Sporecon 2011 - Singapore Gaming Convention

I competed in the recent Sporecon 2011 - the annual Singapore gaming convention for 40k, Fantasy and Warmarchine/Hordes.

Here's the report of the event.

Head on over to https://picasaweb.google.com/enrgie/Sporecon2011# and drop comments!

2000pts Battle report: Blood Angels vs. Space Marines

My most recent game with Yonathan. I was blood angels vs Yon's space marines.
Awesome game, however getting my Storm raven shot down on 1 really did give my opponent a huge advantage as my payload of carnage wasn't delivered. All other assets in my army stretched themselves to the limit to try to achieve their objectives. Comments are welcome!

You can find the link to the pictures here: https://picasaweb.google.com/113541076637094249651/Batrep1750ptsBloodAngelsVsSpaceMarines#

CUSTOM CONVERTED THUNDERWOLF MOUNTS!!! WIP 4

I need to finish the base, I was thinking frozen rockfaces made from cork... I can't find any. If nothing happens on friday night, I will buy a bottle of the cheapest wine with a real cork! T__T" lol.

A Labour of Love: My DIY Chapter

I've been thinking about starting this "blog project" for a while, and certainly Enrgie has tried his level best to convince me to blog about my work. I am fairly busy and generally distracted by life (and often, other games during my free time) but I thought I'd just get the ball rolling here.

I started 40k back when I was in primary school, with little more than a bunch of old plastic Marines, a Predator, a single Terminator and an old Ultramarine Commander in 2nd edition. Being a young kid, the choice was obvious for me - I liked Space Marines since the moment I laid eyes on my cousin's Space Wolves, and I liked the color blue. Thus, my army started as an Ultramarine army, but alas, after 3rd ed. came out and we managed to get a few games down, I realized one thing: I hated shooting, and "codex" Space Marines are precisely that – fairly shooty.

Then came the 3rd ed. Blood Angels codex back in 1999 (I believe) and after playing it, I was hooked. Thus began the dilemma - I loved blue, but had to repaint them into something that wasn't Ultramarine; I had to make a DIY chapter. Enrgie suggested combining their colors together so I could maintain their Ultramarine "heritage" while making them clearly not so, and thus the Emperor's Fury was born. Twelve years ago I was barely a teenager, and the color scheme/chapter name seemed fine to me (heh).

Clearly, being that young, my painting skills were pretty bad and thus I come to the point of this post: over the past ~15 years of miniature gaming, I have played many armies and many game systems, but ultimately my DIY Space Marines are still “home” as far as my miniatures go. Over the years I've accumulated a decent amount of miniatures (so much so I'm not going to dig everything out for the obligatory group shot :P) but more importantly, I've gone back to my old miniatures and redone their paintjobs and adding in new bitz to make them look better and more updated.

Thus, I'll generally blog about my DIY Chapter as I revisit them. Updates will probably be slow and far in between, but at least it would eventually get somewhere. In the meantime, enjoy some (albeit rather old) "before and after" photos to get an idea of what I mean by revamping the paint jobs :)

Why Warmachine has fixed colors? B&W Menoth Repenter Warjack.

With my mood for Games Workshop miniatures at an all time low I decided to take a break from them and dig out some old Menoth miniatures I bought about 4 years ago.

My warmachine army of choice is Menoth. The extreme religious stance is something that interests me much. Therefore I would like to have a crusader theme going through them. And being all nice and bright just didn't seem to fit with the dark and brooding background normally associated with a overzealous and crusading army.

The main issue I had with warmachine was that there seemed to be a "fixed" color scheme for each army. And when we see alternate color schemes applied in warmachine armies most of the time it would feel "wrong".

Even as I embarked upon my slightly different colored Menoth warjack I did not really feel comfortable. But I have to admit after looking at it for awhile longer I began to "warm up" to the color scheme.

I wanted a darker scheme to the Menoth army. But Menoth tended to look good with whites and bright colors. I saw a couple of very dark painted Menoth minis and it just didn't quite kick it.

Therefore I decided on white as a base, as normal. But swapped out all the purple and bright colors with black.
This resulted in a single black and white color scheme which I feel retains the bright mainstay of the Menoth look while subtly adding that dimension of darkness to it.

Pardon My Sense of Humor...

My Chief Apothecary (Corbulo counts-as), WIP (still needs paint, haha). Yes, Chief Apothecary :P

The scythe on, effectively, a doctor, just tickles me. And seriously, no one will tell me that isn't a "+1S rending close combat weapon".

I'm thinking of either naming him normally (my current name is Taledar) or to go for a parody (Cipro Floxacin, a pun on the name of an antibiotic used to treat typhoid, from where Typhus's name was derived from....and theres no need to guess why Typhus is brought up in this post :P).

General fluff idea is that he is actually born from an assassin caste in his homeworld, but decided to become a healer instead, while still maintaining his natural brooding darkness and crazy assassin-ness. Think "very scary doctor" and its not too far off :X

And of course, that Apothecary backpack is magnetized, in the advent I don't take Corbulo and need a second SHP with a jump pack.

C&C welcome, thanks!

EDIT: Shortened his arms, new picture up :)

How I made 15 cheap Meltaguns - Conversion How To

Well I needed 15 meltaguns for my Necro 8th Mechanized Guardsman army, and we all know how hard (and expensive!) meltaguns are! So rather than scratch my head wondering how I was able to find (and afford) 15 meltaguns I decided to scratch build my own.

First I took the many flamers found on the Cadian Sprue and cut it up as seen here.

Next I got some strip styrene from my local art shop (Art Friend in Singapore) for about $4.

I then cut them to approx 0.7cm in length, I used an actual Meltagun model for measurement.

*notice the size labelled on the packaging should you want to do the same as me.

After that I filed both ends to ensure a flat surface for a good fit.

Next

Here's how it looks after glueing!

p.s I missed photographing a step after this, which was to drill out the end of the meltagun barrel.

A comparison shot next to a metal "original" cadian Meltagunner!!

-Those who want more Melta's go make your own!

Sci-Fi Mantic Miniatures.

More good news in the wargaming world as we see sneaks of Mantic's upcoming foray into Sci-Fi miniatures.
The normal looking vehicles hints at a "Guardsmen" style army, which I like! And then there's also Space Dwarves! And the half dog , half track looks like a disabled warhound!

In short, I'm excited. Knowing Mantic's way of doing things, this means huge armies at cheap (not so nowadays their stuff is slowly creeping upwards in price) prices!!!





*Pics from Warseers Mantic rumors thread.

Mini Blood Angels Rhino!!!

Onto some light hearted posts!
I recently found some old epic miniatures that I bought for fun to paint up many moons ago.

Looks menacing!!!

WIP mech guard troopers.

Still reeling from the embargo fiasco yesterday. Desperately trying to achieve some form of normalcy here. (feels like someone just died) Maybe so after all GW effectively killed the hobby for me when they implemented that policy.

Here are 40 freshly shaven guardsmen pants. 40 sets of to be shaved shoulder pad arms next. It's an extremely tedious task. But worth it I feel.

We are all screwed now?

Think its gonna be another tide of change for us gamers and collectors here in Asia & Oz.
News and talk on the inter webs have suggested that come Monday the 16th May 2011 GW will be making an announcement that online retailers will no longer be able to sell GW miniatures to our countries. This is definitely insane news as this means our source of reasonable priced miniatures from Maelstrom and Wayland will come to a grinding halt.

For years we have been screwed by GW and their mad price increases, and now even control over who we chooses to buy from and the price we MUST pay.

Well guys, this might just be the start of a slow end in the hobby for me as I refuse to pay SRP prices that GW has set for our region. Think it's time for us to pull out our sources and friends in the US & UK to 'help' us make our purchases. I can only hope that all these talk are nothing more than just rumors that are not true!!!

Updates on What I've Been Up To

Been pretty busy with things, but thought I'd drop an update by.
So I've been putting together some Grey Knights and finally getting around to painting the old GK metals I've had rotting in my toolboxes for ~8 years, heres just some pictures of part of my workbench:



A close-up of one of my two Psyfle's (WIP). Magnetized the arms, and the torso (yeay for spinning Dreads!):

My Crusader prototype:



And the stuff I have to build. At the time of this posting I've already put together two of the four PAGK boxes and am in the middle of putting together my second box of plastic Terminators, to accompany my old metal Terminators.

More importantly, the biggest non-work distraction from my Grey Knights: My original chapter, the Emperor's Fury. I started painting these guys about 15 years ago, and in the past couple of years I've been updating their paintjobs. The picture below shows what I've "updated" thus far with many more in their old painted-by-a-small-kid paintjobs.

I'm still maintaining their terrible color scheme (I blame Enrgie :X) out of sheer tradition.

I'll probably get some close ups and better pictures soon.

Titan once again: 3rd time coming

This will be the 3rd titan I have worked on. Compared to a lot of resin mecha kits out there, FW titans are a walk in the park to build. Fairly easy to paint due to the large size. I can do most primary colors with the airbrush without any masking whatsoever (Ethrion can testify)

So whats hard about building resin kits? Cleaning them is the worst bit. I basically dumped all the parts into a plastic bucket, filled it half up with water so that all parts are covered, then I applied a very generous amount of extra strong/extra concentrated detergent, add boiling water to the mix and let it sit overnight. The next day, you scrub vigorously with brush to get all the crevices free of mold release agent. I cannot stress how important it is to clean your model. This step will go a long way with painted applied on top. As resin does not adhere to anything, it is vital that the surface is as clean as can be so that a layer of resin primer can be sprayed on top.

As you can see in the bottom pic, the component on the right is very shiny compared to the left. That is mold release agent. Resin when clean should be in a matte finish. That is the kind of surface you want before anything else is done to the model.

Rumours: Flyers Next Month

Looks like I may be getting my Harpy next month together wi all the Dark Eldar goodness. There has been rumours that this batch will fulfil most of the choices for Dark Eldar but whispers are now saying that it will be for the other races as well - namely Tyranids and Orks. Keeping my fingers crossed!

2000pts Blood Angels Army List

HQ

Librarian:

l Shackle soul

l Shield 100pts

Elites

Vanguard:

l X5 marines

l Meltagun 130pts



Sternguard:

l X5 marines

l X1 meltagun 130pts

l Razorback asscan:90pts

Librarian Dreadnought

l Wings of sanguineus

l Blood lance 175pts

Troops

Death company:

l X6

l X2 powerfist

l X1 flamer : 180pts

l Lamartes: 150pts



Tactical squad:

l X5 marines

l Srg. w/ power weapon

l Melta bombs 110pts

l Razor back with twinlinked las can 90pts

Tactical squad:

l X5 marines

l Srg. w/ power weapon

l Melta bombs 110pts

l Razor back with twinlinked las can 90pts



Fast Attack

Assault squad:

l X10 marines

l X2 meltaguns: 210pts



Heavy Support

Stormraven:

l Twinlinked meltagun

l Extra armor

l Twinlinked ass cannons: 225pts

Dreadnought

l Twinlinked auto cannon 110pts

Whirlwind

l Storm bolter 100pts

Here is a list totaling 2000pts for BA. I know in my previous comments left on grimcon & enrgie’s battle report, I said BA mesh in well with their characters. Honestly, I like my lists as bland as possible with HQ therefore I only took a basic librarian.
Basically, this list has 3 serious elements your foe must respond to. It works something like this

1. Librarian runs with the stormraven and death co offering shield of sanguineous. If you’re going 2nd, keep in reserve to stay out of fire. If you’re going first then spear thrust into the most critical threat your enemy has to offer. Do not hold back on this trying to preserve the stormraven’s life. Get in close, drop your payload and if your stormraven survives, you can make some extra shots count.

2. Vanguard assault squad/librarian dreadnought and normal assault squads will form a calvary unit. If you are not deep striking, maybe the first 2 turns will be used for you to strategically position your jump infantry so they are within combo striking range. This is what I mean by combo strike – vanguard will use heroic intervention and tie up units into combat, normal assault squad + librarian dreadnought will mop up the fight. You just gotta time it right so that your vanguard and normal assault squad + libby dreadnought can impact the enemy lines together. The commitment of element 1 & 2 should attract enough attention.

3. The tactical squads are there to camp objectives as well as to capitalize on razorback spamming. As this list has no devastators, razorback spamming provides the tactical flexibility to stay back and shoot with twin linked lascannons. If the objectives have reasonable cover, disembark the tacticals and walk them to the objective towards the end of the game with the sternguard and their asscan razor back as support. These objective holding/supporting units can hose out a lot of fire and make your enemy think twice before advancing to contest. If no cover is available, and your vehicle dies, even in death tanks continue to serve as cover for your troops!

The lone twinlinked autocannon dreadnought is a marine killer very few notice. I kill averagely about 2-3 marines per turn. Most people ignore and underestimate this unit. Lastly is the whirlwind, I know its no plasma template but with a large blast pie, its good for forcing saves on units especially when everything else does not have range or is tied up with other target priorities.
Anyhow, that was my 3 cents. Let me know what y’all think before you guys tear this list apart! lol

Batrep: 1750 Tyranids vs Blood Angels

Played a game with Alvin yesterday. It was a 1750 point game in preparation for SporeCon 2011 so we played one of the mission "Get to the Trees". More information can found here: http://www.pi.com.sg/dev/images/images/spore-con%202011%2040k%20missions.pdf

This build is based on my Tyrant and his buddy of 3 Guard + Prime. They would form the anchor for my force while the other bits of the army keeps behind this wave of pain. Termagants provide cover for my Guard while moving up. Tervigon keep generating Gants. However, like all plans, they crumble when they hit the enemy.

Side note: I need to open and build those 2 boxes of Gants. 

As you can see from the batrep, the mission was weird. There are basically 3 main objectives:

1. KP: Kill half of the opponents TOTAL KP. This means killing off half of the units and you get this Victory Condition. This does not include Gants generated from Tervigons
2. Objectives: You need to capture as many as you can
3. Table halves: You need to be in your opponents deployment zone

Players be aware of this. I was swamped by the number of things I had to accomplish and Tyranids have to stay together. For this mission, I reckon I will try to draw for the Objectives and score for KP and Table Halves. 

On to the actual game proper. As always, head on over to https://picasaweb.google.com/enrgie/4thApril20111750NidsVsBAAlvin# and do leave comments because this keeps me doing this! Also it lets me know what you like and don't like so I can improve my army and battle reports. 

blood angels tactical squad - training ground : work bench

here are my marines in tactical deployment formations for urban terrain holding drills. hahaha

As we proceed, to give you what you need....

This is the preview only. We're in the last stages of finalizing design details to give you a truly high quality carrying system for your favorite minis.

Blood Angels Assault Squads: finding an acceptable table-top standard

This previous long weekend was great, got a game with an old buddy to test my BA’s mettle again. Surprisingly the vanguard veterans performed better than previous times (failed heroic intervention, Ethrion took the pleasure of placing them at bumble fxxk no-where). This recent game got me to pick up my pace in finishing up some assault and vanguard squads.
All in all, the difficulty in the process of painting these guys is finding and arriving at an acceptable level of table-top quality. Blood angels are much simpler to paint than Spacewolves, the hardest part is find a balance between the amount of time spent on each model vs. the quality level.
These guys roughly take around an hour each not including drying time. Airbrushing certainly helps shorten things up. Panel lines were done with .1mm drafting pens. All those lectures on line weight in architecture school finally served me some purpose!

Zenithal + OSL Grey Knights Complete

Here you can see the completed unit of Purifiers and Paladin (missing is Paladin Standard Bearer WIP)

I have used the Zenithal & Object Light Source (OSL) methods in approaching this army as I felt it was a new technique I had wanted to try out for awhile now and as the GK are such a small army it granted them the privilege for a more elaborate paint job.

It is my first try and I still have another 10 Paladins and 2 Dreadknights and Draigo to practice on before I complete my GK army.

Here we see the "normal" non OSL side.

Front view with the OSL showing.

Right side with the OSL dominating the figure.

This guys took me about 25-30hrs to complete. And although a large percentage of the work was done using the airbrush (both Zenithal & OSL) there were loads and loads of little details that were particularly straining to paint while I was using traditional painting techniques.

The OSL was quite a challenge as I was afraid it would destroy my paintjob but I'm glad it turned out alright. Now that I'm quite confident of the procedure I might do a step by step painting tutorial once my next shipment of Terminators arrive from Maelstrom!

Hope you guys enjoyed my week of Grey Knight painting madness!

*now where did I put that Dreadknight that was halfway done.......