New Year New Post, Part 2

So what else have I done in the past three months? Well The End Times has kicked in full swing in the Warhammer world and for some reason the idea of a Chaos Legions army really sounded like a good idea, finding a decent deal on Wargaming Trading page on Facebook I found myself with quite a rather large collection of unmade current edition Chaos and Beastmen figures!

Just some of the Chaos that I Got!

I don’t have a clue what came over me, most of the models are still unbuilt, I did make an attempt of a Beastmen BSB and Beastlord and the unit of Chaos Warriors I built and started to paint as Khorne Warriors I’ve been a little underwhelmed with. I know Chaos Warrior armies can be low numbers and really competitive but I’m honestly not sure whether I can see myself to build, paint and play another Fantasy army at the moment. I’ve got so many Beastmen models to build it’s a daunting task, I’ve gone from one horde army of the Vampire Counts to another Horde army of Beastmen. I think realistically thinking I’ll probably resell all of this and hopefully someone else will have more luck than I did!

One of my resolutions for 2015 is not to impulse buy, last year I had a rather bad habit of jumping from army to army, something which I think a lot of wargamers do, but I’d buy enough for way over the normal points limit and then struggle to complete it and sell it on. This year I want to make a concentrated effort on the armies I own and get them finished and fully painted/based.

The armies are as followed;

Warhammer Fantasy

Ogre Kingdoms – Finish painting my first Fantasy army when I got back into the army. I’d say I’m about 75% of the way through this army but still need to paint a few of the bigger things. I do have an unbuilt Thundertusk which needs building at some point too.

Vampire Counts – As mentioned I’ve made a good start but still have a lot to do for these. Obviously being a horde-style army each unit is 40 strong so it’s a big task for each unit. Though if they’re as simple as the Zombies to paint, I feel I could get through the army quite quickly.

Empire - I’m not too sure what to do with my Empire. I’ve got a pretty big force built and mainly primed but whenever I pick them up I cannot for the life of me get motivated to paint them up. It also doesn’t help whenever I play them on the table they’re boring to play. It may well be the case that I sell these rather than trying to paint them up.

Bolt Action

German Waffen SS – This was a Christmas present and spent the Christmas week building it all. Now with the weather being it’s normal British weather I’m finding it pretty hard to get anything primed. I unfortunately don’t have a garage or anything so have to go outside in the shed so I really need a decent mild temperature. As mentioned in Part 1 this is more of a modelling and painting project so I’m not too fussed if this takes me longer to get these painted and sorted.

Warhammer 40K

Necrons – I’ve got about 90% of everything painted. I’ve got one unit primed and halfway painted and then a couple of units still to build. I’ve not really played much 40K recently so it’s not a major rush to get these finished but with the new Necron Codex coming out I’d like to get these finished so I can properly learn 40K in the near-distant future.

Space Marines – This was actually meant to be my winter project and wanted to get everything built and primed over the Christmas period. That obviously didn’t happen with so many other things happening! I really want to make a effort to get these done as they’re going to be pretty simple to paint and build. I know I’ve got a weekend in March where the fiancé is going away with work friends all weekend so I might very well just spend the whole weekend building and priming it all.

Infinity

PanO – Everything is primed and I just need to paint the Military Orders up. Unfortunately not many people are playing the game at the club and that’s after the Version 3 rules which came out recently. These shouldn’t take too long to get done so I might just need a weekend or two to focus and get them done.

Morats – Again these are all primed and half painted but need finishing off. I think my motivation for them have really died down now no one plays at the club but I think I need to make a focused pledge soon to get them done and relearn Infinity. But it’s not a major rush to get them done at the moment.

So yeah quite a few projects, and I’ve also got one bigger one that I’ll be mentioning in a blog post this week. Something that I’m looking forward to being a part of and it’s for a brand new system that I’ve not learnt yet. It’ll probably get me visiting a couple of different North East clubs to play the game but I’m already really looking forward to jumping into this and learning to play it.

New Year New Post, Part 1

A very Happy New Year! Can't believe it's been October the last time I posted an update in here. Though to be fair the past three months has been crazily busy. Work went mental for the Christmas period, I went on holiday to Paris, I got engaged over Christmas. And we're in the process of selling the house to move onto a bigger place. Yeah pretty busy end to 2014!

Hobby-wise though it's been hit and miss. For Christmas my fiance (still feels wierd saying it), got me a brand new German Waffen SS army for Bolt Action. I added to the box set and picked up some Artizan Design winter Germans. My aim for this army is to create a Battle of the Bulge Winter themed army, a bit like my failed Flames of War army. I want to create woodland style basing for these including a MMG lying up against dead cattle and the Nebelwerfer to be based in a bunker with trees on the back. This is more going to be a painting and modelling army first with the aim of playing with these second. I want to take my time on the camo patterns and basing rather than rushing them through like my Russians and Japanese just to get them tabletop ready.

The Vampire Counts have been progressing nicely but have stalled over the Christmas period. I’ve got the base for the Terrorgheist done and I’m so pleased with it. The 40 Zombies we’re actually pretty simple to do. With the basecoat spray of the Army Painter Necrotic Flesh it was a case of giving the skin a wash of green, adding some different colours for the pieces of clothing and then adding Blood for the Blood God to the mouths and hands. Basing was also pretty simple and overall the 40 Zombies in one movement tray look pretty impressive.

The Terrorgheist itself is coming along, with the winter themed army (what is it with Winter themed armies that I like?) I thought the best bet for the wings was to do it in an icy blue/green colour and then have a warm bone colour for the skeleton to offset the colours. It’s still a work in progress but I’m happy with how it’s looking at the moment. I’m really pleased with my Vampire Lord conversion though. He was a finecast Empire Warrior Priest who I got as a double for Christmas last year, quick snip of the head and a ghoul head and a new sword arm makes him a unique looking Vampire Lord. Still need to base him but overall really pleased with how he came out.

I did get one game of Fantasy in with the Vampire Counts at a new wargame shop in Ashington called War and Piece. I faced off against Jim’s High Elves but unfortunately lost. The Vampire Lord on foot was an absolute beast though and chopped through a whole unit of horses including the BSB and High Elf Lord. Though my deployment failed me again, as my Ghouls were almost cut off due to the houses in the middle and took a turn too much to get into the battle. I think with it being so long since my last Fantasy game it was a bit of rust. 

The Undead Rise

So now the frantic painting of Bolt Action has finished I really want to make a concentrated effort on getting my Vampire Count army ready for the tabletop. I was to try and get the majority all built in the next few weeks and then hopefully have decent weather to prime as much of it as I can so I can spend the winter months painting it all up.

I've had a box of 40 Mantic Zombies sitting in my wardrobe for about three months now. I know raising the dead is one of the bigger things for Vampire Count armys and I wanted to make sure I've got enough zombies for my army list as well as raiseables. I've already got about 30 GW Zombies so they're going to form the front of my army and then the Mantic Zombies will be backing up the ranks. I've got to admit there is a great amount of poses from the three different legs and bodies you get in the box set. Adding some Renedra gravestones to the odd ones also breaks up the full unit and gives them some character.

Sitting down on Friday night I started working....

15 Zombies Soon Became....

....40 Zombies!

So yeah it's pretty impressive seeing the 40 strong shambling horde all done. To speed up the process of painting these I've got some Army Painter Necrotic Flesh primer which will give me a basecoat of a rotting skin looking colour. I'm not sure how I'm going to be colouring them afterwards. I've got an idea of using numerous different washes over the skin colour to give the Zombies a range of rotting skin colours. Though part of me is thinking about giving the skin a Athonian Camoshade wash to give it that dark green rotting colour and then differentiate the Zombies with different colours trousers and wraps. If I do a test on five or so models then I can decide which will be the best to do. The others that don't cut it can easily be used as raiseables because lets be honest they'll soon be taken off the battlefield anyway!

Basecoated Necrotic Flesh

I've also made a start on my Terrorgheist. I wasn't that impressed with the huge base it comes with and the piddly amount of scenic rocks that the Terrorgheist was mounted on in the stock version of the model. I've seen a couple of different ways people have modelled the dragon using the Garden of Morr set and I wanted to incorporate that into the base. My initial idea was to have two different crypts from the set and have the Terrorghiest crawling on top of them. I got the look ok but the height of the model was ridiculous and even the large box I've got to carry my VC around in was too shallow for this.

I've decided to change it around a bit instead and have just one building at the front. The aim to have the Terrorgheist climbing up it and I've got a pose I'm happy with. I've not glued down the model yet though as I want to paint the base and the Terrorgheist separately as I can see it being a complete ball-ache to do them at the same time. I added some extra gravestones and one of the wall pieces to the base too, I think having these extra little bits will really make the Terrorgheist the centre piece of the army. Let's just hope I can do the painting justice!

Time to be completely honest. I've never painted scenery before so having this big piece on the base of the Terrorgheist was a daunting project. I had an idea of what I wanted it to look like but didn't have a clue whether it would look right with my painting. Having sprayed the base black I then used the GW Large Drybrush to do a heavy coat of Mechanicus Standard Grey and then when that dried highlighted the edges with another lighter drybrush of Administratum Grey. The stonework and the buildings really came out looking exactly like what I wanted so I'm relieved/pleased that it worked ok! I've drybrushed the ground Rhinox Hide, my aim for the whole army is to have a muddy winter basing theme with army painter flowers scattered around to really give it a contrast of life against the death of the VC. For the Terrorgheist I'm going to highlight the ground with a lighter brown and then add some dead grass tufts, scatter snow across certain areas and ontop of the gravestones/walls and then also have the flowers scattered around on the base. I need to detail some bits on the building, for example the skulls and roof top spikes.

It's nice to just take my time on painting and actually enjoy what I'm painting. Don't get me wrong the Japanese were great to paint but being against the clock and having to have them done by the tournament really took out some of the enjoyment in the project. Thankfully with the Vampire Counts I can take my time and really enjoy what I'm doing. There's so many ideas I have for them I just hope I can do it justice!

Cough...Splutter...Is This Thing On?

Has it really been over a month since I've updated? Time flies and all that. In the past month I've been to Leeds Festival, been to one of my best mates Weddings, been to Southampton for a couple of days for work, got a new kitten and generally been one busy man.

So hobby time has been at a premium recently, I've been a bit realistic and started selling off stalled projects. The Tyranids have gone, they weren't getting the attention they needed and I'd rather someone else have them and get them sorted. It does mean that my planned Space Marine project has been bumped forwards and I've now got everything I need for my army;

As you can see I'm going to be painting them purple and gold. I didn't realise these were the colours of the Emperors Children, I saw the colour scheme in the Space Marines Codex under one of the Ultramarines sub-chapters called the Hawk Lords. I'm going to be doing a bit of a Hawk Lord/custom chapter using either the Raven Guard tactics or Imperial Fist tactics (re-rolling Bolters FTW).

With just under a month to go for the Bolt Action Welsh Open I've been putting the finishing touches to my Japanese. Granted on Monday I remembered about the Armoured Platoon game that kicks off the event so I hurriedly ordered some tanks and a lorry from Warlord on Monday morning and they arrived this morning, not too shabby for customer service! So with my girlfriend working nights next week I'll be getting these built, sprayed and painted ready for the tourne. I've organsied a 1K Game with my tourne list for next Sunday against Jim so at least I'll have some practice with them before the Welsh Open. My first tournament and I cannot wait, though I'm ready for my Pacific warriors to be sitting at the bottom of the table come the end of Sunday!

Squads Finished

My Vampire Count army is coming along really nicely, I've not even got bored of painting Skeletons, Zombies or Ghouls yet huzzah! It helps I'm doing them in batches of 10 and then switching to another unit. It means nothing gets too samey and the Ghouls are pretty easy to do anyway as they're just a couple of washes followed up by a tiny bit of detail work. I’ve still got the likes of the Mortis Engine and Terrorghiest to build but I want to spend some time on these are they’re going to be two of the vocal points of the army. I really like the idea of the Terrorghiest sitting on top of the Garden of Morr building but I don’t want to feel like I’ve copied it. I want to be able to have the full army built for a club game soon but I know for a fact that at least 50% of the army (probably 75%) will be grey plastic and I hate playing with grey plastic.

I had my first proper game of 40K on Sunday, after giving Mort a tutorial 500pt game of Bolt Action (his Japanese absolutely wiped my Vet Soviet force), Jim gave me a intro game of 40K at 1,500pts. His Space Wolves against my Necron army in a Kill Point game. We added the secondary objectives (Linebreaker, First Blood etc) to the scoring too and I really enjoyed it. Thankfully most of the rules were pretty self-explanatory and I don’t think I was too slow for Jim in my first game. I did lose 6-3 but my first turn I completely forgot to fire my Monolith, you know because it’s so small I missed it bang in the middle of my side of the battlefield, then didn’t realise it had a S8 AP1 Pie Plate Ordnance attack until Turn 3 where it then wiped out one squad and almost wiped out another. I need to fully learn all the rules for the Necrons but when they have about 5 pages of FAQs and Erratas I’ll be waiting until the new book comes out (hopefully before the New Year with the speed GW is launching the new hardback books).

So while I’ve not had the time to post on here I’ve been pretty darn busy. Promise to keep you all updated, even if they’re just small updates with some pics of painting progress and that.

Chalmers