Where’s my head @?

On this here blog I have my regular ‘what’s on my palette’ posts that informs and structures what I’m doing and where I’m at. But I also have ‘Where’s my head @?’ which is more to do with how I’m thinking and feeling about the projects, blog and all the great mysteries of our time.

Despite juggling a number of projects to keep my mojo going there is always a despondency after completing one, in this case the Ravenwing. So I thought throwing the Land Speeders into the mix would continue that momentum but as alluded to in previous posts the whole bronzing task fills me with the urge to do anything but move the speeders along.

So I shifted my attention to another onerous task. I’d tried to crack on with the Genestealers before I went on holiday. I’d made some serious in roads in the first set of highlights on the chest and back, well beyond my expectaions. Then I started to do the legs and these are much more laboroius, with the first gen stealers having three parts to their legs I managed to do only two on top of five 2nd gens before I gave up! So I committed to painting the remaining 1st gens as the newer ones are a fraction easier and I think I can manage the 15 left in one sitting and then it’s the arms, which are even more depressing.

I have taken the opportunity to do the odd arm here and there so the little surprise of a model being complete is discovered during the next batch session but once it’s done I have to do it all again with second highlights 😦 but here’s the progress chart so far which somehow seemed doable before the end of the hobby season, now less so.

I’ve even took to throwing some paint down on the spare weapons for my Knight Paladin. It’s definitely worth acknowledging that this is another diversion from more pressing or essential tasks. I’ve been mentioning those a lot in recent posts so it just goes to show how much of a mind game getting on with your hobby really is. 

I really want to achieve a few more things – the Knight, the Dark Talon, perhaps the Land Speeders before the end of the season [August 28th] but I’m sabotaging that goal by doing other things. Granted I’m doing things also on the list but I only have a finite amount of time and effort and it looks like I’ll end up a number of ‘nearly finished’ items. Which will make 2016/17 look pretty impressive if they’re completed next season but I did have plans to crack on with other projects.

The problem with how I write my blog, sometimes in advance, sometimes ‘live’, is that when I have a moment of doubt that it can be reconciled within 24-48 hours. Having near continuous hobby routine – 1.5 to 2 hours a night, when I struggle one night it can be resolved the next. As the downer from achieving the Ravenwing hit I struggled through all the above and then suddenly the Dark Talon/Jetfighter raised me up. I progressed, almost autonomously because the black shading and subsequent painting are pretty straightforward. Before I knew it I was out of the doldrums and [semi] focussed, semi because I threw in the remaining legs on the Genestealers.

So my head is back in the game and I have sufficient willpower to get the flyer done and we’ll see how far that momentum takes me on other projects.

North West Open

 
One of the next tournaments coming up is The North West Open. It’s the brainchild of Acefacehickers with the support of Martin from Wargames in Southport.
It’s 1850pts Warhammer 40k Tournament using ITC rules. 2 days 5 games. Loads of fun. £60 per ticket price includes food and drinks Lunch time on both days.

23 July – 24 July
23 July at 9:00 to 24 July at 18:00

All the details can be found here:
https://www.facebook.com/events/1011176782286528/

And Martin posted up this YouTube video of the efforts to prepare it for the tournament ans also so you can have a look at the venue, which I’ve been really impressed with every time I’ve been.

Currently though it’s unlikely I’ll be able to make it. Ironically the most local big tournament ever is taking place when I was actually supposed to be on holiday, 350 miles away in Cornwall! So I was not likely to attend. However, the situation was already in flux as my wife was due to work a shift on the Saturday we were supposed to leave. Now it transpires my mother-in-law is having carpal-tunnel surgery and so the holiday has been cancelled so we can be there for support.

That kind of brings my attendance back into the realms of possibility. Unfortunately as the wife has difficulty changing shifts she may not be able to swap the Saturday out, she would for a family holiday but for me to play toy soldiers, well it’s currently a big ask. Bottom line, the event sounds awesome, I’d love to attend and if I can I will. In the mean time check it out

Dark Angels – Jetfighter – Back in Black!

I’ve started blending the black into my first level highlight. You can see this has been done on the left side – smooth blending compared to the right wing. It’s actually really simple and easy to do, there’s just a lot of it on this model, which is why it’s a little daunting. The thing is it’s not difficult so I’m stunned at how I could theoretically strom through this but the amount is what’s hampering progress.

By the end of the evening I’d got the rear wings done and most of the tail section 15-20% of the Jetfighter, so it’s not too hard. I also tried a little Dark Reaper highlight on right wing so again it’s a simple, enjoyable but large task ahead.

So, to try to break everything up I decided to paint a wing. It was always goign to be red, I pondered bronze but thought it’s be a pain and too much. Dark red might be more interesting, as I’d never seen a Jetfighter with red wings. But now I look at it and I’m unsure…

I’m reminded of this:

But it’s not really a decision that’s at stake it’s a maelstrom of thought’s, ideas, preferences – could I do this? What about that? Eventually I made a decision [did I not just say a decision was not at stake?]. Rest assured the next post I think is a doozy, possibly Bastion growth pt8. level so look forward to how I took a simple red wing that was supposed to be flat and dark and brooding and painted it into something completely different to my own plans/expectations. You’ve got to love the unexpected things that happen when you’re painting and in the zone.

Look Around You

This is a post I’ve had in draft for probably four years at least. It was actually only the last couple of pictures that constituted the post, hence why it had never got past draft state. But I did at least a couple of these back when I was creating my STC terrain templates. When you’re in the business of making templates you really start to take notice of buildings and structures to help with ideas of your own. My recent holiday to Wales was great for pictures and I thought there was sufficient to add to this post to make it worthwhile.

So we had the opportunity to return to Portmeirion, famous for featuring as ‘the Village’ in The Prisoner. I cannot emphasise enough how much I love this place. It may be a pastiche of a real Italian village and some of the elemtns are clearly ‘home made’, bodges even but in some respects that makes it even more special because it feels like a scratchbuild by those artists who lived and worked there. Anyway, this sculpture captured my attention for obvious reasons.

In particular it highlights that some areas do not weather at all. Should I go all out verdigris it’s definitely something to think about, although to be fair I have already been there with my Honoured Imperium Statue [and I added rust streaks too!]

Funnily enough this was ‘Atlas’ [?] when we went in 2005!

So if you ever get chance to go to this place I heartily recommend it, they even hold a music festival in the summer. We’ve been about 5 or 6 times now and aside from Warhammer World it is probably my favorite place ever.

But to get back on track about finding inspiration in the places we go I did discover this awesome rust that could be recreated with a variety of weathering powders, technical paints and what have you. It may even stand out [just] on Ferron Proxima as the yellow rust might just show up against the red, which might get ‘swallowed’ by Red Planet BASE [but then that is the point of the fluff about my modular hills…] And some Nurgley rust too!

Now, speaking of rust brings me back to the original inspiration for the Look Around You post. This is a car park next to my office and it’s always struck me as very grimdark .

Of course the use of Cor-ten weathering steel helps, but it’s also the variety of shapes and textures. It may not be some high gothic, but it definitely smacks of underhive.

These pics were actually taken a few years later. I took them so I could get a close look at the textures and weathering

Perhaps they’ll be inspirational for your own hobby projects.

And this is what inspired me back in the day. It’s my stalled Maufactorum STC. It was really just supposed to be a framework with the gridded area used to create the patchwork effect seen on the car park. Cutting various pieces of board and corrugated card to duplicate all those textures and surfaces. One day I’ll get round to completing it…

Double Trouble 1500pt battle report – Dark Angels & Dark Eldar v Space Marines & Tau – Game 3

Game 3 and all my Christmases at once I’m not only paired with From the Fang event organiser Alex for the last game, but I also got to play against Luke Fogg from Darksun Life and lets not forget Matthew Spencer and his Tau who paired with Luke

The low down:

• Each force deploys diagonally opposite to their partner in a 27″ x 15″ rectangle
• Double Trouble Maelstrom missions – 3 cards per turn. No secondaries.
• Warlord Trait – Move through Cover and Stealth in Ruins
• Night fighting first turn, we went second, failed to steal.

OK, do I have a clue what went on in this game? Perhaps Luke and Alex can fill in the details in the comments and I’ll try and add them in. Clearly I infiltrated my scouts into these ruins with Alex’s Dark Eldar.

We then found the rest of the family for my dice, I’m not sure we were taking this seriously, we’d already gone for drinks at the start of the game, ha, ha!

I was on the left, Matthew the right, Luke opposite me with his Howling Griffons and Alex top right. I’d scouted the bikes into the wood to score that objective, clearly.

Turn 1 and Luke and Matt get off to a roaring stat, slaughtering our forces and capturing objectives. Alex kept telling me excitedly how his Scourges were making their 6+ armour saves against Luke and then looked over at my side of the board asking where all my ravenwing had gone, failing to make their 3+ cover saves. I hadn’t jinked so they could still fire so didnlt get to re-roll – lesson learned?

In response we managed to score 4 VPs in turn 1, not sure how far into the game this was but my tactical squad is on foot, so I’m guessing they lost their sweet old skool ride. I’d eventually storm those ruins and capture the objective inside.

Meanwhile the Tau went pretty unmolested, their stealth capabilities making them nigh indestructible and adding a further 2 VPs in turn 2. I think our cards were pretty dire, asking for unattainable objectives held by our opponents and we failed to score anything.

Alex’s force wilted under the Centurions assaulting the ruins, my own scouts had been shot to pieces, denying us 3 VPs for holding the objective for two consecutuive turns, we’d gambled and lost.

Turn 3 and our opponents threw another 4 VPs into their tally, we didn’t do so bad in return making 3 back.

Sadly turn four saw us drop another 4 VPs and we failed to score again! The final score being 16 to 7 with Luke and Matt suffering only 371 Blood points to our own 1,300! Jeez we were poor.

OK I admit the Battle Reports a bit weak on details but I honestly haven’t got a clue what went on, it was just fun. 40k was just a reason to be in that space at that time with those people and all I get is a sense of camaraderie, laughs and giggles. I mean you saw that video Luke did of me after the game ended, I couldn’t stop grinning AND I hadn’t even won the raffle at that stage! Was it a ‘good’ game, it depends how you define good! Obviously we were slaughtered but I think it’s a shining example of why I still play this hobby. And why ‘win at all costs’ [and the fact my gaming sobriety cured me of that nasty trait at least] should not be the be all and end all for enjoyment, certainly not when you’re with such decent folk. In context I see these people no more than twice a year [with Dan I’ve met him once and that was 3 yeasr ago], but they comment on the blog and I read and comment on theirs and yet somehow it’s turned ‘virtual friendship’ into friendship. For this I’m glad I play space toy soldiers and I’m unbelievably grateful for Alex for taking a gamble on organising such an event and the other attendees for giving it a shot too. Hopefully we can get another one next year, if you can make it I’ll see you there!

Here’s Luke’s vlog to help fill in some of the blanks:

Double Trouble painting competition

Double Trouble Painting competition, I think I got most of the entries but given you could only enter one category there were fewer entries than normal. I think this was Chris Buckle’s Imperial Fists who I played 2nd game.

I think this was Matt Callow’s army

Liked this Techmarine on  a bike, I need one!

Blood Angels

Eldar

The runaway winner of best conversions NafNaf’s Harlequin/Dark Eldar Carnivale

Seriously, look at Objective Secured to see how these were made.

And how they were painted!

Luke Fogg and his Howling Griffons

Award winning objectives!

Winner of best army and opponent in my first game Steve Horne’s Ravenguard

Michael Corr’s Orks

Ian Plumpton’s Tau

Sorry, haven’t a clue 🙂

Rob Hill’s Venator  and Dan Wellington’s toy robot 😉

Like, totally Tau!

Best character, Ravnguard Chaplain [?]

Kai-Uwe’s Dusk Wolf captain.

Matt Grime’s Fateweaver [2nd place] and my own Techmarine [3rd]

Enjoy the pics, given the poor lighting I think these came out better than could be expected.

Double Trouble 1500pt battle report – Dark Angels & Adeptus Mechanicus v Imperial Fists & Nurgle Daemons – Game 2

Game 2 and I’m on the same table, for a minute I get confused and think I;ve been paired with Dan Johnson’s Nurgle Daemons [was this some cruel trick of the Chaos G.O.D.s trying to tell me something?] and then it transpires I’m partnered with Rob Hill and his insanely awesome Mechanicum which was great considering the support he’s shown to this blog and how much of a fan I am of his own – mutual back slapping and modest compliments ensued! But we were also facing Chris Buckle and his Imperial Fists.

The low down:

• “Cleanse and Control” deployment but with a bigger centre circle
• Double Trouble Maelstrom missions – 3 cards per turn. No secondaries.
• Warlord Trait – Move through Cover and Stealth in Ruins
• Not night fighting first turn, we won deployment, lost first turn but stole the initiative!

Again not sure how to report this as not only did I not take too much notice of what missions were drawn but Dan kept track of the scoring on a dry wip board, which looked handy.

Having won deployment I selfishly shifted everyone round so I could take full benefit of the ruin in the right corner for my Devastators and bolster it thanks to the Techmarine, who subsequently hung around the back of Venator becuase I figured it’d draw a lot fire and he could try and fix it.

Chris had a pretty static gunline with Thudd Guns and Vindicators!

Having stolen the initiative I think we had to secure objective 6, or get double objectives than our opponents and onjective 6 was the key. To do that my bikes scouted forward and that Vindicator had to go!

The Venator did the business, alongside an orbital bombardment by the crazy looking guy leading the automatons. The Vindicator exploded and with a 5″ blast took out one of my bikers who’d closed on the objective [actually it might have been the plasma gun biker that made the killing blow] Either way I think we had a good turn, although my Rhino did immobilise itself in the trees, at which point I was wishing the Techmarine was’t so far away [and that I didn’t forget every turn to try to fix the ‘immobilised’ with the Rhino’s special rules!]

In response the Thudd Guns tried to do some serious damage on the Devastators, they weathered the fire, taking only one casualty but they were pinned in the process. The Daemon Prince jumped down to assault my Assault Marines who stood fast, which was either brave or foolhardy. Interestingly Dan  suffered a Dangerous Terrain test wound for the Prince which confused me as for a few years now I’ve been of the understanding that they don’t take them. Monstrous Creatures have the ‘move through cover’ special rule that means they automatically pass Dangerous Terrain test, so even though he would jump into difficult terrain he would automatically pass the test. I tried to raise this in our game but everyone was of the opinion he was playing it right which makes me question my interpretation. I’ve been playing it this way for years now, ever since I saw PeteB’s Wraithknight was jumping in and out of cover, without dispute. When you consider multiple Flyrants dropping into cover you’d imagine folk wanting those Dangerous Terrain tests to be made if wounds could be taken. So have I got it wrong? Because I can only see the Move through Cover Rule over-riding the Dangerous Terrain Test, not the other way around and Jump rules trumping the MC rules.

Turn 2, my other unit of bikers go for the Nurglings, although I can’t kill them I remove enough to get them out of range of the objective so I can score it!

The last Vindicator gets wrecked, sweet revenge for my bikers which were destroyed by the Great Unclean One.

The Thudd Guns continued to plug away with mixed fortune.

The Daemon Prince entered it;s third round of combat with the Assault Marines and the Great Unclean One advanced from the ruins.

He wanted to kill Rob’s Warlord, but it’s invulnerable saves held.

Chris managed ot dislodge my bikers from the objective with his Fists, clearly the Inquisition need to have a word helping out the almost but still alive Nurglings!

In some deft positioning the Vneator had moved to hold the objective in those ruins while I was holding the objective in the woods. Both of these missions required our partner to be controlling and objective and this doubled our score for that turn from just two for each to four for both. The Techmarine had dawdled repeatedly to keep up with the Venator, too enamored by it’s majesty no doubt, but eventually he was right behind it when it was hit with so much firepower he didn’t even have achanc eto effect any repairs!

So the smoke settled and we were pretty despondent only for Dan to reveal we’d manage to snatch the win, thanks to a poor final turn by our opponents. The final tally was 15:12 however we lost on Blood Points 563 to 1305. Now I’m sur eI missed a lot out but Rob will be writing a Battle Report too so check out his blog for a different perspective.

It was an awesome game though and although the Dark Angels suffered a lot I feel we clearly sacrificed all we need to, to guarantee we completed the mission. We did not sell our lives cheap and I think we worked as a good team in the end. The Daemons were nigh unstoppable, with Iron Arm and FnP making it pointless for the Daemon Prince ot actually swoop, he was more effective on the ground, even if it took him 3 rounds of combat to kill five assault marines! That’s Rogue Trader era models for you…

I’m famous, or infamous, which I’m not sure but ask Luke Fogg, he’ll tell you.

More fallout from Double Trouble, this time blogger buddy, X-Wing fan and alround decent chap Luke Fogg did one of his vlog’s about what went down and somehow I got ‘chosed’ as the poster boy for the vlog! Do not worry though, unlike my own attempts at vlogs this is not coma inducing. I may well look pretty gormless below but I did not have the sensation to claw my own face off after watching myself, even if I did feel pretty goofy during the interview.

On the plus side you also get to see Chris, who I played against during my second game, Matt who was my partner in the first, good old Henrick from Germany and Mike Corr. In reality with so many of us attending these events who do blog it’s becoming more like the original Blog Wars than Blog Wars was thanks to this network of online contributors.

Anyway, if I can put up with myself I think you can too, it’s well worth 3 minutes of your time.

Double Trouble 1500pt battle report – Dark Angels & Tzeentch Daemons v Ravenguard & Space Marines – Game 1

First up I was partnered with Matthew Grimes, he’d brought Tzeentch Daemons. Now I’m not saying my Dark Angels had been visited by some Tzeentchian door-to-door missionaries but they may just have ‘fallen’ a little bit for this game. We were up against Steve Horne’s Ravenguard and Kai-Uwe Müller-Joswig [Hendrik’s brother] who’d flown over from Germany just for this tournament! Kai-Uwe had the Space Marines, I think they were Dusk Wolves but using Space Wolf rule. For all games the two partners would be Battle Brothers and the missions were based on this rule pack

The low down:

• Dawn of War”
• Double Trouble Maelstrom missions – 3 cards per turn. No secondaries.
• Warlord Trait – 3 enemy units must make pinning test first turn [which I forgot about]
• Night fighting first turn, Steve and Kai-Uwe won first turn.

Not sure how to report this as I didn’t take too much notice of what missions were drawn and what was scored. For our set up Matthew held the right flank, with my Devastators in the Techmarine reinforced ruins.

The Pink Horrors filled the middle with my Scouts hiding in the forest, to hold that objective, should we draw the card.

Long Fangs and Scouts were opposite, almost a carbon copy of my own force.

A Lone Wolf was on the left flank, opposite the bulk of my force but close to that objective.

Some more Marines held this back field objective. By the end of their turn Steve and Kai-Uwe had scored 2 VPs. Their main focus had been my Tactical Squad with the Missile Launcher on the left flank and wiped them out.

In response we advance. Matthew was full of energy and totally knew how his army worked so I was a bit of a passenger at this point, which was cool with me as it meant the burden of keeping track of all the rules was lifted and I could just spend time having fun [the thing I’d felt hadn’t been happening in previous tournaments].

The Tzeentchian magic phase was brutal.

A new chariot was spawned and wreaked havoc on our opponents, the Scouts and most of the Long Fangs were all but wiped out. The Storm of Chaos also blew but failed to hurt anyone.

I was able to contribute with shooting some of the Wolves off their objective.

With Terminators on my doorstep I was trying to whittle them down with whatever firepower I had, hoping to assault with my bikes to a smaller force.

Unfortunately I couldn’t find a chink in their armour.

And lost a Ravenwing biker [either to plasma overheat or Dangerous Terrain, both equally embarrassing]. I’m sure one Terminator did eventually fall but have no record of it. We also scored 2 VPs to draw level.

Turn two and the Marines had tried to attack our right flank with their Land Speeder storm. They scored 4 VPs that turn, I think with the Scouts scoring and also destroying my bikes on the left flank. In return we destroyed the Land Speeder and assaulted the scouts.

When the dust had settled we’d won back 5 VPs, I think we got 3 for holding the same objective for 2 turns. We were a point a head.

Turn 3 and I’ve no more pictures, all I know is we both scored 3 VPs each. With the final score being 10:9 we scored 1073 Blood Points and I only suffered 223 Blood Points, with just the Ravenwing, Tactical Squad and 1 wound on the Techmarine for half his points. Not sure how bad Matthew was hit but I can attest his army was insane. He had all sorts of spells and every time a chariots was destroyed he could spawn it back again in the psychic phase. They’re fragile but pack a punch and I think 3 went down and 3 came back. He eventually won the tournament, saying he would use his winnings to buy a fourth chariot! G.O.D. help us all! A great start to the day and although I was the least effective part of the force Matthew and I worked well together and had a great laugh with our opponents.

Double Trouble

I had an absolute blast at Double Trouble on Saturday. First up I won the raffle, I’m only starting with that as it means it’s my blog roll picture. Look what I won! There was a moment where I was actually embarrassed but it was such a cool prize I had to accept. What I do with it will depend on whether Genecult comes out as a Codex or not.

Moving on to the actual event I got paired with some really great people including Rob Hill from 30kplus40kequalsinfinity and From the Fang event organiser Alex for the last game. But I also got to play against Luke Fogg from Darksun Life and meet a couple of other bloggers including Mike from St Andrews Wargaming and folk I’ve met before, like Ian and my own Battle Brother Dan, who went on to win the award for most Blood Points!

Dan and I from Battle Brothers 2013

The German guys were back again too and I got to play against Hendrik’s brother Kai-Uwe. But all the partners and opponents were total gents and hopefully I’ll be seeing them again in future. The games were good, but actually the interaction between all four players was the highlight and I think I’ll really struggle to do the battle reports, partly because half the time I might not know what my partner was doing but because the people were more entertaining than the little guys we were pushing around.

All that said the venue screwed up, they’d double booked us with a Warmachine weekend 24 hour tournament. So we were in a downstairs room usually used for drama classes. It was dark and the terrain was even more sparse than in the past. The food was delayed too, but the Panini was really good when I got one. Personally those two issues were easily overlooked for me, but Alex was not impressed which may just jeopardise coming back again to the NWGC, which is sad considering it’s just had a refit. I’d hoped to be able to report back to my mates how much it had been improved but sadly just the Warmachine players got to benefit, although a weekend of 24 hour tournament, no wonder they got preferrential treatment!

So Alex is potentially looking at another store in Sheffield, which will be where the November event will be held. Which is fair enough, it’s more local for him but I’m sure he’ll fill us all in as plans get made. The only real disappointment for me was I didn’t take any pictures, alright ‘selfies’ with my partners/opponents. It’s the one thing I wanted to do to capture the spirit of the event but just couldn’t bring myself to do it, maybe next time. If I was scoring this it’d definitely be a 9 out of 10!