Special No More

RIP, so many memories. The wargaming community is less for its passing but its legacy lives on with Dreadball, Distopian Wars, and all the rest.

SILO41

So it would seem that the Specialist Games part of the Games Workshop will be closing its doors. Although Games Workshop had left the greatest of all its children out in the cold for years now, it did still produce the models and make the rules available. Throwing their pariah child the barest scraps to keep going.

Despite this, Battlefleet Gothic, Mordheim and Epic Armageddon and others found a place in many a gamer’s heart. Including mine. Gothic is still my favourite game and Mordheim the most played amongst me and The Chaps. This love affair has endured despite no updates since Fanatic magazine and some truly terrible sculpts that would put most gamers off. It has endured through price hikes and restricted ranges. It. Has. Endured.

But no more. Games Workshop has announced that when the current stocks of metal models sell out, that’s it. No more. Ever. And…

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For the Greater Grot

Love this idea.

I especially like the idea of Grots riding drones into battle, preferably with an a Capella version of Ride of The Valkyries sung by Gremlins blaring 🙂

The Wargaming Bear

So I have been thinking of a little project just for a play converting. With the idea of me enhancing if only a little my plasticard and green stuffing skills if only a little.

So sat round with my wargaming mates we started throwing ideas a round after a game as you do and with one of them restarting his Tau. The idea of adding some allies to my Orks started to emerge, now I know sometimes count-as armies are grumbled at for various reasons but I though I would share a pretty decent article I stumbled across funnily enough on a Tau blog LINK.

So as this idea started to sprout, I started to have a look round the internet for inspiration and below is some of the things I have found.

A trukk/devilfish have mated taken from dakkadakka LINKY

More from dakkadakka a piranhaaaa

Then I came…

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Busy, busy, busy

This is why I love holidays, I’ve not been this productive in weeks. 🙂

At the start of today this was still mostly unassembled. I took some time off to finish the Khorne Berserkers I posted earlier this afternoon but now it’s on with the heavy support for the coming week. Hopefully I’ll get this done and make a start on my Forgefiend.

Blood for The Blood God!

It looks like my Heralds of Desolation are finally starting to take shape and their latest additions are these lovely balanced young gentlemen.

Codex: Tau Empire – A Review

Phil takes everyone’s favourite space commies for a ride and likes what his sees.

SILO41

It’s that time again boys and girls. So the Tau have had a badly needed shake up and got themselves a couple of new models and a shiny new book for their trouble.

First of all, the cover is absolutely spectacular. It’s quite possibly the coolest we’ve ever seen a crisis suit.

Secondly it’s also the best looking Codex of the new wave. The inlay is made of thicker stock but it’s still a little on the cheap side and the fold out was straight this time, but they’re still a pain in the arse and impossible to keep nice because GW aren’t printing that page on undersized A3. And there’s still bloody typos! It started promisingly enough but the further I got into the book they started cropping up. I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a thousand times; it’s really very poor form for Games Workshop to charge…

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Trenchmates – The Space Marine Stormtalon by Tim Chant

Welcome to the first Trenchmates article of 2013 and where better to start than where we left off with my good friend and long-suffering opponent Tim Chant who today writes about the most recent addition to his Space Marine army, the awesome Stormtalon.

The Space Marine Stormtalon Kit

I am sure, like many true sons of the Emperor, I was pleased to see the Stormtalon kit appearing on the shelves. I couldn’t resist picking one up from Dark Sphere in London while I was down there for work, but resisted the temptation to break the box open on the train North and assembled over the next couple of evenings. Although I’ve been gaming for a while and have built endless numbers of miniatures, I’m still very much a beginner when it comes to painting. I’m starting to enjoy it, though, and wanted to share my thoughts on building and painting this kit.

Construction

The kit was a real joy to put together, pretty straightforward and with little need to refer to the instructions. It’s a solid miniature, maybe a bit smaller than I was expecting, with a couple of flexible parts (the engine nacelles and the assault cannon mounting). The only really fiddly bit was getting the Techmarine pilot’s arms in the right place. I’d say the only bit you have to be careful with is the dorsal aerial array – I broke one while I was still painting! I left the engine nacelles unglued before painting.

Painting

As with the construction, this was really easy and a joy to paint. I painted the Techmarine pilot and interior of the cockpit during assembly. The pilot is painted in the livery of the Reaver Redemptor 3^rd Company, with a black helmet which will become the defining feature of this bike-heavy force (see my previous article about my own codex Chapter for more details of the colour scheme, although I’ve adjusted the helmet colour from bronze to black).

As I have a lot of miniatures requiring painting, and am not the most patient and skilled of painters, I like to try to find ways to speed up the painting process. I’d already experimented with the excellent Vallejo Army Painter sprays, which are coloured undercoats, and they really came into their own with this model. I taped over the clear plastic cockpit and used the Angel Green spray (which will be getting a lot of use when I paint my Dark Angels) on the tail sections and on the separate engine nacelles. I then taped the green sections over and sprayed the rest of the model with the Dragon Red. Both sprays gave a good even colour, and the tape (normal masking tape) gave sharp lines without any bleed between the colours.

The Dragon Red is about equivalent to the old Mechrite Red, which was the basecoat used for most of the Reavers. However, with the change of paints Mephiston Red is the closest shade but is a bit brighter than the Mechrite. The Vallejo Pure Red spray is the right shade, but I find doesn’t give the right coverage and is a bit too watery. I think in future I’ll spray with the Dragon Red and then give it a light covering of Pure Red. As it is, I filled in the gaps in the Dragon Red with Mephiston, then washed with Baal Red, and hand painted the missile pods with Caliban Green. The green areas were drybrushed with Lothern Green and washed black, and the red areas finished with a heavy drybrush of Tin Bitz (I’m really hoping there’s an equivalent paint in the new set) [Warplock Bronze is the closest in the GW range but it’s no Tin Bitz – John] as per the usual Reavers colour scheme. I used the Army Painter large drybrush, which has a broad, flat tip and gives a nice even tone.

I really struggled with the green shading of the colour scheme previously, as I didn’t want a plain dark green but wanted to distinguish from the Dark Angels, as I will be doing some Reavers entirely green. Before taking on the Stormtalon I finished a Rhino I’d been working on for a while, for which the green was a primary colour. I drybrushed with Lothern Green but found it much too light, particularly against the red trim, even after two green washes and a wash of Asurman Blue. At John’s suggestion I tried a black wash and am quite pleased with the distinct colour given – I just need to go back over a full battle company’s worth of Marines, a half dozen drop pods and five tanks to update the colours.

Detailing was pretty straightforward and done after the washes were complete. The missile tips are painted green in layers, to be nice and bright – this is the ‘warning’ colour my talented friend Elizabeth [she of Sexism in the Warhammer Worlds parts one and two] settled on when painting the majority of my Marine force. I removed the assault cannon mounting to paint it (it’s a flexible mount). On John’s advice, I drybrushed Boltgun Metal over corners to give it a weathering effect, and drybrushed black around the engine vents. A final step was to glue the nacelles in place, being careful not to glue the spar between them to allow them to be rotated.

I’m fairly pleased with the result. I did try to give it convincing re-entry burn marks on the tail and back of the wings, as I imagine it would enter the atmosphere belly first (just like ‘Serenity’!). These were achieved with a drybrush of dark brown, then a lighter brown, then black over the top. I’m not overly happy with how it turned out, I’ll need to work on that technique.

Gallery

Conclusion

I think if I do another Stormtalon (which is almost certain, I think I’d like three), I’ll paint the engines before assembling the nacelles, and paint the interface for the assault cannon mount and the side sponsons mounts before gluing. Aside from that, fairly happy with the approach and pleased with the result. It was surprisingly quick to paint as well – in total I think I spent about four hours on this (quick for me, anyway) [Quick for anyone, and far quicker than me! – John].

Many thanks to Tim for walking us thorough what is sure to be my Helldrake’s main course at some point in the future. In all serious, I think Tim’s effort is superb and I’d dearly love to find an excuse for my Heralds of Desolation to field one, maybe I’ll have to start that Imperial Fist army now…

If you’d like to contribute an article all the information you need can be found here.

Eldar: Plastic Farseer Pic Leaked

High Elves Images Leaked

Very nice, BUT WHERE ARE MY BRETONIANS DAMMIT?

SILO41

 

There’s some pretty interesting stuff in this little leaky bundle including Eagle Chariots and a Phoenix which I think looks ace. Looking in the background of one of the shots those terrible spearmen kits haven’t been replaced. Which is a real shame.

Anyway, enjoy…

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Best Adepticon army seen ever

Oh. My. God.

This is possibly the most awesome thing I have ever seen.

The Wargaming Bear

Thanks to@Rhellion for his Adepticon coverage on Twitter.

This I had to share with everyone. I am sure it is from @ginger_buddha his amazing Chaos Dwarfs and Skaven.

Team Despicable We

I am hoping to share more links with you all soon but for now head on over to the blog – http://www.youmagnificentbastards.com/

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40k 40k Acronyms

As a gentleman of a similar vintage to The Bear, I find this list most helpful 🙂

The Wargaming Bear

I like many can get swapped by the level of acronyms that are flying around the internet, just cant keep up in my old age 😉

So it is with a huge thanks to 3++ is the new black guys  that now have nearly if not all the popular ones in one place.

So I have borrowed the general rules ones below for my readership but if you want the army specific ones you will need to follow the link..

Back-to-Basics: 6th edition 40k Acronyms.

#+ – model’s save value

#++ – model’s invulnerable save value

ATSKNF – And They Shall Know No Fear

AV – Armor Value

B2B/BTB – Base to base (contact)

BRB/BYB – Big Rule/Yellow Book

Dakka/Torrent – lots of shots

FC – Furious Charge

FNP – Feel No Pain

FMC – Flying Monstrous Creature

GEQ – Guardsmen Equivalent…

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