Thursday 25 August 2016

40K Chaos Cultist and Genestealer

Just a couple of finished models tonight. First up, is a 40K Chaos Cultist I converted just because I hadn't assembled my own converted creation for many a month and I had an itch to scratch.



Work in progress pictures

This smelly devotee of the Plague God was made up of Empire, Fantasy Chaos, Imperial Guard and Gorkamorka Ork parts and was a pretty easy job to ease myself back in. Here are the pics of the final painted model.




The second model is a test model for the Genestealer v Genestealer BOYL game next year. I'm sold on the colours but I think I might go for a lighter pink on the extremities. The purple is quite rich - it's just that the colour seems to have become washed out in the shot.



And in case you're feeling in a philanthropic frame of mind, I'm doing a 20 mile walk with work fellows into the rugged climes of the Peak District and back again to Sheffield this weekend if the rain holds off. It's all to help assist UNICEF in their work to support children in war zones so any donations made are much appreciated! Just follow the link if you wish to contribute :)

https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/Ashley-Rogers2

Until next time!




Tuesday 23 August 2016

Onwards and onwards...

  Bring Out Your Lead is an inspiring event and one that reminded me I really need to actually game more so with that flame being lit I've now committed to a number of projects and actually got a couple of things painted!
  I loved the idea of the Tale of Four Gamers resurrection performed by PaulJamesChico and Steve so I've enrolled some like minded souls (Adam, Matthew and thantsants) to participate in the same challenge this year with Paul stewarding. 1000 points of Fantasy Chaos Slaanesh - 100 points a month. No problem (*cough*)


  I've also enrolled in Paul's 2nd ed 40K Genestealer Coven V Genestealer Coven bloodbath for next BOYL which sees one side try to cleanse the impure evolution of the other, much in the same ilk of a Dalek civil war. Test model for that coming soon!
My watchmen crew for the Batman Miniatures game has another addition (the Comedian). At the rate of one model every six months I might get a game in by the end of 2017.
   
The Comedian...

And 'pals'...
I've played some Dredd again recently and painted up this combat droid as a merc to accompany my mobsters. It's about time my Goliaths were retired as proxies for this game (I have a few unpainted minis hanging around for this game) so I'm resolved to get a proper gang.. and a non-PDF rulebook!
   


There's also the Freehammer event coming up this October at Warhammer World where I'm probably going to be playing a Mordheim scenario against Richard Irvine and some Rogue Trader versus Curtis. Quite fun putting together those unused and unloved models from my collection for the random encounters for Nordheim.
     The Facebook link to that event is here. It's an event where like minded people can play GW games from any era with Citadel miniatures with impunity and should be great fun.

And I still haven't talked at great length at the Oldhammer Night of the Living Dead event,  Warlord Paul's Blood Bath at Orc's Drift game (using Mordheim rules), my first stab at epic this winter, my ongoing Blood Bowl league or the Winter Chaos Blood Bowl tournament in November!
  Until next time...








  

Sunday 7 August 2016

Bring Out Your Lead - Epic Warhammer Fantasy Battle 3rd Edition 'Rise of Morcar'

Over at the Oldhammer forum some ambitious types had the idea of running a game based around the idea of a massive Warhammer Fantasy Battle 3rd edition battle based around on the attempt of the Forces of Evil to summon the Ultimate Dark Lord from Heroquest Morcar. The idea was for this to be the ultimate battle between Good and Evil with literally no limits to the types and number of troops.

   Ambitious? Maybe. Foolhardy? Definitely. Fun? Hell yes.

  Luckily we had weazil on hand to try and interject some kind of order into this chaos and set some objectives and GM this spectacle. One one side were the forces of Good (Men, Elfs (High and Wood) and Dwarves) and on the side of the forces of Evil were Chaos, Orcs, Goblins, Fimir, Undead, Skaven, Chaos Dwarfs.....I think almost all races from the Old World were represented although I'm not sure if there were any Dark Elves or Nippon (but I may be wrong!).





The game started with the Fimir force in the centre of the table with Bran the Blessed and the Wizards of Morcar at a standing stone attempting to summon the Dark Lord. Realising this the Forces of Good came onto one side of the table to thwart this while to rescue Evil came in on the other. Other  standing stones were there and were needed to be erected and used to power the ritual at the main one. It was Good's job to demolish them or stop them being erected.

The Fimir in the centre got torn apart by the invading forces while the Evil Hero Bran the Blessed fell. Two other standing stones eventually fell, the Elven forces managing to hold off the Chaos and Undead on one flank.


Meanwhile another stone had little chance due to the departure of the Orcs and the dastardly but inevitable treachery of the Skaven. (The Skaven general was heard to snicker 'We only got included in Advanced Heroquest ...' in the dying embers of the battle). Meanwhile dragons turned up to slay two of the Wizards of Morcar while the other two used to magic to fly away away from the main stone which was looking increasingly under threat as an Earth Elemental appeared to knock it down in the final moments of the battle which saw the death of Morcar's sorcerers. It still stood but as a testament to Evil's shocking defeat.


Sorry if it all sounds a bit vague it probably is but as you can imagine with a game that took 8 hours and approximately 5000 troops it was quite hard to keep track of the forces I was commanding let alone the bigger picture. But it was still a thing of outstanding spectacle ( "glorious chaos").

I'm on a mission to try and find all the pictures of this battle (of which these are just a taster) that there are and I have done a good job of collating a lot from Facebook and people's blogs. Would be great to hear from you if you have some!

 If I get enough and can discern went I may even set up a more detailed report and summary if possible but will certainly seek to find a way to publish them all!

On a parting note here were the objectives passed to me by weazil which made me chuckle. They ring true on some many levels ;)




  

Wednesday 3 August 2016

Blood Axe Warband Update - Oddboyz and Snotlings

One unit I really wanted to include in the army was Snotlings. The thought of them being turned crazy by being hurtled through warp and throwing some smackdown on a space marine within his terminator armour was, and still is, quite funny.

  For this I need a Shokk Attack Gun and to have that I need a Mekboy while the little guys need a Runtherd to be allowed to be taken, it all coming together in a beautiful kind of way.

I acquired most of the snotlings from the talented Mr Rusty Painting. I painted the snotlings in brighter colours than the rest of my Ork force, as I didn't want them to be dwarfed simply because of their size and figured Warp transit does strange things to one's colouring.

One of the snotlings got so scared by his journey he couldn't control his bowels.




Keeping these guys in check is the Runtherd. 



I've decided each oddboy type will get its own signature colour and this one gets a brownish-yellow colour that reminiscent of an explorer's get up. This synchs with my vision of runtherdz as collectors and organisers of strange creatures rather than slave drivers.


Mekboyz get a blue uniform reminiscent of the jumpsuits car mechanics wear (which made sense in my head at least) This sculpt is woefully underestimated in my opinion - just looks at the detail of the gubbins on the gun - it has an egg timer, a tap and all sorts. As my fiancĂ© pointed out it's really steampunk! 

The contraption looks like something the Doctor would assemble from odds and sods lying around in the Tardis. I imagine the Mekboy follows the same MO but probably doesn't know how the resulting machine works. It just does....



Until next time...


Tuesday 2 August 2016

Blood Axe Warband Update - Completion and Vehicles

It's with great pleasure I can announce my Blood Axe Ork warband is complete in time for BOYL. And with a week to spare!


I'm quite proud as it's a bit of milestone for me as I have never created a force from scratch with a deadline, more just pottered around growing a force organically as I see fit.

Sometimes it's hard going painting units especially so if the troops are uninspiring and uniform - but not so with this one. You may have noticed around 70% of the figures have been sculpted by the Goblinmaster Kev Adams that being the reason did not have this problem at all. His humorous and 'humanisation' of Orks breathes a new life into painting making it effortless. These greenskins have a variety of moods. They are bored, bemused, smug,  mischievous - none of the universal violent rage you often see in Ork models.

If you'd like to see the Goblinmaster in action himself he will be sculpting faces by request for charity at BOYL this Saturday. Something surely not be missed! There's more detail about this on Orlygg's excellent blog here.

Over the next few days I'll be showcasing the different characters and units of the force but right now I need to confess I had a big helping hand from Mustafa Bekir of Pantheon of Chaos fame. The land raider at the back is the centre piece and if its design seems slightly unfamiliar it's because he scratch built it only using materials from the 100¥ shop!






The construction of it is magnificent and really catches the sense that it has been kept running by being patched up after being stolen from an Imperial force. The painting complements it's battered design perfectly.

I'd already base coated my own Rhino when this had arrived in the post from Japan. Once I saw this paint job I just had to try and replicate it! After applying Mustafa's recipe this was the result.





I think the two vehicles have a good consistency in style now. I even tried to paint the blood axe symbol and vehicle numbering by freehand to link them together.

Until the next instalment....