Agrellan Earth and Crickle Paint revisited.

After the failure of trying to use Agrellian Earth to paint veins, I decided to give the technique a fair shake by getting some crinkle paint and trying the process they way they described it. 

Normally this would have started with me buying some purpose-made crackle stuff for minis but I didn't want to wait for shipping.  I started my process by trying to get some Weathered Crackle Glaze at Lowe's but sales person said they do not carry that. Now, I have had some experiences with Lowe's where their reps on the floor know nothing about hardware or products so even though I could not find it and the sales person could not find it, I don't know for sure that it is not sold there.

Next, I went to Hobby Lobby. I've never had an opportunity to go to one because there where not where I lived before. Since I moved, there are two very close to me. They don't really have anything a Michael's would not have which is good because they are run by awful awful people.

Army Feature - Trevy the Great's Space Marines

I saw Trevy's army up for grabs on Bartertown. While I was not in a place to drop what he was asking for a fully painted army, I was impressed with his cohesive color scheme, pervasive conversions, his composition, the detail painting and the extra work he did on his basing. It is clear that he put a lot of extra time and effort that he did not have to into this army. The end result looks good on the table.

Now if this were a BoLS Army Showcase, after that paragraph that took 7 min to write, there would be a giant copied and pasted section written by the person that painted the army followed my 5 or 6 pictures posted with no thought, insight or analysis. But that is not how we roll here at TMM. We use effort!

Painting Veins with Agrellan Earth

I am going to try something new. I saw this article on BoLS about using the "cracked earth" technical paint to quickly and easily paint veins on wings. Now for the most part BoLS produces nothing but garbage, but this may be closer to compost. For starters, notice the article is titled “Painting Veins the EASY Way” with the emphasis being theirs. The focus on BoLS is for fast, easy, and low effort and how you can dry-brush, net-list or rules-lawyer your way to the middle. It shows in everything they produce, but there may be something interesting here.

Even though Caleb Dillion does not understand how to capitalize properly or how to do an aside, he hints that, with flesh tones and layering of colors, you could use generic crackle medium to compose a variety of effects. It would be interesting if there was a technique that allowed for those effects without the effort, but I am dubious.

I was going  to use this on an in-progress Bloodthirster but there is no way that I am going to experiment on a almost finished model. I painted this base Mordian Blue and let it dry. Then I covered it Agrellan Earth and let that dry. Then I covered it with Mechrite Red. You can see the results for yourself on the top picture. 

Then in the middle picture I thought that if I colored the Agrellian Earth with Mechrite red and put that over Mordian Blue, that might work. Nope. When diluted down, the Agrellan Earth does not crack. 

In the bottom picture, I just painted Agrellan Earth over Mordian Blue. It makes these tiny cracks but still looks like dried cracked earth. 

In the end I call this a fail. I'll try again with crackle medium but I think my Bloodthirster's wings will have to be painted the old fashioned way with effort, hard work and skill. (See how I brought it back around?)

In the end, I can say that Agrellan Earth is really only good making a cracked earth base. That makes its utility really low. If you are going to base your army in this manner, Agrellan Earth is the easiest way to do that one thing. If you want to do anything else with cracked textures, then a crackle medium may be a better bet. 

A Couple of Articles That Don't Suck

Mostly, BoLS produces unreadable garbage. Even their photos are slipping of late. Goatboy makes awful cartoons. The rumors are as prolific as they are inaccurate. All in all, it is a far cry from what it was.

But lately there are a few diamond in this slag heap. Well maybe not diamonds but flawed garnets at least.

http://www.belloflostsouls.net/2013/04/hobby-painting-bronze-easy-way.html

First up is a decent painting article covering weathered bronze. It starts off well with a picure of what it is trying to recreate. It then lists all the paints you will need to start this project. There is a pretty good step by step as well. It ends with a showcase of models sporting the effect. A pretty good article.

I do not have much bad to say about it. I would have liked to see all the paints come from one range as most of the folks I know stick to a brand. The step by step could have been a little more detailed and the pictures could have been with the steps rather than in a block.

Really not bad at all.


http://www.belloflostsouls.net/2013/04/goatboys-model-review-kromlechs-orc.html

The next article is by Goatboy. I know that many of you may be shocked to see me write something nice about him and you will not be disappointed. The article is crap. Poorly structured and executed. If you are not a Goatfan, don't read it.

What is good are the minis. They are Mega Armored Nobz stand ins and they are awesome! I had not heard of this company but am going to take a closer look at them as I start my Orks.

While the minis he covers may be good, Goatboy's coverage is poor. He does not even link to the site where you can see more pictures of these minis or buy them. Thee is no real effort in writing a quality article or really covering the minis in a meaningful way. This is obviously an assigned article and he undertook it in his standard half-ass style.

Seriously though, gonna buy dem orks.

Vindication through FAQs

On a long enough timeline the survival rate for douchbaggery drops to zero.

I love the latest GW FAQs for 40k. When 6th Ed dropped, I was impressed with the tightness of the rules. Things seemed very clear and loopholes were mostly covered. What was not covered seemed like you could work it out with some logic and reasonable compromises. However there were a few things that did not sit well with me. turns out that it was the power gamer community centering around sites like BoLS that were deliberately misinterpreting the rules for advantage, but no news there. In an impressive move of listening to what the community was getting wrong and responding, GW addressed these holes and grey areas with speed and aplomb.

Backing up a little, we went through similar self correcting with the Space Wolf Codex. There were lots of folk that wanted to say that if they took 9 Grey Hunters and attached a Wolf Guard then that made a 10 man unit. That earned you a second special weapon. BS. When you try to call them on this nonsense (and you know I did), they come back with that it is now a 10 man unit and due to the ambiguity of the wording they can do it.

A few months later, GW has to release a FAQ specifically telling these people that not only can they do that, but they were DBs for doing it in the first place. It would be nice if GW took a leaf out of Privateer Press' book and beta tested the rules with the community a little before releasing the books to weed out this kind of end run around sanity and rationality, but that is too much to hope for. I guess that we (and by we I mean me), will have to put up with a few months of people trying to break the rules for advantage. I guess that is because they can't compete on a level field.

Coming up to more recent events, the gaming community that was not the douchbag core was lit up like a pinball machine over units of characters namely Paladins and Ork Nobs on bikes. The 6th Ed rulebook had those models listed as Cha and the community took that to mean they they were all Characters and could all make Look out Sir rolls for each other. I pointed out several times in several places (here I could link to me calling jerks out on BoLS but I don't want to visit their site any more than I have to or read their garbage), they this makes no sence on several levels. There are no other units that are made of all Characters. From a fluff/rules/reasonable point of view, why would the people go through acrobatics to each get shot for each other every time they are shot at? It does not make any sence for the purposes of the rule and it really slows down the game.

It is now a few weeks after GW has specifically corrected this and there is nothing from the DB community other than a a pouty face they they can't use this particular brand of cheese anymore. And that is how it goes. In my perfect world, there would be a black mark on the people that not only used this "tactic" but promoted it. Insted they go on to break the game in other ways.

So why write rants against this? Because it makes me feel good that I have the right interpretation of the rules and that few of my plans are changed when an FAQ comes out. It makes me feel like I have a good grip on the spirit of the rules.

Oh GW, it is like you are not even trying any more

For YEARS, many of us wanted a bits pack with decent-looking combi-weapons in them so we would not have to cut up a flamer and glue it haphazardly to a bolter. GW through that I would be a good idea to make our dreams come true by cutting up a flamer and haphazardly gluing it to a bolter.

The combi weapons are awful except for the melta which is a direct cast of the one from Space Marine Captain sprue. The flamer and plasma are little better than even the most untalented hobbist could do with 5 min of effort. I think anyone could do better than the combi-flamer really. What is it with GW wanting to make spindly little bits that hand off their minis then make them out of a material that make glass look like steel.

Rumormongering

Just flippin wait.

The short: I don't like it.

The long: What's the point, really? Assuming that 50% of the rumors are accurate, there is still not enough information to make any kind of informed decisions. They is so much BS and chaff, that you can't separate the fact from fiction until after the official rules are out. Then even after they are out, it still takes months for every to get a grip on the changes to the game.

Take a look at this. This is The Back 40k and my new favorite community. They usually have their heads screwed on straight. In that link they are giving a review of some rumors for the GK Codex as reported by Blood of Kittens. You can read down them and see that even 4 months out from release the rumors are fairly accurate at least in kind of a general way, but not accurate enough to relate the subtly in some of the rules. None of that was readily apparent until you could get the codex in your hands.

And even then, the real impact of the changes do not come through until months later. That point was illustrated very well on World's End Radio in a recent episode. (I would link to it but that would mean re-listening to a 3 hour podcast.) They were talking about their review of the Dark Eldar Codex and how they were way off on how some things worked until after they had played many games.

The kids over at BoLS, blood of Kittens and everywhere else that reports rumors does a disservice to the community. I know why they do it. It is the same reason that they do the worthless "Caption Contests" and idiotic Goatboy articles. They generate hits and those hits are how they sell advertising. It is just like the local news. They do not care what they report as long as you read it and they can get real paid.

I can wait. I am gonna wait. Don't get me wrong, I have my pennies saved and I'm going to get the rule book the day it is available. Then I am going to read it. Then I am going to write about it. Them I am going to read what other people write. Then I am going to play lots of games and only after all of that will I have enough information to make any sort of informed decision.

Hatin on BoLS - Someone has to stop Brent

There are few things that I love more than hating the slockmeisters over at Bols. The heinous head honcho being Goatboy. No one produces more garbage than he does and for that he is damned. His second in command is Brent. Though he is not a prolific in he excrement excretion as the Goat, he manages to make up for that by writing some of the worst articles I've ever seen.

I've ripped on Brent before on this blog many times and on his posts. His most recent pile of steaming crap is what I can only hope is his first step on the road to recovering from his idiocy. He points out how the guys over at BoLS have nothing to write about until 6th Ed drops and yet they keep writing. It ends with a lame attempt to crowdsource content by asking what people expect out of 6th.

How is this worth reading? What's more, is it not more than a little hypocritical to point out how he has nothing to write and yet to continue writing nothing. Why not just write nothing?

Beer, painting and movies.

The trifecta of awesome.

Tonight is my Saturday night and I am living it up. Unfortunately I've had too much of the first thing to do any more of the second thing. Thus I am only doing the third thing and not the second thing.

Any guesses on the movie?

In unrelated news I got into it with it with Brent on BoLS due to his being dumb and not being able to write a post worth a damn. I said that he is worthless and writes watered down articles. All I know is that he responded but neglected to read it. If I had to guess what it was, it is either an ad hominem attack or the old trope of " if you do not like it then you should do better," both of which are logical fallacies. Neither of those reasons addresses the accusation that his articles are garbage and seek only to distract from that point. Regardless of what he said, I am less interested in his response than in the original post. .

Hatin on BoLS - Apples and Oranges

The best thing about hating BoLS is that they give you so many opportunities to point out their shortcomings. I could make an entire blog just for that.

Today's hate is directed towards Black Blow Fly and his article entitled "40k: Devgants vs. Purifiers." The article is full of half-baked ideas, unfinished thought and ultimately full of fail. I really do not care to take it apart piece by misbegotten piece. That would take up valuable painting time. What I will do is copy a short excerpt from the article that is rife with not only logical fallacy, but also indicative of his overall poor writing and the poor writing common on BoLS.

"No this is not another batrep... Heh. Let's take two units from two totally different codices and compare them.

One unit is selected from the Tyranid codex which is often said to be the worst codex released during fifth edition (there is some contention for Dark Angels though for sure). The other unit is selected from the Grey Knight codex which is often said to be the most broken over the top codex ever released. How can we compare the two?"

Hating on BoLS - Liquid Talent Revisited

You got no BoLS

From the tracking numbers, the last Hating on BoLS article was pretty popular. It is only 16 views behind the GK Overview which is the leading article at 143 views as of this date. The BoLS article even prompted my first anonymous dislike mail. I'd call it hate mail but it is rather hard to express a concept as complex as hate in 6 words and no clear attempt at punctuation, content or structure. I am nonetheless flattered (but I am also disabling anonymous comments at this time). I am hoping to make the "Hatin on BoLS" style posts a semi-monthly thing. Emperor only knows that they give me plenty to complain about and I am not the only one. 

Today our hate for the BoLS (pronounce it "bowls" or "balls" if you want to be a pretentious douche) is directed at Brent from Strictly Average and judging by this article, strictly average may be out of his reach. My critique, like any good offensive, is going to consist of waves. First, I need to outline my compositional objections to his writing "style". After that, I can address my thematic objections. I do want to make a section about his good ideas because there are several things that he talks about that I agree with.

145 Exposed: Revisiting paint and GW

"All we have is paints, paints, paints, paints, paints, spam, paints, paints and spam."

Remember back when I talked about GW's new paint and how they are promoting and releasing it? Well, no surprises. I get an email about it and GW's blog is lit up over what is essentially a re-branding of the same paint that Citadel has had for years. It is very much ado about nothing.

While BoLS felt content with what is little more than a picture and a blurb about the new release, we here at TMM hold ourselves to higher standards. I'm going to take a look at the information in the release and write it up longer and more properly.

The blog post over at GW is rather appalling. The writer(s) of the blog like to style it as a fan-written insider-yet-maverick perspective. It is designed to give a personal and human voice to what has historically been a rather detached and impersonal website. I do not know who writes this blog, but the tone is a departure from the fun and friendly style that has been shown most frequently. The post about the paints reads like an infomercial and was obviously written by someone trying really hard to sell you something. Through the post they use phrases that seem to pump up the value and importance of the paints while not really giving you specific ways where they are superior to the old versions.

This may sound like complaining or GWbashing and perhaps it is a little. More it is a bristling at the hamfisted selling techniques. The paints are new and exciting but you are going to sell them to me on merit rather than trying to make them seem like the second coming (form without function pissing me off seems to be a running theme in this blog).

GW also put out a video narrated by Timothy Spall, the fat guy from Harry Potter!

Below the jump cut, we'll take a closer look at all the paints.

Hatin on BoLS - Strawmanning nothing

I don't have a whole lot of time but wanted to get this out fast.

http://www.belloflostsouls.net/2012/03/goatboy-40k-in-defense-of-assault.html

So the new plan is to make an outrageous and erroneous claim then tear it apart. I have seen people construct some pretty flimsy straw man arguments, but I have never seen anyone pick a fight at nothing. I would tear apart his argument, but Goatboy does not deserve that kind of attention. He is like Gish and will just spew out as much nonsense as he has air in his lungs. Trying to correct him takes 10x the time and energy and by the time you have addressed his third wrong point, he has made 40 posts full of more half-baked ideas.

It is sad that this cretin has a microphone he can scream into.

Dur hur Caption "Contest"

"I think someone is going to get shot in the head."

This nonsense drives me nuts at BoLS. For starters, if there is no winner, it is not a contest. It ends up being just a bunch of nerds coming up with inane "funny" stuff to say to equally inane pictures. There are occasional pearls but they are not worth drowning in the sea of groaners.

I get why BoLS continues to do them. The posts appear popular. Nerds want to chime in and be the popular and funny one. They generate hits and comments, but they are not content. There is nothing of substance or useful in them. They are fluff only devoid of substance and that is why I dislike them. 

Hating on BoLS - Ork Edition

I really need to just stay away from BoLS. The posts make me nothing but mad and the comments make me feel like my head if full of drunk bees. For as much as I post about how I hate it, I can't stay away. Call me an optimist, but I keep hoping that they will pull their heads out of their asses and churn out professional articles. Heck, I would settle for actual content rather than rumor milling, caption "contests", post that are just a link and the vacuous goatboy.

What they are good for is inspiration. Though, I cannot produce articles as appealing to the general public as they (and that is not always a good thing), I use the things that I like least about BoLS as inspiration to try to do better, even if only for myself.

Recently (relatively), there was an article posted about "fixing" Orks. You may know my distaste for the gall, audacity and presumption it takes for someone to think a codex needs "fixing" and they they best know how to do it. Much of it devolves from trying to make things more viable into codexenvy and self-masturbatory wishlisting. There is very little useful in that.

Big Red starts off pretty well in his post by establishing some premises. He states that Orks suffer as some of their units are no longer as useful and therefore rarely used. Seems plausible but he is ignoring that almost any unit can be effective and therefore useful to an experienced general. Also, there are always units in a codex that are included for fluff or just for fun and do not need to be competitive. So much for his premise, but let's give him the benefit of the doubt.

He goes on to define Orkiness:

1. They shall be numerous.
2. They shall be strong in numbers.
3. They shall be fighty.

I have problems with #1 and #2 as they sound like the same thing stated different ways. Even if you grant that #2 may mean that they are greater than the sum of their parts in larger numbers, it is still weak. #3 just seems strange. What does that mean exactly and how are you going to achieve that?