Snakebite Orks.

Hey folks, it's new project time. So bearing in mind I've been playing a whole load of warmachine recently I've decided its time to get back into the swing of things with 40k. I say recently I mean the last 8 months. I've not even played the latest edition yet. So, time to get up to to date with the rules and build myself a new army to play with.

A few months ago, I won a decent job lot of GW Orks from everyone's favorite auction site. They were it pretty bad condition. but fortunately they had been built with superglue, so it makes for easy rebuilding! I paid about £30, and I got almost 70 boyz plus a whole load of other bits and pieces.

As I've got many grown up things to be doing with my money in the coming year, I'm going to be doing this one on a budget. 

So green skins has been sat there, but what kind of army to make? For me, the strength in 40k comes hands down, with the modelling and painting. I don't really care how many games I win, so long as we can have a good laugh doing it. The obvious place to start is to pick a clan. Everyone has favorite. 

The goffs, I've done a big old army of them in the past. I do have a bit of a 'already done them' opinion here. 

Evil sunz. This was my first plan. However, I realized I'd bought loads of boyz and no trukks. This, bearing in mind the budget, kicked that plan out. 

Bad moons. Again, I've done these guys before, so they're out. 

Deffskulls. A solid orky favorite of many I know. Weirdly though, I always find deffskull armies a tad uninspired. They're always numerous because most people have plenty of imperials guns left around in bits boxes. I don't want to blend into the crowd now. 

Snakebites. Now here's something. I thought about snake bites quite a lot. I fact I googled imaged searched them, and it didn't turn up a huge amount of results. However, this inspired me further. Quite often with this blog, I aim to post some articles I can't find anywhere else on the web. At this point a plan start forming. 

I got hold of a bunch of cheap fantasy orc bits, and started building. Now the first boyz are starting to roll of the production line.

This is look I'm going for. The aim was to get a muted, natural looking skin tone, but It definitely had to be green. Pretty rusty gear interm of the metallics, I can't see these boyz really looking after their stuff to well.

So the first 5 boyz are getting there. I know I wanted warpaint to feature quite a lot. There's also quite a few conversions planned for this army, There's fantasy orc bits all over the place, There are also going to be quite a lot of sculpted furs and ponchos. I'm going to try and improve my sculpting skills with this army. I want quite some dark tones, but not so it sucks all the fun and games out of the orks.

Some picture of in progress nobz. I plan of bring back the orky hair look! I think it was a big snakebite thing in the 90's I plan on my own versions showing up in this army. Some of these nobz were from the assault on black reach set. Hopefully I've disguised them ok.

Also, shields will feature quite heavily in this army, to get across the slightly backward nature of the snakebites. I'm going to do a unit with heavy armour with loads of extre metal plate and furs, with each boy carrying a shield.

Big shoulder plates and combi skorchas show this grizzled veteran shows business. I have plenty planned for this army, and I don't plan on rushing it. More to follow, so keep an eye out.

Imperial Sabre Jetfighter, Part 3

Here we are at the third and final part. Our fighter is ready for action. As you can see, I attached the tail elevators after de-orking them.  

I've actually surprised myself with the airbrushing, I feel I'm really getting the hang of it now with various techniques I've now tried out. 

Masking things off is a pain, especially the chequered band around the tail fin. Last time I tried is one some aurora chapter predators, I ended up leaving the tape on to long and pulled the paint off with it which caused all sorts of hassle. This time I was more careful though! 

My new favourite airbrush trick, is to spray the citadel washes through it to get a very light grubby effect. I think it suits this model especially well, and probably any flier. I can't imagine they get battle damaged and wether the same way of ground forced, tanks and such. 

I used both nuln oil, around the metal areas, such as the vents down the fuselage, and seraphim sepia just on the general grey panels.

What's a military aircraft without some nose art? Originally I was going to go with the classic eyes and mouth, but I thought I'd be a little more subtle, and a little more original than that. Also, flaming dice on a wargaming model? Doesn't feel like I can go wrong really! 

Just so you can see underneath. I thought about doing it a different colour, perhaps a lighter grey, but once I'd painted it this far, I didn't want to over do it! 

So the model is complete. How do I think I did? I'm actually pretty happy with it. I think it looks pretty imperial. Perhaps if I did another, I'd probably use some more stereotyped imperial guns, auto cannons, heavy bolters, lascannons, to really get the point over. I'm not sure if I might look a bit to 'Just stuck imperial guns on an orky plane' then though. I think the reason the painting works, is the shading between panels makes them stand out a lot, like a proper imperial plane. It almost take the eye of the fact it was an orky plane. 

I'd now be interested to paint up both an unconverted Dakkajet, and an imperial Valkyrie to put my skills to the test!

Gonders

Imperial Sabre Jetfighter, Part two.

Well, i've contuned to build the Imperial jet fighter, the conversion from the orky dakka jet. Since last time, I've made pretty good progress. I think I'm pretty much there on the building side of things. Just a couple of decisions need making before I get the airbrush out.

I've got the missiles set in place now. After that it was really a case of tidying up, tying up lose ends before painting really.

I've added some imperial aquilas to set the tone a little more. The clear canopies aren't glued down here, just to clear that up. I'm not sure on weather to add the tail fins at all. They could go either at the top, or the bottom of the tail, but when they're on they add quite a lot to the bulk of the jet and revert it to it's orky state a little to much for my tastes. 

As you can see in this shot, the plane does have a more sleek look about it without them.

Another view straight down the length of the plane. Showing drilled out stubber barrels and clear canopies removed. 

 Underside of the plane, with orky gaps filled and covered. I'm not sure weather to add additional fuel tanks under the wings too. I don't know if it might end up looking to much like a bomber, and perhaps over burdened with 6 missiles under the wings too.

Overall, I'm really enjoying this project. Its something totally different, that If i'm honest, is probably going to lead to me making more fliers in the future!

Imperial Sabre Jetfighter.

Well, my summer of painting toys for money continues. Next up, grab your flying goggles, aim your cross hairs and prepare to count rivets...

So we all know Orks are big fans of looting everyone else's gear, but have you ever realised that can happen two ways? I have been charged with turning an ork dakkajet into an imperial equivalent. I've been sent many pictures of USAF sabre jet fighters(big in the 50's, so I've learned) to act as the inspiration for the conversion.

This conversion needs thinking about. I've never done anything like it before. the closest is probably either looting imperial gear for ork armies, or turning Imperial gear heretic for chaos armies. Changing human stuff into ork looted versions probably isn't going to help here. They just get busy with the sheet metal and the rivet gun.

Changing imperial stuff into chaos may help a little. When that happens, the gods/warpsmiths/modeller strips all the iconography, then warps the machine to better suit his needs or tastes. However, a chaos land raider can still look like a land raider underneath. This has got to be different.

This plane can't look like its come from ork hands into imperial ones(heresy!), but it got to look like its been bolted and welded together in an imperial maufactorum. Lets not forget our american inspiration either.

So the issue is, there's a few things I can't change about the model. I can't really change the fuselage shape. The wings will have to swept back really. Not very imperial, but perhaps American enough. The canopies will have to stay the same, the plastic is to brittle to work with.

Looking at forgeworld imperial fliers, once I've realised the shape of the dakka jet can't change, the main difference is suface details. As we know, the Orks have riveted this sucker together. The imperials weld, and rivet if they have to. Queue the scalpel and sand paper... 

So every piece pretty much needs rivets cutting off, then smoothing off with one of the missus' emery boards, and then finishing off with some misplaced finishing sanding pads from work. This is have modelling, half joinery...

Next up, I got the pilot in place. I did this now, I think, the same reason I always paint a model's face first. It helps get the character across early and helps me visualize the rest of the job from an early point. This guy is a door gunner from a Valkyrie gunship. Cutting gluing, He's got plenty of room where that smelly ork used to sit. 

So more sanding next, she's starting to take shape, you can see. The big thing here, I removed the orky manoeuvring jets that were on the back of those sub wing bits. The angle was all wrong of the imperial warmachine!  

Luckily, some flaps and panels can just be reversed without the need for sanding to show their true imperial colours! 

Next up, the anti air gunner getting a pair of much more reliable heavy stubbers. More cutting a gluing a door gunner to squeeze him in that grot's spot!

 Right, now we're talking the business end of things. Drilled out 6 hellstrikes/sidewiders(lets not forget the american influence) exhausts and cut some pylons from styrene sheet.

Mounted under the now smooth fuselage. kind of getting there now. 

       
So this is where she stands now. Drying on my glue. Hopefully I'll get it in the sky next week!

Cheers,

Gonders 

The Tharn Factory, Part 1.

Sometimes the need arises for me to sell my brush to the highest bidder. This summer is one of those times.  In fact it's the biggest one yet, I currently have 3 painting jobs on. The first of these jobs is a repeat client(yeah, check me out, with clients now.), which is good, because it means I must be doing something right.

Back at the start of the year, I painted a bunch of Circle Orboros Tharn Ravagers, full unit, UA and solo.  The same guy is back for more, I now have 2 full units of tharn Blood pack to paint in exactly the same style.

So these are some quick snaps of the first unit. I forgot how long painting from a white primer takes for my painting style. I do like I overall effect, but I think I'd struggle to paint an entire army in these colours. 

Once again, the bases are being finished by the client, so I'm just leaving 'em primed. 

This is the unit leader. As much as privateer make brilliant games, I hate to say it, but the quality of their plastics is wanting. Mold lines are almost impossible to remove it some places. Sounds strange, but think there is to much detail that has been crammed in, when they don't appear to have the molding process quite right. I do feel the modeller pays the price for that.

I really need to improve my photography set up, but to be hoenst, I just don't know enough about taking pictures, or have the cash to invest in a better set up. I get the impression I'd have to have alot more space available than I actually have as well

Anyway, enough ranting, I'll be back with more paying jobs soon! 

Aurora-ing Success!

So remember my corehammer army from  a couple of months back? Well, like most of my armies, once it's purpose was served, they went straight up for sale in order to fund the next project. So the 1000 points got a new home, then I received a message.

A request to add a few follow up models to the army. Just the 4 extra guys. So here they are. Exactly the same colour scheme. The conversions and kit bashes I can't claim as my own, as my buyer built these guy himself.

So yeah, Melta bombs and servo skulls, the Auroras got techy. Once again, a smattering of checkered patterns to fit in with the rest of the army. Same on the new missile launcher too.

Then this guy, who I'm guessing, by the resin base and such, is possibly going to be a new captain for them. A free handed banner. One problem I did encounter, whilst painting the whole army, is that I only bought the Vallejo air colours for the green, and not the regular versions. This mean I've had to be extra careful whilst painting in the details.

So that's all for the minute. I'm still happy with this army, you know you've done a good 'un when you're getting requests for more!  

Roling Thunder. Cygnar Steamroller Army.

You could now argue, despite the lack of blogging going on, that I've now finished the Great Cygnaran Restoration. You could argue that, because I now have 2 full lists painted up and ready to play in tournaments. I missed alot of blogging about it, like normal, but I've got here.

However, unlike GW games, I don't think you ever really finish a Warmachine army. There's always a new unit or combo to try out in this game. Expect to see more of the royl blues on here at some point.

So 2 50 point lists, painted for the WPS Club Challenge at the North west gaming centre this weekend. Like the rest of our club, I've had the ticket booked for this event for a while. Last time The Lost Boys went, when the event was last run in 2012, I attended and had a great time. I took my beloved trolls with me, and finished about mid table, if I remember right. Unfortunately, the event wasn't run in 2013, due to the venue it was booked in at closing, and the reschedule was quickly thrown out and and it didn't quite work out, I believe. A great shame, it really is a Top notch event, there's not many multi system tournaments out there, and the chance to go with all your club mates and play as a team adds a lot to a tournament.

This year, the event is back, in Stockport. Unfortunately, I'm thinking due to venue change, and the failure of the event to run last year, the tournament this year is much reduced. It has only about half the numbers of 2012. This leaves the Warmachine field at a mighty 6 players. 3 of them are from our club, so out of 5 games played over the weekend, 2 will be against my club mates. That kinda sucks, but I'll still show my support for the tournament. It also clashes horrendously with not only the Birmingham masters, but also Massacon is on the following weekend, and I have a feeling people are saving their weekend away for then.

Anyway, enough of my yapping, here's the army.

There's 2 lists in there. Who can figure out what goes in which list? I'm running 2 of cygnar's biggest jack casters. Ok, there's no Kraye in there, but eNemo and Darius will do for me. 

Darius is a long time favourite of mine. Not because of his rules, just because he's a greasy mechanic, which is kind of my soft spot in every game ever. I know, the tournament scene thinks he's terrible, but he does get better with one of these under him...

 

Every serious cygnar player needs one. They're just hugely valuable on the battlefield. Did I mention Darius' feat?? A cracking model to paint and practice my airbrushing on.  

Cyngar's glowly electric really lends itself to this. You have to be careful while you're doing it though. I got caught out by overspray a few times. I also wasn't sure how the 2 tone blues would look with each other, but I don't think i turned out to badly in the end.  

My Second caster,is Epic Nemo. A true gent, this guy can run 'jacks with the rest of them. I hope. I'm still getting used to how Squishy he is on the field. The model was a fine test of my airbrush, though little glowy ports on his chest are really small! I didn't want to flood the model with electric blue, but I needed to maintain the glow. How did it turn out? Not to sure really. One thing I can say for airbrushing, is that its making me rush everything. Because you've suddenly got the ability to basecoat very quickly, I find myself wanting the rest of the model to get painted just as fast, and find myself becoming lazy with it. My next project has much potential to have this syndrome applied too.

Naturally, if I'm running eNemo, I've got 3 stormcallers in the list. Disruption is nemo's best mate, y'see?

Continuing the lightning theme, we have the stormstrider. I've made a mess of my army list writing here. The battle engine I originally put in for nemo to hide behind, and to snipe infantry. However, all it seems to do is get in my own way. I had to submit my lists before I found this out, however, so now I'm stuck with it for the weekend! Nice model though!  

Right, doing the leg work, a pair of centurions. Weather blocking the path to darius and his stormwall, or energizing in to mash casters, these guys are my core choices. Strong on the defense, centurions help out with the scenario points like no other jack. 

And so do these lads. Polarity shielded storm guard can really cause a headache to the right oppenent. If not, they serve as field jammers. Infantry with reach is always a good 'un. 

So I'll set out tomorrow to try and gather the experiance I need to play some really tournaments some time.

Gonders.

       

On the eve of battle...

You may have noticed a lull in proceedings around here for the last few weeks. 'Have you got fed up of Cygnar'? I hear you cry! Absolutely not. Trust me, there's plenty of that in the pipeline. However, I've had to squeeze in a little side project.

I sit here on the eve of a 40k tournament, quite unlike any other. That tournament is none other than 'The Dark Throne', a 1000 point bash in Manchester, as far as I'm aware the first 40k tournament run by the blogging group 'Corehammer'. These guys have been running their little corner of the internet for a little over a year. In their blog, they cover 2 subjects. The blog is a blend of the hardcore punk scene here and the UK, and reviews of their other hobby, wargaming.

You can check 'em out here:

www.corehammer.com

So, as you might know, I'm a big wargamer. I'm also into my punk music. Although, not quite the same level of hardcore as the corehammer crew, when the dark throne was announced, I knew I had to get tickets. They say it's going to be a social day of chatting music and wargames, there appears to be little to no emphasis on winning. In fact the rules pack genuinely includes to phrase 'Don't be that guy', in reference to the list building section. In other words, tomorrow should be exactly my kind of event!

So, i needed to throw together a 1000 point army, with no beard factor, get it built and painted in time to 'Not turn up with a tramp army' That's another rules pack quote. True, I could've used an old army, my horde of chaos guardsmen still hangs around my 40k tables, but where's the fun in that? So a new army, on a bit of a budget. But which one? I put this question to our club, and said, 'you guys come up with some ideas, I'll choose the best and run with it.'

This is how I've just finished my first Aurora Chapter army.

Who?

Aurora chapter are one of those chapters people have seen in every space marine codex for the last 5, but would never do an army of. We don't know much about them, they are Ultra Marines successors, and they have a high proportion of predators and land raiders. They're good at armored assaults. Thats about all I know.

Oh,

I also know, they're old school.

So I took corehammer's love of the old school(just check out their logo), and the old school values of doing one of those chapters you've known for years but never seen on the table, mashed them with the latest marine ideals, and what we got, is this pale green, chequer plated 1000 point right here. 

So army list was fairly easy. I couldn't justify a land raider in 1000 points, I don't want to be that guy, so predators. Predator destructors are actually really cheap. An armour 13 tank, with auto cannon, 2 heavy bolters and storm bolter on top rounds off at 100 points. 

I'll take 2. Laying down firepower in that quantity is a good thing in little points games. Sends people running. Turns out, marine tanks are also made to be airbrushed too, which is just good practice. Also allows for plenty of checks for old school vibes.  

Next up, 2 full tactical squads. I think if I'm taking a codex chapter, it's rude not to. I wanted to free hand chapter logos on the lot of 'em, but I just ran out of time. Originally, I'd planned to paint this whole army over 1 weekend, but over Easter I got struck down with a horrendous fever. That sent me scrambling for paint brushes up to about half on hour ago. 

So, troops on the ground, 1000 points, 20 solid power armoured marines. Next i need more support. You may notice I have very little anti tank so far. Step in a full squad of typhoon land speeders. A full squad, arriving from reserve, can delete armoured threats in salvo of rockets, on a good day. 3 multi meltas provides some ap1 fun too.

 

We now needed a leader. For some reason, I thought a character with a thunder hammer, though slow, would be cool. If he's gonna be slow, he needs good armour to make sure he gets chance to break heads. Finish him off with an old school back banner, and we'll see how he does.  

A few points left buys me a squad of scouts with sniper rifles. These guys always seem like an after thought, though I don't think they are. Camo cloaks can make 'em a right pain in little games, sometimes they just stick around, shooting stuff up. 

That rounds off the list. Does it work? I don't know. I've played 1 practice game. I wont get any more in before tomorrow. The main thing is a got it painted. Done and done.

So, what do I expect from tomorrow? Well, I'm aware that this day, much like a punk gig, is built on trust. You gotta trust your pit mates to pick you up when you fall down. You gotta trust your players to not break this game we know as 40k.

I don't play competitively, because I don't think the system is balanced. I save that for warmachine. 40k I just have a laugh. I'm aware that laugh could easily die in my throat when someone else's version for not being 'That guy' involves 'Look, I only took one helldrake this time'. Or 'I don't think a wraith knight is excessive in 1000 points, normally I take 3!'.

So tomorrow I place my trust in the other players and in corehammer, in that I shall have a good time, and I shall be more pleased bringing home the sportmanship award than anything else.

Lets try and keep the beer in check tonight too eh...? 

  

Stryker vs The World, Part one. The first games.

As mentioned a couple of posts back, my side project for the blog at the minute is trying to prove prime stryker still has the moves and can hold his own against the big boys. So last tuesday, I began, with two 25 point games, using only what I've got painted so far, so not much of a fair test(there's alot I'll change in this list).

How did I get on? Well the first game, was against a Syntherion convergence list. Dave, my club mate on the other side of the table is just learning the, he's probably played around ten games. He knows the system well enough by now.

So here we see Stryker's gang disrupting everything is sight. Arcane shield. on Thunderhead proves a tough nut to crack.  

Some hwat recklessly, stryker cockily charges a heavily damaged cipher, hoping to end it before it gets repaired, and managed to bounce off. Both forces started running out of options in the end, and sytherion ends up on the end of the Thunderhead's upper cut.

Result: Stryker Wins his first bout!

 
Time for one more before home time. Next up i line up against Mr Tom Wiggins' Skorne army. Strkyer, who was carried by stormsmiths disrupting all the vectors in the last game, is less confident.

Sure enough, me wanting to clear a full unit of nihilators leaves a bronzeback titan wide open. Foolishly, I try and stop the beast with long gunner combined attacks. It hyper aggressive moves closer, then with a good rush animus from his gladiator mate in the next turn smashes the ginger nut to the ground no problem.

Result: Domminar Rasheth Wins!

So overall a win and a loss. Its a reasonable start. Check back next time to find out how we're going this week!