Hobby Mastery

So, I've been painting and I've been comparing and I've been thinking.

Since I've started back into the hobby, my hobby skill level has gone up quite a bit.

Since I've been packing to move, I've had to organize my hobby stuff before I box it up. This caused me to dig into my models. I lined up a selection of models from different points in my development, from one of the first cruddy blood angel marine I painted to the more recent stuff like my dreadnought. I was pretty shocked at the degree of difference from my early work to my more recent projects. I'm encouraged. I always wanted to paint magazine/competition quality models and it's good to see that I'm still improving and haven't hit a plateau. I really need to get a better camera so I can take a photo to accompany this post. It should be happening soon.

The other thing that has picked up is my painting speed. With my improvement as a painter, I'm painting at a fairly rapid pace. I think I'll get into hobby overdrive mode once I'm settled into my new place.

Expect more frequent updates with photos shortly after the move.

On the block for the coming year:

- Game table and terrain building.
- Completion of my Tau army
- Orcs and Goblins
- Chaos Space Marines
- Gundam models painted, possibly dioramas. I plan to mostly airbrush this
- Warmahordes
- Baby pictures
- tons of battlereports including events surrounding an upcoming campaign that we should be starting shortly.

Measurements

Man, wargaming has made me an inch machine.

My wife phoned me last night because she's picking out a curtain rod for our new shower.

Her: "I don't know what to get, this one says 72" how many feet is that?"

Me, (immediately): "That's....6 feet. Yeah that would work".

Her: "how do you know that so fast?"

Me: "Uh... a standard gaming table is 6 feet by 4 feet."

Her: "......."

Chaos

Hello there,

A while ago I started building a chaos army. Really, I have almost 2k points in stuff built yet most of it isn't primed or table top ready from a painting standpoint.

The first thing I tackled were some older models I inherited from a friend.

First off, Raptors. I love the old models, I had some fun mixing in new shoulder pads, hands, and weapons to bring them up to date a little bit. The photography still needs some work, but mostly I need a better camera.

Not shown - the one raptor that I managed to break on th way to being photographed, I need to redo the base, and do some touch ups.

Click on the pictures for a much better view. The detail is much clearer in real life I'm afraid.






And there's the dreadnought. I'm really proud of how this guy turned out.

I'm back baby!

Months after the cuteness invasion in my life, I'm back into hobby. Sadly I have no pictures for this post, since my cameras are bursting with pictures of my sweet Ava.

Some of the more exciting news comes in the form of the life changes that came with my baby. I've bought a house, which turns the hobby dial up. I have 500 square feet of basement to play with, and a garage, which opens the doors for ease of priming, setting up my air compressor permanently (for basecoating etc.), and creating a real hobby space with a game table or two. Finally I can get into building terrain and making my own little slice of hobby paradise.

Hobby Update

I squeezed in my fist game since my baby's birth just a week ago. Orks vs Tau, I tried out a list with stealth suits rather than Crisis and included a load of Kroot. It was a fun infiltration/outflanking list. Very close game, came down to the last turn, but ultimately the Orks squeezed one out ;).

Tau-wise I haven't painted too much more. I finished a few more of my Chaos hounds turned Kroot hounds, painted a Fusion stealth suit and basecoated my second Broadside and final Crisis suit team. I'm so sick of painting blue-grey that it's becoming a chore to finish the Tau. Sometimes I wish I picked a different colour scheme for them, but they look sharp on the table and for my first complete army it's a great first effort. My painting skills have really grown with the army.

My Black Legion project progresses slowly, but I'm not in a rush with this one. I love how the chaos models look, and I'm really taking my time to get a close look at the detail as I paint. I put together my plastic Daemon Prince finally and he's a real monster! I knew he'd be around the size of a dreadnought, but he is so much more dynamic. Can't wait to paint him and field him.

My squad of old school Raptors is almost complete. I basically inherited 5 of the old raptor models from a friend. They were missing a few limbs, but Chaos Space Marine parts filled the gap and look real natural. It really updates these models using modern weapon and shoulder pad sculps. I can't wait to post a photo when they are done. I really went to town on them and hand painted their shoulder icons when adding detail and it makes them pop. I wanted to give them each different versions of the Eye of Horus, inspired by the codex rather than using the bunk transfers that come with the kits.

Tenatively, I'm starting with a 750 list as a goal. I plan to cut on some painting time by making my chaos hound as kroot hounds be summoned demons for this army as well. This doesn't represent a competitive list, but rather one of the easier/fun lists to put together.

HQ
Demon Prince - Wings, Warp Time

- wish I could spare points for a mark of Nurgle here

Troops
10x Chaos Space Marines, Icon of Chaos Glory, Rhino, 2x Melta
5x Lesser Demons
5x Lesser Demons

Fast Attack
5x Raptors, Champion with power sword, Icon of Slaneesh, 2x Melta

- a bit pointy for this scale of game, but useful when used correctly. Great for armour hunting or wiping out squads of 5 men or less (stragglers).

Heavy Support
Predator with Sponsons

That's off the top of my head, probably some small errors in there. Nice and basic, has some flaws of course, but I've played some variations of this list and had a lot of fun with it. Normally I'd run a squad of Khorne Beserkers at this point level rather than raptors, but I'm a Fast Attack sort of guy at the heart of things.

The Prince Has Arrived

While I was out getting the latest White Dwarf, I ended up picking up one of the new Demon Prince kits! I'm pretty excited to bolster my black legion with this bad-boy. I know I'm giving him wings, but I'm not sure how else I want to model him. Do I go hardcore 40k parts or do I make him more fantasy? Any ideas?

Of late I've listened to some podcasts that brought up terrain as a topic. It sounds as if there are pretty big regional differences as to the rules people use with terrain and just how much they are putting on the table. It sounds like (at least in the US) tables are pretty sparse for terrain or people use house rules as to how a terrain piece works (ie: for purposes of line of sight and cover saves). My basic approach has been simple: follow the rulebook. It has clear rules as to how each common piece of terrain works for cover and movement purposes and when it comes to line of sight, well, true line of sight. Take a gander. Use your eyeballs and a laser pointer. I think the rules are very clear on how this works. If people think it's too grey area then they are either doing it wrong or being poor sports. Further to this, the rulebook states that the table should not only have about a 1/4 of it covered, but that it should be a mixture of area, short, tall, and line of sight blocking terrain. In my experience the best tables for balanced and tactical gameplay follow these rules. A lot of pictures I see around the web of game tables (notably tourney tables) are either far too sparse, or feature short terrain or terrain that doesn't block LOS. Try it according to the rulebook and you'll find it to be a better game.

I wonder how much of the above is due to people remembering previous editions or just local flavour that came out of a misinterpretation of the rulebook?

Back to Hobby

I've finally managed to find a happy balance between newborn and hobby and am back to making some progress. I'm putting the finishing touches on my second broadside and another fireknife team so that they are ready for priming. Just a little more green stuff work on the fireknife team leader and I'll be able to get started on some painting.

Hobby slow down.

Hobby will slow down, but for good reason. I created something even more awesome. Her name is Ava, and she is incredible :).