DA Company Master Finished (Finally)

In between building and converting miniatures for my new Chaos army, I've been working on some of my projects that have been on the bench for a while now. So I finally have this guy done, I'm reasonably happy with the way he has come out, I may in time go back and paint the cloak a different colour to the robes to add a little contrast.

I admit I'm a little short on content today so I'll throw in a sneak peak at my Traitor Guard allies for the CSM.

Until next time .......

Mark

My hobby mojo ........ IT'S BACK!!!

Mojo

As the title suggests my desire to build, paint, and play is back after a bit of an extended hiatus. Over the last fortnight we have started playing a 6e City Fight campaign at the local club, and it's really kickstarted my love for the hobby, the new Chaos Codex may have had something to do with it as well.

With the campaign starting off at only 750pts, I decided to start a new army. The new Release of the new Chaos Codex made the choice easy, I've been toying with the idea of starting a Chaos army for a couple of years, and this seemed like the perfect time to start one. While I like to win as much as the next gamer, at the moment I'm not overly concerned with the overall combat effectiveness of the army and it will be growing naturally over the course of the campaign as I build a narrative around the events that play out on the battlefield and across the city of Vogen as a whole.

Vogen

The way things stand at the moment my Khorneate warband is lead by a hulking brute in Terminator Armour that just happens to be an expert on all things stealthy, having rolled up the Master of Deception Warlord Trait, we had the option of keeping our initial trait across the campaign if we stuck with the same force. The way the campaign is being run it is allowing me to run this initial force as a harrying force, impeding the movement of the forces of Order and causing mayhem behind enemy lines, and then allowing me to try out a couple of different lists, as the forces of Destruction try and batter the city into submission.

Some of the players in the campaign have been writing some short stories around the exploits of their forces and posting them up on the clubs forum, the work by Tyranidlord are well worth a read.

So, now onto the painting;

I got keen the other evening and built and mostly painted this little guy in a single sitting, probably not my brightest moment as I hadn't done a test mini for the colour scheme yet, but he seems to have come out okay. He will be my Kharn counts as, he needs to be something special with an axe that big.

Counts as Kharn

I've started converting a squad of Obliterators as well, while I quite like the current miniatures I just can't justify the AU$83 for the fine cast box at the moment, and hey mine will have a nice cartoony charm.

Obliterators WIP 1

Until next time (which will hopefully be soon) .......


Mark

Mark:Time to start winning.

Those of you who have been following Project Circle have probably noticed that things have been a little quiet over the last month or so. Truth be told I have been grappling with a couple of issues in the real world. The beginning of August saw me reach my 12 month anniversary of being made redundant and as a result unemployed, this sent my depression/anxiety into overdrive and I ended up in a very dark place. The mother of all panic attacks last weekend prompted me to seek professional help once again, and I'm now on the way back up, swallowing my pride, taking antidepressants, started a new job, and heading back to the shrink. I was initially diagnosed around 3 and a half years ago, and I hadn't realized just how far I'd fallen after some early progress. My intention isn't to burden you with my problems and I normally try to avoid talking about the "real world" here on the blog, but this is something that I needed to get off my chest, and those of you have hung around deserve an explanation in regards to my absence.

OK all done with the serious stuff, I think. For obvious reasons I haven't done a whole lot of hobby related activities over the last couple of weeks but I did manage to get this guy done. He is a little shinny due to the fact that I used the more robust brush on varnish, that isn't quite as matt as it's label suggests so that the paint job will stand up to the rigors of Mordheim and Role Play, as elves with two-hand swords seem to be rather popular with my local players.

I did keep up with running the RP group, not something that I'd recommend while being as depressed as I was. Between putting yourself in the spotlight and the antics of players the nights don't end well, but it did mean that I was socializing which helped even if only a little. As far as the campaign goes the Pirate themed campaign I mentioned a wile ago ended with a TPK, and we have now turned our attention to the Land of Cheliax, a nation ruled by Despots and Devil binders. Running a campaign in an area where people disappear for relatively minor transgressions, with a party that ignores the law and goes out of the way to frustrate the authorities is a challenge. I'm not sure they appreciate just how much attention they have on themselves at the moment, but it should be entertaining over the next couple of sessions.

On the wargaming front I picked up some Infinity miniatures in the form of a little retail therapy, and had my first game last weekend (pre-panic attack) against Jamie from Toy Soldiers, the force that he threw up against me can be found here. I had the most fun I've had rolling the bones in a long time, Jamie as always was an awesome opponent, but the game just seemed to click with me and there is just something about rolling d20's. I'm running Pan Oceania: Military Orders and my 200pt force consists of Gabriele de Fersen and four Magister Knights, 2 with AP CCW, 1 with light shotgun and, 1 armed with a missile launcher (20" scatter FTW). After popping a SAS trooper with a panzerfaust on the first turn and conjuring images of Iron Man's mini rocket from the first movie I was sold. Of course the fact that the final turn of the game came down to our Lieutenant's both ready to fall over at the hint of a strong breeze helped as well. I'll have my revenge on Wallace next time.

Next Time Wallace, Next Time.

Happy Gaming.

Mark

Mark: Illness, Injury, Reminisance, and Insperation

Over the course of the last couple of weeks things really havn't gone acording to plan. After spending a night playing Pathfinder Role Play with a couple of friends who were a little under the weather and I ended up contracting whatever vile contagen they were carrying. I knew that it was a risk but, I didn't have the heart to ask them to leave it's a 50km drive to my place for them.

After recovering from my malady, the owners of the house I'm renting decided to replace the front fence, that was to be honest being held up by little more than the front garden. And being the nice chap that I am, I offered to help, ignoring the fact that I had injured myself earlier that day and started digging holes for the new fence posts, blessedly the timber delivery was a day late and it gave my a day to recuperate before aggravating the injury concreting the new posts into the ground, and so on and so forth until the fence was finished. And of course being the proud (or stupid) Australian man that I am, I didn't make a single mention of my injury the entire time. Of course slamming my finger in the door so hard that the corner of the door actually cut my finger wasn't an enjoyable experience either.

Sometimes I  think I make Odie look smart.

And so ends my long winded and slightly depressing reason as to why I haven't been posing and painting progress reports recently and why I missed what should have been Project Ultramarines #3 last weekend.

But it wasn't all misery and pain though, because of the fact that frustration reduces my attention span to that of an ADHD goldfish I found myself going through all manner things I haven't been through for some time (some boxes should never be opened) which led me to the big brown box of books, so named because it's a big brown box filled with all of the Rule, Source and Army books from 4th through 6th edition Warhammer. This took me on a lovely trip down memory lane, bring back memories of my poor wood elves being torn apart by 10+ attack Chaos Lords on Chaos Dragons, and nigh unkillable 1000pt Slann Mage Lords, come to think of it those Slann's all had multiple ward saves was that even legal.

The real gem's were at the bottom of the box, one each of the four original mono god volumes of Liber Chaotica. These were given to me by a friend shortly before I moved and I completely forgot that I had them. I've always wanted to build a Chaos Army for 40k but I've struggled to find direction, there are just so many diverse themes that to choose from that I've never been able to settle on any. But after flicking through the Liber Chaotica's and reading this post from Do You Have A Flag? I think that I have found some direction. It's all still just a mess of Idea's at the moment but it will be centered around a group of Fallen Angles, which will work nicely with my Dark Angles thematically.


My first project for the army will be to make a Defiler using the hull of a Leman Russ as a starting point and have it come out some where between this Khorne engine of destruction sketch from Leiber Chaotica (to the left) and an AT-TE walker from Star Wars: Clone Wars. (below Left)

Now before I finish I want to bring your attention to Montie Cook's A+ Campaign. I'll be joining in and trying to make the internet a nicer place to play, at least for the month of August.
 










Until next time .......

Mark

Mark: Project Ultramarines #3

I have the first group of Ultramarines ready for the water slide transfers  to be applied. I'm going to hold off until I have the next batch finished so I can do the whole squad at once, fingers crossed for next week.

Trev from Triple Helix has donated some of his old and now unused Salamanders to the cause, they are currently soaking in Simple Green. I didn't do a head count before sealing them in the container but I believe that there should be enough for at least another two squads with heavy and special weapons. He handed them to me in one of his old army cases but I didn't think to ask if he is donating that as well, so I'll confirm this along with numbers and weapon load outs next week.

Until next time .......

Mark

Travis: Harad Crew

Hello fellow gamers, Travis here with not much to report. I'm back to Uni so I Haven't played any games, I painted a little and saw Spiderman that was my week.

Like i promised I've been working on a Mumak for my Harad army and i might have finished it but my Watcher turned up in the post and the inner child inside took over and i spent nearly a whole day building that. (Which is an awesome model)

So progress on the Mumak travels well, I'm not the kind to show WIP shots so here is a picture of 4 of the Mumak's crew painted and ready to ride.

I decided to use the old Suladan model to represent my Mahud commander, having a strong Harad theme means i have nobody tribal looking and the Mahud Commander would have stood out a little.

Da Crew

 
 Most LoTR players will tell you a Mumak is not worth its points, but how could you pass it up its so big and powerful, but they all say stuff like one bad courage test will send it scampering in the wrong direction. So to counter that I'm putting a War Horn in the Howdah to give the army +1 Courage and in the Howdah means if he is in combat I've already lost the Mumak. Problem solved right? Anyway the Hornblower is Finecast and the box i got is great all 4 of the Command models are in perfect shape and will look awesome once painted.

Thats is for this week, I'll get stuck into the Mumak at Paint night this week and see how we go.

Mark: Project Ultramarines #2

I'll be honest I've been doing more than my fair share of procrastinating this week, and combined with the weather making undercoating difficult I didn't get a great deal of painting done this week. So my progress is merely a group of 5 black and blue Marines. I'm planing on getting in a couple solid painting sessions early next week in the hope of getting this batch finished and the next at least started.



I did manage to break intense procrastination for a couple of minutes and get a little more sculpting done early in the week.

Antman donated an AOBR Terminator Squad that he had laying around, so I'll be adding them to the squad I painted in April. I have a spare terminator that came with the AOBR release White Dwarf and a couple of Assault Cannons that I'll be adding to the squad. This will mean that whoever ends up with the the army will be able to have two squads of five or a single squad of ten.

Until next time .......

Mark

Mark: My First Commission

Trev form over at Triple Helix asked me to sculpt a couple of Space Marine shoulder pads that he could use to represent Omega Marines and Sons of Orar in his Deathwatch army. I'm glad that I'm able to help him out with this slow burn project.

I have fond memories of facing up against his Deathwatch from across the table from as far back as 3rd edition, and I'm looking forward to lining up against them again in the future.

Not much has been happening on other hobby fronts Project Ultramarines, procrastination and indecision have been taking up most of my hobby time of late and of course Queensland's beautiful weather has made it difficult to get anything new undercoated over the last couple of weeks.

A pretty consistent view for a couple of weeks now

 Of course it hasn't all been doom and gloom of late, a small package arrived the other day with some new basing materials and some Army Painter paints. From what little I've used so far I'm really liking the Army Painter paints. I picked up the Soft Tone Ink at the same time, I'm not sure why but I was under the impression that it would make a good Gryphon Sepia replacement, but it seams that I was wrong.

Yeah, just a little off ;)

 While it isn't what I was looking for, it's almost an exact match for the mix I use for turning silver into a base for gold or bronze.

I'm told these guy's are better to face off against as status than Paladins

I did want to try the Army Painter Dark and Strong Tone ink's as well but they were both out of stock when I placed the order.



Until next time .......

Mark

Travis: A Reason not to Live in Middle Earth

Middle Earth is a scary place to live, the free people are fighting against all sorts of ancient evils; and if not for Elves and epic Heroes the Good Guys wouldn't stand a chance. This is very apparent in the minis, as my armies grow my good guys gets more horses and guys running around trying to hit things with a sword. My evil forces have recently acquired some large beasties. I'm working on a Mumak, ordered a Watcher and present to you what is described as Cirith Ungol's most Ancient Evil.

Give me a Hug!

Who Would Win?  The Hobbits apparently...

The model is of course Shelob, i found the model fairly difficult to build, but once completed and painted i would have to say she is my favorite GW Spider. In the game she doesn't really accomplish much. Just pounces around tormenting troops. A Solid hero should see her scuttling off the board.

I also managed to finish the Walking version of Suladan, so when his horse is inevitably shot out from under him i have model to use.

Like i said earlier I'm working on a Mumak, I'll try to finish it this week but it is a big model.

Mark: Project Ultramarines #1

Okay I know this isn't Saturday but I had some unforeseen technical issues and wasn't able to get the post done last night. In the past week I've managed to scrape together a Tactical Squad and sculpt the Ultramarines icon onto their shoulders. Midway throught he process I switched from GW to Kneadatite green stuff which has different properties, and in the photo's I could see a gouple of mistakes I made with the first couple I did with the Kneadatite. So I'm aiming to get them fixed up and ready to start painting on Monday.

After getting my head around using the Kneadatite I found that it was a great deal easier to work with on a smaller scale than GW's, so I decided to start experimenting.

Other than a couple of comments regarding my sanity or perhaps lack there of, the response from the clubs members has been positive and they've gotten behind the project. A couple members have offered to donate miniatures to the cause and I'm looking forward to seeing what they will add to the project. 

Until next time .......

Mark

Travis: Return of the Haradrim

Hey all, its been a while. When i started i planned to update every week but that didn't account for Diablo 3.
But now Diablo is out of my system, i played it quite thoroughly and must say i have quite enjoyed going back to Tristam. But i haven't found myself drawn to it for nearly a week which has given me time to sit down and get some stuff painted.

This week ive been building a Mumak for my Harad list, its looking quite awesome and it is a really big model. Here is a pic of it squaring off against an Arachnarok.

 To lead my Harad list ive painted up Suladan as my army general. I'm gonna use him on a horse leading those Haradrim Raiders i started a few weeks ago. Suladan is a Harad king who found the sword of an ancient Harad leader and took it and his title and become the Serpent Lord. In the novels Theoden killed him on the Pelennor fields. In the minis he is a good leader with "lord" level stats.

 

And to follow the Serpent Lord is some Raiders, they are the cheapest cavalry in the game. They will stand in the way of arrows and probably die against any foe who isn't a Hobbit. But someones gotta stop those insidious Hobbits. Right?

 

Also a couple of games have been played, but only one of note. Mark and i recreated the Mines of Moria scenario. The game ended in a draw but the Cave Troll managed to kill Legolas, which was a moral victory for the forces of Moria.

Okay on to next weeks endeavor...

Mark: Project Ultramarines - Introductions

With all the excitement around the release of sixth edition 40k I’ve gone and spent my day looking over the new rules, instead of writing the quality post you deserve and well anything else I was supposed to do today if I’m completely honest.

So once my eyes uncross and my word fu returns I’ll give you a more complete run down of what I’m doing with this new project and why, but for now here’s a quick introduction to Project Ultramarines. In short I’m building, converting, sculpting and, painting an Ultramarines army that I will be donating to my local club Kingaroy Wargamers, to give away. I’m hoping that it will be used as part of a recruitment drive that we will be running over the next couple of months.

I’ll be using the AOBR terminators I painted a while ago as a starting point, from here I have only a couple of guide lines to follow;

• The completed force needs to be a game legal force of at least 1000 points, but I’m hoping to get something a little closer to 1500 points completed.
• I can’t purchase any new miniatures for this project; I have to rely on what is donated by the other club members and what I can pull together from my own collection.
• At bear minimum each miniature needs the Ultramarines icon sculpted onto their relevant shoulder pad, I’ll be doing more if time permits.
• I have to have all of this finished by Christmas

I’ll be posting my progress of a Saturday as my first regular feature here on the blog, I hope you enjoy the ride.

Until next time …….

Mark

Mark: Is a Change Really as Good as a Holiday?

No this isn't another post about the impending release of Warhammer 40,000's 6th edition it's about a couple of changes here on the blog.

Firstly, I've noticed a recent up swing in the number of people from non-English speaking nations particularly from Russia, Brazil, and Colombia. So I've added the Google translate gadget to the blog, I know its not the most accurate translation system out there but I'm hoping that you will find it helpful.

Secondly, we've had another of our local gamers join us here in the blogsphere so I would like to welcome Antman to our wonderful little world of blogging, and give his blog Red Scar Gaming a bit of a plug. With Antman joining myself and Travis, Trev over at Triple Helix and Mr JShirlaw at Toy Soldiers, along with a couple of more of our clubs members thinking about starting blog of their own. I've decided add a third blog roll called Kingaroy Warbloggers to showcase and hopefully increase traffic to their blogs.

And lastly, another thing I intend to do myself is to make my posting a little less sporadic and I'll be starting a regular feature that I'll be posting of a weekend, I'm currently working a couple of thing out for this as yet unannounced project, but I will endeavour to get the first post up this coming Saturday.

If there is anything that you would like to see me do here or if you have any tips on how I can improve on anything I am currently doing please leave a comment below, I'm still very much in the learning phase as far as my blogging goes and I value any feedback I receive.

Until next time .......

Mark

Mark: A Little Progress

I haven't done a great deal of work on the hobby front as both time and motivation have been in short supply. I have put some high lights onto the Dark Angles Company Master that I started a while ago, and I've started building/converting another Librarian for the Dark Angles.

Truth be told I was going to use this guy as a Mephison counts as, but it just felt wrong using my Dark Angles as Blood Angles. I'd like a Blood Angles Army but I think I'll wait until I get my head around the 6th edition rules, and build them from the ground up for the new edition.

Until next time .......

Mark

Mark: 40k Doubles Wrap Up

It's been an odd week and I haven't had a great deal of time to do much with my toy soldiers beyond playing in the club doubles tournament last Monday against the Darling Downs Gamers Club in Toowoomba.
I have to confess to the gratest sin a Space Marine player can commit, I ran my Dark Angles with a codex other than their own. Blood Angles to be precise, and I humbly beg your forgiveness.

The List I ran was;

Librarian with Might of Heroes and Unleash Rage

Sanguinary Priest with Jump Pack

5 Man Assault Squad with no Jump Packs with a Power Fist and Melta Gun in a Razorback with Heavy Bolters

10 Man Assault Squad with 2x Melta Guns and Power Fist

5 Man Devistator Squad with 4x Missile Launchers in a Razorback with Heavy Bolters

This rounded out my 750 point completely

I was teamed up with our local Tyranid player who ran a CC based army that either deep struck or scouted on from the flanks which left me feeling that I might be a little bit exposed on the first couple of turns, but thankfully luck was on my side at least for the first game.

Game 1 was against Dark Eldar and Orks, with Spearhead deployment and Capture and Control the mission, it was decided to place the objectives in the center of the unoccupied quarters to make things a little more exciting. Luck was very much on our side in this game with all of the Tyranids coming on in turn 2 and every gamble be made coming out in our favour. I was lucky and took out the 2 Ravagers with a single glancing hit to each on turn 2 and then the Venom in the same manner later in the game. The void Raven that was hunting my smaller Assault Squad and Librarian was dispatched in combat by a unit of Genestealers which allowd me to claim one of the objectives and on the other flank the Orks which included Gazzy and Snickrot were dealt with by a Winged Hive Tyrant backed up by my other Assault Squad (which did to a man) giving us a 0-1 victory.

In game 2 we were up against an Eldar and Necron Alliance, With Dawn of War and Kill Points the order of the day. This was the complete opposite of game 1, while we fought valiantly we didn't have a miniature left on the table at the end of turn 6. I spent the first couple of turns driving my Librarian around in the Razorback  trying in vane to shut down some of Eldrad's psychic might with my psychic hood. My 10 man assault squad with attached Sanguinary Priest were fought to a stand still by a unit of Immortals which allowed the Autarch on jetbike to come in and finish them off, and then plow headlong into the other assault squad and Librarian where he promptly lost his soul at the end of a force weapon (yay for minor victories). In the end we had dispatched 2 of the 3 units of Immortals an Annihilation Barge a, unit of Scarabs and, the Autarch. We were beaten by the better generals I won't take that away from them but still had a thoroughly enjoyable time.

Our other team came out with a win and a loss as well which left the clubs drawn at two wins apiece, a rematch will be held in Kingaroy a little later in the year. With a some luck the home field will give us a little advantage (not having a 2 hour drive before the games start is going to help) and we will be able to come away with the overall victory.

Trev from over at Triple Helix was on the other team we took down and you can find his tournament wrap up here.

Until next time .......

Mark

Mark: WIP Dark Angel Company Master

WIP Company Master

 Just a quick one tonight, it's a work in progress shot of the Dark Angles Company Master I was planing on using in Mondays doubles tournament in Toowoomba. Unfortunately when I pulled one of my predators out of storage it was in less than perfect condition, and I don't have enough time between now and the tournament to get it repaired and repainted. As a consequence my list needed to be redone and the Company Master isn't needed anymore, so I'll have to put him aside for the time being which it a shame I was enjoying painting him.

Until next time .......

Mark

Mark: You know I really can't think of a title.

Over the last couple of weeks I've been looking over the various pieces of legislation regarding starting and running a small business, which has put a bit of a dampener on my hobby mojo or to be more precise my anything fun mojo, hence my lack of posting. Legal documents are really boring, I don't know how people can make a living pouring through them and remain sane.

To try and get back into painting I poured over my mountain of unpainted miniatures and started painting whatever took my fancy and pushed some paint around, what follows are the results.

Reaper Gray Maiden

Reaper Rogue

GW Stormtrooper/Karsiken

Next weekend I have an inter club 40k Doubles Tournament against the Darling Downs Wargaming Club, this will be the first of what we are hoping to be a series of events involving my local club Kingaroy Wargamers and our neighbours from the Darling Downs. So it will be a mad rush for me to get a couple of Predators and a Character painted before the weekend (one of these days I'll be prepared before a tournament, honest).

Until next time .......

Mark

Mark: 40k Daemons by Starky

Last night a couple of us assembled at Starky's for our weekly paint night, where I was able to grab a happy snap of his 2nd place winning Kill Team from the weekend along with a couple of the other Daemons he has been working on.

The Kill Team

Daemon Prince

Daemonetts

Screamers

I'm looking forward to the blue skinned terrors from across the table once he has the army finished.

Until next time .......

Mark

Mark: Kill Team Run and Done

On Sunday I ran a Kill Team Tournament for the local gaming club, everyone involved seemed to having a lot fun. With only 6 competitors we were able to keep things very casual and all of the games were played in high spirits. There were 5 games played using scenarios borrowed from the WarmaHordes Steamroller package, so it looked like each of the players was going to get a game against each of the others. But it seams that it's possible to mess the pairings of the first couple of games up and require a couple of people to have rematches, I'm sincerely thankful that we had such a understanding group of players and I apologize again to those players that were effected.

We rounded out the day with James Williams taking top spot with Tyranids, or the Doom of Malan'tai and Friends, second place was taken by Daniel Stark (Starky) with an exquisitely painted Khorne Daemons and, Anthony Illett rounded out the placings using my AOBR Terminators. Congratulations guys.

I only wish I remembered to take some photos through the day, all I have to show you is a picture of the swag I donated as prizes. I'll be catching up with Starky through the week and I'm going to try and get hold of some photo's of his daemons.

The SWAG

The next event I'll be running will be our annual Tricksters Blade Warhammer Fantasy Tournament, the date should be finalized after we finalize the club incorporation.

Until next time .......

Mark