Canal Interlude

Looks like the hard work is now done, bar a bit of filling and sanding:

As long as the MDF doesn't warp the canals can be filled in as desired:

Having done all that, and being happy with how it turned out, I now find myself with a bit of a mental block.

How to finish it? I have plenty of buildings in a modern, western or futuristic style (Victorian next I think!) which will certainly fit on the board and I'd like it to be useful for more than one game system. But I can't think of any way to finish the board in style that will allow the creation of a dockside town in all of those different genres.

All I have so far is a can of black and a can of grey spray paint.

Plus I was right about the weight. It's transportable, just, but it certainly ain't no bendy-board!

Canal Gaming Board, Part II

Managed to spend a bit more time on the board over the weekend. Here you can see a raised section and a completed canal.

The raised sections are all on stilts - plugs of dowel just under 2 inches high. This makes the height from top to bottom of the canals as close to 2 inches as makes no difference. In fact it's a little more as I intend to put a thin water layer at the bottom of those canals. 

The rest of the time was spent filling the sides of the canals with strips of MDF and running a nicer strip of wood around the edges. 

Canal Gaming Board

Finally made a start on the canal board for Malifaux and Infinity:

So that's one board cut to provide the canals and a single 4' x 4' board underneath. Next step is to raise the cut boards on dowel rods to make the canals 2" deep.

I do have some concerns about just how heavy this will end up being though!

Teddy!

The first figure in the expansion of my Neverborn. 

Teddy!

I'm really pleased with how he turned out. I find I enjoy painting Malifaux figures over many of the others I've done over the years. 

Mechanicum Thallax Unit

I've always wanted to create a Mechanicum force. In the back of my mind I imagined it would be scratch built and modified models running as space marines, probably with contemptors since I always thought they'd make nice Legio Cybernetica constructs. That's why my first two got painted red. 

So when GW finally created an Army List in their expensive set of Horus Heresy books it was time to eBay the Imperial Fists, buy the books (because they're so pretty!) and take the plunge. The start point arrived earlier this week. 

I have to admit that, sadly, it's far better than anything I could have created. But also it fits with what I had in mind. I'm looking forward to painting them up, if not actually playing a game with them. I'll lose. I always do. 

All Things Zombie

Having noticed that this game had just come back in to stock at iguk.co.uk I decided to pick up a copy. It's much the same rule set as the original ATZ only with cardboard tokens so you can get started immediately without hundreds of zombie miniatures. Also you get a couple of double-sided boards divided into hexes for movement. Overall the boards and tokens are good quality, although the game cards are a little cheap. I think they might start to show wear after regular use. The details on the board are good and we found the layout of buildings and terrain often (but not always!) made for good escape routes - the hallmark of any good zombie adventure. It's a co-operative game. All of the players are on the same side and the game mechanics take care of the zombies' actions. Having said that, I believe there is a competitive mode of play somewhere in the rules also.

Adventures in Malifaux - Lilith Crew

The bulk of my Lilith crew is now completed and ready to go. I've really enjoyed painting each of these guys and it's been a big change from the usual futuristic armour I'm used to. Lots of flesh and material as opposed to metal and guns.

Chaos Decimator Daemon Engine - Part 2

Well the rusting, flaking paint job kind of worked. I think it may not of helped that it didn't show up as well as it might underneath the main colour I ended up applying. Yes, I did go with purple. Partly because I couldn't think of a better idea for my Chaos colour scheme. Red and black is so last year.

Support Boyes in the North East!

Apparently Boyes stocks of hobby products are still an experiment. And it amazes me that they don't show Vallejo on their flyers!

http://www.boyes.co.uk/home/home_client_img/hobby.pdf

I suppose it doesn't help if you have no idea about how people find things on the web. Guess what - IF IT'S AN IMAGE GOOGLE CANNOT INDEX IT AND NO-ONE WILL FIND YOU!

So, I'm going to do my bit and they can pay me the SEO fees later...

The Chaos Decimator Daemon Engine

Don't ask me why I bought it, I don't even play chaos! I guess I'm just a sucker for a pretty model, and I really like dreads even if I'm not that big a fan of the general design of the other mecha in the 40k universe. The tanks are a bit naff in my opinion. Everything just seems a bit chibi, if that makes sense! Plus I'm unlikely to be playing it ever at this rate, so it's purely eye candy.

But, as I said, I do like a nice walking suit of armour and when ForgeWorld released the Decimator Daemon Engine I ordered it the next time I was down in Nottingham.

So I wanted to do something different with the paint job and I thought a chipped paint finish would be a good idea. A bit of youtube research on the hair-spray technique later and I had him all rusted up.

Meet the Nephilims

I'd be lying if I said I hadn't gone off playing 40k in recent months. I think I got a bit disenchanted with the idea that certain armies were just considered unplayable and other armies had a whole load of cool figures that you'd be considered mad for fielding. Power gaming and math-hammer seem to be the priority over just playing what is, ultimately, a board game with friends. If you're supposed to look up the best lists on the internet it's no longer much of a game.

So, I thought I'd diversify. I've tried before but few people see to want to play much besides 40k and fantasy so it doesn't get far. However, we have a small, but growing, group of Malifaux players at the club now and they were more than happy to run a couple of demo games. I must admit I was hooked by the insanity of it all.

So, one thing leads to another and I decided to start out with a Lilith crew, the first painted figures being a full set of Nephilim.

Contemptor Dreadnought - Double Team

The second of my planned three Contemptors (don't ask me why three, I don't actually know) is now complete:

Imperial Fist Librarian

After much failure using Lysander as a general I eventually decided to try a librarian. Apparently a librarian is always a good idea to have around anyway.

Most of all though I really like the model. It's probably the most time I've spent on a paint job so far, and the first time I've actually tried to stick to the techniques described by much better painters than me. Overall I'm very happy with how he turned out.

"Hang on, I'm not the one with the hammer and big-ass shield here!"

Frontline Gamer: Time for another prize draw...

Blimey, the man's just givvin' 'em away...

Frontline Gamer: Time for another prize draw...:                Before I get into the specifics of the next prize I'd like to make a public service announcement if I could. You see a f...

Frontline Gamer: 700 followers, time for the Blood Maw Vore...

Front line gamer is offering this rather wonderful BaneLegions Blood Maw as a prize, just for posting a comment on his site! What a guy...

Frontline Gamer: 700 followers, time for the Blood Maw Vore...:        Right, I've been able to get things back to something resembling a kind of normality on this Blog after the last few prize givea...

Contemptor Pattern Dreadnought Episode 2

Contemptor Pattern Dreadnought. Now in red!

I've pretty much put all other gaming projects aside now to paint the Contemptor Dread. I might even have given up on the Dwarfs altogether, but that's another story! It seemed a bit of a shame to just leave the dread in a drawer when it's such a nice model. So over the last couple of days I had a go at doing a half-decent job. Combined with that I'd picked up sets 1 and 3 of the Vallejo pigments and I was desperate to ruin a model as soon as possible. I realise that's a bit of a conflict, wanting to do a decent job and deliberately trying something new on it, but that's just the way I roll...

I'm particularly happy with the base! I have no idea what that stuff is oozing out of the pipe, and I guess it doesn't really matter. The pigments are actually great fun to use. I think it fits nicely with my desire to make things look like they have actually been in a fight. I wanted this guy to look like he'd kicked and punched a few walls on the way to the front. The oil and rust effects look a little better from a distance, but I think he looks used, yet carefully maintained between scraps!

This could be the start of a Legio Cybernetica force, I just haven't worked out the fluff yet. Plus they don't have robots in 40k any more, which is a bit crap!

All in all I'm quite happy with him, and since Forgeworld released a bunch of extra weapons for them just recently I can see myself picking up one or two more. I think I'll call them Babydoll, Sweet Pea and Rocket...

Contemptor Pattern Dreadnought

All the bits for my contemptor pattern dreadnought finally arrived after Forgeworld kindly shipped me the missing shoulders! So today I put him together:

The quality was pretty good. Not too much flash, went together easily enough and only a few small bubbles to fill in. One slight issue is the fact that the shoulders come with the body rather than the arms. The simplest way to magnetise the arms is at the shoulder as I have done here:

But since you only get a set of shoulders when you buy the whole body there's a problem should you buy any new arms with the intention of magnetising them for swapping. You're missing the shoulders for your spare weapon arms. I'm not sure if this is a deliberate oversight on the part of GW. If it is then it seems a bit of an insult to customers. You could try and magnetise lower down the arm, but I think it would be a lot harder to pull off successfully.

Anyway, since there are no other contemptor pattern weapon arms at the moment it's not such an issue! I do want to try and convert a couple of autocannon arms for him at some point though.

My next decision is the colour scheme. I really want to paint him red, but don't fancy starting another space marine army to put him in! I'll have to come up with some fluff...

Imperial Fist Scouts

When I needed to make up a few point in my 2000 point list I thought I may as well add another scoring unit. I really like the sniper scouts too so I spent a fair bit of time painting them and thought I'd at least give them proper camo cloaks.

It turns out I perhaps shouldn't have made them quite so camouflaged. One game I left them standing in the trees for the first three turns. They merged in to the scenery just a little too well!

Imperial Fist Devastators

These guys have turned out to be one of my most effective units. Four missile launchers can be applied to most any situation.

The biggest problem is GWs reluctance to provide you with enough missile launchers in any of the kits! I was one short until I found this guy in a box in the loft:

He's just so sweet! Must be over 20 years old. They certainly don't make them like that any more...fortunately, some might say.

Imperial Fist Tactical Squads

I really don't get on that well with my space marine tactical squads. I don't think anyone does. You put them in a rhino and try really hard not to take them out or let them get shot at. My 2000 point list currently has two squads and for simplicity they are both the same with lascannon, meltagun and combi-melta/power-fist on the sergeant. Quite effective in a range of situations - if I didn't have to keep them safe for taking objectives!