Monday 29 June 2015

Distracted...

So, I have not been painting lately. The Dire Avengers sit on my painting tray, mocking me on a daily basis. But so far I am ignoring them. This probably won't last forever, as there is only so much insult I am prepared to receive from barely painted plastic figures, but still...

So what have I been doing?

Playing computer games and reading mostly. I have gone back to playing some more Eve Online, some Dead Rising 3 with friends and also some other games that I had from previous Steam sales. This sale I think that I did fairly well and only picked up a few items. One of those was the Lego Marvel Heroes game. I am doing pretty well with it and I am finding it quite amusing. I am very, very bad at it, but I am managing to slowly get through the levels.

In reading, I have almost finished a horde of books that I picked up at the last 2nd hand book fair that was held here. I think that this was from February. So a couple of solid months of reading there.

Oh, and some Lego assembly. I picked up an Imperial shuttle from Star Wars to assemble which I liked. However it came with a rebel crew, so I assembled the shuttle but ditched the crew into my lego parts box. The shuttle is quite tall, so I am unable to sit it next to my Lego Emperor being escorted by his Imperial Guards. Not sure if that is what they are called, but they are the red robed troops anyway.

Will I get back to the painting? Yep. Three weeks until one of the longest holidays I have had since leaving school - 6 weeks off coming up. Looking forward to going to Gencon for the first (possibly only) time and have been planning out my shopping schedule on the map of places to visit.

If only I wasn't limited by luggage it would be better, however I guess that means that I will have to shop smarter, not more excessively... That is going to be difficult.

Cheers!

Wednesday 17 June 2015

Back in Blue

It is time to make a start on the Dire Avengers.


I am keeping the squad pretty standard. No exarch at this stage, just 5 Eldar with their Avenger weapons. The arms and the guns are again kept off at this stage, as is the head. I am working on the arms and guns at the same time, just was lazy and didn't move them to my light booth when taking the photos.

Still pretty early here, as I have not finished the base blue. After a couple more coats of this, I am going to try painting this blue in a similar way to the white that I use for the other models. Which will be giving the models a couple of coats of a darker paint really thinned down, then back to this mid coat then the highlighting.

I hope that it should work out. It may not be much different from a base coat, shade, highlight scheme, but it is a small change so I will see how it goes.

Cheers.

Sunday 14 June 2015

Post battle painting

I have now completed the Carnifex and the Rippers.


I went with a fairly bare bones Carnifex. Just added the crushing claws so that it becomes strength 10. It does drop it's speed in combat, but it was pretty much going last against most things anyway, so it doesn't feel like that big a loss to me. Also strength 10 will I hope allow it to flip vehicles a little easier and allow it to get to the soft squishiness within. Not that there are any vehicles in the forces that I am currently using, but that may not always be the case.

With the rippers, that properly completes the first box battle force box that I purchased a while ago. This is good as it is the first group of that size I have completed in a while. Length of time to paint not withstanding, that is a good milestone for me to have reached.

Yes, there are quite a few boxes to go for my Tyranids (of which there is only one more battle force box), which I will be working through in a little while.

With the completion of the Carnifex, that brings my Tyranid force to 680 points. As they now out point my Eldar, I am returning to the Eldar next to bring them up to the same number of points.

So that means that next up are some Dire Avengers. Also hopefully a return to updating a couple of times a week.

Cheers.

Sunday 7 June 2015

And now to the Fighting!

It was still dark as the forces became aware of each other. Reacting to the presence, both deployed into their battle lines

 
 Setting their lines predawn, the armies began their movements.

As dawn broke, the Tyranids had suffered very light casualties, the horde continuing to roll forward. The Eldar had suffered no wounds as of yet.

On their left flank, the Tyranid force ran into a heavy weight of fire and were vastly reduced, but the did manage to pin the jet bikes and remove one of them, a strange organism growing into the engine, causing it to explode underneath it's pilot.

Although the Guardians were successful in shooting all of the Hormagaunts, the Genestealers rolled into them and destroyed almost the whole unit. The casualties were too much for them and they fled, only to be cut down by the scything talons of the Genestealers.

The remaining Eldar destroyed the few remaining Tyranids, although the last several Genestealers ran and hid amongst the terrain.

Well, the first battle is was played yesterday. The Eldar came away with a win, although they did lose more than half their force in doing so. The table did not have enough terrain, so I will have to add in more for the next game. The size of the battle did show the quality of the Eldar troops, as they were very effective with their shooting. The Genestealers wiping out the whole guardian squad was the height of the game for the Tyranids, as they had quite an uphill battle running into the guns. Overall I am quite happy with the miniatures and they did do well. I was hoping that the forces were going to be a little more balanced, but it seems that I managed to pick a fairly strong Eldar force and only a moderate Tyranid force.

Another battle will be fought where the sides will be swapped while I paint up some more miniatures for both sides.

Overall the game went reasonably slowly as both my opponent were basically learning the game as we played. My experience with 7th edition is quite limited and it was their first game. It did feel a little like a return to 2nd edition though, as the Tyranids were a psyker-less force in a world of stomping psykers. I will have to do something about that when I increase them to 1000pts.

Cheers.

Wednesday 3 June 2015

And in the White and Green corner

Following from Monday's post,

Older than the bagged lunch in a High Schooler's locker. Throwing more shuriken than the average Ninja convention. Bringing some grace to the battlefields of the 41st Millenium.

I give you the ELDAR!


In the second appearance of a small force on the blue cloth, the completed 550 points of Eldar consist of:

  • 1 Farseer
  • 1 Warlock Council
  • 10 Guardian Defenders with Scatter Laser platform
  • 3 Guardian Jetbikes
  • 5 Wraithguard
  • 3 Dark Reapers.
Next up... FIGHT!

Cheers.

Monday 1 June 2015

In the White and Blue Corner

In preparation for a battle report, I am pleased to introduce:

From outside the known Galaxy, coming to consume it all. Small though the horde is, a horde it is still. Warriors to the left of me, termagaunts to my right...

I give you the TYRANIDS!



And the first showing of my new backdrop cloth for my light box. And yes, I do need to work on my photography for larger groups of models...

So what does my mighty 550pt horde consist of?

  • 1 Prime with Lash Whip and Bone Sword and Scything Talons
  • 8 Genestealers with Scything Talons and Rending Claws
  • 16 Termagaunts
  • 16 Hormagaunts
  • 3 Warriors - 2 with Deathspitters and 1 with Barbed Strangler.
Cheers