Happy New Year!

Oh wait, I'm a wee bitty late there...

Hmm, moving house has put my hobbying and blogging on a bit of a hiatus, but all sorted now and back in the groove, and i now have a dedicated 'man-cave' as well as nice big dining table, that i've made a 6x4 overlay for! Happy days!

I'll start 2016's news with some progress and goals.

1. Started a 35,000 point NetEpic campaign, with game 1 under the belt and god only knows how many to go! link here for those who wish to follow it > http://www.tacticalwargames.net/taccmd/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=30910

2. Built/painted some desert scenery to go with my new GameMat.eu mats, and for the campaign

3. Painted some more IG units to fill some of the gaps i had in my collection

4. Started an Iron Warriors army, as my first dip in to Chaos, i like the fact they aren't too deamony/magical, its more just good honest siege warfare from them. So far i've got a Siege Century painted, and some test models for the rest of the force, but they are pretty quick/simple to do, so will hopefully have 3-5k in no time!

5. Also started playing the X-Wing Miniatures Game from Fantasy Flight - Can't recommend it enough, very simple to learn/play, but with the depth of an ocean in terms of advanced gameplay, the models come nicely pre-painted, but lend them selves well to a bit of sprucing up if you choose.
Its also nice to have a quick game to play, that is still being produced! The novelty of going into a shop to buy new stuff still hasn't worn off!

So in no particular order, here's some snaps!

Post Holiday inspiration - Epic Land Raiders

I seem to always start posts with apologies of lack of posts, but hey ho!

Apologies for the absence - I've not got a massive amount of new stuff to show for it either, although I have been playing a lot, so guess that's something!

Here's some old school "rogue trader" era pattern Blood Angels land raiders - i'm toying with the idea of having each detachment of the company in a slightly different scheme, to show their elite status and that they have been around for a while!

These are my first attempt, and I'm fairly happy, might add some more bits later (finishing off with flags etc is always the part i miss, but love the old white dwarf look it gives)

So the plans for the remainder of the year (and beyond realistically) are;

Bump my current Blood Angels detachments up to company size (Terminator, Devestator, Assault, Tactical, Bike), Add to the Death company and do some Veteren Assault troops, Furioso dreads etc.
Re-base the old guys (currently on goblin green bases, which looks kind of cool in an old school way, but its a bit boring)

Finish my Dark Angels army (Deathwing, Ravenwing, Battle Company, support units) - mostly base coated, just need detailing.

Finish the Adeptus Titanicus battle group - got 8 Warlord titans, 4 loyalist, 4 Traitor - i've collected all the bits together, just need to decide some paint schemes and crack on.

Orks! - my perpetual back-burner project, still got all the basic clans (aside from Bad Moons, Kult of Speed) to paint, and a boat load of support too.

As well as this i'm still hunting for some bits on eBay and the forums to complete my Ad-mech force...

No worries eh, easy!

Update: The re basing has started! Definite improvement, or waste of time?

Epic - Reavers!

A quick snap of the Reaver Titan Battle group as they currently stand - fully magnetised to take any load out for any mission!

I'm debating adding a few more details, maybe some decals or stripes but I'm pretty happy with them being battle ready now (maybe I'll add these details after they've had a few battles as campaign medals?!)

Next up - Still waiting on my Troublemaker games order of Ad-Mech and IG stuff, so in the mean time i'll maybe finish off some Orks.

I've also got a hankering to start an Iron Warriors Chaos army - as i'm not bothered about daemons, but like the IW's lore and some of their special units sound pretty cool, so watch this space!

And on the subject of Pre-Heresy siege masters... here's some loyalist Imperial Fists basilisks that I knocked up quickly the other day, the fists logos look a bit nonsense up close, but are fine at a distance.

Epic - Pre-Heresy World Eaters Update 3

Had another hour to spare mid week and started the remainder of the Rhinos/Land Raiders (just need to do the tracks and details to finish)

Also rescued a couple of guys i had steeping in Detol (make-shift paint stripper) and i'm adding them to my traitors...

A Storm Hammer and a Warlord Titan, which is getting a 'Storm Lords' paint job.

Thinking once i add some dreadnoughts, or Robots this suitably "Space Marine 1/AT" era force will be complete.

Work continues!

Epic - World Eaters speed painting tutorial

Just a quick update/sharing of tips;

I'm sure most of you probably already use these techniques, but when it comes to painting a companies worth of foot slogger troops you could go mad painting them individually!

The disclaimer here is that i'm far from the best painter around, and my lack of attention to detail often lets me down, perhaps i'll spend more time on the character units, but this guide allows me to paint ~100 troops in the time it takes to drink a cup of tea.

First things first, clip the sprues to leave the models attached at the base only and clean up any crap left on the top joint.

I then prime the lot black (I prefer Army Painter spray but in this case Citadel Imperial Primer works well if you can't spray)

Once the primer is dried i give the whole lot a semi-dry brushing of their base coat colour - Ulthran Grey in for these guys. this leaves the recessed areas black and negates the need to use ink/shade later on i reckon.

This coat dries almost instantly (if you are doing a companies worth)

I then go back to the first strip and apply the shoulder colour, in this case - Ultramarine Blue (or what ever its called now)
Thinned down with a drop of watter it flows into the MK7 pads without any effort and leaves the edges clean, for the MK6's i just put the edge of the brush flat against the pad and wiggle it slightly to cover the curved surface.

While the shoulders are drying i paint the bolters - Leadbelcher silver, these can be fiddly, but i'm not overly fussed about being too neat and often cover the hands holding the weapon too!

Now that the shoulder pads have dried i add a spot of detail to represent the legion logo (red jaws surrounding a green/blue planet)
for these guys i simply add a spot of Valejo model colour red. I know there are people out there who can probably do the fully detailed logo, but i'm not one of them!

For the terminators (as they have a bit more space) i've attempted the logo with a line of red at the top and bottom of a green spot, which looks OK.

After this comes basing... and my downfall;

I'm yet to find a quick way of doing nice basing, i had some round, pre-holed bases from SCP that i used for the first batch, which was really easy. a bit of PVA and a dip in some sand  and a spot of static grass pretty much completes them. Now i'm back to using 2p Pieces for the rest and as the model sits on the surface rather than flush with it it can look a bit crap.

Hopefully i'll figure out a way to do it and let you know.

Cheers,

Epic - Pre-Heresy World Eaters

A wee while since my last update - been having a clear out and just keep finding boxes full of unpainted epic! its all a bit much.

Trying to sell of the bulk of my 28mm stuff, i plan on leaving just enough behind for some simple, out of the box Red vs Blue style games of Necromunda/2nd Ed 40k in case it ever takes my fancy, and i find someone to play with!

Facing a massive box full of Space Marine kit (mk6/7 marines, rhinos, land raiders and the rest) i decided i'd do something a little different to what i was planning (a Dark Angels army) and go instead to MM31 for some pre-heresy action.

I liked the world eaters colour scheme, and thought it would contrast nicely with my other forces.
So the plan, as usual is to paint up a couple of companies - probably a tac/vet coy and a land raider coy.
Then look at some support options, keeping it old school, and looking at what i have i'm thinking Thudd guns and maybe mk1 Predators.

Beyond this i'm not sure how far i'll go, the scheme is pretty easy to paint and aside from my various attempts at getting the 'red jaws around the planet' logo right (you can see some bad examples on my first batch of Rhinos/LRs) i reckon i'll enjoy putting this lot together.

My plan with them is as usual to get some simple games going, some Loyalist vs Traitor games would be cool, as I've got a few titans that could be used by either side and some Imperial guard that could also fit on either side of the fence.

Anyhoo, here's the first couple of test detachments (Tactical Marines and Terminators)