Finished - Dark Angel Captain

I finished this mini that has been sitting on my painting table for probably a year.  I do not play Dark Angles now and with no plans to start a force. If I ever do it will be a long long time away.

Green is an amazingly easy color to paint. Maybe I am saying that because red so miserable to paint. It shades nicely with black and to make the highlight all you need to do is add a little white to your base color. It covers well even over a black undercoat.

Dark Angels present a specific problem of needing to paint dark, almost black, armor while still making it green and highlighting it. Dark Angel Green goes on ok over a black undercoat but it looks much better over a lighter one. Knarloc Green goes on great over a black coat and DAG looks great over that. After that you can give a sloppy highlight of Snott Green. A black wash darkens everything down and still retains depth and highlighting.

After this, less is more. the more you monkey with things, the worse it looks. Just a little Snott Green on the hard edges and the barest whisper of Goblin Green makes form awesome green armor.

Finished - Vindicator!

 After almost a year on the table and longer that that sitting on a shelf, The Vindicator is done. I went a little crazy with the weathering and battle damage, but It think it turned out ok. 

The turret is magnetizable so I can swap out any of the Storm Bolter turrets that  already have for my Rhinos. There is an additional magnet on the round dome painted silver for an additional Storm Bolter but I doubt that I'll do that upgrade much. 

The Demolisher Cannon is magnetized for battle damage as well as the dozer blade. 

I am pretty proud of this but mostly I am glad it is done. 

On the table next is a couple of Blood Angles and after that I am going to finish that damn Drop Pod from ages ago. 

Finished - Marines out of Rehab

The Marines from this post have finished their touch ups and are ready for their clear coat. All told, the process took only a little less than painting them from primer. Almost every color had to be retouched and in some cases they had to be repainted entirely. In the end, I am glad I did it. I have two more Sergeants than I did before.

I love the power fist model. I think it is one of the best Sergeants that GW has ever produced. The scars on his face and implacable stance make for a bad ass mini. The best part is the power fist. I wish GW still sold bits because I would buy a dozen of these. I have plans to use it on another Marine for a very different effect.

I am not so keen on the Tyranid hunter model. I got him in a trade for cheep long ago and painted him up for fun. As a Blood Angel player, I can't legally field Tyranid Vets nor have I ever tried. Under 6th Ed rules, anyone can use grenades in close combat with monstrous creatures so these guys effectiveness as a squad is limited. The mini was covered in Ultra Marines iconography and they were impossible to remove. Many of them were changed from omega signs to decorations by clipping off the vertical bars. I also green stuffed over the omega on the right shoulder and turned it into a circle. Long ago I painted it red and did nto change it. This forced me to put a black decal on it rather than the traditional yellow that I've done for all the other Sergeants I could.

Finished - Shrike and two Sargents

On the table now - Rehabing old minis

As one grows as a painter and skills improve, one looks back on the minis of the past and one things to oneself. "Oneself, should we not repaint these minis to better reflect our current skill?" Then one stops talking to oneself and gets down to painting. 

The good news is that these minis are mostly painted. the bad news is that I have to spend more time on minis that are already painted. that last part seems silly to me. I mean these things are done and now I am going to spend time that I could be spending painting new minis on already painted ones. 

That being said, I am actually less likely to use a mini on the table if it is poorly painted. The inverse of that works too. If I paint up a mini and love the way it turned out, I am more likely to use it regardless of how poorly it performs on the table top. 

Fortunately, these guys need some minor touch ups and some repair of dents and dings that were acquired in the move and they should be ready for the table again. 

On a side note, I am getting in the bad habit of starting a lot of new projects and not really finishing anything. I have no fewer than 5 projects on the desk and none of them more than half finished. Gotta clear the table before I start anything new. 

Finished (almost) - 2 Librarians

On The Table Now - Librarians Are Hot

Working on the Librarian and Chapter Master from the Dark Vengence box. With a simple head swap and some creative painting, I've turned the Chapter Master into another Librarian with a bad ass two handed sword. The plan is to use him as the upgraded Epistolary and the other Librarian as the more basic Codicier.

I'll write more about these bad boys when I finish them. 

Finished - Two bad guys and one good guy

Lots of lightning claws in this post. 

I started on the DV Chaos marines. They are more difficult to paint than I thought they would be. There is a lit os detail and some of it is very shallow. They are also hard to paint and then assemble as the lines between parts often run through detail areas. It is not quite as hard to explain as it was to paint, but was close. 

I also banged out a fairly dynamically-posed Space Wolf Blood Claw Wolfguard. I most often see those claws used to pose the model as of he is turning around to engage another enemy, but I wanted this lusty Blood Claw to look like he is throwing himself at his prey. 

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.

Sup Dawg

Gotta catch them all!

Close to home

We all know this guy. He walks over to your table and tells you why every move you make is wrong and not tactically sound despite not really seeming to know how to play. He'll also tell you about why every unit you took is either broken, too powerful, under-powered or not worth the points.

This guy and I will never see eye to eye because in the end we are really not playing the same game.

Moving up

Posting has be little more than pictures over the last few weeks and I have a good reason. I just moved across town and had to pack up all my TMM stuff. People say that you do not know how much stuff you have until you have to move it, but I knew precisely how much stuff I had because I was always digging through it for bits. 

I kept it all boxed up since the last move across the country so packing it up was really not a problem. The hard part was the triage of deciding what to put into storage and what to keep out. The apartment we moved into is too small for me to sprawl my 40k stuff all over the place. 

I've just gotten my desk set up (pictures later) and am ready to get back into painting. The only hang up is that Borderlands 2 just dropped and that is soaking up all my painting time. It will be a few more weeks until I am tired of joy-puking my face off and can get back to painting and blogging regularly. 

Your reinforcements have arrived!

Finished - The Gang's All Here

OTTN - Wolf Lord

Finished - Beat your swords into Assault Cannons

This guy started out as a bad joke. Keith had a Wolf Guard with an Assault Cannon attached to his Grey Hunter squad out in front to soak fire. I hit him with a single plasma shot and killed him because he failed his 5+ Invul save. I told him that he should have thrown a Storm Shield on him. Then we talked about him having his AC tucked under his SS like a spear. I was able to kind of do this with the Assault Cannon from the Space Hulk Blood Angel Terminator and the Storm shield arm that was the most tucked in. I am mostly satisfied with how it came out and did not want to force it any further. 

I forgot to paint his side shields on his thighs in a pattern so had to tear his torso off and repaint them in Long Fang black and white. You can't see it here, but I am mostly satisfied with them too. 

I wanted all my Long Fangs to look old just like I wanted all my Blood Claws to look young but missed the mark a little here. I liked the braid hanging out as if he was spinning around to confront a foe and thought that painting the hair white would be enough to make him look old. It was not.

On second thought, I am to most often attach him to a squad of Grey Hunters and not Long Fangs so why did I paint him those colors? I could rip him apart and change his again but fuck that noise. Those black and white spikes are friggen hard to paint. 

I don't know that I will field this guy regularly, but I love how the mini turned out. 

Finished - Wolf Guard got a hammer

I don't know how much play time that this guy will see but I love the model. I tried a different pattern with the Blood Claw markings and painted them horizontally. I was unsure as to how that I was going to paint the hammer but like how it came out in the end. If I had thought twice, I would have chosen a different head. I wanted my Blood Claws to all look young and wild but this gut is rocking a Chester A. Authur chops and I love it. 

Next up is a Wolf Lord. I am going to give him Storm Shield and a Frost Blade. I really wanted to use the Frost Axe bit, but with the changes to the Power Axe rules and them striking last, I am less likely to put that on my I 5 leader. 

In semi-related news, GW put out a new load of FAQs that fix the specifics on Sanguinary Guard power weapons, Dante's axe and the rest. Maybe SandWyrm will be able to stop his temper tantrums and play now. On second thought, I don't think the hobby misses him. 

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.

Finished - Grey Hunter Wolf Guard

Finished - Long Fang Wolf Guard

This working single model thing has its ups and downs. My typical pattern is to do minis in groups of 3 or 5. That allows me to assembly line each step. I'll paint all the red then all the black then all the metal. It is really speedy but still takes a day per mini.

Painting one mini at a time wastes a lot of time switching between colors and techniques not to mention the time wasted when waiting for wash or paint to dry. The upside is that I can really focus on making each model unique and individual. 

This Mini was completed in about 10 hours from start to finish. I started with the idea of making a Wolf Guard for the express purposes of attaching him to a Long Fang unit. That goes against what I talked about near the end of this post but not all decisions can be made irrespective of table top tactics. The only real thing that dictated that this mini be a Long Fang was the Cyclone Missile Launcher system. Aside from that (and the wicked long beard), I did not know how this mini was going to turn out. I wanted the missile launcher because it is a sneaky way to add in a move-and-shoot ML to any unit. 

On the table now - The next Wolf takes shape

Epic Post - This is not the EMBARGO you are looking for.

I am now the proud owner of GW's new starter box Dark Vengeance. Oddly, this is the first starter set not names for a place or a battle. Equally odd is that this is the first time a named Space Marine Chapter has been featured in a starter box. The last two starter boxes have ostensibly been Ultramarines but there was little detail on the minis to distinguish them from vanilla Marines.

It retails for about $100 which is friggen crazy for a starter set. No parent is going to walk in there and drop that on a child's whim and no gamer has that much to throw around on a new hobby. Bad move  IMHO from the start, GW. $50-$70 would have been a much smarter place to stay.

There is an OMG Limited Edition Pre-Order WTF that is about $10 more and you get is a pretty awesome plastic Interrogator Chaplain. Pretty good deal right? Wrong! You can only get the LE Edition from GW Direct or from your FLGS/CLGS. Unless you have a really cool FLGS that give you a loyalty discount you are really paying $25 for that one mini. Average discount on GW products is 20% because GW sells to independent retailer at 30%-50% off (I can't remember the exact figure) the retail price on the GW website. As a loyalty bonus to people that buy from the store they play in rather GW or the Internets, most stores will give you a little break.

Weather or Not

I went to a train yard today and saw some awesome rust and weathering and wanted to post them here for future reference.

Base Trial - Texture Paint

Stirland Mud with sprinkles!

So I ripped this guy off his brown base and stuck his brown butt on a black base. I made a special trip to the CLGS to get some of the new texture paint to try out a more complicated basing method other than my paint, sand and forget method. 

A short aside about the local GW store: I am starting to really hate even going in there. May of the black shirts are ok but there are two that are just awful. Chris is loud, obnoxious and really a jerk. He is the black shirt that denied me the use of the new paints and then painted right in front of me without offering his own. I am still shocked at the thought of that. The other is Eric (but he spells it all weird). Both of them do this really fake chatting you up every flipping time you come in. "Whatcha workin on? (So I know what to sell you)" "Need and brushes (...at our crazy markup?)" "Why don't you enter our BS contest/tourny?"

In The Beginning...

Every 40k player longs for the good old days. Back when women were women and men were geneticaly enhanced super soldiers. when brother fought brother and the GALAXY ERUPTED IN WAVES OF BLOOD THAT BROKE ON A SHORE OF SKULLS. Wait... what?




That's right, kiddies. Forge World just made a license to print money.

As if the Heresy-era Power Armors were not a big enough seller and everyone and their brother are trying to do a "Pre-Heresy" army. As if the Horus Heresy series of books are not the best selling novels that the Black Library has ever printed on dead trees or sent out over the interwebs. As if all that was not enough, I feel like I am being mugged by Forge World because I know and they know they I am going to have to beg, borrow or steal to buy these books.

I love the series on the Badab war even if it is a bit repetitive with ties pictures. It is an immersive campaign that I would love to play out. With the Heresy books, I expect the same. There is plenty of material that has been written over the past three decades or so (there is hardly a Codex out there that does not touch on the Heresy not to mention the Black Library books) about this era, so I am sure that these books will be jam packed with beautiful art, history awesome gaming ideas!

Needless to say, I love this idea. This is not only going to be a blast to read and play, but it will also really help out with the Pre/Post-Heresy Project where I do all the first founding Legions in their Pre-Heresy and Post-Heresy colors. It is hav been in the planning for at least 3 years and I am always glad that I wait. The bits and kits keep getting better and with this advent of these books (I am assuming that this is going to be a series because they KNOW people are going to buy them and why sell one book when you can sell three) I'll have lots of additional ideas for conversions and painting.

WOO!

Finished - The First Wolf

 Ok, stick a fork in him but I still ain't 100% happy.

Starting Space Wolves (Now with bonus Liquid Talent mini-rant)

In addition to starting Sisters, Orks and Tyranids, I thought it would be a smart idea to start Space Wolves too! Really I am just hammering out a color pallet and figuring out how I want to paint these guys. Rather than paint them in a icy blue style, I wanted to paint them is a dusty or desert theme. Think Tallaran Wolves. 

I based them in Dheneb Stone followed by two coats of 1:1 Graveyard Earth and Kommando Khaki. The metal bits are Chainmail and the gold bits are Shining Gold. After that the whole model gets a wash of Dev Mud. 

I know what you are saying and we've talked about this before many many times. The difference between me and most folks that lean on the Dev Mud crutch is that I do not stop at this step. As you can see the model is really dark and muddy-brown. It makes me a little sick to see a "painted" army across the table from me that looks like a brown blob because the "painter" threw down a base color, washed it brown and called it good. Not. Painting. 

My Second 6th Before My 1st Fifth

I love Scotch. Scotcha scotcha scotch!

Fifth like "fifth of scotch." Never mind. I've gone into super-saver mode anticipating the coming move and one of the casualties is booze-a-hol. I miss Scotch so much. Warm and rich with just an icecube or a little soda water in it. It is like taking a nap in the warm May sunshine but in your belly.

I'm getting off topic with my lust for Scotch.

I had my second game of 6th Edition today and it went really well. I lost, but I had a blast doing it. This is a key concept in 40k that I think is lost on Win at All Costs (WaAC) gamers. Losing can be fun!

Today's game was against new friend Keith. Keith has played 6 games of 5th and 3 games of 6th. He plays a bare bones Space Wolf army that has a lot of bodies in it. From memory he had 4 squads of Grey Hunters sprinkled with Wolf Guard. Keith gave them two Razorbacks with Heavy Bolters to cruse around in. Leading his team is a Rune Priest and he is backed up by a Long Fang unit loaded with 4 Missile Launchers and a Las Cannon just for the extra punch.

My list was perhaps the cheesiest I've taken in a while. There were three Razorbacks which is the most I've had out in a long time. In 1,000 points, that is a lot of Razorbacks. The lead Razorback had my Reclusiarch Chaplain and his 5 Death Company buddies driving around and looking for trouble. No upgrades to that unit aside from a Thunder Hammer which I regretted later. I said that I put a twin-linked Heavy Flamer on that Razorback, but it never got fired (See where this is going?). The other two Razorbacks had Assault Squads. One had a Powerfist and the other had Power Weapon and Melta Bombs. Both had a melta gun in them. Rounding out my list was a Death Company Dreadnought and a Vindicator.

Finished - Two Drivers And Three Backpacks

My single beaky driver was lonely so I painted him up some friends. I really liked how my CSM Iron Warriors Rhino driver came out and decided to try a similar pose with these two guys. I also really liked the IG tank commander is poking his head out of the top hatch and waving his sword about. 

Each of the Marines has one hand on the Storm Bolter and the other with his weapon. That made for some awkward angles in the arms. I did one properly by cutting it off at an angle but the other I half-assed it and just glued it on without trimming the shoulder down. That was part laziness and part to make the angle easier and more natural for gripping the Storm Bolter. 

Also, finished are some backpacks for my Grey Knight Justicars. I want to use the flamy backpacks to denote Knights of The Flame in Purifier units. I've already magnetized the backpacks for everyone and this way with the swap of a backpack I can go from Strike Squad to Intercept Squad to Purifiers. 

Wishlisting The Right Way

I made a wish list on the GW site for what I think it will take to update some of my armies into 6th. Now we have this Embargo on and I can't buy any of this stuff for 6 months or a year (or Emperor forbid longer). I might sneak one or two under the radar but for the most part, these are tiny metal dreams.

The big change is 6th is flyers. If you do not have one, then you are going to get reamed and hard. I signed up for a flyer for every army that I am preparing to build. Gotta have the Ork Bomma. It is just such a cool model with great rules. I am planning to start Orks at some point. I've collected 3 Blackreach Ork boxes, some bikes, some special characters but still have giant holes to fill. I will have an Ork army and it will have a wicked Bomma in it.

While we are shaking the wishing tree, I wanted not one but two of the gleaming metal peaches of the Storm Tallon gunships. In 5th they were ok but in 6th they are indispensable. Great as a flyer killer and great to harass troops and tanks alike. Also, it is a great model and I don't care what its detractors say. It is cute and deadly and it will RULE THE SKIES!

After Richard stomped the crap out of me with his Veteran Trooper-packed Vendettas, I have lusted after them. I was holding my own with him while they were in reserve but as soon as they came on, in one turn her claimed two objectives and blew up one of my tanks. Valkyries and their Forge World sisters the Vendettas are brutal and, for right now at least, they are a steak at their points cost. I am sure that will change but I have always wanted a small detachment of air cav. Now, with allies, I do not have to start an IG army to have that.

My Necron force is still hanging out in the dark days of 3rd Edition. I have only painted two new models (The Catacomb Command Barge and the Ghost Ark). They are seriously hurting without flyer cover and so I need (not want but frelling NEED) one of their flyers. Night Scythe or Doom Scythe, I do not care. Mostly because I can easily magnetize them or at least i hope I can.

I also put a few vehicles on the wish list for armies that I have not precisely started yet. I have a very small sisters force and have not really decided on my paint scheme. You can only get Immolators and Exorcists from GW Direct these days. Eventual I'll need a ride for my girls to cruse around in and pick up shoot dudes. And the Exorcist is a great model. I need to get the metal versions before they come out with Finecast upgrades that are twice the price and half as good.

Most of the things on the wist least are new shiny things and not very fluffy or just filling gaps in my model collection and army. Just to show you that I am not a giant flaming hypocrit, There is some useless and fluffy stuff on the list too.

I want one of each of the Daemons Troops to go with my ten man Cult Troop CSM squads. Surely there is or will be an Apoclypse formation about having that, but regardless I want my Khorne Beserkers to have some Bloodletter friends. Also, this will challenge me to branch out with my painting.

To bolster my Iron Warriors, I just need some Basilisks. Those giant artillery piece have been a part of the Sons of Perturbo since the dark days. I can't wait to paint them up in metal and caution stripes with some Traitor Guard crawling over them.

Taht's all I have time to blog about for now. No time to finish the links or add pictures so this is going to be a vanilla post with no flash. I'll go to bed with visions of tiny metal angles dancing in my head for now and plot my spending spree.

Necrons in 6th

I just had a great game of 6th Ed with my Necrons against Richard's Eldar and IG. Though I have played one other game of 6th with Tony (What's up LC?), we pretty much ignored many of the 6th Ed rules that we did not understand (which was most of them). Richard was gearing up for a tourny and so was being a big stickler for the rules (which was awesome). I am not going to do a Battle Report but will hit the main points bullet-style.

• Eldrad is wicked! He stuck them in a unit of Harlequins and kept giving them 2++ saves and himself a 3++ save. They weathered so many hits it was silly. I had no flamers to take them out so they mauled me.
• War Walkers have to be dealt with early. They killed all my Scarabs and half of those were in Overwatch. Then they killed two Wraiths attached to my D Lord and put two wounds on him. I don't care what your save is, if you have 20 wounds put on you per turn, you will fail saves.
• There is no such thing as a guaranteed charge! I snake eyed with my C'Tan charging the Avatar from 4". On the other hand, I was able to charge over 6" several times. Never ever take it for granted that you'll get the charge and always have a unit backing up the unit that you want to charge for a counter assault.
• WTF! Vendettas are brutal! At around 120 points (I don't have the codex in front of me), it is a steal at twice the points cost. It has armor 12 like the Storm Raven and is loaded with twin linked Las Cannons. It can carry a bunch of vets or whatever that jump out and melta or flamer people's face off. It's great as a tank hunter, a fighter, a transport, and cheap to boot! I'm gonna get one as soon as this Embargo is lifted. Maybe sooner. 
• The Catacomb Command Barge is amazing! The new rules for Chariots are awesome. A vehicle that can charge, +1 save, 1d6 S6 auto-hits and Jink. What's not to love? Getting assaulted with such a big footprint is difficult. Also, do you have to attack the dude in the Barge or can you attack the Barge first? Enemies can attack the base or the hull, so does that mean the Lord can attack through either or just the base? Can the Barge fly off on its own if the guys dies? I'll have to look into this. 
• The Monolith has a Jink save. WTH? It is a skimmer and all skimmers have Jink. I can't find anything that says it does not. Weird.

There were some other interesting things that happened but that's all I can remember now. 6th Ed is a very different animals and there are lots of changes. I need to get more games under my belt. 

If you don't hear from me for awhile...

Just got my hands on a bunch of awesome video games. That are likely to soak up lots of the former painting and blogging time so posting may be down for a while. I still owe you an epic post for the big project that I just finished, oh my blog. 

Really Struggling with Purple

This is not the epic post that was promised. 

Against my previous promise, I am starting an auxiliary Sister army despite them being an all metal army. I went with a Husky theme of purple and gold. I've never painted purple before and I am having trouble getting what I want out of it.

I started with Hormagaunt Purple over a black primer. I did a heavy overbrush Liche Purple and I think that was my big mistake. There is nothing wrong with LP but it is a very dark color. The next step of washing everything black did not help. The modle ended up almost black. That would have been great if I was doing an off-black Dark Eldar army but I wanted my sisters bright. The gold and cloth turned out so bright that the purple is overpowered. I touched up the washed LP with straight LP but that did nothing to help. It is still a deep and lustrous purple, but it may as well be black next to the gold and cloth.

To try and highlight it, I tried to use Warlock Purple but it looks really bad and cheesy. WP has too much pink in it or something and the result looks like something out of Tron. So I tried to mix them and a 2:1 mix of LP to WP gives this nice glowy result like you can see on her left boot. I want to widen the area of the mix color and then do hard edge highlighting with straight WP but I still do not think that I am going to get the result that I want. 

From The Back 40k

I found a good article on painting purple that skips the Liche Purple step entirely. They do Hormagaunt Purple over black followed by a 1:2 mix of HP and WP. That gives a brighter purple base to work up from than the straight Liche Purple. From there, the paint on a black wash into the recesses. The next two stages of highlighting use the same 1:2 HP to LP but each successive stage adds in one part Skull White. I am going to give this a shot as soon as I finish this mini.

Rather than learning to paint purple with the old paints, I should get some of the new purples and learn to paint that way. Just eyeballing the colors, it looks like there may be a little more room in the purple department with the new paint as opposed to the old paints. In the long run, I'll have to switch over to the new paints anyway. Maybe I'll give the Black Shirts another chance.


UPDATE:
I highlighted all the hard edges with Warlock Purple and massively dislike it. It looks like a bad 80's commercial and still too damn dark! I started painting sans Liche Purple with this guide and already love it. More on how awesome that is when the mini is done and maybe after I've had a chance to paint one with the new colors. 

Shooting and Assault the New Way!

As we get closer to the release of 6th, the more reliable rumors start trickling out of GW. Now, it is hard to make any sort of assumptions based on even this information but it does make the mind race.

IT HAS BEGUN!

6th Edition has dropped and the nonsense has begun. SandWyrm over at the Back 40k already came up with combinations of allies that are broken. This is before the rules have even been read. Why would you even do this? I seems like SandWrym is trying to point out what a super-bad idea this is by point out how you can abuse the rules to make the game not fun anymore and that is a good point. Unfortunately, it is impossible to make these combinations before you even know how they are made.

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.

Long time. No post.

Posting is down of late but it is for a good cause. I am in the middle of something spectacular. Epic post on the horizon.

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?

I wonder what this could be

I mean it is so subtle and cryptic. I am perplexed at what it could be.

Unless you are living under a rock, you know that 6th Edition of Warhammer 40k has been on the drawing boards for a while now. There have been all kinds of rumors about when and what and who that it makes me a little sick. Half are wrong and the other half are inaccurate. I see no use in speculating as to the difference or planning anything in advance. When the books hits we are all gonna buy it and then I'll see what is what.

What I find especially frustrating is that there are no repercussions for rumormongering just like there are no penalties for predicting the end of the world. Loudmouths can yell whatever they want no matter how half-baked it is and pay no price for it. a few years later they get to do it all over again and no one calls them on it.

On the table now- GK Brother-Captain and Necron

The big bad black Grey Knight is closing in on being done. I mostly like his pose but there are some awkward elements to it. The storm bolter does not fully fit in the groove where it is supposed to be and therefore rides way far forward. It is really only apparent if you look for it. He has some purity seals on his halberd that you can't see in the pic. I get the feeling that the weapon was meant to be held in the upright position so that the purity seals drape off of it. In the horizontal position, it looks off. Not bad just off. This is also the guy that needs a hug. 

I've started on my Ghost Ark/Doomsday Ark. The bits you see before you are the pilot. Long ago, I decided to paint my Necrons in an unusual way that is different from how I've painted my Marines to this point. I started with a Calathan Brown base coat and then stippled on Blood Red and Blazing Orange in overlapping coats. On the top layer, brown, red and orange should all be visible.

I then paint on Charadon Granite on the edges in a chipped fashion. Those areas then get the treatment of some metal usually Chainmail. The whole model gets washed in Devlin Mud. The metal bits are touched up with Mythril silver and the rusted bits are touched up with Blazing Orange. 

I've had people make all kinds of comments about the paint. Few people this it looks a lot like rust. One person said that it looks like what a robot's idea of camouflage would be and I really liked that. I like to think of the rusted bits as organometallic segments while the solid metal parts as their entirely synthetic technology. 

Putting some lines on the field

I did an update to the Steelers Marine that I finished a while ago. The girl wanted me to put grass rather than sand on it and paint a white line on the field. So I did! It turned out ok. I had to go rather thick with the white paint and am still not 100% satisfied with the results. 

Digital GW? I don't know about this.

It seems like a good idea right? Digital and searchable codicies and painting guides right there on my laptop? I am willing to give GW the benefit of the doubt but I already have my Codex as PDF on my phone. What could these ebooks offer above and beyond that?

This will require some more careful investigation.

Need a hug?

Now where is my dollar?

Finished - 3x Grey Knight Terminators

It feels like I have been working on these guys forever but you can stick a fork in them.

I was trying to fill in the gaps from repainting and refurbishing my old metal GKTs. I had no Grey Knight terminators wearing red with the dual weapons. Rather than arm them with the two short swords I used the style of full-sized sword and smaller off-hand weapon that I liked for my power armored Grey Knights. 

I had no warding staffs because those options were never available in metal. I am not super-happy with his pose but it is ok. He looks like he is going to bring the pimp hand against someone after he swats your lascannon blast out the air.

I had psycannons in metal, but I used all my bits to put together one Brother and one leader. In order to fill out a full Paladin squad, I need two of each special weapon. The other GKT that has a psycannon has a hammer so I went with a sword for the bump in the Invul save. 

I also uploaded these pics to CMoN and expect some good results.

More heads

I am good in white but I am awesome in red.

Finished - Grey Knight Apothecary

Just put the last bits of paint on this guy and I'm a proud papa. He is still missing his little belt packs but otherwise he is done. This is the best white work I have ever done. He really stands out among his brothers. It was really easy to do too. First was Astronimicon grey followed by Space Wolves Grey as a base coat. To shade I used a very light Asurmen blue wash. That darkens down things well but tens to run away from the deeper recesses. I come back and paint on straight Asurmen blue in the the cracks then touch up with SWG. The real skill comes in applying the Skull white to the edges.

Less is more in this regard but you still need to apply enough to to make it look white. I really did this well on the helmet. You can see how little white there is when you get close but from far away it gives the illusion of the whole helmet being nothing but white. Also, The blue shade id different enough from the black and red on the rest of the model that it gives the illusion that it is not really as blue as it is.

I also put it up on CMoN!

Still on the table are 3 other GKTs with a variety of weapons and a Sergeant. I forget what the GK call their squad leaders and am too damn tired to look it up. 

Apothecary head

The pieces are coming together!

On the table now - GK Apothecary