Goliath, online.

Coming soon to a table near you! 

First Patrols into the Field

I was finally able to put some models on the table!

My FLGS is running an escalation league, organized by a plucky individual I’ve only interacted with so far by way of Facebook. And good on him, too, almost 40 people have signed up and most have played games this first week! Games & Stuff has a truly epic selection of board, card, and tabletop games as well as swag and accessories. They’re not even paying me to say this: but they’ve got the best restrooms of any game store I’ve ever been in. Check them out shop at:

http://gamesandstuffonline.com/

Now for the games- 500 points each, must include a Patrol Detachment, and the mission was The Scouring for 4 games this first week. Points are being awarded for new units painted, games played, people recruited, and an extra incentive on winning with a slight bonus.

I played my friend Nick with his Blood Angels in 3 games, although a nasty mistake on my part (lascannons kill characters? who knew!) saw me lose 2:1.

Here are some photos from the games, and I hope to be updating with new projects and my expanded Admech very soon.

Freezing rain poured over the city streets.

Fearing neither pain nor death, Infiltrators boldly waded onto an objective.

Seizing the initiative in Game 1. Clever use of terrain (a MUST in this edition) protected the Astartes from most of my firepower.

 

 

500 points finished in 3 months!

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I love metallics!

Seriously, 2-3 colors plus an all-over wash makes a big impact for not a lot of time investment. I definitely know why Games Workshop had their painting studio throw these Martians on red bases- all that cold metal really needs a warm tone to balance it out. I’ve chosen to paint the bases a warm brown, but add some snow for that extra level look.

The power weapons are Electric Blue (Vallejo) and I dig them a ton. They stand out and are fun to play with when it comes to lighting effects, another thing I’ve never really approached. I’m hoping practice makes perfect.

Very excited to see where this project takes me, can’t wait to update the blog when I start to make some more progress!

 

Looking for that “pretty good for no airbrush” kinda look

It begins! Working on my first 200 point chunk of my commitment. 

Mission: Failed … ?

I bought a house!

So while that means great things for my home life (sorry), it means I haven’t set foot inside a hobby shop in two months! So I would say my “starting with an intent to finish” mission for the Orks was a failure. I’ve even sold a bunch of them off. Through some savvy trades on Reddit, I’ve traded for/bought into a solid Adeptus Mechanicus army.

This coincides with Trial of Warlords. A 1000 point in 6 months painting competition. I cannot wait to get started. By the time the goods arrive, I’ll have about 6 weeks to finish assembling and paint 500 points to meet the first checkpoint requirement- a feat to be sure. But I think a hurried slog like that is just what my “hobby ADD” needs. I hope to update this immediately upon the arrival of my new troops, and update continuously for the next 4.5 months as I speed through 1000+ points of 1’s and 0’s.

My First Game of 8th

The summer is heating up-

but my progress is slowing down. I performed two wedding ceremonies in June, and when you add in a bachelor party at the end of May and… a house purchase at the end of the month, well there hasn’t been too much time to paint. I’ve run through 10 gretchin and their runt herder, but most of my progress has been in building and assembling. Something about not needing a water cup or a palette out makes building more guys a more attractive option after a long day at work.

Forget all the distractions in July, however, because I just played my first game of the new edition of Warhammer 40k and it was a total blast. Really gave me the boost I needed to get back into the painting trenches. Painting is fun, and it’s work, but it’s always easier to get some progress going when you’re remembering your last game. Well, on that note, on to the battle report:

Game 1, 2017: loss (but fun!)

My friend Nick and I agreed to a 1000 point Matched Play game, using all the new rules and scenarios as closely as we could manage. We literally bought our Indexes and borrowed the new core rule book right before playing the game, and if it’s any indication on how easy this new edition is to get into, we did pretty darn well with it.

The mission was No Mercy, Nick picked Spearhead Deployment, and wound up going first because he finished deploying first. My first tip for this new edition is to keep an eye out for infiltrating and flanking units, and use yours wisely. They can be very strong, or totally useless if you deploy improperly or flat out forget a unit can outflank!

We both took battalions to see what these Command Points were all about. Turns out- they’re very cool and pretty important to the new edition. They actually won me Slay the Warlord when I counter charged his Chaplain HQ (twice! when will he learn!?).

By the end of the game, the greenskins had been wiped from the face of the battlefield, but the points were more even than that sounds, and we both had a blast. More fun than 7th edition, but it could be a combination of the new rules and my new army, time will tell. I’ve got some great action shots here for you:

Before the carnage began

another highlight, a scout sergeant killing a weirdboy on his own after losing 4 squad members to Smite

the Burna Bomma put in work, and more importantly stayed very alive

21 orks vanquished by… combat resolution! Da Jump is a ton of fun to use however

a vehicle in melee!

Some takeaways:

The most important Command Point usage was definitely to stop the order of assaults being in your opponent’s favor. 2 CP is a high price, but also extremely worth it in the right circumstances. I actually ended the game with 2 CP, so I could have used some re rolls for sure. Next Time!

Flame-throwing weapons are incredibly powerful. A unit of 5 burna boyz threw something like 8 wounds onto a rhino in one round of shooting- after Advancing! They can also whiff majorly… best taken in multiples.

This edition feels like an edition where you must take risks to succeed. Be poised to Seize the Initiative, be ready to risk a 9″ charge for glory and teef! We watched 2 deffkoptas take down 3 Death Company- in melee no less- but I also lost a 65 point HQ to a troop sergeant!

I truly cannot wait to paint up the rest of my force and get back to the table for a larger game. This one only took 2 hours, and that’s with us gabbing and looking up rules the whole time. I could see 1.5 hours for every 1k points easily done in a casual setting, much less time in a tourney for sure.

My list for anyone interested:

Warboss on bike, weirdboy, 12 shootas in a trukk, 22 slugga boyz, 5 burna boyz, 5 tankbustas, burna bomma, 10 obligatory grots, and my two standout deff koptas.

Staying Organized

I’ve tried writing this post 3 times now.

I’ve never been that organized. In life, not just in this bear of a hobby I’ve gotten myself into. Surely, though, this is where my disorganization really “shines” so to speak. I’ve got “hobby ADD,” or whatever you call it.

Organization, I think, is an important part of the hobby side of things, because I’ve seen disorganization or misorganization (necessary new word) really hamstring motivation. In a hobby where even assembling the pieces could take dozens of hours, motivation is everything!

So what do you do? Do you make a chart on your wall near your work space?

Russel Crowe realizing if each unit takes him 20 hours to complete, and he’s got 3 units left, oh and that land raider, well that’s more like 4 or so hours on its own, and it’s June so…

I thought about writing out or using a program like Excel to make a quick worksheet with what I have left to do to get ready for 8th, but I’m also kind of afraid of seeing how much that really adds up to.

My current strategy is simple: paint something I don’t want to paint (be it because of size, quantity, complexity), followed by something I do want to paint. Like a treat for myself after slogging through 5 more boyz.

No, I don’t know where all the pieces of this or that are. I just don’t.

So help me out here, folks, what do you do to stay organized? My nail-polish-stand-turned-paint-organizer worked for my tools, but I’m still sitting in a pile of gray.

I’m almost considering priming my entire force black, and following it up with some green skin to at least have a color on each model!

 

Learn to Love the New Edition

When AoS first dropped

my buddy had a really good point about the mixed initial reactions. Whether you were excited or fearful of the changes, we had never before seen that kind of content creation and hobby discussion. Looking back, that was probably due to our hobby really thriving in the age of the internet of things, but the point held. And it still holds today.

What we’re looking at with the 8th edition of Warhammer: 40,000 is an absolute deluge of new content being created by hobbyists from everywhere around the globe. Japan got exclusive releases. Blogs like this one are practically ablaze with new opinion articles. Redditors are flooding Imgur and other hosting sites with brand new projects. I expect local hobby shops to see an increase in sales, too.

What I’m trying to say is this: whether you’re looking forward to 8th, or shedding a tear for 7th, this is a great time to be involved in the hobby at large. If you’re not inspired as you click around on Dakka, B&C, Reddit or Spikey Bits, your eyes are closed!

Quick & ‘Urty Basing

Even well painted armies

on sites like Dakka and Reddit will oftentimes lack a finished set of bases. Personally, I think the base of a model can make or break it’s paint job.

I was listening to an episode of The Independent Characters podcast, and I forget who was speaking at the time, but they admitted to having some of their Sisters of Battle on bases painted with a simple coat of Goblin Green (the old standard!). Now that’s fine and all, but especially for you better painters out there, it can really drag down the overall appearance of your work.

For me, the Citadel texture paints were an absolute game changer. I used to solely base using scenic materials from train/hobby shops, and have since switched my method to a mix of the two. Allow me now to show off my extremely quick (and hopefully visually pleasing) method of basing upwards of 30+ miniatures an evening.

Step 1: Take your finished* model, paint the base using the color you prefer for the rims of your bases. If not painting the rims (not required by any means), use a color that roughly complements the base effect you’re looking to achieve. Seen here is my favorite base paint from Privateer Press Paints (P3), Bloodtracker Brown. *This is ‘finished’ before the weathering step.

 

Step 2: Slather on a texture paint from GW. Use two thick coats for good coverage and cracks. This can be painted later, to add more detail or even create specialized themes like lava. A hair dryer can be used here to decrease the drying time and really crack up the material. In the past I made my own “mud” mixture, using lava rock medium from an art supply store and a cheap acrylic. Basing paints need not be specialized for use with miniatures by any means!

To crank this to 11, I use Army Painter Tufts. I used Winter here, because it looks like a desert plant to me, but they have a ton of themes. Note: I was not paid to write anything about these guys, I just genuinely like the product.

It’s as easy as plucking the grass off with $.50 tweezers from CVS/Walgreen’s and super gluing them to the texture paint. Definitely highlight the texture with a crummy brush before this step, as any paint on a natural item like this will look… unnatural.

See more here: https://shop.thearmypainter.com/products.php?ProductGroupId=3

And that’s about it! I managed to base The Betrayal at Calth using this method in a single night after dinner. One of my all time favorite pieces of fluff/source material from GW is The Battle for Armageddon, and I like the look of a kind of salt flats base on my Orks. Part of this, I believe, is that it’s always nice to have a contrasting set of colors underneath the model. I would never base Word Bearers or Saim Hann on Martian Ironearth, for example (anything wearing camo voids this rule!).

Let me know what you think in the comments section, and feel free to send me your basing tips and progress pics and I’ll be sure to feature you in a post coming up!