a weekly basis maybe more. So sit back, relax and enjoy!

Chalmers