More 40k Deathwatch

A couple of more 40k Deathwatch space marines I painted up as a distraction. I expect a large upsurge in Deathwatch interest soon! Since Deathwatch marines come from other chapters to serve the Inquisition, I selected two of the more esoteric chapters I could find-- the sergeant is from the Death Eagles, and the heavy bolter is from the Flame Eagles. The sergeant's back banner is free-handed. It's not great, but it's not that bad. Not being an artist, I'm not too disappointed.

Mines, Bombs and Booby Traps

The last piece from the GW 40k Mines, Bombs and Booby Traps set. I didn't think any of the other pieces needed a base, although it came with one of these large 40mm bases for each piece. This spindly piece would never stand on its own, though. Plus, it's perfect for an objective marker, which doesn't hurt to have with well defined sides. The set includes two more of these; when I get around to painting them up, I will include some Imperial Guard detritus from the bits box. That might be a while, though-- 15mm France 1940 is in full swing! I painted forty figures for ten infantry bases just yesterday alone.

Mines, Bombs and Booby Traps

I also painted up some of the elements of GW's Mines, Bombs and Booby Traps. This is a fun little box set with a variety of markers. As objective markers seem to be the hot thing in rules today, and I'm not particularly productive or creative, that's a useful set to have. I especially like the Space Marine helmet wired to the hand grenades, although you're really going to have to yank that helmet to actually pull the pin on the grenade, which wasn't pulled beforehand!

40k Deathwatch

I finished up enough late war Gepanzerte Panzergrenadiers (2 platoons and an HQ, plus a Sig 33 platoon) to field on the table. Now it's time to work on early war in earnest. However, I was getting really tired of painting the little guys, so I took a break and painted up some Space Marines that had been in a box for a while. The heads, guns and left shoulder pads are a metal accessory kit sold by GW, so it was a bit of a mix and match putting them together. I'm pleased with how they turned out. I free-handed all the shoulder pad decals.

RPG Market Breakdown

According to this store's numbers, Dark Heresy and Rogue Trader, the FFG 40k role-playing games, already are third place in market share. Of course, they're still small fish in a small pond...although it appears that D&D has lost about 20% of it's market share since the introduction of 3.5.

Battle for Macragge box terrain

I've started on the Battle for Macragge crashed Aquila shuttle. This is actually some very nice terrain. It's injection molded, so it has really crisp detail and is very firm. I intended to do some decals on the shuttle, but rushed through it and forgot. Still, it looks pretty good. I went for an old crash, rather than the recent crash I gather was intended from the Macragge scenarie.

I'm working on finishing this set, the Moonscape set and the Blastscape set. It's fairly slow going-- after the first piece, I kind of guesstimated it was going to take me a full month to finish all fifteen or so pieces. I'm about 1/3^rd of the way through it, though, in just over a week, so I might get done a little early.

More Moonscape

Hey, found a nifty way to post pictures directly from Flickr, that's cool! I'm trying it out with this new picture of my two latest Moonscape pieces I've finished. These do look really nice, although I wonder if I shoudn't have chosen a color other than grey. In they pictures, it almost looks like I just drybrushed the bare plastic. In reality, they look quite good, I can't wait to get some games in on them.

Speaking of scapes, I see Drunken Samurai has an extensive write up on how he finished his Blastscape pieces. Somebody suggested using insulating foam to back these, and I couldn't image how you would contain it. Drunken Samurai doesn't, he just trims it to shape once it dries. That's an idea, I might do it on the Blastscape pieces with the higher raised areas.

Finishing GW's Moonscape

Got some new terrain done. Here are the first two craters I've done of the GW Moonscape set. I also have the Blastscape set and the old Battle for MacCraggae terrain to do, so I'm looking at around 6-7 square feet of terrain to do...it may take me a bit.

I cut most of the MDF for the bases tonight. It was hot and took me a couple of hours, and the bases for the largest Blastscape pieces wound up warped, so I need to do them again. Yay!

There has been a ton of negative criticism about the Blastscape pieces. Mine don't seem that fragile, but they definitely aren't as crisply detailed as the Moonscape pieces.

3rd Wave Imperial Guard

Forget those Lemun Ruses-- I've got the M-85 "Black Cat" for my Imperial Guard!! Single use only, though; this one had a spectacular trial run out in the street. However, I'm pretty sure one of these could take a good portion of any 40k army out there, especially if they're plastic.

40k Chimera

I don't paint many vehicles, so this is notable-- a not too shabby little Chimera I hand painted. It took a long time and I can't say I really enjoyed it, but I got it done and am pleased with it. Now I have another one to do. Eh. Then two Valkyries...ehhhh...

My Dark Heresy Feral Guardsman

We've had a couple of sessions of our Dark Heresy game so far, and I've really enjoyed it. Here is my completed character model. I still haven't had a chance to actually pick up the sword yet, but I've gathered enough money to grab it once I have the chance. Assuming I stay alive long enough...I tried jumping out of a second story building and wound up darn near killing myself...

Modelling Tips

From the Warp has a lot of links to vehicle and armor modeling articles. Gotta be something useful in there.

Dark Heresy

It looks like we will be doing a Dark Heresy role playing game. We rolled up characters the other night, and it looks promising. I whipped up a conversion of my feral world Imperial Guard character, replete with flintlock rifle, pistol, explosive collar and (hoped for) mono-edged great sword. I will probably add some wild hair to him.

Buying Your Way In

I've never been much of one to play with figures other people have painted. I've bought and used a handful of used units before, and I've sent a few units to Fernando Enterprises, and one thing is clear to me: I just don't enjoy my miniatures as much unless I have painted them. Plus, you tend to have the additional cost of painting labor on top of the figures themselves, making the whole thing more expensive. Yet I finally broke down and bought an entire army.

Venerate the Living Emperor!

Sounds like we may be playing a little Dark Heresy...I ordered the core rulebook today.

What I Have Been Doing

Updates have obviously trickled dry after a nice little run as life caught up with me. I have three kids, the youngest of which just turned one, and they can be quite a handful. In the last month since my last post, I managed to play in a game of Red November, which I found fun. I thought the rules were a bit ambiguous in places, but probably with a few plays through to sort that out, it would make for a quick, fun game. I got in a couple of games of our monthly 3.5 D&D game, as well as the online GURPS game I participate in (I'm Tonim). I even ran a game of Spirit of the Century. I also finished the Dan Abnett Ravenor trilogy. Looking at that, I guess my gaming life hasn't been the wasteland it's felt the last couple months. I mean, it's almost May, and I've only painted just 14-15 figures, less than four figures a month!!

Two Way Battle

We finally got around to playing our side-by-side 40k games, so we covered table area twelve feet wide by five feet across. It worked out well, except we each kept trying to ask rules questions or draw attention to cool action on our table when the others were all too busy with their own game to be interrupted!