Goodbye Hobby 2009

So comes to the end of another period of hobby intense activity. I'm off to Thailand tomorrow evening and as such there will be no further updates for a while until January. In my effort to have my Lizardmen army ready for the DogCon 2010 tournament I have produced one complete squad, and here they are:

Caution, the enlarged photo is a bit big. They were assembled during a hatefully-industrious stage, so feel free to point out and guffaw at the mold lines and other similar mistakes. I'll go over the paint mistakes after I return, particularly the basing ones.

Green and Purple

Yep, I've still been actively working on my hobby. Last night I decided to base my assembled Temple Guard, Chakax and some other stuff. Whilst I was at it, I thought - "Hey, why not flock my movement trays and already based models?". So I went about doing that. My movement trays had previously looked pretty crappy, but I think they look better now. It's my first attempt at flocking, and I'm happy to say I believe it came out alright. I went to the Painting Clinic for help. The Painting Clinic is always an extreely useful site for miniature hobbying.


I've also started work on a certain floaty-chair. Here's a picture of it standing upright, as well as a better picture of my Frog-Prince.


As always, click the image for a larger display. I need to remind myself to add borders to the images like I did with the Rocket Battery Crew in Photoshop.

An Update

That's right, I've painted something. This time it's for the army I intend to bring to DogCon - Lizardmen.

I decided to paint my Slann purple because I'm sick of painting green and orange whilst everything else in the army is blue or green and also because it'll be the only opportunity to use purple in the army outside feathers.


Also on the painting station are the Helstorm Rocket Battery and the plastic Stegadon. I'm pleased that I've rectified its skin tone from a bright blue to a darkened 'Crimson Fist' shade. Painting the scales is as horrible as it had been with the metal Stegadon. Tomorrow I'll start painting the Slann's palanquin and the bone on the Stegadon, because I find using Foundation paints to be tiresome.

On the gaming front I am looking to sneak in a 2000 point Fantasy game possibly this Thursday. I bought a Warhammer Army Figure Case to house my Lizardmen army. It'll be nice to take my army somewhere and have it not break in transit, especially when its an old metal Stegadon or howdah.

I can't hear you!

That's right girls and ghouls, I have been busy assembling. With DogCon 2010 creeping around the corner and the amount of what remains of 2009 available to me for hobbying I have decided to make a start. What do I mean?

As the picture might suggest, I am now the owner of a Helblaster Volley Gun/Helstorm Rocket Battery. For $35, it is a very nice piece of kit which required very little assemble. A motivated assembler would take no more than 15 minutes to assemble it completely, including processing.

The frame of the artillery piece is separate to the Volley Gun and Rocket Battery components which are normally affixed in via a light 'clip' into the frame. What this means that you can interchange the Volley Gun and the Rocket Battery components with ease and magnets are not required.

I found trying to remove the mold lines on the actual rockets to be slightly irritating because of the frailty of the pieces and their prominent locations both above and underneath the tip of each rocket. Aside from that it was quick filing. I've only glued on one set of rockets at this stage so I can paint the rest.


The artillery crew are fun 3-piece models, with nicely detailed bodies that are relatively light on mold lines. The heads are quirky and fun but don't provide much room for modifications as they're all hatted. The Engineer's heads are suitably ostentatious and will find use in my other parts. The Engineer has two sets of arms, one with a telescopic device and pointing arm and the other with binoculars and a sword. In a pinch you could use these and the spare Engineer helm to make a Master Engineer hero.

On the Lustrian side of things, I've assembled some more Saurus warriors with spears and resumed work on my beloved Kroxigors. The latest models look great, but boy are they annoying to assemble. If you aren't a fan of pinning everything together then greenstuffing the gaps, don't get them. I've deliberately chosen an all-plastic Empire army because I fear the longer I work on fiddly Lizards the more likely I am to buy something like a Dremel Stylus. 2 more Kroxigor and 2 Terradon to go.

I probably won't have the opportunity to work on anything more till after my last exam on the 24th, so we'll see how things go in the mean time.

For the Glory of Averland!

Glory for Averland and for the Elector Coun-... maybe not for the Elector Count. I this because in a few weeks I will have 1378 points of raw Empire arriving for me, days before I leave the country. Welp. I've only got 20 hand gunners along the way, so I am thinking of acquiring more, and either a General box or one of those cool web-only Captains/Generals.

Empire Brigade: 10 days later

It looks Games Workshop has announced the contents of their Empire Brigade. At a whopping $300, you receive the following:

• 40 Stabby or choppy gitz. ($140)
  
• 20 Shooty gitz. ($70)
  
• 10 Greatswords. ($69)
  
• 5 Pistoliers. ($35)
  
• 8 Knights. ($50)
  
• 1 Great Cannon/Mortar. ($35)
  

All in all a saving of $99 Australian fun bux. However, our good pals at Maelstrom games are willing to sell it to us for $129.50 USD delivered. With the good exchange rate between the USD and the Australian Fun Bux it is hilariously cheaper still! That's right Games Workshopcateers, at the time of writing you will pay $140.40 AUD, postage included. The foreign exchange fee you will pay is largely dependent upon your bank, and you will consequently pay probably about $5 more than a GW staffer for the same merchandise.

So why not buy it today and fight in the name of Sigmar?*


* There's also Orcs & Gobbo, Ork and Space Mourine boxes you can get too, but why would I talk about those?

Empire Brigade - Almost everything you'll need

I came across this today. What could it possibly be? With the Australian dollar's position against the US dollar at the moment, do I dare order "almost everything you'll need to get your Empire army started."? Who knows. If my older brother is still interested when he returns from Timor and the exchange position remains constant, hopefully it will be a great find.

On Space Wolves & Status Updates

It has been a pretty busy period for me recently thanks to University and my other hobbies of drinking and chasing girls, but no one needs to hear about that.

Looking through my blogger list of entries, I have roughly 2.5 as many unpublished articles as I do published. Often I'll see something which is interesting to me such as a BOLS entry or an Warhammer observation, type out a reply and consider whether it is worthy reading. Particularly the responses to the BOLS entry could be summarised in simple one or two sentences, but that is more of a reflection on the source material itself. Enough of that though.

Tomorrow I'm going to the lovely Newcastle CBD, where I will no doubt pop by Games Workshop to see what new pretty things they have. I hope to see the new Skaven sprues. I might be able to 'acquire' a Warrior Priest model.

I really think the new Skaven models look great comparing them to the new Space Wolves, I feel they have the right balance of "Awesome" and being thematic. Their new product line doesn't appeal to me because of things that I feel gauche; return of pineapple heads, ridiculous amounts of wolf accessories, questionable unit names et al. I feel that a joke has been had and it is at the expense of the Space Wolves and good taste.

Related to Warhammer Fantasy, hopefully my trip to GW will motivate me to resume work on my Saurus. I have bought my ticket to DogCon. It will be my first tournament so come mid to late January I will be assembling, basing and painting non-stop. The only complete model I have is my metal Stegadon which frustratingly, needs repairs.

Tinkering with terrible 'Guard lists

Recently I have been tinkering around with the armies of the Inquisition to see how they could be tinkered to be effective in today's current competitive climate. One of the discoveries I encountered was the ease in which to give cheap troops special weapons. Expanding upon this, I thought to approach it from a better developed perspective: the Imperial Guard.

The Imperial Guard, unlike Inquisitorial Storm Troopers or Arbites, can benefit from their cheap transports and fantastic order system. I don't like Cadians, and thought to myself "Woudn't it be neat to have an army of Catachans running through a jungle with plasma weapons blasting whatever they see?". I am a Steel Leegion fan first and foremost, but I did strongly consider starting up Catachans when I was beginning the hobby.

So that was the impetus for my list. The way I approached this was to throw together a big Infantry Platoon, using the Combined Squad rule. I intend to combine all Infantry squads deploy them via scouts. The Commissar makes them Stubborn and Leadership 9 which means they'll more than likely hold out for at least 2 turns in combat, tying up whatever dedicated combat unit comes their way and delivering a few surprises in return.

The veterans and special weapons will follow in kind and the Stormtrooper arrive via deep strike to do something I'm not sure what.

The heavy weapons and artillery of course are there to blow stuff up, like the inevitable Vindicator. The Deathstrike missile launcher is to gauge the quizzical nature of the other player. If he ignores it he will probably have an unexpected surprise of a D3+3" blast S10 AP1 vapourising whatever it hits, even in cover. On the other hand, if he does go for it then he will probably destroy it. Whatever isn't being pointed at the Plasma squads means the other artillery is free to act.

Comedy Plasma Ho! 1500 point army list.

HQ: Company Command Squad 200 pts
4 Company Command Squad, Plasmagun x4;
1 Lord Castellan Creed

Elite: Storm Trooper Squad 95 pts
4 Storm Trooper Squad Meltagun
1 Storm Trooper Sergeant

Troops: Veteran Squad 130 pts
Vox Caster; Plasmagun x3
1 Veteran Sergeant Plasma Pistol

Troops: Infantry Platoon 775 pts
1 Infantry Platoon:
4 Platoon Command Squad Medi-pack; Vox Caster; Plasmagun x4
1 Platoon Commander Plasma Pistol; Power Weapon
9 Infantry Squad Plasmagun; Vox Caster
1 Sergeant Plasma Pistol
1 Commissar Plasma Pistol; PowerWeapon
9 Infantry Squad Plasmagun x1
1 Sergeant Plasma Pistol
3 Heavy Weapons Squad Mortar x2; Lascannon x1)
3 Heavy Weapons Squad Lascannon x1; Missile Launcher x2
3 Heavy Weapons Squad Missile Launcher x3
6 Special Weapons Squad Plasmagun x3)
6 Special Weapons Squad Plasmagun x3)

Heavy Support: Deathstrike Missile Launcher 160 pts
Deathstrike Missile Launcher

Heavy Support: Ordnance Battery 140 pts
Colossus

Normally I run a mechanised Imperial Guard list with at least 8 meltaguns and lots of veterans and around 3 Leman Russ tanks. Sometimes a Banewolf makes an appearance too. This list however is genuinely bad. Sometimes part of the fun of playing is to adopt the "Rock & Roll-Rollercoaster" approach of giving bad lists that should do poorly a go and hope for the best. The best games are when the incredibly unlikely occurs to both player's surprise and amusement, like a single Gretchin killing a Chaos Lord of Khorne in Terminator armour. Dropping a horde of meltagunners and heavy artillery on your mechanised opponent and tabling them on turn 3, as your list is tailoured to do, only grants you the satisfaction that you brought scissors to cut their paper.

Some friends at MOAB

This is not much in the way of hobbying or diatribe, but a glimpse of some friends I found on a forum I visit. Enjoy.

First entry.

Unlike my contemporaries, my chosen layout is not a black or a subdued blue but rather a lime green.

So, today's activities have been:

• Assembling Temple Guard. I've done approximately 3 out of 17.
• Spray-gunning a Loyalist Terminator and 5 Tactical Marines.
• Removal of Saurus hand weapons and replacing them with hands and spears.

Temple Guard are somewhat easy to assemble and are a pretty good kit, requiring very little cleaning up. Their heads are an easier fit than the plastic Saurus heads, so it seems that a lesson has been learnt there.

The spraying went somewhat poorly and a less than ideal result was achieved. I attribute this mainly to the high humidity, which rendered the Foundation Gretchin Green to a thick sticky goop. I resolved this by adding water, but after the first sessions of spraying before cleaning was necessary I decided to call it quits. At the present moment I want to paint them in the colours of an Imperial Fist successor chapter, the Dark Hands.

Back in 2007 and 2008 the advice for assembling Saurus was to use either hand weapons or spears. It didn't really matter thanks to a lovely rule which existed to restrict the effectiveness of Saurus. Now in 2009 this rule is gone and it is a very good idea to have spears. Unfortunately, I have 20 (presently had 20) Saurus assembled with hand weapons. My saw is blunt and damaged and because I'd destroy the model before successfully cutting the arms off with a scalpel or knife, I have decided to clip off the hands which hold the hand weapons and replace them with spears which hold hands. The result is not perfect but it is a solution which does not desperately try my patience.

I've been giving more thought into painting my Slaan. I would still like to paint it a vibrant red which borderlines orange but I'm unsure how to do this.

Tomorrow, perhaps I will be in a position to start assembling more Saurus, Temple Guard or what other whacky Lizards I have.

Edit: Silly me, whats a blog without pictures?


Note: The standard broke off when I moved the model to take the photo. Awesome.