Monday, May 21, 2012

Painting, Gaming, and a Deranged Battle Report.


Painting Progress


Last week I never found time to paint except for the weekend, but nothing is picture worthy yet. I have finished fixing all of the paint damaged areas of my 5th edition Tyrant Guard which is a big relief to me. I also brought my other set of 3rd edition Tyrant guard up to par. For something new and to break away from all the grey I started painting some Hive Guard models. The progress in slow, but moving along which is better than not.

Recently I have been playing a decent amount of DDO and for a free game I like it a lot. I got my fiance to play as well and she like it a lot so it is a bonus. We haven't been able to find a decent hack and slash leveling co-op game in awhile, but DDO seems to work nicely. She tends to picks warrior type charcters while I tend to pick sorcerer characters. She rarely dies, but I die a lot. I can slow or kill large amount of monsters, but if small gang gets too close my robes are not saving me much at all. I also spend too much time in my inventory trying to hoard and not hoard items.

A Game of 40K


Last week I played a game of 40K with my friend Dah Mast Cheef. I brought my Blood Angels to fight against his Exodites in a small 1300 point game. The Exodites are a small contigent of tree huggers who don't like Tyranids or Space Marines and don't follow the normal doctrine of their Eldar brethren. With this in mind I decided to tone down the Blood Angels a bit by swapping PF for PW on the assault squads and trying an expensive Lemartes escorted by a DC with JPs.

Here is what I brought to the game.

HQ Librarian w/ JP (Attaches to 1st Assuslt Squad)

Elites 1st Sanguinary Priest w/ JP (Attaches to 1st Assuslt Squad)
Elites 2nd Sanguinary Priest w/ JP (Attaches to 2nd Assuslt Squad)

Troops 1st Assault Squad (10) w/ PW
Troops 2nd Assault Squad (10) w/ PW

The Librarian, 1st Sanguinary Priest, and 1st Assault Squad combine their powers and models to form
RED SQUAD

Troops Lemartes, Guardian of the Lost
Troops Death Company (5) w/ JP 2 x PW

Fast A Baal Predator w/ Flamestorm Cannon

Fast A Landspeeder w/ Typhoon Missile Launcher

Fast A Landspeeder w/ HB

Now please enjoy my variation of a much enjoyed 40K game through the following ...

Deranged Battle Report

Keep in mind the Exodites army at large is very unique and fluff based. It uses a small amount of counts as units, but in the end it is unique and something refreshing to see.
When we rolled for missions we deceided to let the dice roll to something besides objective based as both armies were seriously lacking scoring units. We decided Dawn of War annihilation would suffice.

Turn 1
The Blood Angels speed towards the enemy battle line chanting while the DC wispered chants of doom to the nearby enemy HQ.
If I remember it was AS2 - LS - RED SQUAD - DC - LST - BP
Some serious first turn rained down on the enemy HQ as it lost a nice chunk of its members.
The Exodites advanced towards rubble with their tools while some gardners began to throw stones at the Blood Angels. The Librarian produced a no authorized psychic power usage document to the Farseer. The Exodite's big flying truck started its long unispiring flight path to attempt to destroy only a landspeeder.

Turn 2
An Exodite speed cop pulls over the Baal Predator and issues a speeding fine for using more speed than possible, the Baal was haulted and was told it could not fire. To help control the speeding infraction some flying gardners began kicking the Baal Predator in protest.
Red Squad shot at some gardners tending to rubble preping for a next turn assault. The DC shot up the enemy HQ again and failed to assault them over a trench line.
The Librarian again produced a no authorized psychic power usage document to the Farseer. The Far Seerer was able to slip in a second power fooling the Librarian's psychic authority.
The Exodites Dragon Riders fire their expenso blasters into Red Squad with no affect. The Exodites grounded the LS, but did not quiet its HB.
The gardners gipped by fear of trampled earth and impeding doom assualted Red Squad along with Dragon Riders (Tar Pit) as well as the remnants of the HQ unit.
The Librarian received a no pychic power usage document and promptly died along with four other members of RED SQUAD. Some gardners perished along with the Farsear. All units stood fast while kicking, punching, biting, and throwing stones.
The Exodite's big flying truck continued its long unispiring flight path to attempt to destroy only a landspeeder.

Turn 3
The DC decided to shoot and assult the Exodite speed cop and smacked speed cop and his ride into obilivon with their power and chain Billy Clubs. The Baal Predator ignored headed the speed cop's warnings pushed past the protesters and attempted to run over the rear guard gardeners who fled from rubble to ruin. The LS shot nothing and the LST was quieted for the next turn.
The 2nd AS joined the assult with RED SQUAD and did nothing. I believe a marine died and just a few gardners died. Everyone stood their ground including the members with no arms. I think the Exodites HQ was eliminated at this point to a single model who took off running.
A squad of flying gardners attempting to destroy the Baal, but failed to do any real harm.
The Exodite's big flying truck continued its long unispiring flight path to attempt to destroy only a landspeeder.

Turn 4
The DC booked to the Baal protesters and shot them to dust. The Baal Predator resfusing to stop speeding attempted to leave the general area to attempt to fire something more than smoke launchers. The LS shot nothing and the LST speed away flat out to avoid the clutches of the Exodite's flying truck's claws.
The marines and joint marines of RED SQUAD in the tar pit did nothing.
The flying gardners failing to harm the Baal assaulted the DC and dissapeared. The wings giving them superior speed, but not initiative, speed them to 88 miles per hour to the next path, however their initiative failed them as they were cut to pieces by the DC.
The rear gardners were most triumphant and finally destroyed the Baal Predator for good.
The lower side of the tar pit session saw a break. The RED SQUAD initiative finally broke all the gardners and killed off the remaining Dragon Riders with PW glory.
The Exodite's big flying truck finished its long unispiring flight path to attempt to destroy only a landspeeder, assaulted the land raider only to rip the HB off the LS and beat it against the hull stunning the LS to no end.

Turn 5
The LS could not shoot anything or do anything and the LST boosted out to fire farg rounds at the rear gardners as if their problem with the looming DC was bad enough.
The DC attacked the rear gardners with ease and pure insanity. Lemartes was wounded at this point which makes his attacks something marvelous.
The RED SQUAD tar pit was coming to an end with the enemy model count resulting in a single model with a pointy stick. His attempt to make a ton of saves did not happen in glorious resolution.

At some point the LST fired upon the Exodite's big flying truck finished its long unispiring flight path to attempt to destroy only a landspeeder and killed the Exodite's big flying truck finished its long unispiring flight path to attempt to destroy only a landspeeder.

Some thoughts ...

Again one of my Assault squads got assaulted first, but in this game it might have been for the better.
Again I end in some form of tar pit finally whittling down the opposition to a single model.
I should have kept one PF as it would have come in handy against the Dragon Riders.
Arming the Saguinary Priests with PW or PF might be worth it.
The lone LS was pointless, it killed nothing and did practically nothing all game.
...
Next time imperial walkers are spotted please let the LS crews know in advance so they can use their tow cables.

Friday, May 11, 2012

(New Products + Theory = Experiment) = Success


New Paints

The other evening I went a ways to a hobby shop to purchase some paints from the Tamiya paint line. I really enjoy the effect the clear colors can give to a miniature so I purcahsed some clear red and smoke colors. I also noticed they had a Vallejo Game Color paint stand so I purchased a bottle of brush on primer and a bottle of black ink which is more of an experiment to see if it may work better compared to Citadel's Badab Black which is now Nuln Oil.

FLGS is not F for Friendly

One thing which makes me dislike my shopping experience is the owner or manager. He must have watched me like a Hawk the entire time all the way till I left the store. I remember a hobby shop back in my home town who had an owner like this, they are gone along with another. I can only think of two reasons to watch me like a hawk, fear of theft or creep. I actually wanted to walk back in and return the $20 worth of paint I had just purchased. If it had not been for the employee who helped me convert the new Citadel colors back to the old Citadel colors I would have returned the products. I can understand fearing theft, but to put this much emphasis on it is bad for business and plain harassment to a customer. I wonder if giving the place a call would help, but the owner may not care or give the reserve the right speech. I know I can get Tamiya and Vallejo paints anywhere and other hobby shops have the new Citadel paints.

Spot Priming Experiment

My last post I mentioned some of my models received heat damage. The heat damage caused paint to vanish from the models in spots exposing the bare metal. painting over the metal does not seem to work and I did not want to start over again. I experimented by using thin amounts of the Vallejo Game Color brush primer on the bare metal spots of one model and allowed the model to dry. Once the primer was dry I applied the Citadel paint I normally use over the primer and to my amazement it worked. I went ahead and finished spot priming on the model where needed and applied the spot priming on the other model. I allowed both models to dry after spot priming till the next evening. I believe I may have a few more heat damaged models so I think I should be able to create a small tutorial if is wanted.

Tyranid Paint Recipe Improving

I believe I am going to follow the Citadel painting guide for painting gray for painting my Tyranids body color. I currently use Mechanicus Standard Grey along wth a coat of Nuln Oil. This gives a fleshy appearance, but I feel it needs a bit more work. I think with the addition of highlights using Dawnstone and then Administratum Grey as they suggest and maybe washes and or inks in between I can acheive a good great flesh appearance.

I am still working on the Armor for the Tyranids, but I think Averland Sunset followed by a wash of Seraphim Sepia is the correct direction so far. The Seraphim Sepia gives a nice orange tink to the recesses portions. I think the next part is apply Averland Sunset again on the raised portions either full or slightly thinned. Using a different color has me stumped because I have not found one yet.

I will work on them some more this weekend so I should have better pictures than last time.

Sorry I did not have any pictures for you, but here is a picture of my cats trying to tell me a message.



Monday, May 7, 2012

WIP of Tyranid Tyrant Guard

Recently I have been painting some Tyrant Guard models for my Tyranid Army. Here is a WIP shot of the models so far. I started them last week and did a bit more this weekend and if all goes well I should be finished with them this week.



Originally I glued the model's arms on, but I had to remove them because they really impede my painting a lot more than I thought. The models will actually be removed from their current bases and will be placed upon new bases I ordered from Secret Weapon Miniatures. I spent some time this weekend filing down excess resin off the bases and giving them a good wash afterwards.

I use a fairly simple paint scheme as you can see. The paint scheme starts with a white spray prime and then a layer and wash for the armor and then a layer and wash for the flesh. The inner arm flesh I am using a bit more complex paint scheme and I feel it looks very good. The tongue I use a more complex paint recipe as well, but I am thinking about changing it slightly. The claws and hooves I am not liking at all. I am wondering if I could use a darker color instead of a lighter color.


This set of arms I have applied  wash on the main talon. I still do not like the color I am using for the claws and talons at all.




This set of arms including the tyrant guard on the left in the first picture show signs of heat damage. I think foundation paints and washes gradually break down and sludge sort of a bit in a model. I am in the process of fixing the model. Lesson learned.

Any help on the main colors and mostly the claws/talons would be appreciated.