Progress: Terrain And Tanks!

So with Xmas and the New Yearhaving passed, I hope everyones had a good time and are cracking on with hobby projects! I've been pretty busy so taken some better photos of what I've been upto so here they are.

The armoured containers were nice and easy to build, and painting was similarly fun too. I undercoated them all with Rhinox Hide, then based with chosen colours on top. Red took two coats, orange took 3 with a bit of touching up, but green went on easily in one with some touch ups. Now I find weathering and bare metal work to add a great contrast to colours and it also helps unify models over different colours. Its also a great way alternative to highlighting so I went nuts on these!

I used some watered down Gorthor Brown to add rust drips, and some more Rhinox Hide to add as a backdrop to put the Leadbelcher on top to created the worn edges and patches were things were knocked against or perhaps gunfire ricocheted off. 

As you can see I also added a couple of transfers just to add some depth and make them stand out a little. 

I've also been cracking on with the Necromunda terrain and the smaller aspects of the containers box, getting some rust out on these has been fun as its been ages since I've used it. I've got loads more of these to do and these need finishing off also. I've got 6 barrels in orange with numbers on too for objective tokens that I'm adding drips too.

Also over Xmas I wanted to rework my Imperial Guard army. Having previously been painted (but never finished) in grey, they just looked unfinished as it was a similar tone to plastic. Thats no good! Some thinking soon provided me with an answer....

THUNDERHAWK BLUE!

While basing my tanks with Thunderhawk Blue I wondered what to do in terms of highlighting and/or camo. Lighter tones, darker tones, I just wasn't sure. Going back to my earlier terrain painting though I enjoyed playing with rust. That was it! 

I added plenty of rust to the tanks, not so much in a camo pattern but it certainly gives a similar effect. I've still got some last few bits to do to these but I also have another Chimera, a Vendetta and a mighty Stormlord to finish off too!

 

In terms of background with my intention to use some of the Necromunda gangs as infantry the idea is that with some sort of invasion to a hive world the old tanks were found then repurposed by the gangs and some of the Astra Militarum trying to get a defence in order to repel the enemies attacking. With the defence a success the rust was kept as a blessing to the Omnissah and now chemicals are added to the vehicles by Tech-Adepts to rust up in the name of the machine god. It works for me anyways!

So what have you guys been upto? Post photos or get in touch if you'd like your work showcased!

Armoured Boxing Day

Ahoy there tabletoppers! Hope everyones Xmas was good, mine was alright but glad its over to get things back to normal. Feeling productive this morning after last night I watched the new Netflix original, Bright. Not a bad film and am hoping they can go somewhere with it as theres a lot of scope with the story! While watching the film, I put these together!

The armoured containers for 40k were good fun to stick together, nice and simple too! 

And todays progress has been to base them  along with some of the Necromunda terrain. I've gone for a mix of colours, all to be weathered and rusted up hopefully! I've got the Thermal Plasma Reactors to put together and get based too along with so many other things!

Have to give a shout out to my sister who as part of my present got me a new set of D&D dice, first roll was a 19! Now the eternal struggle to find somewhere to use them!

So thats the Boxing Day update, hoping tomorrow will mean these are starting to look a bit more weathered and make a start on some of the details. I'm really fancying some 40k again soon so may try get some painting done on the Genestealer Cult or Daemons too then throw some challenges down. 

So looking towards future posts, I've been tempted to scour the internet each week and perhaps put together a little highlight post about the best things I've seen to do with tabletop each week, would this be interest to you readers?  Let me know and I'll see what I can do!

Saturday Salvo: Vs Chaos Marines, Xwing Wave 4!

Welcome to another Saturday Salvo, with some 40k and Xwing updates. Myself and Chris played some 40k last week, with the Krohmus Guard taking on long time rivals of the Khorne Warband Chris controls. 1500 points, and you can see the table below!

Moments of note... My land raider getting blown up on Chris' first turn, captain and termies not doing much. Sternguard failing to blow anything up, although they did dent a predator and Chris' land raider. T

The Scorpius Whirlwind is pure awesome, as long as you deploy it well. Getting those extra shots can be devastating!

Khorne bikers made a dent in my lines and I couldn't finish em off. The champion, while not overly effective, did kill several marines over a prolonged combat and survived. 

I need to better use the Chapter Tactics I choose... or at least remember to use them and anticipate when to use them better. Cause at the moment I don't use them well!

Missile Launchers are still good stuff. Power Armour hates Kraks. 

A debate I've had on occasion with Bam about overloading Tactical squads, he always upgrades his sarges, I rarely do. I think I'm gonna do it more often when against power armoured foes, it would help on combats having someone reliably kill enemies a bit more.

Aquire targets better!

In the end it was incredibly close, with me just winning 10-8. He'd killed my termies and captain later on and I just managed to instant kill his lord with a well placed krak. Good game though! 

Also, below I've started work on my first proper piece of terrain, which will be a sort of generator building. Its based on some polystyrene I've had for a while and the part on the left reminded me of a bunker/generator sort of thing. The bottle is some sort of fuel container, with a wacky thing on top possibly doubling as a void shield. I'm gonna add some small raders and more details to it, along with some small pieces of Imperial decoration and anything else I can find!

Another thursday has come and gone also with myself and my Nephew doing battle in X-wing. We attempted using all the ships I had, 5 Imperial and 4 Rebels, with plenty of upgrades. I think we had about 133 points each, with about 110 being spent on the ships. Bit ambitopis but we had a laugh trying to remember our upgrades and pilot skills!

We're both starting to see some decent combos of skills and upgrades, although remembering them isn't easy! R2D2 on Wedge has been useful, and I've found myself doing a lot of green moves because of it! 

The game finished with just Wedge, Saul in his Ywing and Darth left. I managed to get a hit on Darth with the Ion cannon making him move onto an asteroid and making him vulnerable to fire next turn from both of my surviving ships. I'd suffered a lot of damage though! 

As if playing some more X-wing wasn't exciting enough, Fantasy Flight announced this. 

Hells yes! The E-wing looks amazing, can't wait to get one or two to try out and my Nephew is drooling over those new Tie Defenders. Should add some interesting tactics to the game! We can't wait to get our new purchases but now the excitement is even greater!

So far, I'm getting close to 40,000 views, and with that being a significant number I'm debating doing something to celebrate. I think a better header and logo is needed... but perhaps something else too... We shall see!

New additions and Giveaway!

So Death From The Skies has arrived rather quietly from Games Workshop's side of things, although we've known it was coming for a couple of weeks. I'm incredibly intrigued about the rules for flyers, and of course being a Codex Space Marine player I'm rather excited about the Stormraven being available for my Evandalists. Which is why...

I've got one for myself! Many thanks to Nurgle Command for his heads up that on the Hobbycraft Facebook page you can get yourself a 25% off voucher, so I indulged in this lot=] 

I've had a flick through the painting tanks book, and theres some great tips in there I'm looking forward to trying. I grabbed myself and Bam some spray, he wanted some white for his Orks, the Temple of Skulls and some woods to add some variety to our gaming tables at club, and of course, the Stormraven. Working out the price I paid just £31 for it instead of the hefty £50 at GW, amazing! Cracking deal fair play so head over there now as the offer lasts until the 24th I believe. Special thanks to my lady for taking me to pick these up!

The giveaway winner will be announced on the 26th of February, I've had some great entries so far so please keep them coming! Photos of you and your favourite miniature from any game or system to be emailed to vandalworks@hotmail.com

£20 GW voucher to be won so get on it!

Sixth Sense.

 

So the last few days have been incredibly fruitful for those of us awaiting the new rules that Warhammer 40k Sixth Edition will bring. How will our armies be affected? How will it affect our opponants? How, and perhaps most importantly, will it affect our fun.  

One of the key sentences I've picked up on is that it has been said they GW want to make 40k more cinematic. This screams out to me as an ideal not of intent. I play games of 40k not to win or lose, but to have those hilarious or dramatic moments when the dice either favour or betray you and give you those jaw dropping moments. One of the richest things this hobby brings is its background story for the games. Why wouldn't you want your games ot be more involving of moments that tie into this richness? How the rules will help this, we won't know for certain until the rulebook is not just been in our hands, but has been used for a number of games. 

I like now that you have a Warlord. This HQ choice is then given an ability and can help add a wee bit of flavour to your army. Does he count as a scoring unit therefore making him a very hands-on character? Or does he give his Leadership to other friendly models and have such an inspiring presence? I think its a great little touch and helps add a little richness to your army.

Being able to buy buildings is a great idea, as hopefully it may encourage people (myself included) to be more hands on when it comes to building terrain. Is it practical to have to carry a bunker around? Probably not, but have themed armies that include certain fortifications or siege terrain could work well. Another cinematic box ticked. 

There was said to be a picture of a Beastman Guardsmen and mentioned ab-humans, YES!!! Anything ab-human could mean the possiblility of Squats. The more I hear about the new rules the more I see the 5th edition rulebook cwtching up into bed making sweet love to the 2nd edition rulebook. 2nd Edition was the last rulebook to feature squats, and thus gives me hope for a future appearence. 

Having to remove the nearest models from shooting attakcs sounds great too, when a unit is advancing towards you and only the guys in the back are falling its a wee daft, and now I'll be picturing the first lines falling with the slightly better troops behind ready to take their place. 

The rules for Snipers where if you hit with a six YOU allocate the wounds, this makes snipers a much better choice than they were and fits in with the sniper ethos much better. 

Finally, the last thing I want to talk about are the missions. It seems that theres more variety, and more abilities and changes for objectives and units as to what they do and who can hold what etc. I love this especially if its true that secondary objectives are in also. This adds even more to the game and will hopefully encourage more fluff inspired games. 

Overall I'm really looking forward to seeing the rules, and I'll certainly be playing some games as soon as possible to try them out. Lets hope we get plenty more of those little moments that we'll remember in years to come and add to the legend our armies build.