Hi Elves!

Couple of days before deadline and I've made it! Hooray!
I've been painting feverishly all day, unfortunately its mostly been the kitchen!
Been a bit of a chore this month but I'm glad to get that unit out of the way.
Usual "looks better in the flesh" excuses apply!

Next month 's quota will be the 5 Ellyrion Reavers. Hopefully should be a little more relaxed!

Big Yellow

Oh Yeah!

I've painted the best part of a battle company over a period of years. My Marauder chapter of marines show the development and progress (quiet you!) of my painting ability. Yellow, what the hell was I thinking????

The majority of the chapter were painted by base coating dwarf flesh and highlighting up until just shy of pure white and then washing with yellow ink. On the face of it, this was a pretty reasonable solution for infantry figures passable for dreadnought and bikes and absolute dog sherbet for vehicles. It's what finished the Marauder chapter short of a battle company. I just couldn't put up with the poor quality and the endless repainting of the vehicles in an attempt to get an acceptable standard. I drew a line under my favourite army, planned another marine chapter for 2009+ and move onto my Eldar army. Lovely, lovely Eldar.

Today I was knocking up some Wolf Guard (metal) to get on eBay to clear space for my new emybonic Wolf Guard based on the new plastic Terminators, yes for 2009+. It pays to plan ahead. For those of you that don't possess an encyclopedic knowledge of marine paint schemes or iconography the right shoulder pad is yellow. Did I paint as per my decade old scheme, did I bowls! I painted the shoulder white, two very thin coats of sunburst yellow, a wash of Ogryn Flesh and then highlight up with sunburst and increasing amounts of white. And the result? Simpler, quicker and better than the inking method. Which is good as there is no longer a yellow ink and no yellow wash to replace it.

Flicking Bell!!!!

Will I now finish the Marauder battle company? Ha Ha Ha No!

Wolf Pack

In years past we have run demo games at the UK Games Day and for events such as these we created a figure to represent each of us.





Rear Rank - Binx, Judah, Big Papa, Cortez
Front Rank - Zed, Tomarse, Lordybloke, Big Jon

Through the Barrorkades..........

Zed handed me the new Orky barricades last Wednesday.

Being a keener I got to work over the weekend (totally neglecting my tale of...Elves!).

I wanted to test out some theories I had using controlled blasts of coloured spray. Worked a treat and saved bags of time!

These barricades are great, loads of detail, loads of character and loads (and loads!) of skulls!!

Oh and by the way; they only protect Orks!

Scouting, for Girls?

Well the wait is nearly over. Well the wait for the Marine Codex is nearly over, the wait for the Chaos Mortals is still going and so is the wait for the space wolves and ... well you get the idea.

Anyway the wait for the Marine codex is nearly over and as we don't like surprises, no matter how much Tomarse tries to spring them on us, most of us have a good idea of what is coming due to the power of the 'tinterweb.

Speeders loaded with assault cannon are still in, which saves me breaking weapons off my squadron, 10 man tactical squads are king and the named characters are ball bouncingly fun! The big question well for Big Jon and Cortez at least is Scouts and the return to WS3 BS3. Good idea? Bad idea? Ha Ha I don't have Marines and it's funny?

Poll to the right - vote.

What do you call a Kan with no legs.........

....a contesting unit!? Oh!

Last night's (excellent and very close!) game got me thinking.
Eldar vs Orks, 2 objectives. 1 unclaimed by anyone (no troops anywhere near it!) the other had a unit of dire avengers (troops) claiming the objective and contesting it were some ork buggies and a Kan.
All the vehicles were immobilised and the buggies had no weapons.
0-0. Result - draw. Job done.

Now my thoughts are, should an immobile and/or weaponless vehicle be able to contest the objective? Its certainly no longer a threat and could be taken out at leisure by the winning force.
My next thought was; what a great subject for a poll on the blog!

I must point out I have no really strong feelings about it, just seems a bit "odd" and thought I'd gather ideas for a potential house rule.

Poll on the right! (don't worry Tomarse, last nights result will still stand! A draw was well deserved by all!)

Smile, you're on candid camera!

I've just had a look at the LA Golden Daemon winners and it's fair to say there are some lovely miniatures on there. It's also fair to say that I couldn't reach that level of painting and win a trophy. However, if ever I should be possessed by a Greater Daemon of Painting and produce something that could win me a gold, silver or even bronze I would have a grin so wide it would disappear round the back of my head and make my face hurt until Christmas. Unlike almost all the winners from LA. who appear as if they are the subject of a ransom demand. And Thierry you grabbing clint you go home with more trophies than you can carry and it looks like you've soiled yourself.

Come to the UK, specifically the west country, drink some cider and try and enjoy your success you cheerless winkers!

Terr-ific

Another month and some more Lizardmen completed.

I only had to do 3 Terradons for this months quota but as I had 5 I thought I might as well do these as well ( the other 2 are not included in my 1000pts)

The models for the beasts aren't particularly good and i'm sure there will be some new ones when the new army book comes out in 2009.

Never mind i'm well on the way to having 6000pts of painted Lizards by the time this happens and unless they are stunning models and/or they become a lot better in the game I wont be getting any more.

Dreadlord Assassin

This month's quota for 'Tale of X Gamers' is finished. I feel slightly fraudulent having completed them so quickly.


I have been using a lot more of the new washes and I like them a lot. On both of these figures but the Dreadlord in particular I used a combination wash halfway through the layering and then brought the highlights back up.

I should start thinking about building some Spearmen or Cold One Knights but I'm not. I'm going to build some more Dire Avengers for my all powerful Eldar army. If I could keep the Autarch alive until the end of a game I would be happy ;o)

The Alessio of Two Evils

It is widely believed that some armies are worse than others. Some are cheesy some are beardy and some are beardy cheese. After much debate and cider we narrowed it down. They were the army books or codices written by Alessio or Gav or worse, Alessio & Gav.


We all went home and looked at our book shelves to discover who had succumbed to the lure of power gaming. The winner? was Binx and he was given the choice of either being punched in the face by each of us in turn or provide cake. Never let it be said that we trivialise matters.


I'd love to show you a segue of us each punching Binx in turn but alas he brought a cake, decorated by his own fair hand

Guns to the left of them, Guns to the right of them.....

Here's this months quota of skaven, I've stuck with the same idea as I used with the slaves but decided to add the army colour (red) into the mix at the same time.

The shields are a main feature of the jezzails and so I thought I'd use a little of the army colour on them to enhance the look.

Note the warpstone along the side of the guns. Full squad of 5 for the 1000pts, will have to get more for some serious knightly damage hehe.

Tried to make the globes look like they are made from warpstone.

Get that handle turning!!

Heres the two of them together, stand and fire!!!

Dib, Dib, Dib

The Ultramarines have some more reinforcements in the form of shotgun wielding Scouts including a missile launcher for good measure .

Ultramarines are Heavy Man!

This weeks fight night saw a general agreement that 2000 point games add a bit more than just extra figures. A single uber unit doesn't dominate, an early loss doesn't put winning out of reach and it allows you to balance a list more easily

Below are a few in game shots of this weeks games, notably the unpainted eldar vs the all painted ultramarines.

And why are Ultramarines heavy? Because Big Jon can't count and I wasn't paying attention. Four heavy support choices. Pffff!


An early success as a vindicator is destroyed


The armoured spearhead advance


Little do the assault marines know their doom is already foretold


The eldar flanking force attempt to hold out
And in other news

The Crimson Fists managed to secure Cortez his second win since Feb 08 by beating Binx's Necron all Robert army. It's been a tough year. Destroying not one but two Monoliths and eventually getting a phase out.

Tic Tacs

After much deliberation, it was a quiet day at work, I've decided that for September I will paint the Dreadlord and the Assassin for the Tale of four painters. I've done quite a bit of batch painting recently and fancy something I can put some quality into.

I still have plans to do a unit of Dire Avengers for myself and a unit of Fire Warriors for Big Jon, so still 22 figures to build and paint, quite a bit given I am moving house.

Mmmmm Minty!