Monday, 30 May 2016

Bank Holiday Assembly Blitz


So, I took advantage of the Bank Holiday to settle down to some serious assembly. And yes, I did work on more than four figures, but there's a bunch of other ones that are 'nearly done' so will have to wait for another post.

First up are some models from the Circle of Chaos Kickstarter. These arrived recently, and I'm trying to get things assembled and undercoated ready for paint as they come in now, rather than leaving them in boxes forever.


The long necked chap will be added to my slowly growing Chaos force, probably just as a rank and file warrior. This barbarian type will also be joining some thugs or marauders, depending on what else I find to go with him.


This weird chap, however, I have no real idea what to do with. I'll probably just keep him as a random model for use in AoS, or get inspired randomly at some point.


Another Arco Flagellant also got finished off. He'll join the pile of "prospective Inquisitorial Warband members" until I get some Inquisitors done and inspired for colour schemes...

Also coming up on the assembly table are finally getting the first five of the Chaos Forsaken ready for paint, a couple of strange wizards for a very particular Age of Sigmar hobby project, and another Chaos Warrior from a small manufacturer. Oh, and the rest of the Circle of Chaos figures, of course! It may be a while before you see them, as I have a few other blog post ideas in my head as well, but they'll be getting worked on while you see the last of the WarhammerFest content, and a few other musings...

Tuesday, 24 May 2016

WarhammerFest: Specialist Games - Blood Bowl, Lord of the Rings and Adeptus Titanicus


The news is all over the Internet, and the Blood Bowl Facebook page is definitely a thing. WarhammerFest (and later the Blood Bowl tournament at Warhammer World) had a load of information about what's coming for Blood Bowl.


There was tons of cool stuff on display. This was the beautifully modelled Orc board and dug out. They made up the full model, then took an image of that to use as the board - it wasn't computer generated!


These fancy templates should reassure old hands that not much is going to change rules wise. Questions asked of the guys working ont has also indicated that they're taking an "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" approach to much of the rules.


Here's a mock up of the final pitch - with an Orc board on one side and a human pitch on the other. There's a potential in the future for more themed boards if there appears to be interest.


Dice, cards, rulebook! The quality of all this stuff is already looking pretty amazing.


The stat cards will look pretty familiar to anyone who's played the game before.



Some people were freaking out a little at the first picture of the board and thought it didn't have squares - it does, but they're subtle - and obviously, the physical board they took the pictures from didn't have the markings. (This picture also shows the human board side.)


Again, the dug outs look familiar to those who played the last version of Blood Bowl. It's not going to be out a while yet, but it's pretty exciting already!


In other news, it looks like after Blood Bowl, we'll be getting Adeptus Titanicus. Going back to the original game set in the Horus Heresy, they've already taken the CAD for the Warlord and scaled it down - and the guy working on stuff like the Death Roller is also working on titans, I'm guessing the Reaver and Warhound, which pre-date Forge World doing CAD.

The scale is also likely to change slightly - probably to around 8mm. This is mostly on the grounds of looking at a few different scales and what titans look most awesome in...

This is a way out - it's after Blood Bowl, probably by at least a year - I'd say back end of 2017 is optimistic, possibly a 2018 release.



Also being shown at Warhammer Fest was some new Lord of the Rings stuff. That isn't really my thing, but I thought I'd show this "Fall of the Necromancer" table - I think it was actually borrowed from someone.

There's definitely a whole lot more coming for Lord of the Rings - there's various pictures of the new resin models doing the rounds, and there's also been a bunch of old metal models re-released as well.

Tuesday, 17 May 2016

WarhammerFest: Forge World Seminar - some thoughts


So, as promised, here's my thoughts on the Forge World seminar from WarhammerFest. This isn't my usual full write up - go to the Battle Bunnies for all that stuff.


I'm super pleased to see a Fimir model getting done - I'm a big fan of them, and I'm totally up for getting one.


The new Imperial Armour book is Tau attacking a Mechanicus world before the Red Scorpions and a Knight House rock up to save the day. It turns out Culln got himself a bit of a scratch, though... What I'm really excited about, though, is the possibility of some rules to allow 30K Mechanicum units in 40K games.


The updated Horus Heresy Space Marine army list is on the "to buy" list - I've been meaning to get into Heresy for a long while now.


As you might expect, there was a whole bunch of Mechanicum / Mechanicus units, like this flying automata that is clearly a Blight Drone precursor.


Conversion kits for the Skitarii! More awesome things I'd really quite like.


The archaic helmets are also pretty tempting here, too. I already love the Mechanicus look, and Forge World take awesome and turn it up a notch!


Oh, and something, something, Thousand Sons versus Space Wolves. Sisters of Silence, though...

So really, if we're being honest, Fimir, Mechanicus, and waiting on an updated book before starting a Horus Heresy Space Marine Legion...

Monday, 16 May 2016

Warhammer Fest - A few thoughts


This weekend, my wife and I went up to Coventry to attend WarhammerFest. The train journey up was a little painful, and I think next time we'll spend the extra money to avoid London Midland trains and get a Virgin one. They're not terrible, as such, but the price difference is small enough that the seat reservations and extra space make it worthwhile.

We were staying in the hotel at the venue, and again, I think this is totally worthwhile. Not having far to go for the event, the ability to drop off purchases part way through the day - definitely worth it!


If you are super stoked about Forge World rumours, go to Battle Bunnies. Their dedicated rumour team do a better job than I could do on my own, and there's no point in duplicating effort. It was nice to be able to sit back and enjoy the seminar, although I will admit to still live tweeting a bunch of pictures from it, that was a bunch less work and still fun for my Twitter followers.

I'll still give a few thoughts of my own about what I'm excited about, though. More gonzo and commentary than a blow by blow account of everything announced.


The big news involved lots of new information about Blood Bowl (and also Adeptus Titanicus: Horus Heresy), and that got a lot of people excited. I'll do a dedicated post regarding that later.


One of the demonstration pods we attended showed how to remove shoulder pad designs from resin shoulder pads and attach them to something else - in this case, the Night Lords symbol on the Vorax neck armour. We also hit some demonstration pods about posing miniatures and the design process for Warhammer Quest: Silver Tower, which looks pretty awesome.


There was also a seminar about the licensees - who are people who make computer games and apps for Games Workshop. What got me to lose my mind a little bit was the announcement that Vermintide's next expansion is themed around the old Drachenfels background - which I avidly read as a novel, and read and re-read the Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay supplement for. I'm a little excited about this.

I'll hopefully post a few more thoughts on WarhammerFest shortly, but I haven't written them yet, so no promises as to when you get them!

Monday, 9 May 2016

Somewhere after midnight


I've finally finished painting up the figure for my Tiefling Bard, Myth. To get him finished, I basically worked from top to bottom to get things finished off. I dropped in a wash on his trousers to give them a bit more contrast, then cleaned up all the leather patches, washed and drybrushed them to get them back to where they were before the trouser colour swap.

I dropped in a darker blue at the base of the jacket to give it much more contrast, and changed the colour of his gloves. I added gold buttons to the jacket, dropped a light sepia wash onto the puffed sleeves, lightened some areas of the face, and dropped in dark brown lines into his horns to improve contrast.


His tail had also been a bit too plain, so I brought it right up with a much lighter red. The lute also had a bit more tinkering and dry brushing to make it seem a little less shiny. Each individual thing was only a little thing, but I felt it really brought the miniature detail forward and made him feel finished.


 I was trying out a couple of new colours in this last paint session. The first was Vallejo Model Color "Dark Sea Blue". I picked it up on a whim after hearing someone on a podcast (I can't recall which one) say it was one of their 'go to' colours. I made a note of it at the time, and ages later have picked up some to play with.

I did find it needed a ton of shaking to actually make it mix - the first few drops I got out were clearly separated and worse than a wash consistency. It was far more than GW paints need, but I quite liked the colour. It has a dark blue green to it that I like.


I've also been trying to get out of my "everything is dark" painting habits, so grabbed this 'red' from GW. It's closer to a flourescent orange, really, but when blended over a darker red, really makes it pop. I used another red as a transition between the very dark red and this so the change wasn't too stark, but if you look at the tail in particular, it gives a lovely effect.

All in all, I'm pleased with both experiments. I'd recommend trying new paints or colours - or even colours in combinations you wouldn't usually consider. Pushing out of your comfort zone really helps you improve your painting.

Also, I got through the post without telling you about my character. You're welcome, internet.

Monday, 2 May 2016

Plodding along


 I took advantage of the Bank Holiday weekend over here to get a bit of painting and modelling done. I finished prepping and assembling a couple of goblins and got them undercoated, but didn't take a photo of that.



I completely swear by Vallejo Coarse Pumice and Sandy Paste for my basing, but I've noticed James Wappel really likes the Oxid Paste. So, I picked up a small jar of it to give it a go.


I used it around the edge of the base of the radical Inquisitor that Whiskey Priest sent me. Before it dried, it was hard to see what the texture was going to be.


I then painted it up with some Rhinox Hide, then a wash, and finally a light drybrushing of some other mid tone brown I had lying around. XV-88, maybe?


Once the wash was dry, I dropped in the last few details, and ticked the box on having at least finished something this weekend. An easy win, to be sure, but I'll take an easy win over nothing. ;)


Myth, my Tiefling, had his trousers re-coloured and the yellow slashes dropped in on his sleeves. I also added another layer to the yellow fastenings on his coat, as the first coat hadn't really properly covered things.


I also start blocking in colours on my last Malifaux Changeling proxy. (SUBLIMINAL MESSAGE: BUY STUFF FROM HERESY MINIATURES.) When this chap is done, I'll have a full 50 Soulstone list fully painted, and I'll move on to assembling and painting the rest of the models my current crew can use to start give me some flexibility in list building.


Finally, one of the Arco-Flagellants I was given for Christmas has been fully assembled. I fitted the trailing arm first, and pinned it, but the leading arm was then fine to forgo a pin. Happy to get him done, just a couple more to go!