Iron Warriors Breacher Squad Pt 1

This will be a quick update because I only have one picture and not too much to say about it.  I originally thought I might use these breacher marines as the special unit for the Imperial Fists.  However, I really want to get a real army together and decided to stick with the Iron Warriors and Alpha Legion since they are about as opposite as you can get in game terms and will be really fun to paint and play.  So, I introduce you to the beginning of my first Iron Warriors.  I'm very much looking forward to painting them.

Alpha Legion Tactical Marines Pt 1

Another squad I got assembled recently was a set of 5 MK IV Maximus Armor Tactical Marines.  You may be wondering why I only bought five and the answer is that when I bought these I thought they were just going to be for fun and not for play.  Back then there was no one in the area who played Horus Heresy and I didn't know the rules.  Hence, most of my squads are only half of what they actual should be, they will still be fun to paint though!

Here you can see the MK IV Maximus Armor assembled and ready for undercoating along with the previously mentioned assault squad and some palatine blades that I bought simply because I thought they would be cool.

Hopefully I can get these painted up soon and ready for another blog post!

Blood Bowl App Review

I'm a sucker for the Games Workshop IP, especially for opportunities to play short and entertaining games while I'm waiting for other things.  One things that I have noticed with a lot of the games, however, is that they tend to be two dimensional with very little development in the game and not a lot to do after the initial controls are learned.  I know that this is pretty common for App games, but it is still hard to swallow when you enjoy the world so much and want more options.  

Over my years in the hobby I have heard a lot about Blood Bowl and how it was one of the best games that GW ever released.  I also read a lot of blog posts about people running the games still and categorizing it as one of the more fun and wacky opportunities in the Warhammer IP.  So, when I found out about the Blood Bowl App I decided I had to try it out.  I believe it costs $4.99 in the app store but don' quote me on that.

So, below are some of the screenshots of a campaign I have been running for the past little while.  There are a lot of options of how to play, whether you want to do a quick match, a campaign, or a set of games depending on how long you want to stick with your team.  I figured that if I was gonna put the effort into developing a team I would want them to be around for the long hall father than just one game.  Below you can see my team as it currently stands including rank (you start at 1 and gain experience to level up) as well as stats and your value (how much each player is worth with their upgrades and skills).

In addition to the players you can also purchase things like coaches, cheerleaders, re-rolls, and apothecaries (very important), to aid and change the flow of the game.  Some of them have small effects but others can be quite consequential.  

Here is the 'loading' screen where you see the race you are facing (I'm the ork teams and misspelled "Squig" as "Squid").  At the bottom you see the special things they have purchased, your relative prestige (measured by the stars), and you value.

The following are some screenshots from within the game including the coin toss.

Kick-off which includes setting your formation, choosing your personnel, and resolving any possible extra-game opportunities granted by chance or the craziness of the game.

Here you can see an in-game shot where my opponent has the ball and has knocked out a number of my players.  Let me tell you that I play on "easy" and it is an extremely difficult game to master.

So what about the game?  I find it extremely enjoyable and have wasted probably too much time playing it instead of doing hobby stuff.

If you decide to start playing the game I'll give you a little advice.  First, don't quite too early, it is an extremely difficult game at the beginning because it is based directly off the board game (including the rolling and selection of dice).  I actually almost stopped playing the game until I decided to look up some of the help articles about the game so that I could learn how to play it, manage my players, and develop the skills of the team.  I would suggest checking this site out and if you really want to you can read the entire pdf of the rulebook which I haven't done but would probably really help.  Those pages really helped me out and made the game increasingly interesting and fun to play.  

The only downsides of the game are the complicated nature (which like I said in the beginning of this post, I actually really wanted) and the fact that right now you can only play the human and orc teams.  However, from what I understand there is DLC coming along so you can play many different factions and enjoy yourself.

Overall I would say this is a 4.5/5 and you should definitely spend the five bucks and enjoy yourself.

Alpha Legion Assault Squad Pt 1

So, I've been once again working on the hobby side and getting some models together for my extremely small Alpha Legion Detachment.  I came up with a new way to store my models that aren't quite assembled or ready for airbrushing.  You can see in the picture below that I am using a large piece of styrofoam to hold the assembled models until they are moved up in the paint cue.  I like this because it allows me to assemble a bunch of models but make sure they are held in one place until I start painting with them.

Another benefit you can see from using this styrofoam block is that models can be placed on the side or ends and make a lot more room for all.

In the next two photos you can see that I had to white tack a couple of the arms and hands in place because my glue wasn't holding and honestly sucked.  It made my life difficult and made me wonder if I was just really bad at putting resin together or if my glue was super old.

Here, you can see that I went out and bought some new glue and guess what, I immediately got hobby hand and glued my fingers to a model!  Well, I honestly have to say that I'd rather have glue that's too strong than not strong enough so this is a welcome change from the crap I was using before.

I'm actually a little behind on the updates for these guys since I have started the undercoating but it isn't quite working as well as I would have hoped.  I'll have a post up soon about the issue I'm running into and what I hope can fix it (hint hint it is a bath in chemicals).  Until next time!

Another New iPad 40k App

Well, we continue to have some awesome iPad Apps rolling out under the warhammer IP.  A lot of people in the Warhammer internet community are making a stink about the number of games that Games-Workshop is releasing but I for one love it.  I think I'll add a couple reviews of past games since I seem to own quite a few of them.  The new game looks fun and I hope there's a little more customization.

What do you I really want from an App?  I want an RPG like game and an RTS.  Both have been done in other Apps but not with the Warhammer IP.  I think they would be awesome.  I'll let you know what I think of the new game as soon as it's released and I get a chance to play it.

My First 30k and 7th Ed Battle-Rep

So my first game and 30k was honestly pretty bad.  Basically I just wanted to get back into the flow of playing a game and also see what 30k was like in comparison to the typical 40k.  Since I don't actually have any models for 30k put together and based the store graciously allowed me to use some of theirs and build a small 1000 pt game.  

We only played on a 2 by 4 with pretty much no cover so there wasn't a lot of choice tactically  so as you can see I just basically set up in a straight line. and waited to see what would happen.  Another issue was that I honestly didn't really know what my units were, what they could do, or how to arm them.  For instance, I took the Iron Warriors specialty "Tyrant Terminators" and didn't realize that they could fire their cyclone missile launchers and storm bolters, or that every weapon they had was wrecker which would have been really handy in dealing with his armor.

The single thing that made the most important difference, however, was the fact that he had one of those crazy Whirlwind Scorpius's that fired D3+1 barrage that were AP3!!!  Can you believe that? In the picture below you can see that they totally destroyed me and even wiped out my armor.  Basically in the first salvo the game was over but it was still pretty fun learning the rules and seeing how the models worked and such.

So what do I think now?  Well I would love to actually play a game with some cover and tactics in addition to using my own models.  This game also really cemented my desire to play with Iron Warriors as there rules are just super cool.  I can't wait until Forgeworld releases Perturabo and Alpharius as those two guys are going to be beasts.  Overall, I'm excited to start really playing 30k in the coming months!  Let's see what I can build and paint in the meantime eh?

A Short Hiatus but For a Good Reason!

Well, I haven't in awhile and that is for a very good reason (at least in my opinion) my wife gave birth just over a week ago to a wonderful baby boy:

Loch Alexander Herrick was born on August 14, 2014.

He enjoys being milk drunk:

And our cat is still trying to figure what this new thing is!

Also, he's already been baptized with warhammer as the other night I was cleaning up some Forgeworld Resin products and a little piece of a shaving got caught in his leg fat.  Hopefully this is good for the future!

New Job, New Gaming Group!

So, I just relocated (sorta) to the South Bay area in Northern California and as such hobby and gaming time will be a bit difficult to come by for the next few weeks.  That being said, I am really excited about this move not only for my growing little family, professional development, and life but also because I will be around much more serious gamers and hobbiers!  I have already connected with a Facebook group of a local gaming store that is running a 30k escalation league, perfect for me and my new Forgeworld projects!  The store is call Apokalypse Gaming and is located halfway between work and home which means it's perfectly placed!

Why am I so excited about Apok Gaming?  Well, there are a number of reasons actually.  First, the people running the store are former GW employees who lost their jobs when GW closed the store in the mall.  They say that there is a large community and that community is focused on WHFB, 40k, 30k, and also some obligatory X-wing and MTG.  So, the terrain and armies that were in the store when I dropped by yesterday were awesome and well painted.  Second, there's no dedicated 40k night!  Normally this drives me nuts because the store doesn't actually want people gaming just buying at their store.  However, the reason Apok Gaming doesn't have a specific night for 40k is because people are always there willing to play and hobby!  As someone who is spending the next couple months living with my in-laws in the middle of nowhere, it's really nice to know that I can drop by any day after work and get some game or hobby time in, it's always more fun with friends!  Third, they actually have a WHFB group!  With WHFB losing a lot of popularity it has meant that my possible chance to actually learn how to play the game was diminished dramatically.  However, I dropped by the store yesterday to talk to one of the employees and he's going to do a demo game at 1500 pts with me on Thursday.  I'm much too excited about that for sure.

Overall I am super excited about this store especially since I don't have anything better to do in the evenings.  I might start bringing along my models to work so that I can drop by the store when I'm done and get some modeling in while waiting for the traffic to pass.  We'll see though because I also like working in the evenings and getting paid overtime!  I didn't bring a lot of my models out with my to California but I did bring most of the Eldar Ghost Warriors box set so that should be fun.  I honestly don't know how much work I'll get done on this since I'm pretty busy training and all but it should be a small little distraction.

Anyway, maybe my next post should be about some more background on the world I created, Al-Sear Prime?  That'll be good for me to think about and write.  Have fun gaming and hobbying till next time.

Alpha Legion Recon Squad Pt 3

So, as you can probably tell already I am a glacially slow at painting but I'm thinking that is getting better!   One of the hardest things to figure out right now is just how to paint using an airbrush.  It may seem weird but I've only ever painted with a brush and not really in sub assemblies.  Learning how to paint with an airbrush (and on Forgeworld models) tends to change things a bit so maybe I'll highlight my process here so any newbs to airbrushing can see what I do and I can learn from them.  That's the beauty of the wargaming community right?  We all learn from each other?

In these two pictures you can see that I decided to paint the backpacks and arms seperately, a move I have since decided to scrap unless absolutely necessary.  I found it was really difficult to actually control where the pieces were and trying to paint all of them at the same time was difficult.  

The backpacks were especially hard because I didn't use strong enough glue to hold them in place which meant the pressurized air pushed them in a circle as I painted them.  On the models I'm putting together now I have decided to put the backpacks on the model after the initial black undercoat.  This way if I can get to an area with the silver or blue it is already shaded and doesn't take a ton of extra time.

So far with the Forgeworld weapons I've decided that the best option is to keep them on the sprue and just make sure I have cleaned up all the flash and mold lines.  Since they only connect with a small part in the back I figure there will be very little touch up after the undercoat and most of the work on these will be done with a brush anyway.

The next two weeks might be a little heavy on non-airbrush and non-forgeworld stuff as I am starting a great new job in California, two states away, and my wife is 38 weeks pregnant and staying here in Utah to give birth.  This means some craziness in many directions but since I'll be living with the in-laws in California I'll have a little more time in the evenings to do blogging on some other topics and meet my new gaming group/club that I've already scoped out in the Bay Area.  I'm looking forward to the move and getting around a good Warhammer Community and hopefully some soon to be good friends.

New Test Models!

I'm trying really hard to do that thing where I don't buy new models until I've painted the old ones.  It has never worked for me before but considering how many pounds of plastic and resin crack I have sitting in the "Closet of Doom" I think it's best if I at least try to stick with it this time.  However, after all of that I did order some new models.  However, these are not models for playing but rather new test models.  Two of the Dark Vengeance tactical squads for airbrush testing, etc.  Now that I think about it I probably didn't need two tactical squads since I don't have that many marines to paint.  However, isn't the old addage in Warhammer "Why by one when two will do just fine?"  Something like that... anyway, maybe I can use these to test out schemes for all of the Horus Heresy Schemes I like but that will be later in the project log.  We'll see what these guys turn into I guess!

Alpha Legion Recon Squad Pt 2

Apparently, I am not very good at preshading.  I spent about three hours going over these cloaks with a wash, dark brown in the recesses, and white on the raised areas.  I then went back over the cloak with the original color but unfortunately this destroyed most of the previous work.  There is a little bit of additional definition to the cloaks but not as much as I would like after the amount of time I put into them.  You live you learn right?  If I add an additional five members to the squad later I'll see if I can come up with a better system for the pre-shading.

As you can see from these two photos there is a little bit more definition, which I think is nice, but I think there also might need to be some additional covers on the cloaks since they are supposed to be camouflage.  What do you think?  Should I make them actually look like camouflage?

Below you can see that I repainted the helmets and they look a lot better.  One thing I have learned from the many test models I have done is that you should always try to redo exactly how you painted it before.  I like the color on the helmets below a lot and think they'll look good on many models and also with the white painted on them.  That will have to wait until the next post!

Forge World Models Prep

So the wife and I made an impromptu Independence Day vacation to Vegas to see my sister and her family.  That meant that I didn't want to stay up quite so late using the airbrush and instead wanted to prepare some of the resin crack I have for future airbrushing.  I haven't yet figured out how to paint the Iron Warriors and Imperial Fists so most of these models will be painted up as Alpha Legion.

Here you see that one of the units cleaned up was an assault squad.  I honestly have no idea if they are any good in 30k, especially since they are not very good in 40k, but they look awesome!  So, lets paint them up and see what happens.

The nice thing about cleaning models is I can do it in front of the television while sitting with my wife instead of squirreled away in the man cave.  I know my wife appreciates that and I can multi-task and have fun!

If you haven't ever painted up Forge World models you have to wash them thoroughly with de-greasing hand soap to make sure that there aren't residues left on the models from the molding process.   You can see in the picture below that I like to let the models sit with lots of soap and then rinse them multiple times.  I'm new to the Forge World bandwagon so I don't know if I'm doing it right but I think it's working so far.

Hopefully I'll get these models assembled soon and start throwing some beautiful paint at them!  I hope they look as good in real life as they do in my head.

Alpha Legion Recon Squad Pt. 1

This is the scheme I have settled on for my Alpha Legion models.  I am still wondering if orange might be a nice spot color but I really enjoy painting green and have it as a consistent color throughout many of my armies which means that this would tie them together in a subtle way.  Do you like the green or do you think orange would be better?

I decided to move along with the Alpha Legion Recon Squad and lay down some basic colors on the model bodies, cloaks, and heads.  The bodies followed the typical recipe I have developed using the airbrush and two glazes of Gulliman Blue over silver washed with Badab Black.  I sprayed one layer of on the cloaks and painted the rest on with a brush.  On the helmets I tried to do a metallic blue instead of the recipe above but it didn't come out looking very good with the white so I'm probably going to repaint it to make it consistent.  

As you can also see from the photos I am experimenting with battle damage using a mixture of drybrushing and spot application of the old Chainmail GW paint.  I must say that I like the look but don't know if I'll continue it on the other models in the army.  We'll see.  I like that the drybrush sort of eliminates the need for line highlights (making this painting much quicker) but it's hard for me to make them look all beat up.  We'll see I suppose.

As you can see, I think I've made some good progress and the squad is looking good.  Next I'm going to see if I can add some definition to the cloaks using the airbrush.  I have a sneaking suspicion that it isn't going to work very well but we'll see.

Unexpected Break in Content

Well, after an awesome first week I totally dropped the ball on regular posting.  Have no fear, not only am I back but I haven't stopped hobbying in the past week.  However, my posting and timing was cut into by a trip to Vegas with the wife.  It was sort of a last minute baby-moon before my son is born in August and also a chance to see my sister.  I already have the next four or five hobby posts scheduled and planned over the next few weeks so you should see regular content coming from me.  In addition to hobby posts there will be random posts about fluff, blogs I've read, new cool stuff, etc.  I hope you'll stick with me, enjoy the content, and help me build a feeling of community here.  Happy gaming!

Alpha Legion Color Scheme

Well after what seems like ages of trying to figure out what color scheme I wanted to do I think I have finally figured it out.  As I was writing my last post about color schemes and picking a Horus Heresy Army I posted this picture, which I love, and realized I wanted to figure out a color scheme as close to this as possible, while giving it a bit of my own flair.  So, what do I love about this scheme?  I love the metallic blue paired with grey/silver.

So, as I was perusing blogs I came across a post (unfortunately I can't remember whose or I would link it here) where they talked about spraying a glaze onto a model instead of brushing.  This allowed a relatively even coat and you could make it darker or lighter depending on how many coats you did.  Well, I decided to try it out with a bright metallic base with a badab black wash and got the following after two passes.  

I really like the color scheme of this model.  You can tell that it is metallic blue and the glaze makes real shadows as the light hits it from different directions.  As an added bonus it is relatively quick and I feel that it looks different from a typical Ultramarines blue.  I really like the white helmets and I can't really figure out why except for the contrast.  I also like the grey detailing but I'm still trying to figure out what the spot color should be.  What do you think, orange or green?

On the model above you can see that after washing the original metallic color with black I went back and line highlighted with the metallic color.  I decided not to do this on the final models mainly because I don't like the look.  I really enjoyed the finished look of the blue model above and how it contrasts with the line highlighted grey detailing.

So, that leaves me with a color scheme mostly decided upon (besides a spot color) and I can now get to work on my Legion Reconnaissance Squad.  I have loved this squad since Forgeworld first put them out and hope I can do it justice.  I'm also going to try doing some battle damage with drybrushed silver and so we'll see how that goes.  This is my last post of the week which means I'll be going to 2 or 3 posts a week from now on.  In the next post I hope to have some really good updates on the legion tactical squad for your comments and criticism!  Until next time.

The Interwebs of the Week 6/22 - 6/29

I decided that periodically (meaning as often as I can remember) I will highlight some of my favorite posts from the week or recent past.  This week there is definitely a flavor of Horus Heresy to the posts because it has been heavily on my mind as I try to figure out the way I'm going to paint my resin addiction.  This is one of the ways that I started following a lot of awesome blogs and getting really inspired in my own hobby.  Without further ado here are the posts:

The Spikey Rat Pack recently started a project to model a full army of Squats using the new dwarf models.  This is by far the coolest model he has made yet and the integration of the dwarf model with the dreadknigh(?) body and other pieces is pretty awesome.  The paint job is also really cool and I look forward to seeing more from the blog in the near future.

Eye of Error is starting a new Dark Mechanicus Army from the wonderful fluff in the most recent Horus Heresy Book 3.  The Mechanicus models put out by Forgeworld are insanely awesome and have inspired quite a few people to take up the mantle of the automatons.  This will be a really cool project to follow and don't those paint jobs look seamless?  Oh wait, they aren't actually paint jobs they are photoshop!  Frikin sweet right?  I think this army is going to look awesome and even wet my appetite for a Mechanicus army while I have so much other unpainted resin on my painting desk.

Up next is a blogpost from The Dark Templar that highlights the difficulty I am having with figuring out paint schemes.  I must admit that painting yellow the right color is ridiculously difficult and I'm running into the same problems.  Looking through his posts I can tell that he's not only going at this systematically but also that once he settles on the right color scheme it will be awesome.  I must admit that one of the reasons I am posting this here is to remind not only of the trouble with the color yellow, but also in the hope that he'll find a good recipe I can use!

The final post is from the great Dave Taylor.  I think that if you know anything about Warhammer you already know about Dave Taylor and his excellent modeling and painting skills.  He's been one of my hobby heroes for quite a long time and I even got to meet him personally at Adepticon in April which was really fun.  Among his many armies Dave has started a Death Guard one with his typically beautiful and simplistic color schemes.  If you aren't already following his blog you should be, because his modeling and painting are quite awesome.

With that we've got the end of this post.  I hope you enjoyed it, will follow these blogs, and make sure to come back and visit my blog tomorrow when I have some more Alpha Legion painting to show you. As always, comments and criticism are welcome!

New Airbrush

So today a wonderful little gift arrived in the mail from that wonderful place called Amazon.  A few days ago someone on the Facebook group Warhammer for Grown-Ups said that Amazon had a great deal on Badger Sotar 20/20.  I read through some of the reviews saying it was a great airbrush, perfect for fine detail, and many people said that it was like all other well made and well supported Badger products.  I'm really happy with how quickly the airbrush arrived and especially that since I bought the last one on Amazon it was 90% off!  I've heard of other people getting these deals but it's the first time I've ever gotten one.  

Like many have already said, the Sotars 20/20 does not come with a hard case like many other badger airbrushes, but the cardboard box it arrives in is sturdy and adequate.  As you can tell from the picture above, it comes with an extra needle, a few other replacement parts, and all the tools you need to take apart and clean the airbrush.  I actually think the replacement needle might be a different gauge so that you can change out the thickness of paint you can use in the gun.  I'm not completely certain, though, as I haven't had the chance to switch out the needles and compare the spray patterns.The main reason I got an additional airbrush was to do very targeted pre-shading and highlighting on models without bleeding into areas I didn't want to affect.  The Patriot 105 is a great airbrush but I couldn't figure out a way to make really thin and consistent lines so let's see if the Sotar 20/20 can help!

In the picture above you can see that the 20/20 ends with an additional nut that has numbers circling it dash marks periodically.  This is the coolest feature of the 20/20 so far.  What you do is screw this nut in all the way and it completely locks the two-stage trigger from pulling back and sending any paint through the airbrush.  Then, as you unscrew the nut pictured above you slowly allow the trigger to move more and more, making your spray pattern larger.  This is great because if you are going to make a lot of lines the same thickness you can simply set this nut at say 1.5 and pull the trigger back all the way knowing that every line will be the exact same thickness.  I know that if I were a better airbrusher it wouldn't matter but for a beginner this is awesome.  You can even adjust it as you go so you can switch from a 1.5 to a 3.0 in two seconds. You can see the effects below.

This picture shows you the consistency and control available to you while using this airbrush.  I was amazed at how simple it was and how it made putting paint where I wanted it to go so much easier and quicker.  With the detail available there are a few things I've noticed that are different than my Patriot 105.  First, the paint dries on the needle tip a lot more quickly.  I think this may be because I need to thin out the paint more and also turn up the PSI on my compressor a little more but I haven't tested that out yet.  However, I did learn that if I use the two step trigger to stop the paint and then stop the air, rather than just letting off the trigger completely, it did help.  This may be something that people already know, but I've never seen the tip to let the trigger push all the way forward before letting off the air so I thought I would include it.

Overall, after one day I really like this airbrush.  As a beginner it is simple to use and really gives me a lot of control.  The one downside is that it doesn't come with good instructions about the airbrush itself. However, my Patriot 105 didn't come with good instructions either so it must be a Badger thing.  Would I recommend paying $400 for the airbrush?  Probably not unless you are going to be using it for your job.  However, right now on Amazon it is 80% off and will likely keep being reduced.  For that price I would definitely recommend you purchase it if you want to do more detailed airbrushing and don't trust your own ability to maintain consistent, small lines.