Mostly Pleasure, a Little Pain

Well, they're done, finished, completed, well until I decide to add some stuff to them...

1750 points of Dark Eldar are done in time for 6th edition; I finished the Archon and Haemonculus today, varnished the last of my stuff and can tick another project off for 2012.

Below army shot is a little dark in places, but I'll try and get a proper shot of them when they take the battlefield in a week or so for our club's first venture into the new rules.

Next on my paint station are my Flames of War Americans.. USA, USA, USA!

Steyr Kfz 70 truck - Painted

I finally finished painting some trucks for my Panzergrenadiers.  They are ok; I tried too hard with the weathering and they have gone past where I liked them.  I have more trucks to do so I will try and learn from my mistake

Wednesday Gaming Reportage Style

I was aiming for a battle report but the pictures are very blurry and most were unusable.  This should give a flavour of the games of Dreadfleet, Warhammer Fantasy & Flames of War.  A full fleet action  in Dreadfleet with a narrow win for the forces of good.  The Empire and Skaven clash on the open filed with a narrow but hard fought Empire victory.  British Airborne hold a church against a determined Fallschirmjager assault - too be continued

Viking Shield Transfers

I  bought some Vikings to play saga.  This is my test figure.  What I would like to highlight is the shield.  It is a transfer which results in a far more interesting and detailed shield than I am or ever likely to be able to produce.

I would like to thank Rich at Battle Flag for his excellent service as well as an excellent product.  I asked whether his tranfers were the correct size for the metal shields I have, from gripping beast, he said he would order some and rescale to fit.  Excellent but not the end.  Due to a delay with the shields, not Rich's fault, he supplied twice as many shield transfers as I had ordered and a couple of flags at no extra cost.

Going Berserk!

All this Dark Age action with Saga knocking about got me looking at my Vikings again.
I'm not planning on starting the Viking army until I finish my Celts  (soon?!) but couldn't resist having a go at some models, dipping of course!

They may see action in Saga in the meantime but with a few other Viking warbands on the prowl they may get used as Jomsvikings to be a bit different. Thats only if I fancy a change from the Welsh of course!

First up, berserkers. These boys sit in the viking units until the enemy get close and they can contain themselves no more

and a unit of Ulfhednar. They play differently to berserkers in WAB (more of a skirmish unit) but I'd probably use these models as berserkers in Saga

Mangled Putty

Mangler squigs - brilliant in the game, massively overpriced in the shop!
Solution - build your own!

These are very wip at the moment as the impetus has gone a little bit since the WFB campaign ended abruptly and the Empire book (amongst other systems) distracted me.

I'll get back to them at some point though!

Wire frame covered with clay and then used green and grey stuff for the face. They will have scales/spikes etc running down their back when they're finished along with various gobbos and snotties hanging off them, early days!

Oh Aye, More AA eh?

Once more the camera has appeared before me! I dash to take pics before it fades back into the ether....

Since my last AA post I've been planning to get my AA company back up to Red Bear minimum status.

Finally that has happened!

AA company ready to blast Luftwaffe out of the sky. With an impressive 32" range when firing skyward they should keep the reds safe from too much death from above?!!

Flying Custard

Another step closer to finishing my Dark Eldar, I have now finished 2 Venoms and a Razorwing jet fighter. This leaves me with my 2 HQ choices to do and 1750pts are done and dusted.

I'm hoping to be all done by my first game of 6th edition, which I would expect will be in around 3 weeks time, so fingers crossed.

Random Musings.... and a poll!

I've not randomly mused for a while so why not squeeze one out!

The upcoming new edition of 40K has got me musing over editions of games past and present.
Having been knocking about the hobby for longer than is sensible I've seen a fair few editions come and go.
But is newest always the best?
The poll (see right) is for fantasy battle as I'll wait til the new 40K has been out a few months before checking on that one.

Fantasy has been/is my favourite GW game and I started with 2nd Ed. I then played an awful lot of 3rd (level 25 heroes anyone?) with solid units of troops making their presence felt which is what I think the game should be about.
4th passed me by as I was in Uni and drinking far too much booze to play games.
5th I hated due to the "herohammer" nature of the game and actually refused to play it (tricky as I was working for GW at the time!) for years, sticking to 40K and the specialist ranges.
Then came 6th which was a breath of fresh air! Units of troops were worth taking again!
7th and the herohammer was creeping back into the army books but still much fun.
8th (current) edition was a big upheaval but on the whole seemed a good move. Big units of troops are back in thanks to steadfast and horde rules. However the later army books seem to be bringing a "big thing" for each race to the game and upping the "monsterhammer" level with an element of "herohammer" (hellheart, chaos puppet, anyone?). Still enjoying the rules but this needs keeping an eye on!

So whats your favourite edition of the game? And is change always for best?

Poll to the right, comment below!

Binx's Book Review Part 3

 

Welcome to another review, this time its 'The Primarchs' the 20th Horus Heresy book brought to you by the peeps over at Black Library.

This book consists of 4 stories, each focusing on a different Primarch, namely Fulgrim, Ferrus Manus, Lion El'Jonson and Alpharious/Omegon.

I'll cut to the chase on this review, I didn't enjoy this book. None of the stories really did anything for me, I could have given up reading it half way through the final story with the Alpha Legion but persevered to the end to give it a chance.

*WARNING: POSSIBLE SPOILERS BELOW*

Fulgrim's story 'The Reflection Crack'd' by Graham McNeil is just, well, really odd, and doesn't really go anywhere, and I'm sure the torturing with a bit of South Park inspired anal probing wont do anything for most...

Nick Kyme's 'Feat of Iron' is next, and well it wasn't going to take much to improve from the first story, but he makes a good effort to make it worse! The Eldar make an appearance in this one and they steal the show, Nick gives some great descriptions in the combats featuring Howling Banshees. Again, once this story ends you do wonder why you bothered, but it is quite interesting seeing how the Eldar are trying to influence the Horus Heresy.

Thirdly we have Gav Thorpe with the imaginatively titled 'The Lion', and you know it must have been a good book when you cant remember what happened...

Finally we have Rob Sander's 'The Serpent Beneath' This is the best of the four tales, and has a nice twist at the end. I think the previous three stories had drained me by this point, so it took me longer than it should to get through this one. If you're going to have a look at this collection then start with this one, if you don't like it, then don't read the rest.

So the scores on the board...I'll give this 5 Primarchs out of 18. I've loved most of the Horus Heresy books but this one by far was the worst, yes even worse than Descent of Angels.