Lots of Progress Recently

Just a short and sweet update.

Got a few games in recently with my orks (solo vs. Tau x2 and a team game Ork/Ork vs. Tau/Marines) so that kind of relit my green fire.

Started basing up my Gretchin and an ork or too. Went with the GW textured paint for a sand effect. Then hit that with a little bit of gravel, painted the whole thing army painter desert yellow and washed it with gryphon sepia. Then bestial brown to round out the base and badda boom!

Man, my black background is covered in lint :-(

The GW textured paint is awesome because it holds a nice shape when you slop it on, which means the wash is extra good at it's job. This might be my go to guy for simple basing in the future. 

I also assembled, fully painted and based the Shokk Attack Gun (metal, thanks to my buddy Del) Amazing model to paint and build. Totally love how it came out. Gameplay however...hahaha Used it for the first time today against Kurt's Tau...1st shot teleported himself into close combat with a unit of fire warriors failed his two saves and then died!!! Total Ork nonsense but good for a laugh I guess. That means next time I'll get the insta kill S10 AP2 right? Here are some pics of the bad boy. 

POOR LITTLE GUY!!

Matt gave me a finecast Weirdboy for X-Mas so I am gonna put that together and get him painted up next! 

Pathfinder Session 1

A RPG group meeting, some planning sessions and a character creation session finally culminated in beginning the game last night. I think the first session went really well and everyone seemed to enjoy themselves. I hope the rest of the sessions continue on like this.

It's the first game I have run in quite a while without using published materials. It's kind of weird but it actually feels like it is less work to plan a game on your own. I didn't have to read and familiarize myself with an entire adventure before first session. Just a basic overarching shape, a few initial encounters and knowing how NPCs would act and it all fell together nicely. I think because of this it feels a lot less rail-roady. The players were very active and recognized obvious hooks so were cooperative with getting everything off the ground, but there wasn't really any 'I do this cause it's obviously an adventure.'

Player breakdown goes like this;

Matt- Durgan 'Oddnoggin' Stoneskull, Dwarven cleric of the drunken God. Played as an inquisitive energetic Dwarf that celebrates the finer things in life (the major part of the drunken God's ethos)

Dana- Pyotr Burmond, Human rogue. Played somewhat dour and stoic. Immediately interested in helping others despite wrestling with some inner demons.

Thomas- Wilks Greenriver, Human Druid. Played as a traveler and beneficent guardian of Nature.

James- Kreigen Brightmoon, Human Barbarian. Played as a bombastic outgoing rough around the edges adventurer.

Liz- Kahina Star-song, Human Sorcerer. Played as an aspiring Pathfinder member, looking to prove herself and advance within the organization.

Kurt- Arfelith, Elven Wizard. Played as a traveler trying to find his place while helping others.

Jason- Ivan of the clan Hurt, Dwarven Ranger. Jason, unfortunately, was unable to make first session.

It is definitely a lot of players but we have a pretty tight-knit RPG group here in Kona so pairing any players off means someone doesn't get to play any games. We agreed on some basic table rules though so it doesn't seem at all unmanageable (no phones or distractions at the table, keep side chatter to a minimum, players as well as the DM policing tangents, etc.)

The first session opened with everyone arriving in Sandpoint one way or another. Arefelith and Pyotr by caravan from the south, Kreigen and Durgan walking in from the north carrying disturbing news, Kahina having recently moved to Sandpoint and joined the Pathfinders there. Wilks was roaming the wilderness outside of Sandpoint and would come across the group mid-day.

Pyotr and Arfelith's caravan had heard reports of theft from Caravans approaching from the South but encountered no troubles in their own travels. Kahina noticed that the Pathfinder guild leader, Brand, had been agitated recently so was expecting that something would go down soon. Arfelith met with an acquaintance in the city, Arvus Whitebeard, and was asked by him to catch up with a merchant that had left the city previously and double check if the merchant had received his goods (Arvus seems to have either misplaced them or sold them and forgot about it)

Ivan, Kreigen and Durgan, however, came across a grisly scene on their way to Sandpoint. A wrecked cart, badly lacerated horses and a mutilated pile of corpses. Ivan rushed to nearby Windsong Abbey to inform them of the scene while Kreigen and Durgan continued on to warn Sandpoint. Informing the sheriff, a man named Hemlock, they agreed to be deputized and reconnoitre the scene in exchange for room and board while in Sandpoint. Checking in and fueling up at an inn in town they came across Pyotr and Kahina discussing the state of things in Sandpoint and the Pathfinder guild there. Overhearing each other's conversations and realizing a mutual purpose, the four decided to team up and investigate. Shortly after Arfelith, on recommendation from Sheriff Hemlock, approaches them in the inn about traveling together for safety.

The group sets out from Sandpoint, travels north and encounters Wilks on the way there. Wilks noticed the disturbance in the area and decides to travel with them.

They return to the scene of the carnage and notice a bit of a pall over the area, the bodies decaying rapidly. Physical examination implies torture and robbery while a faint aura of illusion is noticed by Arfelith. The bodies are buried and set to rest by Durgan (a prayer and the sprinkling of ceremonial beer) and Wilks (the planting of a sacred seed) which lifts the pall. The party follows a faint trail further into the wilderness and encounter discarded bits of food and ratty disgusting clothing. Pursuing the trail they make camp at dusk and are ambushed by a small party of goblins. Dispatching them without too much difficulty they come to the conclusion that it was a raiding party and that at least some of them had taken part in the cart massacre (2 of the goblins were wearing human sized silk clothing)
The bodies were hastily disposed of and session one ended.

Too many Hobbies!

The progress on the 5 man BA Tac squad has just been embarrassingly slow. I just finished the second shoulder pads. Need to retouch the areas where they get super glued, get the standard to a level I like and then I can varnish them. I know I have been working on this single 5 man squad for like 2 months now, and believe, I am ashamed. Work is a flimsy excuse.

So, in that light, I have a different one. I am starting up a new Pathfinder game. Met with the group the other day to have our (pretty much yearly) state of the group address. Got everyone's opinion on how they wanted game to go, what they wanted to play etc. and then strong armed them into letting me run Pathfinder. Pathfinder is usually Matt's bag but I got the GM bug, slow season is coming, and poor Matty Matt rarely gets to play (something like two games in 10 years absurdity) The last few days has been spent putting a couple of ideas together, reviewing some of the rules and trying to figure out what I want to do with the game. Next is character creation and props! I love props, they make the game for me. Especially the map soaked in tea to make the paper look like parchment or whatever, classic.

Also, the other day I picked up a dremel set that has a few nylon brushes in it. Those things are awesome at taking paint off of simple greened models. A toothbrush is fine too but with the dremel you don't get the finger rawness! What I am trying to say is that I made a small amount of progress on giving emo-wing a try. I think I want to put the army together, get some color on it and then just play it until I get decent with it. I usually try a new list once, if it gets stomped then I make a new one without every giving it a chance. Gonna try to stick with the same list, or a similar one for a bit and practice with it. We'll see how it goes.

Ok, I know, anemic post but I have a few whiskies in me and it is time to hit the hay so I can ascend to the gates of heaven tonight.

Oh yeah, here's a shooting star for you

This and that and a lesson about Krylon

Nice productive couple days off. Got a game in with a friend of mine, finished a few build projects, got some terrain glued to bases, and finally painted some shoulder pads..

First off- Played a 2k point game with Matt. He played new Chaos. His list was Typhus with a wad of ablative zombies, a three man unit of Obliterators, two 10 man plague marine squads in rhinos, a 10 man squad with no vehicle, a maulerfiend with whip coils and finally a forgefiend with hades autocannons. I played Orks with 3 trukks full of boyz (one with Warboss), a trukk full of tricked out nobs, a battlewagon with a big squad of lootas/ meks, 20 man grot squad, 3 deffkoptas, a 5 man squad of stormboyz, a deffdread with a few skorchas and finally a 3 man killa kan squad with grotzookas.

This is the biggest game we have played in 6th ed. but due to the low model count it didn't really seem like it. Got lucky and got first turn but because all of his stuff was really far away, placed in cover well, or in armor it was remarkably ineffective. His first turn, however, ended with me trukk-less (or maybe one left) and a with a bunch of dead boyz (explosions were ridiculously deadly early game for me) Although, to be honest, no trukks at the end of turn one is pretty much par for the course hahaha
2nd turn my reserves came in. The Koptas put the hurt on his forgefiend (it wouldn't recover before getting axed) and I dropped my stormboyz in the middle so they could partake of the action as soon as possible. Got some decent shooting in with a few units and positioned my walkers well. The ork boy shooting was overall really ineffective the whole game, Plague Marines are brutal. They are just so hard to shift or kill with fearless, T5, and 2 saves. His 2nd turn he decided to backtrack with one of the rhino plague marine squads to deal with the koptas while running his nurgle marked spawn forward. He also ran his maulerfiend up (it got take out by lootas and CC with the nob/ Warboss) The spawn's charge was one of the highlights of the game for me, a butt-load of wounds on them between 2nd round shooting with the grotzookas and overwatch with the boyz squad. Though, that was balanced by failing x3 4" charges in 3rd turn (one of which he let me have because of the vagaries of the terrain and where models were positioned.

With my vehicles gone and his troops being pretty slow, the rest of the game came down to just shooting and slugging it out without a lot of movement.  Lots of crazy rolls and some epic moments (especially loved the obligatory chaos champion challenge ending in a Superman/ Doomsday style dead power klaw nob and plague champion) All in all extra fun game and can't wait to play many more permutations of the new Chaos Dex.

Build projects- finished up my second unit of 3 killa kans, got 5 more stormboyz put together, and finally cleaned up the filthy chaos bits off of some Sanguinary Guard Matt gave me. The Stormboyz has got to be one of my favorite plastic kits at this point. The heads and bodies are just so awesomely sculpted and covered in gubbins. Hope to get a few more boxes of them! The Sanguinary Guard were Matt's old Slaanesh Jump marines that he decided he no longer wanted. Being the resident Blood Angel player (well, one of them at this point) he decided that they should go to me. That brings me up to 15 of them...makes me want to play Emo-Wing (Dante and all Sanguinary Guard)

The terrain gluing was pretty simple. Just more GW terrain gorilla glued onto MDF. I think I need to watch it in the first half hour after gluing it and be a bit more attentive to getting the extra mopped up. I am going to be gluing sand and debris to the terrain pieces so it won't be too bad but there are some marshmallowy looking bits where the terrain meets the board from where the glue expanded up and out. They aren't lying when they say you only need a little of it.

Finally, the painting. I did up the company (right) shoulder pad for the 5 man BA Tac. squad. Red and a green blood drop (for 4th company) for the regular marines and black with red trim and green blood drop for the sergeant. Here are some pictures (I finished up their bases and got them glued down the other day) The blood drops are green stuff from moulds taken from DC shoulder pads. My lovely wife helped me make 5 of them. Be careful when super gluing painted models. That shit clouds up paint and you have to redo it...

 The Green is kind of washed out because of the brightness of the photo but it is pretty electric!

 The sergeants have black shoulder pads in the most recent dex.

And on a final note-when it says to shake Krylon Spray paint for 1-2 minutes before use. Do it. If not it just sprays out liquid paint and kills your mini. Simple Green to the rescue!

Shooting Stars and a Studio

The Orionids were last week so I decided to take my camera along with me to the mountain. Managed to catch a few shooting stars and a satellite! (though you can't really tell the difference between the two) Then there was an article in Astronomy on photographing the meteor showers so next time I should be able to get even more. I wasn't too far off the mark but it is apparently better to aim between the radiant and the horizon not directly at the radiant, which makes sense when you think about it. Also, next time there is a meteor shower forecast to be really great I am going to try to get the day off. Trying to do all that while working was a bit tough and I don't think I excelled at either of them that night.

Here is the best of the pics and the pre-sunrise Eastern horizon from that morning (10/22)

that white line is a shooting star! (Orion center right) 

mad coloring that morning 

Now that I lured you in with some pretty pictures read the rest of my blog you bums!

On a gaming note the camera store that I bought my new tripod at had a mini-studio for taking nice pictures of small junk. So I picked that up too! The lighting is amazing! Much less shadowing and my camera has a white balance setting specifically for the bulb so there isn't any weird coloring. Took these pictures as a test, still some kinks to work out. Mainly the lint on the black background and I think I have to take the camera off the tripod and just hold it right in the light box itself (Warhammer minis are quite small) So the photos should get nicer and nicer.

So I did quite a bit of work the other day. I spent most of the day painting but I feel like the progress was kind of slow. There was a lot of 'what next' etc. The next batch of them should be faster as it is only repeating the process.

Here is a basic tac. marine that I finished the weapon and base for. I need to fiddle with the focus and depth of field or whatever. The bolter first picture, you can tell that the focus is on the bolter and the rest of the model is slightly blurry. Great coloring and you can finally see the highlights though! Bolters done in Black with adeptus battlegrey highlight/ Gunmetal, black wash and then vallejo chainmail highlight.

The right knee pad will get a squad marking soon 

The bases are Secret Weapon Miniatures Urban Rubble 25mm resin bases. Painted Army Painter Desert Yellow, sepia wash, desert yellow dry bush and then bleach bone dry brush. Planning on eventually getting a Zazzy terrain mat so I wanted some bases that would match that for my home field.

Had to cut the shoulder pad off of the Plasma gun so that the shoulder pad would fit on when I finally got it done. Also, it is magnetized so that I can swap it out for the melta-gun that I painted.

The sergeant. His banner was freehand but I am not super impressed with it. I need to sharped up the blood drop and maybe add something to one of the quarters, it's just kind of bland right now. I was happy with how the two tone turned out though. Arms and head are magnetized (weapon swap and Red Thirst/ Sanguinor Blessing head swaps)

Striping is obviously not perfectly even but looks good from a little bit of a distance. Also, no thanks to you bums for not participating in my quick online survey last post :-(

Pistol with a scope!

Some washing and blending on the cloth and purity seals. Don't know if I am satisfied with the purple on the seals, I might do an orange, green, or yellow instead.

And finally, kind of random but here is a picture of my DC (Chaplain) Dreadnought. I painted him quite a while ago but I just wanted to show off. I love how the skulls on this one turned out. I need to remember what I did lol

Got a couple of days off next week so hopefully I can finish, completely, the 5 man squad and then get them varnished. I'll get a pic up of the completed squad when I am done!

On a final note, I know I sound like a fanboy, but Mantic is just an awesome company. They have an official podcast and while it doesn't come out too frequently, they interview the owner and the game designer. They talk about upcoming releases and their plans. Which is a huge breath of fresh air when compared to how GW operates. Obviously the size of the companies is incredibly different but still, it feels like they care about keeping their players 'in the loop'

Also, new Warpath Rules (yay, hope these are better than the first ones...)

The portents are against us

Anyone that has been in the hobby probably knows how I feel right now.

You sit down to get a little bit of hobby progress done and then bam, the gods show you that it is not time. Sometimes it happens before you sit down as well.

Was planning on cleaning up some of the blood angel iconography I had made with green stuff and seeing if I could get it on a shoulder pad or two...cut my finger within 30 seconds of picking up the exacto.

Turn off hobby light, step away from the table, and get a Guinness lol

The BAs are coming along nicely. Just need to get their weapons painted (bolters should be quick, meltagun and plasma gun not so), do up the resin bases that I got from SW minis (waiting on some desert yellow paint from the Warstore) and then do the flag on the sergeants backpack and they'll be doneski (at which point it is rinse and repeat 20 times for an army...) I will probably paint some Mantic stuff after I finish the initial 5 guy BA squad but writing all of the color schemes down as I go should help maintain the coherency (I have a bad tendency to forget what I used to paint things)

Quick internet poll; Chainswords- Solid colors or 'hazard stripe' black and yellow striping on the sword case? I'm leaning toward hazard striping...

I have decided to make my BA army the 4th company lead by Captain Castigon. The ambitious goal would be to build the whole company (6 tac squads, 2 assault squads etc) We'll see how much I like playing them once codex creep sets in and I face more and more 6th ed. codices. They might just get set aside when the new Eldar dex comes out.

Mantic stuff is coming along nicely as well. Only have the slave orcs left to put together, I was thinking on them though. I read a few comments of people complaining that the normal orcs looked just like the slave orcs. Anyone know of anywhere to by super fine chain and tiny manacles? (I'm thinking faerie bondage website or maybe jeweler) One guy online suggested subbing some of their axes for hammers as well so I may give that a go and see how it looks (lots of leftover hammers) I ordered their two player box set from Warstore. They are having an inventory clearance sale which luckily for me included the perfect Mantic stuff that I was looking for. The box has undead and orcs so I'll be able to make two units of slaves and then some bigger undead units. The awesome thing about Kings of War is that the ally rules are very lenient; a solid unit of core troops (20+) gets you a hero/monster and a war machine. That's it. So I am thinking an army of mostly Abyssal Dwarves with some undead and orc units mixed in. Niiiiice and fluffy. Gamer buddy was not too impressed by the abyssal half breeds but I really liked the models and I think I will paint them next!

Also, stop what you are doing right now and get on this! Fiddle with the icons until they turn red and your reward is multiple eargasms.

Also, yay! More old school games for cheap!

Been a little while!

I know that at this point it has probably become 'Oh, what a tool. Three posts and then he quit!' but nay fair reader, nay. I got married on the first and I have been out of my mind busy between work (currently one of the peak seasons) and applying for my special lady's 'you don't have to go home card.' Turns out it costs a butt-ton of money and requires a whole lot of rodent like scampering from place to place. Almost to a bit of a lull in the process though so that coupled with Ironman this weekend means I finally have a bit of hobby time.

So, I sit down to enjoy some plastic time and lo and behold I uncover a huge mistake; I have mis-based my Mantic Orcs! Those bastards lovely greenskins go on a 25mm base, not a 20mm (I hadn't even seen Mantic's 25mm base until I realized my mistake, though it makes sense cause that would make then useable with Warhammer) So my first hobby time in a while actually turned out to be negative hobby progress. Also, since I am an idiot and use plastic glue there isn't any way to get them off of the base short of some major work. The only consolation is that I only based 5 of them (though they were nicely based and partially painted...)

So, setting the Orcs aside I tried to put some Mantic Abyssal Dwarf Decimators together. Absolute worst model kit I have ever tried to assemble. The gun arms in no way line up with the torsos provided. Gave that up after an hour and switched to the Abyssal Dwarf Black Souls. Finally an awesome kit! It is their normal Dwarves with some upgrade helmets and weapons and stuff. Having learned from putting their basic box Dwarves together I was super careful when assembling them so that the unit of 20 is nice and pretty and ranks up really well. Quite impressed with the finished unit and hope to maybe get some painting/ basing time in with them soon. I think that they are going to look nice when finished.

Today I decided to de-clutter my space and try to finish up some of the lighter projects on my desk. I cleaned off some sprues and then finished putting the tracks on my 40k Ork Half-trakk from Forge World. Man that thing is going to look awesome fully assembled and carrying around a big unit of Nobs! Can't wait to get it on the table. I just have to finish the basic trukk bits (the FW stuff is all done) and then she'll be ready. Although, since it is FW, there is some minor heating/shaping to be done on the resin since the trakk and frame didn't go together quite flush causing the whole thing to tilt to one side a bit but that is nothing that some hot water and patience can not take care of.

Then on to some painting. Got the fiery orange final highlight done on the bodies of the 5 man tac squad I have been working on. The Wargamer Insane Detail Brush is just amazing. Next is highlighting the black areas and then painting the gubbins, after that they get hit with the red wash. I threw away my makeshift picture studio in favor of building a slightly better one in the near future so none today but I'll try to get some pictures up shortly.

Also, unless you hate having a lot of fun for a little cash you need to get in on this! (soon!)

No Photos (boring I know) UPDATE: I lied

Sorry for the lack of photos today. The only real progress I made on the BA tac. squad was the first layer of blazing orange highlighting which, while creating a delightful extra level of color on the armor plates, does not show up in photos well. Such fine detailing on even just 5 models is enough to give me a neck ache so I am going to do the final body highlight maybe Friday morning. That orange is much brighter (more yellow) so will show up in pictures pretty well. Also, when the two are blended with a was the armor almost looks like it is on fire :-) Once the bodies are all done then the arms and a shoulder pad get taken care of. And then finally gluing!

I wasn't done hobbying though so I put together 5 more of my Mantic Orc Slaves. I am being really careful this time around because the Mantic models can be a bitch to line up if they are not put together well. I went in on their Kickstarter back in June so I have a mess of Abyssal Dwarves to put together. I loved how my Abyssal Dwarf Berserkers turned out so that kind of motivated me. Also, for the first time in a long time I put some effort into basing them. This is extra important for Kings of War because their ally rules are really permissive. You need a solid unifying theme, like same bases, to make your army look like a cohesive unit. Storyline-wise the ADs come from a wasteland so I went with a simple desert theme; just some sand and browns. Ah what the hell, here you go.

5 Berserkers

Typical berserker

Unit Champion

Also, on a side note, here's a post from today about how I feel about the new Chaos dex. Don't mind the nerd rage lol

This seems to be a fairly common opinion so I am definitely in the minority but I totally disagree with this guy. I am glad they melded some clearly warped/ daemonic looking stuff into their dex. They've been phasing daemons out of the chaos dex for years now and if this guy had his way the dex would be pre-heresy marines+spikes+ok to ally with daemons (snore) There are already enough variants on the standard marine dex. See; Templars (marines+scout allies) DA (marines+all bike or termy) Wolves (marines+CSM) BA (marines+MyLittlePony) There doesn't also need to be CSM (marines+auto cannon heavy weapon troops+big transports) 
If you read the fluff behind the drakes they are the CSM fighter jet (that was posted) + 10,000 years in the warp. Even mentions that it has a shriveled little pilot inside of it. Likewise with the fiends, mechanical constructs that effectively come to life. I would have thought that you addition of the Warpsmith would soften the blow but I guess not. 
In short, total fan of the change in direction as far as their aesthetic and can't wait to see some big monsters on the table! 

Here is the original article that spurred the comment; http://sepulchreofheroes.blogspot.com/2012/09/no-matter-how-good-csm-is-gw-still-made.html

Touch Up and Helmets

Next up I cleaned up the washing and finished the helmets. The washes were rather easy just a coat (sometimes two) of watered down V Blood Red and that covered up the SWM Ruby ink rather nicely (as opposed to a minimum of 2, usually 3 to get clean cover over GW Devlan Mud) Then the helmets I just took out through all the steps; cleaned them up, then the two light oranges for highlights and a SWM red wash to tie it all together.

Also, I took some white enamel spray paint to a tissue box to act as a backdrop for pictures. I think the result turned out quite nice. Taking pictures of the helmet was tough though. There is a limit even for a macro lens. I also have to think about the lighting situation as well. Maybe order myself one of those little mini studios. Natural sunlight looks nice but then I can only take pictures at a very certain time of day when it is coming through the window and then only at certain angles cause it creates shadows.

On a side note, friggin' stoked about the new Chaos 'Dex. I don't think that I'll be playing a Chaos army but the book looks like it is going to be amazing! They are definitely taking them in a different direction aesthetically. With the addition of the warp-smith and the new constructs it feels less like just marines that are lost and more like they are doing their own thing in the Eye of Terror. I wonder how the daemon tie-ins are going to work though. I miss the old black chaos dex where daemons and marines were mixed in. It had such a solid chaos legion feel as well, less generic. Rumor has it you'll be able to make legion specific armies in this as well but it'll require taking a special character as an HQ. Friggin' hate special characters. I wish they would just make regular HQs super modifiable.

Anyway, here are the pics,

unhighlighted touched up marine body

finished helmet from side (still kind of blurry despite macro lens...)

top view of helmet

Hopefully I'll be able to start getting the bodies highlighted this weekend. Got all excited about the helmets and then realized they are the last thing that gets done. Can't put them on the models until the bodies arms and weapons are done to make sure they aren't looking off in some crazy direction....

Basecoat and wash on some BAs (and a 1750 game)

A few of us Kona gamers have decided to start working towards a pretty ambitious campaign. In that spirit i've decided to start seriously working on my Blood Angels and to try to do some documenting of it.

I spent the morning putting the base red on a 5 man BA tac squad (part of what will be a 10 man squad) It is so much easier to paint red on red rather than trying to start from a black or white primer. The Army Painter spray primers are truly a gift.

Looks like my final color scheme for my BAs is going to be; 

(V=Vallejo, SM=Secret Weapon Miniatures, GW= Games Workshop, AP=Army Painter)

Krylon Plastics White > AP Blood Red > V Blood Red> SM Ruby Wash> V Blood red touch up> V Blazing Orange highlight> V Fiery Orange extreme highlight> SM red wash

Wow, that actually seems like a lot of steps when I write it out...probably never want to paint red again after these 5 guys. It looks nice and solid on the test model I did though so hopefully I can keep it going. 

Here are the 5 guys after being washed but before being cleaned up. Sorry about the shitty quality, I'll use my camera and figure out the lighting in the future.

After looking at some of the examples in the dex I decided to paint some squad markings on the right knee pads. Just the initial coat of yellow, it'll be brighter with a marking on it later.

And here is a slightly closer shot just to show how well the Ruby shades the recesses.










I tried GW's Carroburg Crimson as well, and while it looks similar in the bottle I wasn't impressed with it's darkness after drying. Had to use two coats to get the same kind of shading in the recesses. Though, to be fair, it is much easier to touch up afterwords since it is not as dark.

On an unrelated note, make sure to clean your models properly kids. Got well into painting when I realized that I have a wiiicked mold line on the inner leg of a few of the models. There were others that I had gotten rid of as well, but I missed those. Got this sprue of marines from a buddy but it must have been a bad batch cause they are covered with this crap. Argh.

On the gaming side of things I got in a game against my buddy Matt. Orks vs. Space Wolves. Every time I fight against them I am re-astounded by just how awesome the Thunder Wolves models are. Just pure awesome. Matt puts lots of time into the models poses and has sculpted resin bases so everything gets tied in together nicely. Excellent looking army all around. the game went pretty smoothly without too many rules issues (we still haven't gotten that many 6th ed. games in) It came down to a few important rolls but the Orks pulled it off (sheerly by number of troops squads) A few highlights were Long Fangs hitting 21 orks with a missile volley and then wounding 19, a unit of shoota boyz overwatch blasting the last wound off of a Wolf Lord (dakka dakka dakka), Rune Priest sniping a Nob with Jaws and a boyz squad Denying the Witch twice in a row. Good times.