Heresy in Motion

I am just now starting to play around with shooting videos to show of models. Aint the internet great?! With youtube it is just too easy to share some pictures in motion with like-minded gamers. Something that every teenager has already figured out, but I guess gamers are just late to the party. 

Anyway, my first run through wasn't great. But I see where I can make improvements. Lighting as always is the biggest issue and I already have some thoughts about this. The idea actually came from a video from the Independent Characters Facebook page where Carl had some videos of a battle. I hope to take this idea as far as possible, even making short battle reports with a more 'shaky' cam feel. 

Here is the YouTube Link if the video above breaks. 

Nurgle Blight Drones

Well it has finally begun, preparation for Adepticon 2013. Actually the prep started this past summer when I got these beautiful Nurgle models at GenCon. It's just now that I put the finishing touches on them. First off, the Blight Drones are awesome straight out of the Forge World packaging. Its only a few pieces to assemble, and anything you mess up fits in well with the chaotic nature and irregular joints of this true piece of Nurgle technology. The models were a blast to paint as well. The corroded armor on the front nicely contrasts the diseased flesh on the back. The front armor got typical airbrush techniques along with weathering powders for the corrosion. The rear mainly got a shaded basecoat and then many, many layers of washes and inks for the final color.

This past fall, Forge World surprised many of us with Imperial Armour Aeronautica. While I didn't expect to get a great boost with the Blight Drone, I was surprised to see its final points. At 125 points per model, you quickly get into land raider territory without actually getting a huge tank. The armor is thin, 12 front, and two less in the rear and only a couple of hull points. The fact that it can fly and hover is a life saver or else it would go the way of the lowly land speeder!  Its weapons are useful. but it is the Phelm Cannon that I have used the most- Large Blast AP3. Fear me loyalist marines!

So this year at Adepticon, expect to see these bad boys in the 40K Friendly event. In fact, get ready for lots of posts concerning the chosen of Nurgle!

Dark Age and Dark Heresy RPG

Its seems like there wouldn't be too much carry over between the emerging table top game Dark Age and the FFG Dark Heresy RPG. And you are right! Except many of the Dark Age models are just awesome for using in Horus Heresy or even Necromunda for that matter.
GenCon 2011 Found me looking for some good 40K RPG miniatures and Hoj from Dark Age looked simply awesome. Unfortunately, the project never went anywhere. This fall, while waiting to see what the Codex: Chaos Space Marines was going to do, I finally put paint on the model. Originally was going to get those Dark Age weapons off and replace them with chainswords and boltpistols, but I knew any converting would only serve to make the project go slower, not faster. So here he rests, just a lonely Dark Age model in my "GW collection".

The base is a Secret Weapon Miniature base that I got awhile back from them. I wanted the model to match the industrial wasteland idea the base provided. So lots of SWM weathering powers are on this guy. Oddly enough- the scruff is a black "metallic" powder very gently applied!  I had been having huge problems getting the ole' 5 o'clock shadow on human models. The typical methods left me lacking- water down regular paints, washes, stippling, etc. I tried them all and found them all lacking. However, I lucked into making this work and I think it looks great.
Of course, I pinned this model a couple of years ago... and well, never moved the pin until after I finished painting him! Oh well, but he ain't going nowhere!

++EDIT++ When I first posted this, I used "Horus Heresy" instead of "Dark Heresy."  Heh, what a blunder. But I guess that shows you all where my mind has been the last couple of weeks. If all goes well, I should start being able to show you pictures of the Horus Heresy army I am planning to build. But that is for another time.

Dark Angels Librarian Terminator

As many of you know, my favorite marine army is the Ultramarines. I love the look of the sharp blue on the battlefield and that is what really drew me to the army (you can now take your Smurf jokes and take a hike, lol!).  Anyway, it alway amused me that the color for Librarians was Ultramarine Blue. So when my teammates needed a Librarian painted, I was a happy painter.
Being Dark Angels, the model needed some green which was easy to add to the knee pain and the back of the cloak. One way to make your models stand out is to color the back side of a robe, cloak, or whatever different than the front side. Its a simple note that I see many people opt not to do on their models.
Again, the model was presented to me with the base pre-assembled, but I loved the skulls and light sprinkle of rock. Unlike the Chaplain, the Terminator just has a lot of stuff going on. This time, a simple base does the trick.

Dark Angels Chaplain Terminator

Greetings gang. I hope that by now everyone is knee deep into sixth edition Warhammer 40K and is loving it as much as I do. With the rumors starting to get more and more firm on Dark Angels as the next codex after Chaos Space Marines, I figured it was time to show off some models done earlier this year.

As you may remember, our Adepticon team tournament this year featured Dark Angels in all of their special forms. I was tasked with painting up several of the terminators for the army.

This particular model showed up assemebled and the base already done with the owners bits attached. Since the armor was going to be fairly bland with the typical black scheme, I wanted the large pieces on the base to attract the eye, and tie into the casing on the combi-melta. 

The greens were mostly done with glazes after painting a very light and bright green as the base coat. This is once of the first models I used this technique to good effect, and on such a large portion of the finished product. 

Visions of 6th Edition

By now many, if not most of us have seen visions of 6th Edition 40K (via White Dwarf 390), and I for one love it. If you haven't had a chance to read through #390, its entirely devoted to 40K. Most of it is a paid advertisement for the newest edition with all of the eye candy you expect to see.

But what has me excited about 6E?  Forging a Narrative.
Matt Ward talks on page 22 about telling a story in each battle. It isn't so much just winning a game, but  being able to have your "unsung heroes earn honor and glory."  Characters can pick out individual models, challenge other characters, and get a special ability before the game starts. But its not just new rules for heroes, its that Games Workshop has purposely strayed away from making a system designed for parity, designed for tournaments, designed to show off a players skill. Its clear, GW wants its game to show off GW. And you know, what?  I'm ok with this.

Fortifications
Having stayed away from the rumors for the last several months, I still wasn't surprised to see mysterious terrain in the new rules. But what did surprise me is the close tie-in with Citadel scenery and the new Fortification rules. Its a beautiful tie-in to allow your army to gain some very real benefits. It will be interesting to see how this affects play. Should I expect my opponents to show up with their own scenery?
In other news, I've actually been working on my scenery for the last couple of weeks. Its kinda by mistake, but I'm eager to use some of my newly prepared Fortifications!

Overwatch
Its hard to say before the rules come up, but WD suggests that Overwatch comes in two forms. Classical overwatch from days gone by (or standard in Special Ops: Kill Zone) and as a charge reaction. Finally! I've been asking for a rule like this for several editions. It definitely changes the landscape in Warhammer Fantasy Battles, and certainly my Imperial Guard hope it changes things in the far future.

Flyer Rules
There are finally some real flyer rules coming out. I wish the rule "zoom" was there (it just sounds too silly), but at least a dude with a hand gun isn't going to easily be able to shoot my planes out of the sky while they are flying around. However, it seems (pg 67) that exploding vehicles deliver a staggering S10 hit to those inside!  Yikes!  I don't know now what this means for mech armies, but you know have to account for flyers in your games.

Other Rules
Pre-measuring and random charge length didn't get much coverage, but seem to be in the rules. I'm all for these rules if it speeds up the game and avoid "cheating measuring" I've seen more and more the last year. My only fear is that it might actually slow down the game as some players will spend an eternity making sure models are where they want them.
Hull Points are definitely in and look to replace the former vehicle damage chart and functions more like wounds on a standard IC.  This might mean my Vendettas fire a full strength until its HP's are fully gone. I can live with that!

Old Rules that Have Changed
Feel No Pain is now 5+, Reserves start on turn two at 3+, you loose your assault bonus with multi-assaulting units, Overwatch Flamers might do d3 wounds (not automatic),  and most significantly wound allocation might be gone and replaced with nearest models take the first wounds.

We will see on Saturday, but sci-fi war gamers have some exciting times ahead with an edition change.

Adepticon Team Tournament

In the last of my Adepticon 2012 in review posts centers around our Team Tournament Army.  If you are not familiar with this particular format, its 4x1,000 armies and you are pared with one of your three teammates randomly each round. The last round is a captains choice. The tournament uses a modified force organization which makes things even more challenging in army creation. You can read more here. I'll skip the complaint about how many Grey Knight armies were in attendance and focus on our army!

An old friend (as in friend for a long time, not just because he is old!) has wanted to do Dark Angels for some time now. The unusual format provided a great opportunity to use both the Ravenwing and Deathwing squads.  In addition, we were able to get a Cestus Assault Ram for the army as well. 

At the end of the day, we are a non-competitive team and ended up our usual bottom middle-third of the final standings. Our painting earned high scores, but it was theme were we did well, nearly maxing out the points. 

We had the to big boys, Sammael and Belial, to make Terminators and Bikes scoring for all four players. It was a nice luxury to have. 

What I Learned at Adepticon

Adpeticon has come and gone, and I've (finally) recovered from the Con. Before moving on to GenCon and the other summer cons (as well as getting back to painting) I wanted to share my thoughts about what has become the best miniature wargaming con in the land.

Adepticon is still the premier wargaming con, bar none (you've heard that already).  Don't believe the blogs and what not- the tournaments are only a small part of the experience. Though most of the events are tournament related, most of the players are just here for the experience, meet up with old friends, and games in a well organized area. Its still a Gentlemen's Gaming Con.

Just an 'average' hobbyist army! No, this was seriously cool DE army display board.

Special Operations: Kill Zone was a blast. You can read more about that here.

Giving away a Battlefoam Bag is a recipe to get 1,000 gamers to line up hours before registration begins. I was especially thankful for getting a VIG badge. I'll put that on the list for next year as well! On that note, the Adepticon swag bag has already been a thing of legend. Please keep it that way. Well worth the trip, just to get the bag. This year's special miniatures were nothing short of awesome.

The only camera I used was my iPhone 4GS. No DSL-R for me this year. And the pictures I got were just a great as any with my big camera. As an added plus, the iPhone was with me everywhere and I wasn't constantly looking after my big camera making sure it didn't sprout legs and wonder off.



No need to carry that big camera around anymore fellas!


Registration for an event is purely optional. Despite most events (at least 40K related) being sold out months ago, there were a lot of no-shows for nearly every event. Its certainly possible to show up early and get in an already full event. Trust me. I did it for several events!

In a sense, this event has become "Lobby Con" for me. Two nights we sat in the Lobby drinking beer and eating (usually pizza) just hanging out, seeing old friends, making new friends, and just talking to other hobbyist. Just hanging out seems to be a very reasonable way to spend a lot of time at Adepticon.

Unidentified friend enjoying Lobby Con... very

The Team Tournament still remains the highlight of the weekend. The amount of awesome armies and awesome people will never be forgotten. Three of our games were spectacular. And while one game fell flat, the team captain sought me out the next day to apologize and promised a better game next year if were to ever play. So sign me up, we'll be back again for the Team Tournament.

Big Display armies for the Team Tournament. This from our friends at the Axis of Ignorance.

Our Team- Hot Wings sporting dual Raven Wing armies. Complete with custom templates we gave out to our opponents.

Justin of Secret Weapon Miniatures is a stud teacher. It was my only hobby class this year, but was well worth getting out of bed on Sunday for. You'll be seeing plenty of weathering effects in the coming months. Everyone should do at least one hobby event every year. You will grow as a hobbyist, promise!

Mr. Justin.



My Death Wing terminators and my 'old' rust effect.





It would be cool to see more "small" vendors in the back halls. Battle Ready Figs and Techtonic (laser cut MDF) had booths set up. But I could envision small vendors with unique hobby supplies or supplements with a very low cost, fan friendly set up. The main vendor hall was nice (as always) but I am interested in seeing what the small guy has up his sleeve.

One of about 1,000 Psy-Bolt Dreadnoughts.

I just love the Chaos fliers. Come on GW and give us some flyer love this summer!!

I was shocked to see the 'lack' of hobbyist involvement with Warmachine. No doubt there were lots of players present, but the amount of cool looking armies was low. In fact, there were many unpainted models. In contrast Warhammer Fantasy and Flames of War had as many players, with many fantastic looking armies. Malifaux remained small, but had a dedicated following. The new Dust Tactics/Warfare game was constantly drawing people's attention. It will be interesting to see what happens to the game in the next year or so. Mantic had their new space dwarves and space 'rats' (i.e. skaven) on display. Expect to see even more 'counts-as' armies next year!





I expect to be painting some of these soon. I've been wanting to do Space Skaven for nearly a decade now.

Adepticon 2012, Kill Zone, and oh yeah, I'm Back!!

Well I'm back doing the blogging thing again. It took some time to get my crap together... Adepticon has come and gone for another year. It was awesome as always and we all had a blast. Later in the week, I'll post The Things I Learned at Adepticon. However, tonight I wanted to talk about the awesomeness that is Special Operations: Killzone. Brain and the team put together some very awesome tables and provided us all with a great opportunity to play.

My Death Cult Assassin is taking out one of Taneth's finest. 

Awesome Jungle Board with ruins. Plenty of places to hide here.

My Inquistor and Plasma totting henchmen stare down warriors of chaos...

With the Inquistor dead, the DCA had to take them all on her own!

Later the girls had to battle some brutal orks. 

I brought my Inquistorial Henchmen who started off slow, but built up steam as the day (Friday) progressed. I finished the first session with only one win but played Mission Denial at least once!

My plasma gunner had a great shot on a Kan. And it would have blown up, if it wasn't for a blasted cover save!

The Inquistor was brave. But died anyway, lol!

The squad moving among the buildings. 

I walked on the afternoon session and added a couple of wins for my Inquistor and ultimately took home best theme/appearance!  Yeah, my first Adepticon win!  I got a very awesome Chris Borer miniature as well.

The Artillerist, so awesome. I'm really happy to have this model. 

So thanks to Brain and the team for providing awesome tables, awesome prize support, and for just being awesome.

I'll be back soon with more pictures and thoughts about Adepticon. I hope that everyone hasn't forgotten about me in my internet absence!

The Black Jacks

Its taken some time, but I finally have a name for my Cadian Imperial Guard- The Black Jacks.  The name is taken from their use of 'spades' and 'diamonds' on their armor. I suppose that some units also carry the 'hearts' and 'clubs' as well. But those would be regular infantry, saving the 'spades' and 'diamonds' for the veteran troops.

The Black Jacks incorporate both black and red into their armor, breaking the typical Cadian green and khaki coloring. I hope to also tie in the red belts into the bases when they are completed. 

The army is coming close to completion- still 2 chimeras, one manticore, some more vet troops, and the psyker battle squad.