Still Working...

With the all the shading done on these horrors I have started bringing up the highlights for their skin, though I haven't gotten too far. This weekend was kind of busy with gutter cleaning, snow shoveling, and a house guest, but I did get to crack away a little as evidenced by the photo below:

From Mars' Project Blog

I took a bit of brush-break on Saturday to start putting together the next squad. Well "next" after I finish the four horrors shown above, then the other five horrors, so I guess the next squad that isn't horrors:

From Mars' Project Blog

So there are all kinds of really bad ass precast resin bases out there, but they cost money (I know right!?). So instead I have basically been grabbing anything and everything from my bits box to litter my daemon bases; in a feeble attempt to recreate the coolness of the precast resin bases. The theme I am going for is like a war-torn planetscape where the daemons are perpetually battling the inhabitants. Sort like an ever present entropic force. In doing so I have been using everything from various thicknesses of cork, precut tiles, pieces I think I got around the time planet strike came out, and just about anything else I feel like. I am hoping that this mismatch of clutter will help communicate that "worn and laid waste to" feeling that I imagine for the army.

From Mars' Project Blog

And I do get a chance to express my feelings towards losing to Dark Eldar last Thursday:

From Mars' Project Blog

Hopefully it will all translate. If not, I can always drop the, "Hey its chaos line."

Thanks for reading,
T

Dark Eldar, It Has Been Awhile

Got to throw down with my friend Mike last night with him playing the new Dark Eldar codex. The games was awesome, with me losing 2 objectives to 1, despite a lot of the clunkiness that comes with playing against a new army. That clunkiness was further compounded by the fact that he didn't know what a lot of his stuff did either. If nothing else the game reiterated what I love to preach, but seldom practice in a fun game, "If you have a question look it up!"

Along those same lines, I got my buddy Chris (An amazing Warmachine player.) to come to the 40k fold as well. It is a win-win for me because I have more opportunities to play him. I loaned him my rulebook so he could read the rules, so I didn't have it during this game. This game, which was pretty cut and dry, still had me wanting to look something up at least four times. It is always good to have your rulebook.

I have not played against the new Dark Eldar enough to have a good analyses of them, though one game was enough to give me a healthy respect. This is an army, that in the hands of an experienced player, will terrorize people. The real bummer here is that there aren't models for the vast array of stuff you can bring. It makes playing them kind of hard when the 'dex is new because it is new units being represented by proxy models. The potential for confusion is great.

I look forward to playing against them again, but fear what they will become with experience and a more robust model range.

Thanks for reading,
T

Snails's Pace

I have been slowly, like glacier slowly, chipping away at this min squad of horrors. I have all the shading on the skin finished. I'm not sure why I have been taking so long to finish these, outside of the fact that I just haven't been painting a lot lately. That fact alone is confounding. While I am at work I think how much I need to get home and paint, then I get home and do everything but paint. Or just paint for a few hours.

There is hope. Even as I type this the first snowy flakes of winter flurry about out my office window. I tend to get quite a bit done in the winter months since there is 'eff all better to do.

Anyway w/o further ado or belly-aching, some WIP pics of my horrors:

From Mars' Project Blog

From Mars' Project Blog

Thanks for reading,
T

October Horror Finished

Just a few update pics. Was hoping to have a min squad done but this week got crazy.

From Stuff I Have Painted

From Stuff I Have Painted

From Stuff I Have Painted

Thanks for reading,
T

October Horrors

From 2010-10-20

This month our local game club is having a painting challenge involving the color pink. As I am not a very imaginative person, and it is Halloween, Pink Horrors jumped to mind. It was also pretty helpful that they just got some cool new plastics.

So here are a couple of WIP shots of my first one. I am learning a lot as I don't normally paint this much skin. I plan to have a min squad done by the end of the challenge, so once that happens I will post the others up.

From 2010-10-20

From 2010-10-20

A Name Apropos

That guy looks pretty cool huh? A lot of people may have actually never seen one. Like Bigfoot, you have heard of them, even seen blurry photos, or artists renditions. (See Above.) But you have never actually seen a Tau Etheral in a 40k game. And despite my recent efforts to prove otherwise, there is probably a good reason for that.

I have stated a couple of times I am kind of an internet contrarian. (But wait! I am on the internet! Does that I mean I have to think contrary to everything I say? Oh noes!) So if the Internets tell me something sucks, like the Etheral, I can't get him into a list fast enough. In the case of the Etheral, I am starting to think like the internet.

The guy with the maracas of the future there has hit the table three times for me in pick up games. In all three games he has died because, when my opponent finds out that killing him has the chance of running my stuff of the board, they tend to get an evil grin as they start calling out new fire coordinates. The Ethereal has a rule that makes it so that as long as your Tau (So no bugs, kroot, or drones.) guys can see him they can reroll morale tests, but if he dies all Tau units on the board have to make a morale test at the beginning of their next turn. Your stuff that sticks around gains USR Preferred Enemy. In every game my Ethereal has made at least two squads run, though he has granted Preferred Enemy to what is left. Very helpful, what with all the assaulting my Tau do.

I am gonna give him a few more games. A lot of my units have low Ld because I don't pay for the squad upgrades, so I hypothesize that the reroll can be helpful. But the Etherial is officially "On Notice". Thus far the benefit of the Etheral has been just that. My consternation at this guy only grows when I think that he may be laying the groundwork, wherein a bridge can be built between myself and the internets. With that bridge will come contact, and commerece would increase. Followed closely by treaties, understanding, and eventual acceptence....
THIS CANNOT COME TO PASS!

The next game I think I will bury him a big unit of fire warriors and see what I can see, though that would require me to run a "big" unit of fire warriors. Shit just got real.

Thanks for reading,
T

Jeremy's Sons of Orar

Got to play a game of 40k with my buddy Jeremy against his stunning Sons of Orar army. This army has been to a few events in the Pacific Northwest, including OFCC and Astronomincon. The army is really sharp, and my craptastic pictures don't do it justice. Even more awesome is the fact that he has an Imperial Fist force, and an Angels of Redemption force that are painted as well, if not better.

Anyway we played 2k points. Annihilation with Dawn of War deployment. I brought my Tau to avoid some marine-on-marine action. I pulled a victory because it was one of those days you get, ever so rarely, where your railguns do what you think Str 10 AP 1 does, and just blew everything up. I was getting Pen "6's" for days. The final score was, after seven turns, Jeremy 9 Kill Points ('Cause Tau give them out like they are going out of style) and me 12 Kill Points. So there is that...

And this, which is a bunch of pics of his army. I am going to reschedule with him and shoot all of his armies in my little portable studio, so some day better pics will follow. Apologies in advance for the quality of these. The lighting was less than optimal and the shoot was somewhat impromptu.

From Mars' Project Blog

Drop Pod and Ironclad Dread that flamed my fire warriors and ran them off the board his first turn.

From Mars' Project Blog

From Mars' Project Blog

From Mars' Project Blog

From Mars' Project Blog

With my railguns being "on", I was able to rack up a good amount of kill points early with all the AV 11. Good thing too, as he took at least 2 KP's a turn in turns 6 and 7.

From Mars' Project Blog

Sternguard.

From Mars' Project Blog

From Mars' Project Blog

Jeremy ran Pedro and Honor Guard. While super nasty in assault, I got their truck open early and was able to plink them off with my plasma rifle/missile pod suits on a turn where I got 3 marker light hits.

Jeremy's army's beauty is only surpassed by what a sporting and cool guy he is to play. I always have a good game with him, and this was no exception. Thanks Jeremy.

Thanks for reading,
T