LFG!

Yep, that’s right. I’ve decided to make earnest attempts to find a local gaming club where I can get more games in than my usual handful a year.

I don;t expect to be a regular, but maybe during the summer at least I can give a club or two a test and see where I go from there once work starts back up.

So I’m looking for a good club, with active 40k and/or Malifaux in the UK, near Cannock to be precise.

I’m mobile and willing to drive a wee while, so Tamworth, Sutton Coldfield Walsall Birmingham, etc are all within reach.

So if anyone knows, or is a member of a club i can reach in a reasonable timeframe, drop a comment or an email and I’ll get in touch with you.

Cheers everyone!

Aux Dear…

Those of you already bitten by this bug (puns intended) Will recognise the Steampunk Arachnid Sward from Malifaux.

This game system is what’s got my attention this summer, not at the expense of my wolves, but alongside.

The low model count skirmish game has a “buy-in” less than most 40k units, an intriguing card-based play system and some amazingly sculpted models. if you like figs, it’s worth a look even if you’ve no intention of playing. I was considering painting a few of these guys as display pieces a couple of years ago when they came out, but now they have a successful and interesting game system, I couldn't hold out any longer.

I intend to paint these guys fairly well, as they have a low count for a crew, I want to do my best with them, the models are very well detailed but some small parts and tiny features makes them hard to assemble and I wouldn't recommend it for the very young, or if you’re a bit shy of putting in a pin here and there.

This piece represents a Steampunk arachnid swarm, which in play can be split into individual spiders, and re-formed, so these guys are all magnetised.

 

I’m fairly happy with the paint, my base sculpting could be better, but these are without static grass and weathering until they are dullcoted.

I’ve 1 more set of these guys, a master and a huge arachnid thingy to get through (The Ramos box if that means anything to you all), oh and a board underway, though that needs a lot more work yet.

So there you have it, that’s the summer distraction, a game system with awesome minis, an interesting skirmish card based mechanic, and adding a new “unit” will cost 5-6 quid after a twenty quid buy in for figs. Rulebook a tenner. That’s it. you can buy a special deck of cards or play with a normal deck. the deck is four quid.

Really.

GW need to shake up their specialist games if they want to compete with this.

Amazing Gravestones!

So as part of my summer project I needed some gravestones, and was happily chipping away at some plaster when the internet turned up a marvel!.

This company makes a number of plastic kits for fences, buildings etc, but the one that caught my eye, and to my mind no undead player, mordhiem modeller etc etc should be without is the gravestone set.

It’s very reasonably priced and comes with two sprues, the ravens alone made it worth it for me (choosers of the slain anyone?) but the 20+ headstones on each sprue make it a total must buy in my mind. the size is perfect for 28-32mm gaming models and tables.

Detail is good, and there are even assembly options. for fillers in ranks of undead you can’t beat this.

Okay so, I need to explain, I’m not being sponsored, bribed or paid off,  this is just such a good product, and a good level of customer service that you guys need to know about them imo.

Grab some, you won’t regret it.

I cant speak for their other kits yet, but I intend to find out.

The Summer Project

Being and educator gives me good long summer holidays. I personally feel usually that I really need it, teaching is a challenging, performic profession and i enjoy and need my annual leave.

I’m also acutely aware that were I to just crack on with my usual hobby focus, I’d burn out. because I rarely go away I invest time in the house, garden and hobby, and were I to keep going with, say the space wolves, full pelt (pun intended) I'd be sick of them in a week.

So what I try to do is keep that investment of time the same, and work up a summer project. regular readers will remember various things, new armies started, Mordhiem re-positioned at the fore, etc.

Well this year is no different, but I don't want to post about it yet. I’d like to get a few things finished, get a game in then do a “reveal” if you like.

So rest assured, I’m chiselling away behind the scenes on something. it’s something that’s seen me use a few new suppliers and I’m mightily impressed, so the next few posts might be a shout out to a few suppliers you might not be aware of who are making some interesting products.

These aren't “adverts” and I'm not being paid, bribed or otherwise coerced, I just wish I’d known about a couple of these guys earlier :)

NB: a quick search for a relevant image gave me another blogger and educator making the same point! - http://gonetoground2.blogspot.com/2011/07/staving-off-hobby-burnout.html

NMM Gold – Wot I Do

It’s come up a couple of times since I started the wolves; how I go about the gold, and it’s not really that difficult at all if you've a basic grasp of layering and of thinning your paint, so I thought I’d run though the recipe and technique here.

A wet palette is very useful, it allows you to set out your colours and then work through the stages without fear of drying. a simple one like this, made in an old plastic box with some greaseproof paper as top layer and two folded sheets of bounty beneath (soaked through) will keep paint liquid for days, even a week, and a few drops of water brings it right back for another week.

The NMM Gold Recipe I’m using at the moment uses six paints, but can be accomplished with less, (Scortched brown, Parasite brown and White), with more manual mixing of steps would work fine.

On the pallete we have from left back to right front:

1) VMC German Camo Black Brown (Scorched brown i think is the GW) / GW Bestial Brown in 1/1

2) VMC German Camo Black Brown (Scorched brown i think is the GW) / GW Bestial Brown in 1/2

3) GW Bestial Brown

4) GW Bestial Brown / VGC Scrofulous brown (GW parasite brown i think) 1/1

5) VGC Scrofulous brown

6) VGC Scrofulous brown / GW Iyanden darksun 1/1

7) GW Iyanden darksun

8) GW Iyanden darksun / VMC Ice Yellow (no idea :) ) 1/1

9) VMC Ice Yellow

10) VMC Ice Yellow  / VGC Dead White (it’s just white) 1/1

11) VGC Dead White

I work over a base of pure VMC German camo black brown and paint each layer several times, with thinned paint to achieve a blend over the previous colour.

The thinness of the paint is crucial here, and its something that cant really be told as a hard and fast rule, the reason being that different paints have different properties, especially when it comes to yellows. Anything from 1:1 to 1:4 or higher to achieve the watery (but not too watery) consistency we are aiming for.

I remember starting this type of painting and seeing “Skimmed Milk” all over the internet, it really didn't help me understand, as I’m sure it doesn't many of you, but it’s probably the best descriptor. Runny without being watery, still holding some surface tension and viscosity, leaving fluid colour in it’s brush stroke but without flooding.. there's so many ways to try and describe it, the only true way it to experiment, you’ll know it when you've got it.

Then it’s just a case of taking each, separate surface within the gold material and highlighting it from the darkest to lightest colour.

Something with sculpted contours is probably the easiest to start with, large flat expanses of material will be the most difficult.

Just keep applying the paint, from dark to light in several thing coats per colour, decreasing the area as you go, towards the raised surfaces.

When you hit the last colour, the pure white go back through and pick out some edges, even in the darker reaches and that’s when you'll get the pop. the last highlight, the specular highlight is the one that really brings it all together, and there will be stages in between when it looks like garbage and you want to totally give up, don't, push through, be methodical.

And most importantly, enjoy the process.

I hope this post was useful somehow, thanks for reading :)

The Bolter Colour Heresy

Eep.

I didn't expect that.

Seems lots of people while they like my wolf guard definitely think that the storm bolter should be a different colour.

So many in fact that it gets it’s own post.

Now, I did make the decision for a reason, and I’m going to try to explain, not to convince you all that I’m right, but so that we can have reasoned debate on the subject and so that you all have the information that I’m working from.

In my mind there are three possible colours that a Wolf Guard bolter could be, Yellow, Red or Black.

Yellow

I decided against using yellow because I was worried that with me using nmm gold it might be “read” as more gold, but badly done.. also the colour doesn't appear anywhere else on the model. now I could remedy that as wolf guard pack markings are yellow and black, so I could get some in, but that NMM/Yellow clash fear is still there

Red

This colour really isn't anywhere on the model, and it would be adding another, model that doesn't really “fit” in the scheme, you see gold and blue are complimentary, they work well together, red really doesn't fit in that picture in my mind.

Black

And black. which would make sense, he has a black shoulder pad, it wouldn't clash colour wise.. but.

I’m using NMM for the metals, including the silver. so I’d have to not highlight or blend the black at all, or run the risk again that it would look like more metal.. so its have to just have an edge highlight, and I was worried that basic pant might throw off what I was trying to achieve with the model.

I tried it on my grey hunters, and I'm not sure how successful it is..

On this guy it works because of the gold border, not sure how well it works without it..

So there are some mock ups and a catalogue of my worries about the different possibilities.

In the face of them I went with armour-colour, as a last question on top of those other points..

Do you think it needs to be another colour because you think it would look better, or simply because they usually are?

Wolf Guard Terminator 2 - New Paint!

I’ve deliberately made this fellow brighter overall than the last, so that I can push the contrast more.

 

I made the decision also to photograph him on a darker background as one of you kindly pointed out via email the browns were quite pinkish on the last pics. I can attest it was purely the preponderance of blue combined with the auto- white balance on the camera throwing it out.

 

I’m fairly happy with this fellow, sure there’s some things to do better next time, but there’s also, I feel, improvement over the last one.

  

This is most likely how I’ll paint the rest of them, with maybe some small refinements, such as; I plan to sponge on the masking fluid for the damage, I’ll work more carefully on the face and hair, I might try to push some of the other areas of contrast to pure white as well as gold. I’m close with the rest, but I hold back a little so that the gold looks “shiny”

Anyway, I’d be glad, as always to hear your thoughts.

Thanks for reading!

The First Wolf Guard Finished

If you remember this is the first te4st guy, and no the final scheme, but I thought I’d finish him off.

The latest WiP is a bit brighter than this overall, and the battle damage is achieved a different way, but hopefully this fellow won;t look too out of place in the finished lineup.

If I get the gold on the new guy finished he’ll be up in the next few days for you to compare.

Thanks for stopping by!

After asking you all about drop pods…

Would it be very wrong of me to sack it off and go Foot?

Logan

Rune priest (living lightening and tempest’s)

3x WGT squads

5WGT; 1 TH/SS, 1 PW/SB, 1 SB/CF, 1 SB/WC, 1 SB/WC/CML

1xWGT squad (Logan goes here)

5WGT; 1 TH/SS, 1 PW/SB, 1 SB/CF, 1 SB/WC, 1 AC/PF

1x PC/ML Dread

1x MM/DCCW Dread

2x MM Land Speeders

bang on 1750

not competitive, but then neither am I, and with a bit of practice it might give a few people a surprise.

dropping the drop pods and fettling a bit gets me the extra squad.

at 2k the dreads get pimped more and I add 2x dakka preds.

I need to get some games in with it, to really know where it needs tweaking to fit me, but it should be a solid base to build from.

Second Wolf Guard Terminator In Progress

While I’m happy with the colour combinations on the original guy, I am a little dissatisfied with the overall “pop” of the guy, So for this second one I decided on a few changes to the “recipe”.

I lifted the whole tone of the model to have a much brighter endpoint, I’ve pushed for more contrast overall, and after seeing the brush brothers WGT step-by step I decided to use their weathering technique rather than the one previously shown.

It’s a technique I;ve used often before, but never for a single mini, always on vehicles.

Here he is with the flat paintjob, (really must be less lazy and get tripod out more often, damn shaky hands)

  

and here after the masking fluid is removed to reveal the rust effect beneath

finally, with the chips highlighted.

I think some of the blobs are a bit big, – a hangover from my usual use of this technique on vehicles, and something I’ll fix for next time, and obviously nothing else is painted yet, but I think already he has more pop than his predecessor.

Once both are painted, I’ll pop “finished” posts up, and maybe a side-by side too.

Thanks for reading!

Miniature Wargaming Conversions

If you Don’t know this site, you should.

You might notice two new banners/linkboxes to the side there, well they’re both to this site, for one, because their content is awesome, and always a good read, for two, because they regularly run competitions and giveaways like this conversion contest I urge you all to enter.

And lastly, and possibly most importantly because they are involved with a lot of charity work.

Go on, click these links and have a read. They explain far better than I could. All in all I’ve watched this blog grow exponentially, from a few small giveaways, to massive followship (is that a word?) and prize support (a titan for the love of Steve!) to now hosting regular competitions and charity events.

IT makes you feel humble, and a little selfish, which All good charity projects should do. plus it’s just a cool blog, with good tutes etc.

I’m sure you’re all already followers, but if not, check em out.