4 years of 40k painting in review, Part 5

Welcome to part 5, because no one expects the Inquisition. The last part of my Standish Standoff 2011 army consisted of Castelle Crowe an Inquisitor and his henchfolk. Nothing like a few crazy guys with swords and shields in a sci-if setting to really crank things along. Now as of when this list existed Crowe was pretty much a tax and army liability, see free kill point. He allowed my core unit to become a troop and thus I could take more than 3 and better yet the could score. On his own he was rather a let down. A character on foot with only 2 wounds but he couldn't join a unit not be joined. Furthermore my opponent got bonuses for charging him. Oh and no power weapon? Yay what a dream HQ. So as a tax he is what he is. Getting him to do anything worthwhile in games was always a treat and I would just assume he would die, as he usually would.

The real leader for my force then took the form of a generic inquisitor. Tricked him out with psychic powers and power armor. No psych-broke grenades for him. Just in as a nice utility piece, also his friends are pretty good to. More importantly he could buff his henchmen allowing them to get +1 strength allowing them to better wound marines, and provide his unit stubborn leadership of 10. The rest of the army was fearless so making sure these guys staid stuck in was the trick.

I opted to go for a more greytine armor on him to match up with the crusaders. Keep the inquisition all forces all of a similar paint scheme. I liked this model as being metal it had the actual equipment I wanted on him, force sword and bolt pistol. The book version is also pretty slick. Nothing to special with the crusaders although I did do some freehand work on the tabard to draw in a sword. Something to this day I'm still no good at. Likely to be my next step in growing my painting skills.

Accompanying him are a cluster of death cult assassins. Wait you say, I've seen those models before on this blog? Yes you have. I repurposed some confrontation models. The griffin executioners are excellent assassin models. The masks help them look more the part to me than the bondage girls of the GW model. Also the GW model was perpetually sold out and about 5 times the cost. Easy win for me to take these instead. Little customization to add in axes along with the sword and they are good to go. The strong artistic similarity between the Confrontation Griffin faction and Grey Knights is what put me on them to begin with.

So here we have the army to head to the big event. I did very well for the day. I took 6th overall, and won Best General that year. Considering my last two, and first two, monthly tournaments ended with me being visually trounced for three games straight, coming out on top game wise was a huge step up for me. I got some lucky draws for match ups. Facing orcs in my last two games. I'd never played them before and had little concept how effective my list would perform against them. I took one other thing away from that event though. I got to see some of the most amazing models I had yet to see in person. I thought what I had done was pretty top notch and slick. Oh how wrong I was. Yes I climbed the peak after a long 7 months only to discover I had only made it to the base camp. Yay more climbing to go!

4 years of 40k painting in review, Part 4

Welcome back to part 4 as we go into the painting challenges of painting up my first vehicles for my army. I had a total of three dreadnoughts but only fully completed 1 of them in time for the event. The other two where base coated and underway to get detailed. As I never used all three again I never finished them up. Something to do when I go back to edge highlight this army in the future. This was my first time using any forgeworld item, having purchased some direct from forgeworld since then I am pretty sure I got recasts off ebay but they worked and I could afford them so I guess good enough. I wanted to stick with the same color scheme as the purifiers for these vehicles, first mistake. Looking back on these some two years later I really should have done the standard color scheme with the vehicles. Metallic would have looked much better than flat black everywhere. that said the details did come out well. I think edge highlighting the models and applying a thinned out gloss coat to create the enameled effect may int he end greatly improve them.

I hated painting these to be honest all the large flat areas where a nightmare to paint with brushes without leaving brush strokes on the model. To combat this I used a lot of color primers with masking tape to try and avoid it. The white and red seen on the rhinos for example was done using some krylon white and red paint with some blue tape masking. the color is a more varnished/shinney than I really wanted but hand brushing over them gave me bad streaks. (I had yet to discover the wonderful GW basecoat red paint). I picked out all the details I could but in the end I was and am not real happy with these vehicles.

On the plus side being so disheartened with the results did drive me to a future hobby painting tool, my airbrush, and goaded me on to learn to use it beyond just making my own cheap color primers. 

A large difference from this event over our local monthlies is the scoring and various awards. Instead of simply having a best general and best sport as is our norm for the monthly, the Standish Standoff had instead 4 core trophies for the tournament along with an individual painting competition occurring simultaneously with the tournament. Scoring for the tournament itself consisted of game points (roughly 30% the points), army paint score (25%), and sportsman score (50%ish) and a pub quiz (about 5%). A much larger focus on hobby. With 6 painting categories to enter in, most the awards had nothing to do with game performance. We had a Best Overall, Best General, Best Painted Army, and Best Sport along with the painting competition for individual entries. 

Unlike any other previous organized game event I had participated in up to this point I pretty much played the exact same army to the event points for around 6 months prior to the event. I understood my army inside and out and really got to focus on playing better with this force rather than constantly rolling thru different forces on a bi-weekly to monthly bases like I did with Malifaux, and to a lesser extent Confrontation and AT-43 before that. 

4 years of 40k painting in review, Part 3

Welcome back to 40k flash back as we continue to look back at 4 years of miniature painting. After playing my Tyanids for awhile I was still just not getting my head around the 40k rules. Yeah I know my own fault for picking Tyranids in the end days of 5th Edition, but I didn't know any better. So my next step was to pick up a Space Marine army and better understand the rules of the game. Having come from playing a lot of Confrontation Griffin as my favorite army, I choose Grey Knights. They had the overtly religious feel coupled with knightly appearance that really appealed to me. My local game scene had several Draigo star players. Not wanting to play the same as everyone else, I picked up a lot of the power armor Grey Knights. Having never played or painted up a power armor marine before I didn't feel the need to go all terminator with my Grey Knights. I opted for a Purifier Army with Crowe to allow them as troops. So I needed a lot of them, 30. Lastly to help them be visually more interesting to me at least. I went for black armor rather than metallic. 

A lot of detail work is picked out on these models, however I had yet to learn what "edge highlighting" is and did not have that tool in my box yet. I did want to use a diluted gloss varnish over the metal plates to create a sort of varnished, enameled look to them but ran out of time to get it done in time for our brand new Annual Hobby/tournament event the Standish Standoff during the first week of November. I did a lot of reaper tri color highlighting as I understood it at this time. Unfortunately the color depth on any of the larger flatter items just isn't present. However I did do my first free hand painting with these models putting both names on ever model as well as free hand flame icon to mark squads on the shoulder. You will see white flames on red, red flames on white and white flames with red inside, and red flames with white inside to mark the 4 squads. 

One handy painting tip I learned from painting all the gold on these models. Rather than using a base coating gold first or many many thin coats of gold (hard to get a metallic thin), I painted the base down with essentially an ochre color. This I could apply a couple thin coats of to get a good base down. With this down a single coat of the antique gold would go on and look great once washed. Considering the heavily religious feel of the army I wanted to use a dull antique looking gold to emphasize that the armor is baroque and ancient.

Another new technique I used was partially assembling the models. The arms and head where left off the model as I painted them. Allowing me to get into all the nooks and crannies of the model as I painted. I also had fun applying the names of many of my friends and family to the models along with the handful of known Grey Knight names. This made for some fun as I would take wounds on models named after my opponents first allowing them the "joy" of shooting themselves to death.

Next week Vehicles!

4 years of 40k painting in review, Part 2

So here comes the second half of the Tyranid painted models. This time the monstrous creature special! As I got into this scale of model I had to do more painting and less wash for coloring on the skeletal bone as I did with the smaller Tyranids. However as I was going for quickly painting an army rather than making the best army I could paint I was just blocking out colors with base painting and allowing the Mid-Tone Army Painter dip to shade the model.

First up a pair of Trygons. I really fell in love with the scale of these models. At this time in 2011, these are the big boy bugs in the Tyranid army. I didn't play back in the Carnifex days of 4th. Visually these models just strike me as being the boss monstrous creature for my Nids. Again I used green and pink to help pull out some details and break up the coloring on the model. However my "wet brushed" red on black worked great for claws to give them a nice organic feel. 

Last up is my HQ, the Hive Tyrant. granted all the Tyrants you see these days are that very awesome plastic kit with the  wings that has since been released. This guy is the metal model. I wanted to run the Swarmlord (again his parts come in the new plastic kit) and at the time, no official parts existed from GW to build him. As such I found some aftermarket sword arms to create my own Swarmlord. The kits only had 1 mold for left and for right arms. To help create distinction, I set up the joint point at different angels to help make the molds look more varied on each side of the model.

 
 

4 years of 40k painting in review, Part 1

I originally started this blog as a way to get pictures of my models online for use in my LGS forums and to share with friends. This was back when I was playing AT-43, Confrontation and Malifaux. Once I started 40k I stopped posting up those army painted pics for the most part.

So I'd like to go back pull out all my models from the last 4 years and do a series of posts on how my painting has changed in that time. Its one thing to go back to old posts and see a change but a rundown may help all newer painters as they strive to up their game. Another motivator is I finally got myself a small light-box with backdrops for taking better pictures of my models.

So let us begin.

My first army in 40k is Tyranids. The concept that I as the player took on the role of a character in the narrative of 40k, that of the hive mind, really got me into this army. Also the highly organic nature of the models lent itself well to my heavy use of wash on models at this time in my painting growth. I picked them up sometime around February or March of 2011. I went for a hybrid paint scheme. borrowing from two existing fleets. Leviathan and Behemoth. I used the Leviathan chitin purples with the bone of the Behemoth.

 I also started using a great product for getting whole armies done. Army Painter colored primers and dip. For these I used the skeletal bone primer. for the base coat then came back in and painted up the plates purple. The green and pinks I diluted down the paint making almost a wash to drop into the recesses, worked well over the fairly light skeletal bone. The only neat technique I did on these models was on the claws. I painted them black then did what I term "wet brushed" the red from the tip down the length. Wet brushing is like dry brushing but using a still wet paint with a little more on the brush. Doing so allowed the red to streak down the length of the claw. Normally not something you would want to do but I wanted to mimic the color shift seen in horn on oxen. Only rather than black to white, going from red to black.

Now in using the dip method I started by following the steps listed and actually would dip the whole model in and do the whipping back and forth to remove excess dip. After shattering a couple models and breaking a few more off the base I stepped away from following the army painter tutorials. Instead I picked up a 1" wide synthetic brush from the wall-mart and instead brushed on the Army Painter dip. I would let them sit about 30 minutes then go back and brush off the excess dip from the bottom of the models. I found this was both less messy, less destructive to models and much easier on me to do. (swinging 40+ models really hard was very hard on my shoulders after an hour.)

All said it took me the better part of 2-3 months to build and paint this army to completion for some local tournaments. Considering the time frame I was painting up 8 model crews in before this (2-4 weeks). The simplification in painting style helped to speed up painting dramatically and the organic models really allowed the dip method to shine.

Next time, monstrous Tyranids!

Tournament Talk 2/28/15

Got some games of 40k in this week for the first time in several months. Hopped down to Crossroad Games for the monthly tournament. Pretty decent showing with 10 players for the day. Not having a lot of recent game time I brought my same list from the Standish Standoff (event from November 2014) and having an extra 50pts I just added some war gear and move items around to play basically the same army. Plus that one is already painted.  Event was 1700 points using book Maelstorm Missions with a modified battle points based on margin of victory. I honestly never got the details for the scoring and was just so pumped to play I wasn’t too interested to ask after them at the start of the day. Only house rule to modify the games was any card drawn that is never attainable you can immediately discard and replace it. Helps keep you from being hand locked with unattainable cards.

So that said here is what I brought for the day.

Detachment: Combined Arms Detachment
Faction: Tau
HQ1 152: (Farsight) Commander, XV84 Crisis Battlesuit^IA3, 1x missile pod, drone controller, 2x markerlight drone
HQ2 179: (Tau) Commander, drone controller, 2x markerlight drone, Command & Control Node, Puretide Engram, Multi-Spectrum sensor, Neuroweb system jammer, 2x Flamer
Elite1 265: (Farsight) XV104 Riptide, Hvy Burst Cannon, TL-Fusion Blaster, Velocity Tracker, Earth Cast Pilot Array, Stimulant Injector
Troops1 210: (Farsight) XV8 Crises Team, 3x Crises Suits, 3x Markerlight drones, 3x bonding knife ritual, 6x missile pod, 3x target lock
Troops2 210: (Farsight) XV8 Crises Team , 3x Crises Suits,3x Markerlight drones, 3x bonding knife ritual, 6x missile pod, 3x target lock

Detachment: Tau Firebase Support Cadre
Elite 220: (Tau) XV104 Riptide, TL Plasma Rifle, Ion Accelerator, Stimulant Injector
Heavy 231: (Tau) XV88 Broadside Team, 3x Broadsides, 3x High Yield Missile Pods, 3x smart missile system, 3x missile drone
Heavy 231: (Tau) XV88 Broadside Team, 3x Broadsides, 3x High Yield Missile Pods, 3x smart missile system, 3x missile drone

Total: 1698 points

Round one I got paired up with Marshall who brought a pretty elite Eldar Iyanden force including 2 Wrathknights, 3 units of wraithguard 2 spirit sears, 2 wave serpents, and 2 units of jetbikes. He had a lot of AP2 shooting, a lot. So although we both had elite armies, mine utilized good armor saves to survive and his guns cut through that like a knife thru butter. My only saving grace was a decent warlord trait drawn allowing me to score double points on any # objective card I score with my warlords unit. I was able to snag a couple of extra points that way early in the game and get a huge lead early on. After the first couple rounds the game turned into me trying to delay and deny my opponent more than scoring myself then a complete run hide and don’t get table. We got to the bottom of round 4 as time got called. Looking at the points we pulled a tie, given the absolute beating I got across the table top that was a win in my eyes. A great game and lots of fun.

Round 2 I faced Todd. He has the most beautifully painted Ultramarines. Perhaps some of the finest painting across and army I have had the pleasure of playing against. That said he had a pretty balanced marine army. A couple tactical squads in Rhinos, assault squad, ironclad in drop pod, dev squad and a vindicator. I lost the roll for deployment so set my army up across from him to be out of range from the vindicator…. Or so I thought. I left one drone out in range. Fortunately a bad scatter caused the shot to miss. Again a large blast low AP would be the bane of my suit based gun line. My first round of shooting put a lot of hurt on him with some decent rolls. I wrecked the dreadnaught, vindicator and a rhino. Keeping him pushed back. The game started to turn heavily against him as I drew and completed several d3 objectives cards and proceeded to roll 3 points for each one. One nearly glorious moment as a lone marine assaulting a tau riptide nearly swept the riptide as I failed a break check. Was a baited breath roll to be sure.

Round 3 paired me up with Marcello. He had just curb stomped my first round Eldar opponent tabling him handedly early in the game. He brought a dark elder homunculi list. I've never played against dark elder, but he had a lot of melee and a lot of T5 and T7 wounds on the table. Pretty much the perfect pairing against the elder whose elite high AP shooting is wasted on piles of wounds. Marcello gave me a good stomping last time we played each other in a tournament and has been a routinely excellent opponent in player given most of his standings at events. One thing we both agreed on is that it would be a fast game. Either I could keep him off my gun line and shoot him down. Or he would make it and stomp me in hand to hand. First round shooting spelled his doom as a long series of failed 3+ armour saves with 5+ feel no pain saves. From the number of wounds I sent his way he should have saved that down to around 10 wounds taken on a unit of 4 talos. Instead we saw the unit nearly wiped out and finished off in over watch on the charge.

All in all the event was a great time. I got to catch up with a number of players I've not seen in several months and generally get my gaming geek on. The best surprise was at day end I came out on top and took a win. I knew I had done well but I didn't honestly think I was in contention to win. Defiantly put a smile on my face. 

Blog Resurrection

Time to raise the dead. I’ve left this blog lie fallow for the last few years. Originally created as a way for me to post up WIPS and finished models as I worked on them it got pushed to the wayside.

Now I’d like to get back into posting about my modeling progress and games. Since last we posted Rackham has completely gone under so I won’t have too many models from their games. Malifaux after the third expansion book from the first edition just left me behind in artistic style. So that all said what do I work on? Warhammer 40k. That has been my modeling bread and butter.

Specifically to this Blog the upcoming Fratris Salutem event has me resurrecting this blog. I am looking to finally get a fully painted Blood Angel list together for the event. That said my initial idea for a list is looking to have my painting table filled with 5 Rhino’s, 50 Marines, 10 Assault Marines, and a Sanguinary Priest. Of this I have exactly 5 marines painted already. So that leaves me short a lot.

Mission dead line May 23^rd. Challenge Accepted.