Festive Projects

Morning all,

So pretty soon, it'll be Xmas and everyone will (hopefully) be getting some time off work and unwrapping lots of hobby goodies that are under the tree. Whilst I was assembling some dwarfs last night, I started thinking about what I'm going to try to get done whilst I'm off work.

1. Brotherhood of the Forge
I've made a fair bit of progress with these, as they've been sat in a box for the last 5 months whilst my Dark Angels and Chaos Daemons were top priority.

So far I've got Arch Confessor Kyrinov made and 6 Crusader Henchmen. Last night I got half way through a 5 man Dominion squad before I called it a night. The thing I loved about these guys first time round was how quick they were to paint. Dark colours, mostly metal armour and minimal amounts of skin on show - meaning that they *should* be quick to get finished so I can get some use out of the army with the WD codex.

I've got the following to assemble, spray and paint:
- 10 Seraphim
- 20 Battle Brothers
- 1 Command Squad
- 1 Saint Celstine
- 1 Immolator

2. Dark Eldar
Next up (not necessarily in priority order...) is a load of Dark Eldar bits I traded some LOTR stuff for at the last Warboot event. I've got 40 old style Kabalite warriors (4 units of 10 warriors, 1 Splinter cannon and Sybarite in each) and 5 metal Wyches to strip down and paint.

What interests me most here, is whether or not my Kabal's Ice Blue armour scheme will look any good on the older models. The new Kabalite warriors armour tends have more defined layers that curve outwards, whereas the older models have more curved inwards, closely layered armour. It'll be interesting to see anyway, and allows me to heavily bulk out my Dark Eldar with more Kabalite warriors, which are one of my favourite units in the book.

I've got the following to strip, spray and paint:
- 40 Kabalite Warriors
- 5 Wyches (to be Hekatrix bloodbrides)
- 3 Venoms

3. Necrons
Here's hoping Father Christmas brings me the Necron stuff I've asked for, if not, I've got 2 boxes of Immortals sat under the tree that I bought at the start of this month. I'm not too sure what to arm my new Immortals with, whether to go the traditional Gauss Blaster route and replace / bulk up my Metal units, or to give Tesla carbines a try.

On top of that, I should have the two released Necron special characters, some Lychguard (not sure whether I'll convert these to Crypteks yet though) and a Ghost Ark. At first, I was really miffed off with the Necron codex, but now I'm interested in how the new units will work and how it'll change the dynamic of an army I've had since I first started 40k.

Also on the topic of Necrons, I've been debating repainting the army or at the very least, washing them. They were done pre-Badab Black days and when I get them out compared to my more recently painted models, they're showing their age. It would also let me add a bit more variety to the other Necron armies I've seen around.

4. Bretonnians
These have been an ongoing project for the last 4 or 5 years and they're still irritating me to this day. I really would like to play more Warhammer Fantasy and get some use out of the army, but I have zero desire to paint them. With a few members of the club expressing more interest in playing Fantasy, maybe it'll give me a kick up the backside

To paint:
- 8 Grail Knights
- 5 Mounted Yeomen
- Grail Reliquae and 20 Battle Pilgrims
- Mounted Damsel
- Damsel on foot
- 3 Pegasus Knights

5. Scenery
Last on the list to do is to deal with some scenery I've bought over the last year from eBay. I think I've got about 20 - 30 trees dumped in a box which are all just loose standing, but after going to Stockport NWGC for a tourney last month, I really liked the way they've done the trees.

Basically it's a kidney shaped piece of hardboard, with 3 60mm (ish) holes cut into it. Take the hole piece you've cut out, glue the tree to that, then glue a piece of stiffened card underneath the hole you've drilled (so you can pick it up as 1 piece) and then spray and paint.

It looked really good and meant you could easily shift the trees if you needed to, as well as meaning trees can be left loose for easy storage and mixed and matched between each base.

The only problem is just the time it takes to do all of that, maybe with some help from a local DIY expert (i.e. My Dad) the job will get done a bit quicker.

So that's it for my plans folks. I highly doubt any of it will get done, but it's worth listing down what you want to aim for...

So, what are you guys planning to get up to hobbywise over the Xmas period?

SB

Badger's Log - Bretonnian Damsel

Morning all,

Very brief one off me today, I've been snowed under with work. I've had lots of things I could put up on the blog, just no time whatsoever to get it done!

So first up is my Bretonnian Damsels I painted up last weekend (or the weekend before... I've lost track of the days with work). There's 1 mounted and 1 on foot. Ideally, I could do with a 2nd mounted Damsel to keep up with the rest of the cavalry and also to add some oomph if I were to play Storm of Magic.

I painted them in a light blue scheme, with white trim and detailing, similar to my Bretonnian Lords. Once I'd finished them, I decided they needed a Black Wash just to tie the colours in and give a bit of shading. I'm kind of regretting that now, as it means I'll need to eventually black wash the rest of the army.

The one on foot, I'm pretty happy with. The horse I'm also quite impressed how the black wash turned out on a grey horse, however I put way too much wash on the mounted Damsel. But oh well... they only ever get out onto the table every so often, so they'll do.

Peace,
SB

[WHFB] Second game of 8th Ed

Morning all,

Been a few days without a post as I've been too busy in my usual blogging time with work related such and such. However on Monday night, I got to play another game of 8th Edition v Col. Straken's Beastmen army.

 
I can't remember most of what went on, so my main point is to summise a bit more of what I'm learning with 8th Edition and also, see if I'm doing anything wrong and people want to point it out to me - nothing worse than spending months learning a game, to realise you've learnt an incorrect ruling or such.

First off, the 2D6" charge distances are becoming a bit of a bug bear for me. I'm all for the sense of "random factor" involved with it, but personally I find 2D6" distance for infantry to be huge. As an example, the Beastmen are M5 which gives them a charge distance of between 7" and 17". This compared to 7th edition where charges were around the 8" mark... maybe it's just me being stuck in my ways. Personally I'd prefer it if Infantry were to roll 2D6 and pick the highest of the 2 for charge distances.

For a bloke on a horse to only have 3" more than a cow-man on foot when it comes to charge distance, doesn't really do it for me. Admittedly the 3D6 and pick the highest 2, makes it more reliable to roll higher, but I'm not sold on it.

Secondly, playing with just a single Level 1 Wizard means the magic phase gets a bit boring or silly, so in future I'll be taking a second Damsel (assuming points allow it) just to try and get used to the flow of the magic phase a bit more.

Currently it was a case of rolling 1 spell with every available Power Dice I could have, then hope my opponent couldn't roll a double 6 to prevent it. I'd assume this is partly from us playing lower points value games (1500) as the magic system is designed for 1 - 4 Wizards in an army, casting and generating dice.

Also, getting charged as Bretonnians is bad. I got caught out by some mammoth charges by the Beastmen and started to crumble. I used to be quite good at gauging distances in 6th and 7th, so I guess I just need to work on my 8th edition eye and try to see where the new distances come into it.

Overall, I'm enjoying playing Fantasy again and once I get my head round the core rules and additions (I forgot about "Steadfast" on Monday night as an example) I'll start thinking about a second army to go with my Bretonnians and offer an alternative playstyle - most likely an Orc army.

Any thoughts on 8th edition? Or plans to get involved in Fantasy soon?

Peace,
SB

Badger's Log - Bretonnian Questing Knights

Morning,

Got these guys painted up about 2 weeks ago, but been really busy the past few days and not had chance to get the blog post done, so here they are.

I've had these guys built for about 3 or 4 years, I've just never gotten around to painting them until my latest foray into the world of Fantasy 8th edition.

They're made from plastic Knights of the Realm, combined with lots of Chaos Warrior bits like large swords, axes, hammers etc. I found it was a cheap and easy way to make them.

They are the only unit of Knights that don't have Lances or Shields, so they're also clear on the table top.

The guy at the front in red and blue was originally a tester model, with the intention of starting to paint the rest of my Knights in the colours of Louen Leoncoeur with a variety of different styles, but I abandoned this until I can be fussed to repaint the rest of the army. I kept him in red and blue so I have the option of using him as a Questing Vow Paladin.

So there you go, I'm off to build me a Commissar tonight.

Peace,
SB

[WHFB] First game of 8th Ed

Morning all,

Last night I played my first proper game of 8th Ed Fantasy. I played once with the Island of Blood set against Sanguinus, but we probably messed up a ton of rules or completely forgot some things.

So last night I dusted off the Bretonnians after spending the last few weeks painting a few units (still got pictures of my Questing Knights to put up) and got them onto the table against the High Elves.

We played 1500pts so I could get the hang of the rules and not be at the club until Midnight. My list was as follows:
Paladin - Barded Warhorse, Shield, Lance, Virtue of the Joust
Paladin Battle Standard Bearer - Barded Warhorse, Virtue of Duty
Damsel - Level 2, Warhorse, Chalice of Malfleur

8 Knights of the Realm - Full Command
8 Knights of the Realm - Full Command
30 Men at Arms - Spear, Shield, Full Command
16 Archers - Standard, Musician, Defensive Stakes, Braziers

8 Questing Knights
5 Mounted Yeomen

Field Trebuchet.

I was massively surprised at how much I was able to fit into a 1500pts list (assuming I didn't calculate anything wrong in Excel!!)

Time for some pictures...

Overall, I did well because I was allowed to charge with the Knights, plus the Bretonnian Lance formation works really well since it allows rank bonuses for 3 models instead of 5, which means that I can get decent rank bonuses for less models.

Overall, my thoughts on 8th edition:
- Magic is a lot more random, and it didn't pay off for Mike's High Elves. I don't think his Level 4 wizard ever managed to cast a spell, either from bad rolling for Winds of Magic, or bad actual casting rolls.
- I also don't think I managed to do very well with casting either, but I'm not sure if that was my being a fantasy Noob or whether that's just how magic is.
- Combat seems a lot quicker, although I've yet to play against Undead yet (they were the bane of my 6th and 7th Ed games!!)
- Movement seems a lot more free flowing and far less intricate than in 7th ed, having to deal with angles, move 1" here, wheel, 1" here, then you minus some movement for something else.... Nope, seems to be miles easier to deal with now.
- Guessing ranges is out of the window now. One of the challenges I loved about 7th Ed was being good at guessing ranges of things on the table, whether it was charge ranges or warmachine shots. Also, with pre-measuring it gives a fair bit more scope for options.
- Random charge ranges are a bit meh for me... I like the idea of keeping things fresh and there always being a chance it could fail, but at the same time I liked being good at guessing charge distances.

Also.. another point of 8th edition, is that I'm apparently blessed by the dice gods to pass every 5 or 6+ Ward Save under the sun. I must have passed about 90% of the Ward Saves on my Knights units.

Overall, 8th Ed seems like good fun and I'd like to get a few more games under way whilst I carry on painting the rest of my Bretonnian units.

Peace,
SB

Badger's Log - Bretonnian Men-At-Arms

Morning,

I've been away over the weekend so not had much chance to do anything further with painting, but in an effort to get playing Fantasy again, I dragged out all my Fantasy related stuff from boxes and set myself the goal of trying to paint 1 unit a week.

First and foremost (until I get some Black Spray) I've set about on my Bretonnian army, since they're my first and only fully fledged Fantasy army.

So yeah, there you are, 15 Men at Arms with Halberds and shields.

After faffing around for a large amount of time over the paint scheme, I stuck with my Black and White paint scheme based on one of the Bretonnian Lord models (can't remember the name of the realm...). Then with Enchanted Blue detailing to match the

If I can be bothered I'm hopefully going to repaint the army in Red and Blue, similar to the GW studio army and similar to a Questing Knight that I painted as a tester.

The other thing you may notice is *GASP* I've not used Black wash on them. This'll soon get rectified when I repaint them up in nicer colours.

Next thing on the paint desk is a remaining 7 Questing Knights.

Peace,
SB

Bankholiday Weekend and Wargaming

Hey all.

Hopefully everyone's had a good and productive Easter weekend in terms of Wargaming. There's not much going on at the minute in terms of news, so just a quick one today.

Me personally, over the weekend I went on a bit of an undercoating Spree. I prepped the remainder of my Imperial Guard Mech-Air Force for painting. The to-paint list for my 2,000pt force now stands at:
- Command Squad: Straken, Melta Gun, Medic, Vox Caster, 2 Bodyguards, Atropath.
- 3 Flamers
- 6 Melta Guns
- 2 Chimeras
- 3 Valkyries

As I had everything outside and the weather was holding off, I decided that I'd also spray my Lord of the Rings remaining stuff - in the hope I can get a game of it soon or sell it off fully painted. Also serves a nice change of pace from 40k stuff having reference images to a film as "this is how you paint this", rather than free-flowing like I do with 40k. I still do change stuff, since I really don't like painting Gold, for example, but for most part I try and keep to the film or book description.

This then led me to decide on undercoating the other half of my Bretonnian army ready to paint, who've not come out of their box for a good 18 months or so. But, wanting to save a job later down the line, I needed to glue sand to all the bases first before spraying. Which took a LOT longer than I first thought - about an hour and a half in total, by which point it had gone dark outside. So, in a box, ready to spray I've got:
- 8 Grail Knights (converted plastic Knights of the Realm)
- Grail Reliquae plus 20 Battle Pilgrims (converted from Men at Arms, Flagellants and a Chariot)
- 10 Errant Knights (old edition Bretonnian Knights I got cheap)
- 15 Men at Arms with Spear and Shield
- 5 Mounted Yeomen (Kitbash of Empire Pistoliers, Men at Arms and Knights of the Realm)
- 2 Damsels

I'm quite eager to get my Brets back into a game and finish painting them. I've found I have to work a lot harder to paint stuff for Fantasy, but I've got a quite quick scheme for painting Knights now that I've been using Citadel Washes a lot.

Lastly, I played a game last night against Mark's Tyranid army which included 3 Trygons, a Tervigon, 2 units of 3 Hive Guard and the Doom of Malan'tai in a Coconut.

In all, it wasn't a very good game for me. Objective was to take and hold the central building, at the end of the game the player with most Troop choices within 3 inches won.

In short, I got annihalated from some bad judgements, not knowing the enemy capabilities (Fleet on Trygons for example) and generally being extremely tired from a busy Bankholiday Monday.

At the start of my turn 5, all I had left were a unit of Grots that had failed to show up from reserve throughout the game, so we called it a white-wash there.

There were a couple of turns that went my way, but generally a spot of bad luck here or there, along with bad decision making and you get what you deserve.

I did manage to topple a Trygon with Tankbustas and was Snake Eyes away from battering a second one with a PK Nob in a slugga mob. Next time I'll get you, you pesky Xeno Worms!

So what have you guys been up to over the weekend - painting, converting, hobbying-wise?

SB.