Saturday 29 November 2014

Hive Fleet Numereji: Deathleaper Completed


Deathleaper orchestrates a deadly ambush against Dark Angels of the 3rd Company.

Hi folks,

I managed to finish off Deathleaper last night during a quick burst of painting and modelling activity. I spent a little bit of time prepping my Swarmlord for painting, then posed Deathleaper's arms and painted them from undercoat to gloss varnish in less than an hour. I now have a HQ unit to lead my Hive Fleet in small battles, with half-a-dozen on the way (3 Hive Tyrants, Malanthrope, Old "Six" Eyes and a Tyranid Prime). When it rains it pours, huh!


"Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio; a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy; he hath borne me on his back a thousand times; and now, how abhorred in my imagination it is! My gorge rises at it. Here hung those lips that I have kissed I know not how oft. Where be your gibes now? Your gambols? Your songs? Your flashes of merriment, that were wont to set the table on a roar?"

I also managed to pick up some more terrain at a Reject Shop, whilst buying some decorations I needed to finish off the Christmas tree this year. The sandstone pillars in the photos cost me $7 each and have perfect little caves in them for heavy weapon teams and Biovores. Sadly, some poor gold fish is going to miss out this Christmas.






I am under no illusions that this guy is going to be anything but rubbish as a Warlord of my Hive Fleet. I have played enough games of the new edition to know how powerful a Flying Tyrant with Brainleech Devourers is, so one of those is in the works too. I also know how much of a glass cannon (slingshot?) a Lictor is; I can remember the days when they were rightly feared and that was a long time ago. Still... I love their little squid faces and the thought of having one lead my army makes me giggle on the inside. I plan on hiding him behind stuff and using him to guide my Mawloc and Trygon. Every now and then he may even kill a Space Marine...




See you across the table,

M4cr0

Wednesday 26 November 2014

Hive Fleet Numereji: Building a Better Deathleaper Part 2



Hi folks,

Just a quick update to share some progress I have made on my Deathleaper project. Over the past couple of weeks I have added some glazes to the armour and painted the detail on the eyes, head and gribbly-bits (feeding tendrils?). Tonight I worked on the base, painting the marine in my standard Dark Angel scheme and undercoating the gore in a skin tone and a lighter shade of Lich Purple. Over that I added three generous coats of Tamiya Clear Red.


 

 
 
 
I will probably fan some more blood effects out towards the front of the base, to give the impression that the marine has been dragged. Below are some pics to show the pose of the rending claws, which I have not painted yet. As you can see, they are pretty beefcake! They cover up some of the detail of the base, which I am fine with. Once you pick it up and take a look at where all that blood is coming from, everything can be seen clearly.




I am hoping to have this guy finished by the weekend, so keep an eye out for him (he's coming for you...).

See you across the table,

M4cr0

Wednesday 19 November 2014

Post 50 Celebration



Sooo many snakes. Snakes everywhere.

Hi folks,

50 posts! Woooooooooo!
Thanks to all of those people who have taken a look at the articles in my blog. If you haven’t noticed, I put a lot of who I am into what I write, so it is very humbling to have watched the readership grow over the past 6 months. Special old school thanks goes to those who have left contributions to the site, either through comments, links, gaming time, painting expertise or other correspondences. It feels supremely edifying to be part of this international community of gamers and artisans.


 

The past couple of weeks have been crunch time at work, which I am sure everyone goes through at some point in the year. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel, with school holidays coming around in about three weeks. I should have plenty of time to finally nail some projects I have been tapping away at. I am planning on painting the inside of the siege mantles for my Iron Snakes tonight. This is probably the most painful stage of the process, as the inside of the shield is pretty hard to see on the finished miniature. The completionist in me won’t settle for less, though.
To stay sane, I have been playing quite a few pick-up games of various flavours. Here are some snap shots of the latest shenanigans:
Twilight Struggle: A big game in which I have teamed up with the wifey to take on KuriboGoomba. We are now up to the Late War after two gruelling but awesome sessions.
 
Twilight Struggle Cold War action on Remembrance Day, with ANZAC biscuits!
 
Lord of the Rings CCG: My Dwarves/Goblins took on the wifey's "Elves love Aragorn"/Nazgul deck, as well as KuriboGoombas Hobbit/Ugly Dudes deck (which one's the ugly one?). Wifey lost after taking a huge lead early on in the game, whilst Goomba held on for a gutsy win by one site.

Father/Son combo. I have used these guys to take down the Balrog...
 
No one trusts an Elf.
 
Everyone was invited. I tried to kill them, but they just. Wouldn't. DIE!
 
Some unconventional playing pieces. I was not the bloody pony. 
 
Galactic Strike Force: I had never heard of this game before Friday; I'll be doing a full review of it a bit later on. It is a cooperative game where you defend a planetary system against an enemy fleet by upgrading your spaceships with equipment and booty. There was something very "The Last Starfighter" about it: great fun.
 
 
Finally, I received this in the mail:
 
 
I picked up two starter sets because that's what all the cool kids are doing, and a B-wing because they have always been my favourite. Can't wait to crack these open, though it will have to wait until Christmas. Anyway, back to painting snakes ;o)
See you across the table,
M4cr0

Tuesday 11 November 2014

Remembrance Day




 
“They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning,
We will remember them.”
 
On days like this, it is hard to ignore the fact that the games we love are based on the very real horrors of war. We take Remembrance Day seriously in Australia, mainly because so many of us have been buried in foreign lands. There are a couple of valid arguments against Australia fighting in foreign wars, and it is hard not to be cynical when politicians are so damn… political, but I keep falling back on something my grandfather once told me. He lived in Arnhem, Netherlands, during the occupation in World War II, which by all accounts was hell. He said to me that they were all just desperately waiting for someone to come and save them, it didn’t matter who (as it so happens, one of my mother’s first memories was of a Canadian soldier giving her chocolate from his rations). I probably wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for Allied troops fighting in countries far away from home. Australian troops have answered that call many times.
 
Arnhem
 
Anyway, I digress. On this day in 1918, the guns of the Western Front fell silent after more than four years of continuous warfare. The day gained special significance in Australia after the war; the moment when hostilities ceased became associated with the remembrance of those who had died. This has now been extended to all those who have died or suffered due to their service in any armed conflict. As a student and a teacher, I have experienced many remembrance ceremonies on this day throughout the years. It is a testament to the gravitas of the occasion that, even at the roughest schools (yes, I’ve been there), the minute of silence that we observe is actually silent.
 
Flowers for the fallen
 
My mate Wade has a large Imperial Guard army that he has been slowly repainting in the colour scheme of the Australian armed forces (Auscam). As I have posted previously, he now has some Van Diemen’s World troops to add to the force, which I am working on converting for him. Hopefully they are ready in time for the next big memorial, ANZAC Day 2015. He has kindly sent me a few photos, including a wicked custom Leman Russ Punisher, to share with you all.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Lest we forget,
M4cr0


Friday 7 November 2014

The Lion Awakes



 
Hi folks,

The past week has been absolute bedlam at work, it is examination and reporting period with very short deadlines, which means I haven't had that much time to work on anything new. Unfortunately, it looks like it will get worse before it gets better, so I may not post much during the next week. Rest assured, I have been painting a lot of snakes during my work breaks...



Another project I have finished during my breaks is a stand-in for Lion el'Jonson, Primarch of the Dark Angels. The figure is a conversion using pieces from Scibor Miniatures, a great little SF and fantasy model company. He stands a lot taller than a normal marine, as the scale of their miniatures is a little different to 40K, but for a Primarch I thought that would be appropriate. I'm assuming Forge World will bring out a pre-Heresy Lion at some point, which I will definitely get, but this guy nicely represents what Lion may look like when he wakes up. I've decided that the weapon he is carrying would not be the Lion Sword, which (as we all know) is strapped to the back of some DA wannabe who shall remain nameless.





 

The miniature was a gift that I received beautifully painted, but looking suspiciously like a Salamander! There were also some lightning bolts on the sword that the painter (Sgt Waz), wasn't happy with, but he spent such a long time blending the colours in the sword that he didn't want to risk a cover up. So my job was to repaint the green of the armour, the bone coloured robes, purity seals and part of the base to make it fit in with my other marines, and cover up the lightning bolts on the sword with a careful wet blend. I have kept some bolts on the rear of the blade so you can see what they looked like, though I did add a glaze to knock them back in places. The face, shoulder pads and chest-eagle were awesome to begin with, so I didn't touch them.






Overall, I am now very happy with the miniature and have the blessings of the original painter. Now I just need to wait for Forge World to bring out a "classic" version to complete my collection. That's it from me, it's time to get back to work so I can justify painting and gaming some more later!

See you across the table,

M4cr0