Daemon Engines? Excellent choice!

A long time ago (or so it seems) I built this Stalk Tank to fight alongside my Blood Pact army. I've always had the desire to build another one, but have lacked the time required. There also wasn't really a pressing need or an easy way to integrate them into a "proper list".

But now 6th Edition has brought along Allies, and the Chaos Space Marine codex has brought some tasty new Daemon Engines. I think I might have to start bulking out the Blood Pact.

First up, I have a Mantis Tank to put together. It was sent to me by my friend Laurent of Blight Wheel Miniatures. It was designed by one of my favorite sculptors (and new addition to the Citadel stable), Morback! Obviously this saves me a great deal of hassle in building one myself, which means I can get stuck into the painting : )

If you are interested in picking up a Mantis Tank you can buy them online here.

Photos of Forgefiend and Maulerfiend from the GW website, used without permission.

I'm also loving the two new plastic Daemon Engines from today's GW releases. I think one of each of the Fiends will do nicely.

Photo of Blight Drone from the FW website, used without permission.

I have two Blight Drones from back in the day, one of which is already painted. This seems like a great time to get the other one painted up too.

Photo of Helbrute from the GW website, used without permission.

And finally, I now have two Helbrutes. Perhaps they'd do well supporting my Blood Pact infantry too?

Lots of great Daemon Engine fun on the way. It'll take some time, but hopefully it'll be worth the wait.

Cheers

Dave

PS. I have no idea if they'll actually be any good in the game, I don't have my Codex:CSM yet, but I'm sure I'll enjoy the building and painting part ; )

Der Blutpakt!

So, my copy of Tabletop Insider issue #5 arrived today, direct from the editor of the magazine, Martin Ellermeister, in Germany. Last year Martin had spotted my Blood Pact army in this blog and felt that it might make good fodder for the best German-language gaming magazine out there, Tabletop Insider.

So, around September, I took a bunch of photos of my army on a table at the former GW Battle Bunker in Maryland, answered a pretty extensive list of questions, and sent it all off to Martin. There were a few complications over the holidays, but Martin assured me that all was going well and that TTI05 would hit the shelves (in Germany) in April. True to his word, the article on my Blutpakt armee is in there. Now if only I could read German to know what I said about it ; )

Images from the Tabletop Insider website, used without permission

If you are a German speaker (or reader), make sure you check out what Martin and the guys are doing with Tabletop Insider. They've developed a great relationship with many companies in the business and even have a beta list for Humans in Kings of War.

Cheers

Dave

Back from WarGamesCon!

It has been a busy week since returning from my first trip to WarGamesCon! Quite a bit of work, a lot of catching up with my now-willful daughter : ), and plowing on with my Golden Demon entries and commissions (more on those in a later post).

Anyway, back to the show. Simply put, it was great. Bigred, JWolf, Bushido Red Panda, and all the crew from BoLS were great guys to hang out with, chatting about toy soldiers and conventions and the mysteries of the world.

On the Friday, I ran the first of hopefully many Hobby seminars at the Con. It was a three class day, with participants signing up for all three. You can check out my post here to see the blurbs about each class. They were well attended and well received, wish made me quite happy and helped me relax for the rest of the weekend.

One great thing that is run at WarGamesCon something they call their Narrative Track. Three different Apocalypse campaigns running at the same time : ) We had 18-20 players participating, split over the three tables. My Blood Pact made their appearance on the Siege of Vraks table.

In this shot you can see my to teammates: Patrick on the far left with his Ork Stompa list (two Stompas and what seemed like dozens of Deff Dredz and Killer Kanz) and Cargill on the far right with his Nurgle Daemon Engine list (Scabieathrax, 2 Plague Hulks, 6 Blight Drones, and I think there were 4 Dreads too).

After having a Datasheet for just over a year now, I was finally able to field my Stalk Tank. Was it effective? It certainly drew a lot of fire : )

We were looking good in the first game, but our opponent Jason's Hades Breaching Drill arrived in our backfield just in time to contest the deciding objective. Game One was a draw.

In Game Two, Patrick and I defended an airfield while Cargill's Daemon Engines raced forward to keep our opponent Dan's IG at bay. Patrick and I worked well together and held on with some great backfield defence. Even though we pushed it an extra turn, we walked away victors in Game Two.

In Game Three we had to break through the breach in the curtain wall and hold the central objective. Each side was given a Reaver Titan, nice!

Our opponents raced forward and stood tall in the breach, giving most of our firepower plenty of opportunity to target the Reaver. In the second turn Patrick managed to take it down with a shot from one of his Stompa. With a wonderful series of rolls, the Reaver went into Apocalyptic Meltdown. A Strength D hit on all models within 20"!!! Our opponent Eric took the brunt of it as his Black Templars were well and truly gutted. We figured that was the right time to start buying the beers, which flowed for the rest of the evening. Despite seeing half their army disappear, the Imperials fought back and eeked out a victory.

Anyway, it's getting late. More tales in the next post.

Take care!

Cheers

Dave

What a "smashing" week!

So, the reason I didn't post over the weekend, when I typically get a chance to, can be seen in the photo above. While on a work trip to Pittsburgh to photograph a fantastic Battle of Leipzig game I found myself the victim of a pretty crazy car crash. Another driver, entering the highway at speed, spun out on gravel and collided with me, who then proceeded to spin out and connect with the concrete barrier on the shoulder of the road. Fortunately no-one was injured, just a bit shaken up.

Suffice to say I was almost 4 hours late to the photo shoot and had to drive a compact rental back to Baltimore that night.

I wasn't really in the mood to post anything fun : (

But, now that a few days have gone by, I'm still worried about how I'll afford a new car, but I figured I'd show you all the Locust (Chaos vector-fighter) I've been mucking around with for the last little while and finished up for Adepticon.

The first batch of photos are of the Locust at the end of the build (10pm Monday night before Adepticon). It is fairly clear where the drop pod fins are, but some of the detailing of the plasticard is a bit tougher to make out.

One thing that should be clear are the power cables I used to draw power from the jet engine and divert it to the vector thrusters. These cables are available from Jeff at Dragon Forge Design.

One other thing you might notice if you take a close look at the picture above are the small pieces of etched brass. These little vents/grilles are from the Panniers set of brass from Justin at Secret Weapon. I haven't used a lot of etched brass stuff before, but these vents were just right for the job, adding that fine level of detail that would be nigh on impossible with plasticard.

As I mentioned above, I finished the build at 10pm, less than three days before I'd be heading to Chicago. After quickly snapping the photos above, with my old photo set-up as my work gear was already packed on a truck, I primed the sucker and started painting. By 1am Tuesday I had all the metal work done and had just laid down the liquid mask.

Rather than go for my standard dark red vehicle look, I decided on the bone colored flyer with dark red star. I painted the whole thing with a couple of layers of Dheneb Stone, painted Gryphonne Sepia into the shadows, the peeled off the liquid mask. I then had to highlight the edges with Skull White, and wrap up the detailing.

I love this pic above. It shows just how thin the Locust really is. Looks mean.

The base is from Dragon Forge Design, with the addition of the smoking brazier. I added that to represent a warp locator, figuring that the Veterans who descend from the Locust (counts as Vendetta) would actually "warp in" to a location determined by the Locust pilot. I mean, they obviously wouldn't fit in the plane itself ; )

I hope you've enjoyed this close-up look at the Locust fighter. Thomas and I can now go back and build fresh templates for it that might make it up on this blog (like the truck templates). I will say, however, that I think this might be the only one I ever build. Very time consuming.

So, as I contemplate my future financial situation (re: a new car) I'll leave you with two things.

The first is I may have to sell off an army to get a good-sized down payment together, if so, which would you guys like to see go up for auction? Custodes? Mechanicus? Cathay?

The second thing is, occasionally someone offers to by me a cup of coffee (or a beer) as a thank you for some of the advice I've been able to provide. It has been kind of tough to achieve that over teh Interwebs, until NOW! Over in the right hand column you'll find a little paypal button where you can "buy me a coffee", if you should feel so inclined : )

Well, that's it for tonight. Stay safe, look after your loved ones, and enjoy every day as much as you can!

Cheers

Dave

Inked!

Well, today was the day. If you've been checking out my blog this year you'll know that I started running a competition in January, once this fair blog had reached 500 followers. By the end of February, all entries were in (almost 40 of them) and it came time for me to announce the winner, in this blog post. The winning entry from Robert is repeated above.

I took the design along to Emily at Flesh Tattoo Company in Fallston, MD, last Saturday and left it in her more than capable hands.

This afternoon I went along for the actual inking. It's been a while since my last tattoo, so I wasn't exactly sure how it would feel until we got started. I mentioned to Emily that it felt just like last time, as if someone was rubbing a very sharp glass shard across my skin... for two hours!

Still, it was completely worth it. Emily did a bit of handprint research, and actually checked out this blog in the process : ) She was also pretty stoked that I'd run a competition like this. Anyway, her research led her to add her own artistic elements/style to the final rendering, which you can now see below!

Just above it is the first tattoo I got 11 years ago. At the moment, with the raised flesh of the healing skin, it feels like a burning, bloody hand has been slapped against my arm. Very Renegade Guard if you ask me ; )

As an aside, Emily's husband Ed owns the great indy store Games & Stuff in Glen Burnie, MD. I heartily endorse both businesses. One thing that made the whole inking experience more fun (and a bit surreal) was being able to chat with Emily about how Malifaux and exIllis were doing, and what they meant to the gaming community. Very cool. Thanks for the great ink!

Cheers

Dave

Back from Adepticon!

What a blast!

Adepticon was, once again, a great event. Well-run by a big team of enthusiastic volunteers, the show had even more to offer the attendees this year. Speaking of attendees, there were over 1300 of them who registered - an increase of around 300 from last year.

I had fun on Thursday evening, helping a bit with the set-up of the Gale Force 9 booth and catching up with old friends from across the continent.

Friday and Saturday saw me running around a lot, snapping pictures of the Flames of War, Warhammer Ancient Battles, and other historical demo games. There are plenty of pics for my Wargames Illustrated article (and subsequent web bonus material), very exciting!

Saturday night I entered into the Rogue Demon competition. Horus for the Single Sci-Fi category, Jeb Stuart for the Single Historical category, Pater Sin and his Brood for the Regiment/Squad category, and Rylanor for the Large Monster/Vehicle category. I was rewarded with two Bronze medals, one for Jeb and the other for Horus. Very happy with those results!

Sunday was the 40K Championships. I brought along my Blood Pact Army and made sure I was entered in the "Black Library Themed Army Competition". Over the course of the day I discovered there were no less than 15 armies up for consideration : )

My games were interesting, to say the least. Three very friendly opponents who all played good games. My luck started out strong in Game One against Tony and his Daemons, but waned in turn three leaving me with a mere two Battle Points (default because Tony's army contained neither Fast Attack or Heavy Support to start with). Game Two saw me up against Erich with his Vostroyan IG. Although I struggled early in this game (managing to just blow the guns off a Vendetta after hitting it 8-9 times with plasma and lascannons), my luck returned with the arrival of my own Vendetta filled with my new veterans and I clawed back a draw, so I added 20 more BPs. Game Three saw me up against Mark and his fairly straightforward Chaos Space Marines. No tricks, just solid stuff. This game didn't see my luck swing either way, it stayed awful all the way through. Losing four tanks by the end of turn two certainly didn't help things. I ended that game with 0 BPs.

I got a glance at the tournament list after the show, I placed 90 out of 110 for the Blue tournament, not too bad as I think I was the one who scored the lowest number of BPs (22 of a possible 145).

Vince from Black Library was very generous on the day and awarded four prizes for the Theme competition, I placed second. Congrats to C.J. and the other generals who won the other prizes! Long live the Black Library!

And to wrap up my quick blurb about my adventures at Adepticon, I leave you with this picture from the army that won Best Army Appearance and Players' Choice in the 40K Championships (Blue). It is of a handful of Brandon Palmer's Chaos Space Marine Terminators from his Scallywaggin' army. Truly some spectacular work. Brandon is from GMM Studios and you can see some more pics of his army on their site.

Great to see many of you at the show, and I hope you return next year for more fun and hijinx!

Cheers

Dave

How many days 'til Adepticon?

Only four? Oh my goodness, what am I going to do? In just 96 hours time I'll be sitting at the bar, relaxing with a beer (or a dirty martini), but before then there's still plenty to do!

First up, last post I teased you with a shot of this Pre-Heresy Dreadnaught's legs. Here he is in his semi-complete stage. Inspired by the work of Insaniak (a fellow Aussie converter who posts a lot on Dakka), and the artwork from the Horus Heresy artbooks, I put together this interpretation of Rylanor, the Emperor's Children Dread from Fulgrim and Flight of The Eisenstein. Since this photo was taken I have finished the modeling work and I'm almost finished with the painting. I'll be delivering this piece in person to the client at Adepticon. As it was such a fun project, I figured I'd do a full post on him next week, after the show.

I'm going to be playing in the 40K Championships on Sunday at Adepticon. I always think "Championships" is such a grand title and I feel like a bit of a fraud playing in them. I'm so far from a champion player it's still kind of funny. Anyway, I decided to take some advice and added this Veteran squad to my list. They'll be rocking shotguns, two meltas, a heavy flamer, a demo charge, meltabombs, and the sarge has a plasma pistol and power sword. Although more pricey than I typically go for, I think they'll do me proud. To build them I used the torso/head pieces from the Vraks Renegade Enforcers (from Forgeworld). The skull masks were a lot of fun to paint up! You'll notice some interesting weapons being carried by these vile devotees of the Dark Gods. Stolen directly from a poster on Dakka Dakka, whose name escapes me right now (please post a comment if it was you), the shotguns my boys are carrying are a mix of IG flamer and grenade launcher. I have plenty of both just lying around and when I saw this conversion, I knew I had to try it too. I like it a lot and I think it adds some great bulk and a slightly archaic look.

So, the Veterans need to be delivered to the right place at the right time. I'll be finishing off the Locust in the next few days (I hope) to use as their Vendetta transport. Quite a bit more work to do, but I do enjoy my plasticard work.

And here's a shot of a Wolf Priest I had to paint up for a buddy of mine. When I was out in Phoenix last October for the Battlefoam Wild West Shootout, I made a bet on the outcome of the Broncos/Giants game that was played on Thanksgiving night. Sufficed to say, my boys in blue did not follow through on their promising start to the season and I was left holding the proverbial bag. I hope Jason gets a lot of enjoyment out of this figure.

One last bit. Unfortunately we've had to cancel our Napoleonic game originally planned for Saturday night at Adepticon. That big bugbear of hobbyists everywhere (real life) got in the way of finishing up their units for some of our players so we decided that it would be best to bring it all along next year instead. My apologies to anyone who was really looking forward to seeing it. I might bring my finished units anyway. We'll see if they fit : )

Anyway, take care, and I'll see you all (hopefully) at Adepticon!

Cheers

Dave

And the Winner is...

And so we come to "Revelation Day"!

Perhaps nothing so grand, but with entries from 37 of this blog's followers, I know there are a few people hoping a signed copy of Blood Pact will soon be winging its way to them. Please remember, there can be only one winner. I layed all the entries out before me and went with my gut, feeling a somewhat-Zen connection to the winning entry.

As I promised in my comment on my last post, here are ten or so entries that topped the list. I'll follow these with the winner. Please note, these are in no particular order.

THE RUNNERS-UP

Here we have the entry from Istvan Vegh. A great job of bringing the knives, skull, and Khorne symbol together.

David Brender has taken a different approach here, and I REALLY like the use of the skulls to create the wreath!

Gavin Massey went down a quite elaborate path with this one. I think the blood drop inside the skull was used as a campaign badge "back in the day", so I had quite an old school feeling about it.

Jason Gould brought the elements together very nicely. I particularly like the styling of the Chaos star.

One of my favorite miniature painters, Chris Borer, took a key from my interest (and his own) in more solid, block designs. Each of these is subtly different, and one of them might make a forearm tattoo for the future.

Alex Landing was very enthusiastic about the competition and sent through a couple of dozen variations on the theme. This was my favorite of his work.

This entry from Tim Hollman was the first I received to incorporate the Blood Pact grotesque. Some very clever arranging of elements to have them do double duty.

Wayne Snyder sent in a few entries that were very cool, but it was his worksheet that I thought I'd show here. It's always fun for me to peek behind the scenes and see how people work.

David Liljehammer submitted this entry. I like the decayed feel of the Chaos star/wreath, it looks rusty and dangerous.

Three of the entries from Dylan Gould. Like many entries, Dylan was keen to see me use the Chaos star styling that I've painted on my tanks. I liked the sharp edge style of these very much.

And Dave Stolarski not only sent in this piece (note the Blood Pact grotesque on the skull)...

...but he also sent me a few photos of the start of the "Gaunt's Ghosts vs Blood Pact" sleeve he is currently having tattooed, proving I'm so far from hardcore it's kind of funny. Dave will be getting the color done over the coming months, as time and funds allow, but he has promised to send in pictures of it's progress that I can post here. Nice one Dave!

THE WINNER!

And so we finally make our way to the winner. Robert Ringefors (from Sweden) sent in this very cool - and winning - piece. Not only did Robert blend the Chaos star and the Tanith Straight Silver, like several other entries, but the eye-catching mottled red of the bloody palm print just worked so well with the negative space of the icon. This should be very cool planted slightly off center on my bicep, just below the Imperial eagle I got 11 years ago.

So, please join me in thanking ALL of the folks who entered the competition, and in congratulating Robert on his well desrved victory!

Just so you don't think I've been slacking, here's a shot of the Warmaster Horus I've been working on for a client. Obviously the Adrian Smith artwork is the inspiration, but the client asked for the Horus that has just renamed his Legion to the "Sons of Horus". This isn't the Traitor Horus, but I like to think of him as the Quite Annoyed Horus. : )

And the competition has come to an end.

Hi folks

Just a quick one to point out that the 500 Ink Design Competition has drawn to a close. I received a couple of dozen entries, some pretty close to what I was hoping for and a couple that have blown me away. I'll be taking this week to assess all the entries together and make my decision.

In the mean time, I have a couple of pics from the weekend's efforts that I'll post on Wednesday (once I get a bit more time at the computer in the evening.

Cheers

Dave

Five Hundred reached!

Well, it happened a bit quicker than I thought it would, but this humble blog has reached 500 followers! Thank you all for your faith in this blog and your comments about the content. I've had a lot of fun working on everything (modeling, painting, and blogging projects included).

I did say that I'd announce a new competition once the blog did reach 500, so here it is. Some of you might think "He's crazy", but I'm pretty sure I established that fact early on.

THE PRIZES:

Let's start with the carrots first, then get to the details of what you need to do ; )

As previously mentioned, Dan Abnett will be sending a personally autographed copy of Blood Pact directly to the winner (once announced). Pretty darn cool, particularly for those readers who don't get the chance to get to a Games Day.

I will also scratchbuild an AT-70 Reaver (or upgrade it to an AT-83 Brigand should the winner desire) and paint it up in my Blood Pact color scheme.

I am also in discussion with a couple of other sources for prizes. Fingers crossed I can announce something soon.

DAVE'S GOT INK?

I currently have two tattoos. The first is a solid black Imperial Eagle on my right shoulder. I got this one to celebrate my first five years with GW. The second is a solid black Double Eagle on my left shoulder, based on the "diving Double Eagle" symbol used in the Dan Abnett novel of the same name. I got this one to celebrate my first TEN years with GW.

Even though I no longer work for GW, I'm still due for some new ink. This time around I'd like to get a Blood Pact symbol (probably on my right upper arm, just below the eagle). The only thing is, of course, the Blood Pact don't have an "official" symbol. They are dedicated to Khorne, so I could just go for that, but that's a bit dull. I'd like to incorporate some kind of "chaosified" Tanith regimental symbol into the Khorne symbol.

Well-rendered standard Khorne symbol (source unknown).

Forgeworld's resin Khorne badge

The Tanith regimental badge.

WHAT YOU NEED TO DO:

So, the competition is this. Submit to me (via the email in my profile on the right) your design for a Blood Pact symbol that would work well as a tattoo on my arm. That's right, I'll get inked with the best design I receive!

You have until February 28th (2010) to submit your design. I like solid black designs, but could be convinced to choose a line/color piece should it be good enough.

As this design will be on my arm until I die, I reserve the right to tweak the final chosen design. I also reserve the right to post any of the designs submitted on this blog (with full credit to the designer of course).

So, there you have it. The 500 Ink Design Competition! Have at it. Any questions? Just post them in a comment.

HOBBY UPDATE:

It has been a busy weekend, with family commitments and some time spent at Games & Stuff last might, so not much hobby time. Here, however, is where I'm at with my latest commission piece. Lots of brownstuff used to form the base armor shapes (better for burnishing, filing, carving, and sharp edges), then greenstuff added (better for fine detail and complex shapes).