Nothing to see here, move along...

o/

Just a quick post about...nothing much (gaming wise).

I had a good little visit with my folks in Florida last weekend. I bought a new car while down there as well, a Chrysler 'Terrifica'. I gotta great deal on it (especially as everything around here is either hail damaged, or rising in price because it's not). Lots of leg room (even for the 2nd row of seats), lots of cargo space, AWD, better gas mileage than the ol' truck, and so many options that I'm still spending my lunch breaks trying to figure them all out.

As for gaming, other than deciding to bring Orks to the FLGS on Saturday, so that they can look good & die horribly (as usual) nothing has really been accomplished. Actually its kinda nice to take a week or so off from gaming every now & then. Too much of a good thing and all that I suppose...

There's a long weekend coming, so something will get built/painted I'm sure. I'll be sure to let y'all know about it next week, and remember kids, be careful with all of those fireworks! (and a good place to shoot them off is next to Neverness' house, weeknights, at around midnight)

Da Orktown

o/

Personally, I think the Ork battleships for BFG are...well, vile to look at. So needless to say I refuse to spend $30+ on something that fits that description. Some ways back I bought a Ork battleship kunvershun off of ebay that was really just a mass conglomeration of bitz that really makes for a better looking BS than the GW ones. Wanting to expand the fleet, but with funds directed towards other things right now, buying more kroozers was out. So rummaging through the ol' bitz box, I thought I'd try my hand at building some more myself (especially as the Ork Royul & it's sister ship da' Ork-N-Saw turned out pretty well).

Quickly (if not immediately) exceeding the approximate size of a kroozer, da battleship 'Orktown' came together:
I've decided on the 'Gorbag's Revenge' class which is essentially a 'supa karrier' and is rather fitting considering it's WWII namesake. The Gorbag's revenge also has a variable torpedo launch capacity. Not sure what to use for torpedo launchas, I found a bunch of Ork ammo belts, and mounted them externally (don't ask how they get reloaded). In all some 23 'torpedoes' are scattered about the hull (mainly on the ventral side) as well as 3 launch bays and lots of gunz! Of course an inordinate numba of 'supa engines' are also included!

I'm not sure if it looks all 'good & propa' just yet, or if more junk needs to be added, but it's off to a good start i think.

Just an fyi, next week's Mondayish post may be late as I'm heading out of town for an extended weekend @ Mom's in Florida.

So what was my first FAILcost model?

The Emperor's Champion:

Ya know, of all of the pix of this mini on GW's website, none had the wicked bend in the sword that mine did. True, while this type of resin is far more pliable than FW's resin, the sword snapped with little effort! I was able to glue it and due to it's light weight it should be fine (so long as you don't look at the blade and its relative angle compared to the hilt). ...sigh... Once again, GW's marketing blitz is just that. I once had this mini in metal & don't recall any issue with the sword arm.

So, was this worth $15+ 'FAILcost' price tag?

No.

That said there are very few metal minis that I want/need for my armies. Rather they need either bulk or vehicles which means blessed plastic!

Anyways as you can see it's certainly not painted in BT colors. In the FAQ for the Renegade army list update PDF Both can be found here) is 'Arkos the Faithless', the Alpha Legion lord that put the hurt on the DA & later fell to their successors, though not w/o taking some with him. In the IA5's original list the Alpha Legion come with the 'We're in disguise' sidebar which suggests using loyalist SM's painted in Alpha Legion colors. Which is exactly what I did. It's not one of my better paint jobs, but is good enough I figure. I had painted the Alphas before i started using washes again, so Arkos has minimal inking done to remain consistent with the others, could be why he looks a little bland to me. He's equipped with a combi-melta & the 'Dark Blade' demon weapon which is a black power weapon that confers as +2 to his strength. Thus I'm sure you can understand where I figured an Emperor's Champion with an added combi-melta would fit the bill nicely.

Arkos got his battlefield debut this past weekend vs the accursed SW and it's always fun to counter-charge them (an ability of Arkos' that he gives to the Alpha legion squad he's attached to)! Indeed he cut a bloody swath through the SW before taking a krak missile to the face! In truth, all of the damage was really done by the allies of the Purge marines (the Purge meanwhile acted as little more than tar pit units). The greater demon likewise went on a rampage paying for himself several times over, and the Blood Eagles 'plasma death' havoc squad performed two perfect 'deploy/rapid fire/get back in the rhino & drive away' maneuvers taking down several Grey Hunters and half a dozen or so WG termies!

The game ended in a draw as there were no troops left on either side to hold any objectives @ game's end. However I had a good portion of my army left, all of which was converging on the lone surviving Long Fang w/ML that was hunkered down in the corner & refusing to die.

Recycling a Rhino...again.

o/

Rumors of the forthcoming Witch Hunters PDF codex spell doom for my multitude of Inquisitorial circus side shows (including the vaunted Imperial Forestry Service). Murl lent me the GK codex and I could theoretically field the all henchmen army, but I don't really see that working as my inquisitorial retinues were built more around visual appearance & general amusement, rather than effectiveness. Well, usually. The last time I geared them towards 'effectiveness' was when I wanted to broadcast to Murl that I was sick of facing his Demons for 6 months straight (it worked quite well as I recall).

Anyways, I've already sold a few of my dedicated DH inquisitors & flunkies and now my sights are turning towards the Hereticus. First victim: Inquisitor Franklin's Rhino. Lately (indeed more often than not), this was 'borrowed' by my Alpha Legion squad. Grand-Theft-Rhino, coming to a console near you! Wearing loyalist power armor and led by an aspiring champion wearing the colors of the Deathwatch, who in the imperial motor pool would deny them access? The fact that they're riding to battle against the Imperium in an inquisitorial rhino was a delicious irony!

Well no more, the Alpha Legion has taken permanent possession of the rhino (as well as 2 more AoBR recruits, and a fine cast [or is that 'fail cost'?] Emperor's Champion who will fill the role of the FW special character Arkos the Faithless). First order of business was to strip it of it's excessive Necromunda armor so that the side doors may be used again. Second was the removal of the Inquisitorial roof hatch, as well as various other bits & pieces.

I think I bought this off of ebay, as I recall having to add plasti-card to various locations to cover up damage. Whether it was damage inflicted by my conversion work or some earlier owner I don't recall. It looks to have some SW gray paint meaning it once belonged to the accursed dogs of Russ (an offense that locally, will no doubt move this up on the list of target priorities). Stripped of it's offending parts, and sanded where needed (some glue is permanent), I then delved into a big bag of spare tank parts which had generously been donated by War Frog a few weeks back.

At right is it's current re-remanufactured state. The Havoc is not yet glued in place as it'll ease painting the requisite Dave Taylor-esque star on top. Towards completion I'll probably add some more roof spikes as well. I had to rebuild the trim just forward of the side door pictured, it was hacked up quite badly under the Necromunda armor. I may need to sand that down a bit more, but it looks reasonable I think. I still need to come up with something that looks like hinges for the side doors as well. However it's current state (sans havoc) is good enough for table top use, and indeed it will be used this coming weekend when 'The Rebel Alliance' (my CSMs) invades the FLGS.

The Aurora revamp continues

o/

Here's my landraider after door replacement & a reprime of Testor's desert tan (which is essentially the same as bleached bone). It generally takes 2-3 coats of snot green to cover the bone evenly, but that's ok as it brightens the green considerably when that is underneath. I have the searchlight, stormbolter & radar bits still separate. I'm not sure which will be added, but it'll be easier to add them as needed/wanted after painting. The Aurora's 'snap-tite' razorback is also on the list for a repriming. Not sure though, but I may leave its interior in the drab green that it is now.

Also at left is my WIP Librarian. I haven't fielded a Librarian since I had my old Iron Hands army, mainly as I don't like any of the available minis. So instead I ordered just a single Grey Knight (the first GK that I've ever bought) via ebay. I then swapped out the head, chest plate, left hand and shoulders from spare SM bits, and ta dah! Instant Librarian! I kept the GK stormbolter as its only 3 points, and my main want for a libby is the psychic hood. So I figure his powers will be primarily defensive and/or close combat oriented. The purple trim on the shoulders are for the Aurora's 6th reserve company (i.e. all of the former & in line to be painted Dark Hands' tac. squads).

Revisions

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After posting pics of my Blood Bowl templates yesterday, eriochrome generously measured his own passing template and left those measurements in my post comments. As my template was way off, I revised it & you can see the side-by-side comparison of the two at right. This evening when I go to play Dark Heresy, I'll bring my templates along for a comparison to the real things. Many thanks again to eriochrome!


While on the subject of changes, my old Dark Hands (and originally Iron Hands) Landraider Cursader entered the chop shop last night for a bit of cosmetic alteration.

Old parts on the left, and new on the right, and a last look @ the engine.

It now belongs to the Aurora Chapter. The front doors didn't come out quietly as expected, and so the new ones were trimmed and glued into place (hiding the engine & the white Iron Hands interior). On one hand that sucks (cause its all painted) and on the other it doesn't (because the FW doors never lined up right, so they didn't open in unison, nor ever close all the way). I'm sure that someone will question the Imperial/Crimson Fists icons that were used for the Iron hands, and the reason for that is this tank was purchased well before IH doors were available. The Aurora will instead just get some custom decals for their doors.

Still haven't read the rules but...

...everything else is coming along fine!

o/

As you can see I made some templates for Blood Bowl. The sideline & scatter (or is it bounce?) templates were quite easy, still not too sure on the passing template though. Finding images of these online is something of a challenge. In the end I just used the photos in various ebay auctions to provide a visual reference for each. The passing template looks to be three squares long per range bracket and two wide (inside the border), and so made it as such. Until I see it next to an actual passing template though (or someone confirms that for me) I'm not sure if it's accurate or not.

The templates are probably the hardest part of BB necessities to recreate (aside from blocking dice, more on that below) as they need to be transparent. Luckily for me, I work at a printing company as I've said before. Everything is slowly going digital, however we still have a huge film processor which allowed me to output these as film positives. Also even just playing around in Illustrator/photoshop/whatever when we're slow is considered to be 'training' (I actually did learn a thing or two while making the BB board the other day). So management has had no complaints with my recreation efforts this week.

On the painting front, I painted my three extra players (the ones where the simple green/scrubbing method didn't work too well) as game markers. The thrower will be my score marker, whereas the other two will be for turns & rerolls. I'm not sure which will go to which, but it doesn't really matter I suppose. In actuality, they'll probably be used for both eventually.

I also joined the NAF, mainly as that is the cheapest way to get a set of blocking dice. Prowling around online, blocking dice range in price from $3.15 ea., to 3.75 GBP (plus shipping), and on up to just stupidly priced (sometimes) on ebay. The NAF looks to be centered around tourneys & the like, but for $10 (which is still rather high) the were the cheapest way to buy a new set of blocking dice.

Of course joining was an exercise in fury (and nerd rage is something I'm quite good at) as the needed activation code to activate my account didn't arrive in the 'you're an official member email', and trying to get one via the password retrieval link was accomplishing nothing! Two hours later an activation code email arrived (shouldn't that have been in the first email that was instantly sent?) and I was able to access it (but not before a screaming email was sent). The dice should be arriving in 4-6 weeks, give or take.

And last but not the least...

Here are the first five of my Exodite Swooping Hawks (using the FW corsair conversion kits). I'm going to run two squads of five. The female exarch (always a novelty when Banshees aren't involved) has a power sword & lasblaster, whereas the 2nd exarch will have either a sun rifle or...whatever the other funky gun is called. Not really having much to work with for a conversion, I spliced together a shuriken catapult & lasblaster to make the exarch's gun. Hopefully it'll look decent once painted (and even if it doesn't, you can at least tell that it's not just the standard gun that's called something else). Still not sure if I'm going to call them something different as they're Exodites (Hawk Warriors doesn't sound too bad), or just keep the standard name.

Home Field Advantage

o/

As you all know I've been pondering Blood Bowl here lately, however all I have is a team. I think GW still sells the boxed game, but if so then the rules inside are no doubt reprints of the originals and therefore obsolete. True they could have updated them in the box, however as 'teh interwebz' are hoping the next 'mystery box' is Blood Bowl, I doubt it. Its not like GW really supports any of it's games aside from 40k, WHFB and that other one that nobody plays but they're contractually required to keep around.

So going on the cheap as is usual, I've been perusing ebay for a BB board....and that's really not a cheap option either. Boards (or rather the 'pitch') tend to go for quite a lot just by themselves, even when in poor condition. So the next option was to make one. Usually this entailed foam board and far more effort than I would like to make for a game that I'm only considering. However it was a dead slow day @ work yesterday, and after some perusing the internet for size specs, and some google images for the turns/rerolls/etc., and I 'made' my board using Adobe Illustrator, as seen below:

This is a scaled down version, obviously.

It took me a few hours but I'm rather pleased with it. I've printed it out @ actual size, roughly 23" x 34" (we have a ginormous printer here too). I made a few phone calls and found that Kinko's can laminate items that are up to 36" on the short edge. So that's now on my 'to do list' for next Saturday when I'll be near Johnson city (which has the closest one).

So currently its laid out on my dining room table (which is actually the perfect size for it as the center extension isn't use). I put the team on it to get a feel for their new home turf, however after a photo they were unceremoniously removed as I don't want to potentially scratch it prior to lamination (not like they have any opponents anyways).

Now if you'll excuse me, I need to see if I can find some BB template images & specs to recreate those as well.

On second though, a pile o' work just landed on my desk (finally!) so the templates will have to wait a bit.

When did you get good?!

o/

lol, of all of the compliments my two Skaven got this past weekend, the one used as the title of this post was by far the most amusing! I didn't do much in the way of painting since my last post however. All I accomplished was the single Stormvermin below:
Technically this will be a 'Black Skaven' in my warband, however I will probably just call him a Stormvermin. This will be the Warlock engineer's chief enforcer. I have another one, but the pose isn't as nice as this one, so I'm not sure if I'll use it or not. Besides, already having three well equipped characters should be more than enough for a starting warband. Now I need to add some expendable cannon fodder.

I've also started assembly on some of the Exodite Swooping Hawks. They're looking pretty good, but it was kinda late and I didn't think to take any photos of them. I guess I'll save that for later in the week then.

Rodents of unusual size?

I don't believe they exist.

o/

While along with the Princess Bride, that is also the 'official' stance on Skaven in WHFB's Empire. Up until now it was mine as well. I never much cared for the old Skaven models as they struck me as kinda clunky, their tails always broke off, and they all kinda looked the same (well, virtually any WHFB army has that problem when ya think about it). Anyways, I never bought any.

Then, on Tuesday almost all of my new ebay purchases arrived in the mail, and four Skaven minis were among them. Putting the BB team aside, I painted up the two of them. Never having painted a Skaven before, it was kindova novelty to paint something a bit different.

Starting off on Characters, these will form the leadership of my Mordheim Warband (assuming I ever play that again). First off, my leader, a Warlock Engineer from the Island of Blood:
I'll use him in place of the assassin adept. The assassin gets an extra -1 to armor saves, however I'm sure that like Necromunda, the prevalence of well armored troops is minimal. So armed with a Halberd & warplock pistol (with armor modifiers of -2 & -3 respectively) that point will more or less be moot. Virtually all I know about Skaven fluff wise, I pulled off of Lexicanum, so these guys will (nominally) be from Clan Skyre with their engineering bent, rather than Eshin.

One thing I wanted was a sorcerer, however I didn't like any of the various Seer minis in the Skaven mini range. So instead I opted for the rat ogre handler which also comes from the Island of Blood box:
I figure to have him armed with a spear, which looking as pseudo-mechanical as it does will also fit into a Skyre theme. I was thinking of a warband name and have kinda settled on the 'Clockwork Forage' (foraging for warp stone that is). It both goes well with the sorta steampunk/Skyre theme, as well as being the kind of name that most of my friends will groan & grumble about.

I also have two Stormvermin to use as black Skaven? Whatever the champions are called (I don't have the book in front of me). I also have some ebay bids in for giant rats & some plastic slings (and a few more on my watch list in case those don't pan out). After getting those, all I would need is a clanrat box & I'll be good to go! Actually I could probably sell half the contents of that box and still have more than enough options for a good sized warband.

Speaking of ebay, I'm selling off the painted/finished portion of my Dark Hands marines. I tried selling them in the past, but was only able to get rid of the horde of tac. & assault marines that were frankensteined together from spare/old parts. Now the painted stuff (minus the predator which will go into permanent retirement) has a bid & a bucket load of watchers, so I'm hopeful they'll fetch a good price.

I'm taking what's left & folding it into the Aurora Chapter. True that'll kill the scouts-only list, but its the much cheaper route. Currently this puts the army @ 1500 points. Add in 2 predators and some new doors for the landraider (currently it has Imperial Fist FW doors) and it should be close to 1850 or so. I figure that'll cost a little over $100, as opposed to $200-$300 had I built the Aurora as I had originally intended (and if you're reading this GW, then you can attribute this change to your latest price hike).

I'll test the reorganized Aurora this weekend, and tentatively against whatever foul & vile traitor army neverness places in front of my guns.