Miniature Wargame Conversions

Conversion Contest Deadline 3 weeks away! New Prizes added!

2012-02-27T06:04:00.000-06:00

The 40K Vehicle Conversion Contest deadline is 3 weeks away! March 16th. Tell your friend's and spread the word!

So what's the deal?

We have full info in THIS POST

What will you win?

Well have collected a ton of great prizes form various hobby companies! Hitech Miniatures, Kabuki Models, VoodooWorx, Secret Weapon Miniatures and Wargames Factory.

There will be Miniatures, Gift Certificates and much, much more cool swag all wrapped up into 4 Tight Prize Packages for 1st, 2nd, 3rd place voted by the public and an Honorable Mention voted on by the staff.

There will also be a category for Staff Entries, but we won't be winning anything.

1st Place

$100 Gift Certificate to Kabuki Models!!!!!!!

1 Model voucher to Hitech Miniatures (Can be redeemed for any model)

PLUS a $25 Gift Certificate to Secret Weapon Miniatures

2nd Place

$25 Gift Certificate to a FLGS

1 Model voucher to Hitech Miniatures (Can be redeemed for any model)

PLUS a $25 Gift Certificate to Secret Weapon Miniatures

3rd Place

$15 Gift Certificate to VoodooWorx

1 Model voucher to Hitech Miniatures (Can be redeemed for any model)

Honorable Mention / Staff Pick

This is a new category we've added. A judges choice.

Winner will receive a $25 Gift Certificate to Wargames Factory

[Drkmorals] Managing Time

2012-02-20T07:54:00.000-06:00

Not everyone can casually jump back and forth through time I mean my Tardis is currently in the shop personally. So between “the busy” that is our lives each of us tends to try and carve out some time to march around or tinker with our little toy soldiers. Not everyone is lucky enough to get paid to play with little plastic men for a living, most of us have several other things that require our attention and time. Most of us have a job for example or things we have to do during the day like school. (some of us have both) I will let you in on a little secret that you already know. It takes time to get good at this hobby just like anything else. Only this hobby is a bit more complex than most hobbies so it’s easy to forget that. (why we play)

No matter what part of the hobby is your favorite it all requires some leveling so to speak in a grinding type fashion to get better. You will only become a better modeler, painter, or player by spending some time doing so. No big shock I am sure, I might as well have told you that the cast of Jersey Shore will be getting drunk in the next episode. Instead how about some tips on keeping yourself on track to hitting your new hobby goals this year.

Tip One – Break things down in small easy chunks.

This won’t work for everything but there are several things you can break into small chunks. It isn’t always possible to find a large block of time to relax and do things in. So this small tip will move your projects way further along if you can do the parts that don’t require large chunks of time. If you’re building models you can take 15 minutes to clip everything you need from the sprue and throw it in a bag. If you can get in the habit of thinking of your projects in 15 minute steps you can actually sneak in a ton of hobby time during the week to get closer to your goals. Glue together the basing material, clean off flash for 15, are your bases already done? Go ahead and glue the legs in place, or the torso and walk away. You can also sneak in some painting the same way. A quick Primer coat and put them up to dry, or even 20 minutes to base coat a squad isn’t impossible. You will be amazed at how much this adds up over the week when you normally would have gotten nothing done. (Disclaimer some models are super annoying to put together from a bag of parts you cut from the sprue. Cough cough.. Ghost ark)

Tip Two – Everything has it’s place

This really just adds to the above, but you should have a hobby area, or if possible a mobile hobby area. Something you can move around with you depending on what you are doing. A T.V tray so you can spend 15 minutes clipping sprue while watching a movie with the wife is the idea. I cook often in our home and I tend to put water on or something and while waiting for it to boil or the oven to pre heat I will spend 15 minutes on something hobby related at the kitchen table with my little “to go” hobby area. If your area isn’t mobile no shame in that there are several chances during the day to escape for 15 minutes to your hobby area. Just make it a POINT to only do the one step in the process you stopped in to do real quick. If you start spending too much time getting lost in the hobby you won’t be able to sneak in small hobby steps in your day because you will start to avoid them because you don’t have time which is the opposite of our goal here.

This is one of my mobile hobby area's so can easily carry or move around the next step or two with me. The wooden thing is like 1 dollar at any craft store. Some extra hobby time on the go is worth a dollar right?

Quick shot of my press mold emblems in the background of the top picture. The detail is amazing once you get the process down. You can see more of the army in progress with conversions here.

TIP Three – Setting some realistic Goals

Now that we are thinking about our hobby in what we can do in smaller steps and figuring out when we can take a small hobby break in our daily schedule. I have found with me and my friends it helps to set a goal. I would suggest a weekly goal of get X progress with a unit. Maybe you want to have a entire unit built by the end of the week. Maybe you want to have an entire unit based and primed by the end of the week. Maybe your goal is to have all your current projects clipped from sprue so you can take them with you while you travel. Setting a goal will help you keep the steps you would like to have done in your mind and help keep you focused on how much hobby break time you are going to be able to fit into your schedule on a regular basis

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TIP Four - ~~Profit~~ ~~Brag~~ ~~Talk Trash~~ Show off progress?

This last tip like buying your wife a new vacuum might come across the wrong way. I don't mean brag or talk trash, although I would normally encourage a little trash talk among friends. The point is at least in our local circles progress encourages progress. If you are making steady progress and the guys you game with can see that, it might a light a fire under some people to also chip away at projects we have setting around. Just like a good paint night can encourage more people to paint. It's always a plus to have more great armies on the table both locally and for the hobby as a whole, so I tend to compare progress with my friends to encourage them to keep their heads in the game and I challenge you to do the same. You never know when they will be the one's encouraging you to put that last layer of paint on your squads. =)

[Ramblings of Rictus] The Blessings of Papa Nurgle

2012-02-13T06:37:00.000-06:00

aka Converting Nurgle Tanks for Those Who Cannot Sculpt.

While I’ve never done a Nurgle army I have been unable to resist the lure of converting some vehicles for dedicated to the Plaguefather. It started with a Land Raider back in 2007 and since then I’ve found myself doing one every so often. I even pained a couple of them, which for me is a novelty.

There is one problem I faced when I came to start on doing some Nurgle dedicated tanks and walkers, namely when it comes to sculpting I have no ability whatsoever. Through various techniques I worked out as I went along this didn’t prove much of a hurdle afterall.

While not a step by step guide the following lays out the various techniques and materials I have used on the Nurgle vehicles I have converted – and in a couple of cases still in the process of working on.

Surface Texture I

This was the first technique I employed . I was testing out some paint stripper on a second hand sentinel I had to see how useful it was and discovered that the stripper softened the plastic and gave it an interesting surface texture.

When working on the Nurgle tanks I found I could achieve two different surface textures depending on the conditions I left the model when it was covered in the stripper.

This is the more subtle finish, edges are smoothed out slightly and a rippling effect occurs, the softness of the plastic allows you to distort the plastic and you can easily push something sharp through it to create holes. To get the effect the model was simply left for a couple of nights with the stripper plastered all over it.

This is the more extreme finish. By leaving the model in a cold area overnight then bringing it into the warm and adding more stripper the rough surface texture was created.

In both cases care has to be taken to mask off any areas you don’t want effected, such as details (vents, hatches and so on) and weapons (you don’t want barrel droop…).

I used the texture achieved with the stripper as a base to then add more effects over the top.

Surface Texture II & III

A combination of super glue and sugar sprinkled on for a diseased skin like effect. The sugar was built up with small amounts sprinkled on, with a final coat of super glue brushed on afterwards to seal everything.

Showing the WIP sugar and how it looks once some paint and washes have been applied (still PIP however)

For a different looking rough diseased skin like appearance I used thin tissue paper (clean tissues preferably, though I suppose used would be more Nurgley) superglued to the model. Often adding some sugar to the top covering of superglue gives even more texture. The tricky thing is how to end the area covered, often blending fleshy areas into it will work best.

Surface Texture IV

Using a rotary power tool (a dremel in this case) a pitted look is easily achieved. I found simply letting the tool choose where to go gets a more ‘natural’ look. Lightly bringing the tool into contact with the model and letting it jump and skip. Naturally care has to be taken so not to damage either the model or yourself. Occasionally I add more force to vary the look and bring more variety to the texture created.

Again a PIP picture to show the texture
once some paint and washes have been added.

Flesh

As I mentioned I can’t sculpt, frankly I can barely fill gaps with Green Stuff let alone accomplish something more ambitious. However I use plenty of GS on my Nurgle vehicles to add areas of ‘flesh’, deamonic flesh growing or merging with the vehicle. I don’t think it counts as sculpting as I am simply adding GS and then pushing, pulling and poking it into shapes and forms that look pleasing and interesting.

The quick and simple way of adding flesh.

Rather than simply covering a vehicle in GS I tend to use small areas or keep large areas uncovered. The aim is to add to the vehicle, not make it the filling in a GS bun.

The Dreadnought and Land Raider are examples where plenty of GS has been added but the shape of the base model is still clearly defined and much of the original pieces still show through. For vehicles which are not Deamonically Possessed I would add far less GS.

Another way to use the flesh is to cut into the model and fill with GS, this can be used to show that under the skin is the Daemon trying to get out or showing the vehicle ‘healing’ after damage.

Pustules and Growths

To break up the areas of flesh and to add interest I add ‘pustules’ and ‘growths’.

Pustules are a mix of GS balls, ball bearings and small balls taken from a water filter. The balls are pushed into the GS flesh, or arranged into groups as shown above.

The fungal like growths are made by using a lighter to heat one end of styrene tube. The tube softens and distorts into the shape shown. I use groups of three to mirror the Nurgle icon, in the picture you can see a variant where I have used different diameters of tube to allow one growth to fit inside another.

‘Gunk...’

Can’t think of a better term than gunk for the mucus like discharge or pools. This is a mixture of two part epoxy and glue from a hot glue gun. While still hot it can be manipulated and drawn out.

On the possessed vindicator shown in the pictures I imagined that the vehicle was ‘fuelled’ by victims being thrown into the liquid at the rear while waste parts are then discharged out the rear…I mixed in a grasping hand into the fuelling pool and added some bones to the discharge.

To finish here is a picture of the Land Raider – the first Nurgle tank I did finished off...

And to show that the same techniques can be used on a smaller scale here we have one of my Daemonically Possessed Plague ships from Battle Fleet Gothic...

I hope that small foray into the diseased world of my Nurgle vehicles was interesting. Please ask any questions you might have and drop into Recalcitrant Daze to see more of the vehicles above (and other things naturally...)

Rictus.

[The Rogue Trader] Leveling up at Painting part 2 – Get 'em wet

2012-02-11T09:45:00.000-06:00

If you are going to get serious about painting you will need more colors than those available in the P3 or GW paint ranges. Sure, those are great for table top units. What we are looking for is a truly stellar mini for a competition, display, or just to have a character that makes your opponent go ‘wow, did you paint that yourself?’ to which you can reply ‘yeah bitches and now it gonna wreck your face.’ To get those extra colors we need to blend so we need a palette. Unlike oil paints, acrylic paints dry fast so that means a wet palette.

Wet palettes come in a variety of flavors. You can drop a bit of cash on them, but you don’t need to. The minimum you’ll want is a plate (probably not the family china), some paper kitchen towel, and some parchment paper (the stuff you can buy rolls of in the grocery store). Get the towel wet, put it on the plate and put the parchment paper on top. Now add some more water, you didn’t add enough the first time. Yeah, it’s making you paint runny, that’s kind of the point. All we are aiming for is a method for keeping our paints wet. This is particularly important with blending so you don’t always have to reblend paint to try and get the same exact color mix.

A few places sell ready-made wet palettes. The P3 palette is no use at all. Far too small, avoid it. You can pick up larger ones at your local craft store that cost less money and come with free paper. Give the paper to your kids/nephews to draw on and go get some parchment paper. The stuff that comes free is far to absorbent even after it is treated. Buying a palette has a few advantages over just using a plate. Firstly, you can put a lid on it and move it from one place to another. Useful if you paint with friends and at home. Secondly, it’s a little harder to spill the paint and water and easier to control what you are doing. Lastly, if you leave the lid on for a while you can grow some nice molds in the damp, warm environment.

So we have our palette next to us and we are ready to go with a nicely primed mini. As mentioned, the water soaking through the paper will thin your paints some. You want them that way for control. When you start working on your first color you want the paint thin enough that it will take 4 or 5 coats (assuming we are going for the best results/biggest time investment) to reach the proper color. This ensures a thin, even coat that doesn’t obscure any detail. When you are painting watch for any paint that starts to pool in recessed areas and drag these out with your brush. When paint dries the pigments are pulled to the edges of the wet area. By painting in thin, even layers you are stopping this happening.

One quick aside about your painting. Your fingers are greasy. I’m not talking cheeto dust grease here, just what is naturally on your fingers. If you hold the mini this is going to put small amounts of grease on it that will give the paint a harder time adhering. There are quite a few solutions to this. The two I use most commonly are to put a pin in the miniature's feet and then push that into a cork. Or, if you are keeping the tab that most minis come with you can hold that with some needle nose pliers and then user a few rubber bands to hold it closed.

Once your base colors are on you can move to blending. As we are on a wet palette you’ll still have a nice patch of your base color that you can add highlight and shade colors to for mixing. By extending this out in two directions you can have a your highlights and shadows all controlled, and staying wet so you can keep working with them. Something like the level of blending on the mini pictured above would not be possible without a wet palette.

What colors you'll select we'll talk about later. Hopefully this has got you started on why you may want a wet palette and how it can be used.

Citizensmith

[The Rogue Trader] Leveling up at painting Part 1 - Skool

2012-02-10T11:34:00.000-06:00

You’ve been painting for a while, long enough to have graduated beyond techniques that involve dipping. You have seen some phenomenal work on various websites and wonder why your stuff doesn’t look anything like that. Well, what you need is some learnin’. Hopefully that is something we can provide. Sure, these posts aren’t going to magically turn you into a Golden Daemon winner. (For more on that GO HERE). Hopefully they will help you become a better painter by pointing out some of the things we commonly do wrong, and give ideas as to some new things you can try.

Something that will always help your painting is paying attention to others. Doesn’t matter if it’s a friend with one technique they do better than you or a wandering painting master (we’re talking about you Mathieu Fontaine), you always have something to learn or try. I'm lucky to have quite a few gamer friends who are better painters than me. This gives me lots of opportunities to learn.

I’ve been fortunate enough to attend a few painting master classes. The most recent have been classes presented by misterjustin of Secret Weapon and Mathieu Fontaine who is about as close as you can get to the painting equivalent of a Jedi Master (We thought Sith Lord to start with but he’s more like Yoda in a bad mood). The class was two days (and 12 hours the first day) but you leave full of new ideas and things to practice. It’s not possible to attend and not leave a better painter.

The class was well attended with 21 folks, a waiting list and some people who drove in over 7 hours to attend the class. The class was in Sacramento, but we had attendees from San Francisco, San Jose, and even San Diego. Basically we had the cities beginning with S part well covered. Experience ranged from a couple of folks who had been painting less than a year to one person with a Silver Golden Daemon. We even made the store staff get up early to let us in (it helps some were attending). The class started at 9.00 both days. Yeah 9.00 AM. On a weekend.

Mathieu started as a Magic player before moving to Brettonian Knights in WFB. His first competition piece took over 250 hours. And didn’t make the cut. So while residing in the frozen northlands of Canadia he decided to learn how to do this properly. And now was my chance to learn some of that.

First thing I’ll say is that while I will pass on some of the stuff we learned here, it’ll be a small fraction of what you can learn in a class like this. This is from my notes, but actually sitting there discussing, comparing, and getting hands on examples is way more useful and really makes things sink in. Nothing helps you learn more than having Mathieu come round, look at your hard work and say “You know what would make that look a lot better, some SimpleGreen”. I hope you can all take something away from these posts but the first thing is to try and find a class. See if you can get enough folks organized at your FLGS, call Mathieu and see if he’ll come teach a weekend class for you. Most of the people in the class I attended agreed that doing the same class again in a year would be great. That may be too much to hope for folks in smaller areas, but even then, arrange a painting evening with your friends, sit there and discuss what you are doing and why.

We started the class discussing a few basics. For one, there are big differences between tabletop and display painting. This class was for display painting, and more specifically French style display painting. Tabletop standard painting is done with different goals in mind. Yeah you want nice looking minis, but you want 42 nice looking minis plus vehicles. That means different methods unless you don’t plan on having your army finished until 2013. The methods taught in the class still apply to tabletop, but you may only use them on character models or limited areas of each model. When painting a single character mini to display or competition standards you can expect to spend at least 20 hours.

French style, as opposed to English (or Games Workshop) style is more realistic with zenithal lighting. Your aim with French style painting is to have a model that looks natural and normal (for an 8 foot tall chaos space marine). The GW style tends to be more cartoony with bolder colors and transitions and more defined highlights. Oh, and feel free to think of French style as Freedom style painting if you are a Republican and haven’t forgiven the France for the gulf war thing yet. Mathieu is French Canadian though so that may confuse things more.

A lot of discussion went into paints. This is for the most part opinion of course, but opinion that is based on a lot of experience and demonstrated knowledge. Use Games Workshop paints for metallic and P3 paints for everything else.

Oh wait, you want more detail? The consensus was that P3 make the best paints (or Duplocolor as its apparently the same stuff) with GW a close second. P3 use liquid pigments which make them more even and easy to control and blend. When dry they have a slight satin sheen. GW use dry pigments so don’t blend as well, but do make very high quality paints. The best example here are the GW foundation paints which are very pigment rich but that means they dry quicker so are harder to blend with. For the others, Vallejo were OK, just not as good as P3 or GW, Model Color have a huge range but are softer so wear off easier, and Reaper have poor quality control.

A couple of other thoughts for paint maintenance. Don’t rehydrate your paints as it affects their quality. Don’t use agitators as you end up mixing bad, settled out paint, back in. If you switch to a wet palette or air brush you'll have the pots closed most of the time so this will be less of a problem.

The other big take away from the class are how to do a good job with wet blending and considerations on colors and shading. Each of those is long enough that it will get its own post.

Hopefully this gave you a good start. Basically, buy P3 paints and find a class and you will become more awesomer.

Citizensmith

[Adept Zero] Counterfeit miniatures review, Part II

2012-02-09T12:08:00.000-06:00

Not a single one of these is from Apple.
The upside is that no one committed suicide while making these.

As an addendum to RedScorps' review of knockoff Chinese recasts, I'd like to share my own take on it.

What I will NOT go over is the basic moral, legal and ethical issues surrounding counterfeit and knockoff goods. This has been discussed ad nauseum in many posts all over the Net. I will not share my personal beliefs on the issue because 1) no one cares and 2) REALLY no one cares.

I will only be discussing the items in hand and my experiences in acquiring them.

Acquisition

First, let me just state for the record that while I assumed that large scale recasting existed, I was sure that because Games Workshop is a fairly niche manufacturer in an equally niche hobby, the number of well-organized counterfeiters would be few and far between. I believe I was correct in that assertion. The only "large" scale Chinese operation I've ever discovered is the same one used by RedCorps for his review, and it's also the same one that BoLS mentioned in their "expose". In fact, I found the URL by copying and pasting a grammatically incorrect sentence that was quoted from the site into Google.

The broken English made it a little difficult to navigate the site, and the fact that the site was a template (in some places, they have not removed the placeholder text from the origial files) did not inspire confidence. Despite those dubious initial observations, I ordered about 20 dollars worth of bits...enough to do an evaluation, but not enough to freak out over if the company turned out to be fly-by-night.

It took about 15 days for the items to arrive, which was impressive considering their stated "up to 20 day" average delivery time and the fact that the delivery fell across Chinese New Year. It arrived as registered mail and it was packed very well, but the box was definitely recycled from another application, so I imagine the boxes are hit or miss.

Inspection
I ordered a set of Blood Angel Rhino doors, Deathwing shoulder pads, SM command squad torsos and SM command squad backpacks. I may have been a bit under the influence when deciding on the torso/backpack combo; I had some plan in mind, but it has escaped me.So let's have a look, shall we?

Click to Enlarge

There's not really a lot to say about these. They are well-cast for the most part (two notable exceptions in the next section). You can see in the image above that there is some flash at the edges of the doors, but it's not much more than FW products.

Click to Enlarge

The resin is hard but not brittle and does not suffer from the very strong odor that Redscorps experienced...my guess is that his Blood Slaughterer was a newer pour, so the fumes had yet to dissipate.

Click to Enlarge

The torsos are one-piece, but they don't show the typical artifacts indicative of copying a copy. On a side note, I'm getting really annoyed by the fact that I cannot remember why I got these!

Issues
Not all was perfect, however.

Click to Enlarge

These Deathwing shoulder pads (pauldrons?) look OK from a distance, but some of them show some slight distortion. It's not a huge deal, but if you are a perfectionist...well, I guess if you are a perfectionist, you probably wouldn't order from a shady counterfeiter anyway.

It's not as much of an issue for the tiny pieces, but the flat Rhino parts had some inconsistencies in thickness. You can see it with this backlit shot:

Click to Enlarge

I doubt that it will be noticeable after painting, but I imagine that other large flat pieces will suffer from the same variances.

Final

There really isn't a lot more to say about these. They are a cheap, tolerable set of bits. No bubbles, no outright miscasts, and apart from the two things listed above, no issues.

Will I order from them again. No, but that again stems from my personal set of ethics. I would never dream of trying to dictate or judge other people's behavior, especially in this age of complete relativism. But let me leave you with this:

You can debate the pricing strategy of GW and FW.

You can deny the efficacy of international copyright law.

You can self-justify just about any action by saying you're "sticking it to the Man".

But buying anything when the ip owner is not compensated IS stealing by any definition, be it Rhino bits from China, a bootleg version of Army Builder from a torrent site, or copying a DVD.. How you come to terms with that is each individual's unique methodology. More power to you.

I will be writing a more personal take on this at my blog shortly. Peace out.

Old School Modelling [The Rogue Trader]

2012-02-08T05:54:00.000-06:00

On a recent trip with the family I ended up being reintroduced to what got me started on this hobby. Way back before Games Workshop were trips to the Eltham Model Shop or Welling Models to pick up Airfix kits. Every flat surface in my bedroom was adorned with plastic kits and numerous aircraft hung from the ceiling. A friend and I even came up with some rules to control our 15mm scale Airfix WW2 Battles. I don’t really remember them but let’s just pretend it was like 40K but better balanced.

While on vacation we visited a few places that sold Airfix kits, including the Hornby Museum. There was an interesting experience, going to a museum and seeing favorite toys from your childhood as exhibits on the shelves. I didn’t think I was that old.

Now back home in the US we’ve started working on some of these kits and I thought it was worth mentioning as it is a side of the hobby that people may be interested in or by able to draw from. All my memories of these kits are through the rose tinted glasses of childhood so no comparisons there. Instead, I’ll compare them to the more current Games Workshop stuff, or specifically the Ironclad Dreadnought my son just bought

We picked up half a dozen kits, mostly in 1/76 but also a 1/32 Spitfire MkVII I had fun assembling and painting. Pictures of that once it is on a base which I have on order from Secret Weapon.

Packaging of the Airfix models is very well done. They have spacious boxes in which the various sprues are in plastic bags. They also contain extensive sheets of decals and instructions which include a short historical analysis of the kit. The sprues themselves are a step down from the GW standard. Every part is numbered which is a useful step but casting quality is notably lower. I had a few slightly warped parts and a lot that needed heavy flash trimming. There are a lot of very detailed parts on these models so trimming isn’t always the easiest. The plastic itself was similar to GW plastic, but a little softer and more brittle. These models would stand up to less abuse than the standard GW Ork.

Assembly is also interesting. They rated the Sherman a 2 (easy) on their difficulty scale. A 2 rating included one part that you had to eyeball in as the instructions had it hidden, and the requirement to drill your own holes in the turret to attach the calliope frame with no markings or guides provided. The instructions showed approximately where one hole should go, the other was really a best guess. Glue drying time aside though, it was a quick and mostly easy assembly. The other issue was a couple of pieces breaking as it was occasionally hard to gets flash covered tiny plastic thing A into flash filled tiny plastic hole B. But that is what glue was invented for.

As a comparison to GW, the kit was more complicated than an equivalent, and the pieces didn’t fit together as well. You are much more likely to need bands and clips with these models. Part of this is from the nature of the model. These are scale approximations of actual vehicles, not computer generated reality that has been tailored specifically to be easy to put together. The other part is again the casting quality which is as noted, somewhat lower.

Putting together the spitfire was a similar experience. Lots of trimming flash, bending warped pieces to fit, rubber bands and paper clips to hold warped pieces in place, and some that just didn’t fit great.

Compared to this the GW sprues tend to be a lot cleaner and sharper. They aren’t specifically more detailed, but the lower casting quality of airfix can hurt the detail. The GW instructions look a little better done, but really don’t offer any more use. The key thing is, it is apparent with GW that you are buying a higher quality, better made and more resilient product.

Lastly, the reason I was happy to pick up half a dozen of these kits as an experiment. Well aside from my kids really wanting them, and the little ‘when I was a kid’ thing. Price. As much as I’ve been throwing this out as “not as good as GW”, it really is a fraction of the price. For example, the Sherman was £6.99 (approximately $11) which puts it in the price range of… Oh wait, GW don’t actually sell any plastic kits that cheap.

Sure, a small tank isn't really going to be much use for your ultramarines. If you want something to practice with, try new techniques, or as a conversion source, these cheaper kits can be great.

Citizensmith

[Lantz] Hitech Miniatures Review

2012-02-07T07:00:00.000-06:00

Welcome back to my little shindig. This week I've got a product review on a webstore that, surely by now, everyone has at least heard of. Hitech Miniatures hasn't been around long, but if you take a look around their website you'll see they have it very much together for a newer webstore. To add to their interesting webspace, their models are some pretty inspiring work and anyone who's a fan of the Adeptus Mechanicus has probably drooled over a model or seven. To further my unit completion for my fandex, I ended up ordering the Megatherion model to fill the role of the Textura unit. So let's find out how everything went down in this week's review. More after the jump.

As always, let's look at the webstore first. Obviously the word "Hitech" is pretty fitting; this webstore is shiny. But it's not all flash, things seem pretty well organized. The big banner switching through advertisements for their products is snazzy, and shows the company takes pride in its work adding customer pictures and taglines like they have.

The categories for products are simple enough, though if their product range gets any larger I'd want to see some more defined categories or the option to see more products per page. As it stands right now, however, the product range is small enough that this isn't an annoyance. Each product comes with more than enough pictures to see what you'll be getting, along with measurements to make sure everything's dandy before they ship your plastic out.

And speaking of pictures, picture-viewing is made super easy. As I said, each product has a lot of pictures to accompany it, and while a lot of webstores will make you click, close, click, close, click and close; not Hitech. Simply click one image and you can seamlessly scroll through all of the pictures of that product. Another nifty addition that not every webstore seems to include is a price tracker for your cart as you browse through their product line, which I love:

Products themselves aren't cheap (though what is in this hobby?) However, some of these sculpts are either on-par or above GW's quality judging from the pictures, and pricing isn't far from what GW is charging these days. I mean, have you seen this model? Amazing.

So lets get down to business. I ordered the thing on a weekend, which stunted shipping by a day or two, but it still managed to reach me in a week and some change, which isn't bad for overseas. Shipping cost was a touch high, but again, overseas... The package itself came like so:

And protection consisted of a bubble-wrap envelope protecting a solid cardboard box:

The box itself has a snazzy peak at what's inside. This isn't a huge deal, but I'm a fan of showmanship:

Finally, inside the plastic baggy, that is inside bubblewrap, that's inside a cardboard box, that's inside a protective envelope (this company clearly cares about your models arriving safely) is my plastic crack:

All the pieces were there, and had very little flash to speak of:

The detail on everything is just as the pictures insinuated:

The only issues I saw, aside from the normal molds lines, were a few air bubbles here and there:

I should note that the custom-looking bases that are in their product's pictures are actually included, and are pretty snazzy:

Pros:

Webstore is clean and well thought out
Models are extremely unique and well-designed
Shipping protection is above-par
Very little flash/cleanup needed

Cons:

A few air bubbles

Conclusion:

While I mentioned prices being a tad high, the quality and uniqueness of the models counteracts the price tags in my opinion. There are few webstores out there with this kind of work that you just can't find elsewhere. So will I be ordering from Hitech again? You bet your sweet ass I will. On top of being a great shopping experience, their product line has so many models that can fit into my AdMech fandex with ease. Cantharis anyone?

On a side-note, it just so happens Hitech Miniatures is sponsoring our Conversion Contest this month and I hope everyone will be participating if they get the chance. I also promise you this review wasn't a ploy to pump Hitech up, I actually bought this model back in December when they had a sale and, well... I'm a lazy procrastinator. So there you have it. Happy shopping.

~Lantz

(www.twin-linked-awesome.blogspot.com)
As always, if you're curious as to what I do with the products I review, click the link above!

[MWC Contest] New Conversion Contest in February!

2012-02-04T15:32:00.002-06:00

Are these Doldrum Winter Months getting you down?

Do you have the Post Holiday Blues in the worst way?

Feel like you are loosing your Hobby Mojo

and need a kick in the arse to get it back?

Well look no further cause we have an

Awesome Hobby Contest for you!

The Brand New

Miniature Wargame Conversion Contest!

So what's the deal?
Here it is: This is a Warhammer 40k Vehicle Conversion Contest. If it's in any Codex or Forge World publication, has an Armour Facing Value and is designed for use in a 2000pt army, it's eligible.

Show us your Coolest Pimped Out Tanks, your most Unusual Walkers, your most Venerable Dreadnoughts, your Wickedest Flyers or anything else you can think of just as long as it is a vehicle. No Infantry, Monsters, Daemons or nurglings allowed. Also, no superheavies (Sorry Guardsmen)

What are we looking for?
Conversion Skillz! We want to see your greenstuff sculpting, use of plasticard, splicing of pieces, kitbashing and out-of-the-box thinking. Only UNPAINTED entries will be accepted. If it's painted we won't enter it...Period.

Who will be voting?
You will! The vote will be public like out past contests open to EVERYONE. But seriously if you cheat..we will find you, we have in the past and we will again.

What will you win?
Well we are in the process of collecting a ton of great prizes form various hobby companies! Hitech Miniatures, Kabuki Models, VoodooWorx and Secret Weapon Miniatures are onboard with virtual vouchers and other goodies as well as a FLGS with a gift certificate. There will be Miniatures, Gift Certificates and much, much more cool swag all wrapped up into 3 Tight Prize Packages for 1st, 2nd and 3rd place and even a sweet 4th place runner up prize voted on by the staff. There will also be a category for Staff Entries, but we won't be winning anything. There will be an updated post with more prize information as we gather it in the near future.

Currently what we have for Prize support is:
(We are currently figuring out where SWM would best fit but most likely into first place. The prizes listed below are confirmed. It is very likely more will be added before the contest actual begins.)

1st Place
$100 Gift Certificate to Kabuki Models!!!!!!!
1 Model voucher to Hitech Miniatures (Can be redeemed for any model)

2nd Place
$25 Gift Certificate to a FLGS
1 Model voucher to Hitech Miniatures (Can be redeemed for any model)

3rd Place
$15 Gift Certificate to VoodooWorx
1 Model voucher to Hitech Miniatures (Can be redeemed for any model)

What do you need to send us?
No more than 4 pictures of your masterpiece along with the banner at the top of this article printed out an photographed in one image (for security purposes).We are also willing to accept your conversion in front of your computer screen with the contest page in the background.

Send Image files (high resolution preferably) only along with a short description of your conversion to HERE We will contact you via your submission email after voting has been tallied.

What are you waiting for?
Put on your thinking caps and break out your hobby knives! You have until March 16th to get us pictures of your conversions! Voting will begin a few day afterward.

A More detailed explanation of the rules can be found in THIS POST

Now go spread the word! The more entries we have the more likely this will become a regular thing.

[Drkmorals] Battlefoam Review pt 1 - PACK AIR

2012-02-01T03:00:00.003-06:00

So I am sure we have all heard of Battle Foam at some point. Some people would say they are the Mercedes of army bags, the high end. In fact It literally says that on the battle foam banner.

That's pretty confident to put that on your banner but time and time again I have talked to people who own and use the Battle Foam systems and they only have one complaint, the cost. I won't lie I am pretty cheap most the time (it's not my fault I am Asian =P ) However the cost was what was keeping me from making the plunge for a bit myself. I will confess I have held several of the bags in my hands while looking at them at events only to decide that the cost was a bit more than I wanted to spend at the moment. How ever a few weeks back my Parent's send me a PACK AIR in the mail as a late birthday gift. Yeah my sister got help with college and I totally scored a PACK AIR... I clearly made out on that deal right? SUCKER!!! Moving on....

I have held off on doing a review because I wanted to use the bag at a couple events giving it a good test run before I said anything about it.

This is the bag as most people will use it most the time. It has wheels and a handle. I first opened the top pocket and closed it to see how well it stays shut. Then I pulled on the pocket in all different directions to see if it would rip easily. It was stitched well and I could comfortably put tape measure dice bags, and other odd shaped larger things in it. However while it won't spill during normal use I wouldn't put anything in these two side pockets if I was to check the bag at a Airport. Things would fall out of them I am pretty sure.

on the side it has legs so you can set it down long way and use the handle on the other side. I again pulled on these and flexed them all around to see if they would break or if they had been attached cheaply. Again they appear very secure and I think they do the job well.

This is the bag on its side using the legs seen above. The handle is sturdy and stitched well into the bag. I held it by the handle and shook the bag all over the place honestly to see if I could tear it. I didn't put my foot on it and attempt to pry the handle off mind you I just shook it all over to see if it would loosen the stitching.

These legs are the ones that normally break on cheap luggage I have owned in the past. These are secure in place though I can't even wiggle them at all. They are flush against the bag and short of breaking the plastic itself I don't see these being a problem. The pocket on the bottom is exactly the same as the one on the other side. The wheels are double roller blade wheels as far as I can tell and roll well. They are attached just as secure as the bottom legs without any give. (again a note as above I wouldn't put anything in this pocket if you are checking this thing at a airport)

The front pocket is nice sized and closes very snug. I again opened it and pulled on it several times this way and that to see if it was secure or if it had any give in the stitching. Again as above I had no issues with it at all.

The pocket is comfortably sized to be able to put rule books or army lists inside as you can see.

The hand part on the back is just as sturdy as the rest of the bag. I pulled this thing up and down several times to see if it was always smooth or if it would stick. I also shook it all around because in cheaper bags or suitcases this handle tends to break or bend easy. I personally again had no issue with this thing. Small note the pictures below show the handle slid out. It actually locks into place in two different positions.

I have since taken this bag to two different weekends out but I haven't taken it on the road yet. I did however after doing my initial inspection hand the thing to my 6 year old. I basically let him play with it all over the house up and down the stairs. He pulled it around and beat it up for a few hours, at one point I even found him sitting in it like a boat. The bag seemed to hold up well and didn't have any rips.

These are my stairs that my son pulled the bag up and down some times using the wheels, and I know at least twice he just rolled it down. (disclaimer the bag held up well but I didn't put my models in it while he rolled it down the stairs)

Some how in the house... Without going outside my son ended up getting dirt or mud on the bag.

I took some warm water and soap with a washcloth and scrubbed the bag.

Once it dried it appears to have cleaned up well. Something else to note the bag cleans well if you get it dirty while travelling.

I so far really love the bag. I have again taken it to a few local events and it does exactly what I was looking for in a bag. I so far will recommend the bag to anyone on the border about picking one up. I will be reviewing the Foam itself and the load out I am using in the next article. I will say that I can easily fit a second army in this bag, or my clothes so I wouldn't need another bag while travelling.

A quick note about the company.

Battle Foam is owned by Romeo who travels to several events through out the year. I have personally shook his hand and talked to him several times at different places. He is open and willing to talk to you about whatever or explain anything to do with the bags or his system. Over all he really tries for great customer service. Since I am but one of "the mass" I am sure he doesn't have a clue who I am but I was greeted with the same Respect and good attitude every time I talked with him. Customer Service is a big deal to me when I deal with any company so I wanted to make a note that Romeo and his guys have so far gone above and beyond for everyone I have personally talked to about them so far.

I talked to my Dad about shipping and I appear to have gotten the bag about a week after it was ordered. So nothing to complain about there.

I wanted to leave you with the Video they use on the site about PACK AIR it shows everything I said above, and of course for more information you can go to www.Battlefoam.com.

[Lantz's Corner] CorSec Engineering Omni-Ruler Review

2012-01-31T07:00:00.001-06:00

Welcome back ladies and gents. Lantz here with another product review from a store I doubt too many of you have heard of. CorSec Engineering is an up-and-comer website started in early 2010 with bases for Aerodrome type of games.Currently they've expanded into gaming mats, measuring tools, terrain, templates and an expanded product line of bases all with more focus on the same game types. Today I'm going to be reviewing an item that can be used in all manner of tabletop gaming; their genius Omni-Ruler. Join me after the jump to see what this store and product are all about.

CSE's website is pretty basic. It has all of the essentials; a contact page, an "About Us" page, a blog to keep up with what they're working on. There's some added content with a wargaming blog and a tutorials section which is pretty fun.

The webstore is what I would define as humble. Though this isn't an insult; for a smaller product range there's no need to clutter up your webpage with needless amounts of content. Not much to say here, it's a simple webstore that's well organized.

Shipping prices were a bit high in my opinion. Anything over four dollars for a package where the employees at my apartment complex state "Is there anything even in here?" is a bit steep in my book. The shipping time and protection was great, though, coming in a bubble-wrap-lined envelope for this item:

Inside my items were in a small plastic baggy seen here. There is some scratches in the paint from travel and now use, but it'll take a long while before it's pretty noticeable as the paint job really is quite durable:

Each section of this measuring device is exactly one inch in length and screws together very neat and tight. The Omni-Ruler is made of metal and comes in a ridiculous amount of color choices. Rather than going rainbow and furthering the rumors that I've read and enjoyed the Twilight book series (it's true,) I decided to go army-colors here for my Necrons:

As you can see the accuracy of length does not disappoint:

I was skeptical of the accuracy before I got the product, in all honesty. If each section is even slightly incorrect, you start tossing 5-11 more sections on top of that the "slight imperfection" grows into an unusable product. Fortunately, these are 100% accurate to an inch:

Pros:

Easily navigated webstore

Product is completely accurate

Shipping time is above average

Cons:

Paint will show some wear'n'tear with use
Shipping cost is a bit high

Conclusion:

Overall I'm pleased with this product and plan to buy more of them. Since you can buy them in sections, they're the perfect compliment to your army's colors. I myself, like my dice purchases, plan on buying an Omni-Ruler for each of my armies in their respective colors. If you're looking for something simple in the way of measuring devices and find a ruler or measuring tape to be a bit bulky, I suggest looking into this product.

~Lantz

(www.twin-linked-awesome.blogspot.com)
As always, if you're curious as to what I do with the products I review, click the link above!

[Redscorps] Counterfeit Forgeworld Models - The Pros and Cons - Part 1

2012-01-29T23:46:00.002-06:00

Earthlings,

I'm writing today about the subject of counterfeit/recast Forgeworld miniatures and my experience with one that I purchased.

A little while back I saw a link from one of my Facebook contacts to a site where you could get EXTREMELY cheap recasts of popular Forgeworld sculpts, direct from China. The price for a Blood Slaughterer was low enough to get one just to see what it was like (it was also the only model they offered that I already had) so I placed my order and after a whole heap of comically nonsensical emails I had one in the post.

I'll just say before we get any further, that I had no intention at any stage of switching my purchasing from Forgeworld to this website(They had a lot of World Eaters stuff that I could have bought up on sight) as I am a big fan of the Forgeworld as a company, the customer service of the staff and the ORIGINAL designs that these great sculptors create. I just wanted to see what the recast was like and to be able to do a comparison to the legit items.

Ok, here we go.. Most of us have purchased from Forgeworld and know the deal, occasionally you get the odd malformed piece but they are always very quick to remedy the situation by sending you the new component you require OR, by sending you a complete new set of what you just ordered. The quality of the models has always been great for me and I have never had any bubbles or holes, the mold lines are nonexistent or very minor and the detail is exceptional.

With that said I might as well just get into the pros and cons of the counterfeit Blood Slaughterer I purchased. Starting with the Cons:

Packaging - The kit came wrapped in brown butchers paper with no bubble wrap. While nothing was broken it could have been a recipe for disaster! My Forgeworld orders have always come in a box/bubble wrap combo that well protects the contents.

Instructions - The recast had no instructions in the bag. The Blood Slaughterer instructions I got from Forgeworld were pretty basic on an A4 sheet but they gave me a decent enough understanding to figure out where the parts went and in the case of the extremely poseable Blood Slaughterer model, which joints were for which legs. Had I not already built one of these I might have ended up with some of the legs incorrectly built.

Assembly - The kit was not made of a friendly resin. I have no idea about this sort of thing chemistry wise but I know that when I was cutting into it or filing back some of the parts, extremely dangerous smelling fumes were coming off the model, even through my t-shirt (dodgey-brothers). This is never present with FW resin, I am assuming they use a higher quality grade or safer resin in their miniatures.

The other thing about my kit is they had only cast up one side of the feet(A pair for each leg), which meant I ended up with all lefties and had to cut and modify the feet to get them to mate with the leg.

The kit ended up taking twice as long to construct to a priming level due to the amount of work I had to do to get it to a similar, though not as good, level as my legit Blood Slaughterer.

Detailing - Lack of detail in the miniatures, I guess it's like photocopying a photocopy, it only gets worse each time you make a duplicate. There were also a lot of mold lines present and seams down some of the limbs. There were bubbles in the end of the ball joints and broken edges where there might have been an airbubble and it had then collapsed.

Conscience - I knew it was wrong, building it made me feel like I was stealing directly from Phil Stutcinskas, who other than being an incredible miniatures designer and painter (He made the original Blood Slaughterer), is also a top bloke. Even just for the purpose of a positive comparison in the favour of Forgeworld on almost all accounts.

And now for the Pros (Strap in, this is a long list!):

Price - This is literally the ONLY redeeming feature of the kit, at around half the price when you weigh up shipping costs to the real thing, the recast Blood Slaughterer is way out infront of the Forgeworld item, or is it...?

How much would I say that the following were worth:
Piece of mind about my purchase not ripping off a designer that I'm a fan of,
Instructions for assembly,
An odourous inclination of danger in the materials(My spoodle might now have lung cancer!),
The time it took to build and repair the kit (double that of the legit one),
The fact that there is no warranty support with the duplicated feet components,
The lack of detail over the legitimate one that it is sitting next to.

$30? Yes. That was the difference and as with most of you, for me time is money. That extra hour alone that it took to do the repairs on the kit is nearly worth $30, let alone the list of the other cons of the recast vs. the legit miniature.

Would I buy another recast to round out my trio of Slaughterers in the squadron? Not on your life. At a time were money is tough for most of us I would actually rather wait a while, save my pennies and buy the real thing than get the recast now and deal with the same dramas again.

I also strongly believe that the support for a company that copies anothers products then undercuts them will eventually lead to the death of the fantastic sculpts from Forgeworld, or it will at the very least slow the rate at which they are released.

Will I game with it and keep it in my army? Yes, but it will always be tainted.

I have no doubt it will always roll a '1' to hit with that impaler cannon and at some time in the future will crawl it's way off the display shelf and smash itself to pieces in an attempt to undo the heresy created by its existence. At such time I'll probably have to call the poisons information centre and admit myself and the family to hospital due to the fumes created by the explosion.

What do you think about counterfeit miniatures? Do they sing a Siren song to your sense of entitlement/cheap-bastardness?

Some pics, they don't really show much in the way of poor quality but it will give you an idea of the models I am talking about:

Gladly reporting that 'they' don't seem to be offerening the recast items anymore at last check,

REDSCORPS

Edit: Two of the other boys have a piece to add on the same subject so this post is now part 1 of a trilogy.

[Ramblings of Rictus] Looted Chimeras

2012-01-28T12:59:00.001-06:00

As i'm a bit stuck at the moment on ideas for articles I thought I would show what I have been working on recently...

Not long ago I sold three Looted Leman Russ tanks, I had them spare and figured I could sell them for more once looted than as second hand Russes. They did quite well so I thought i'd do the same with a couple of spare Chimeras I had knocking around.

I kept things simple and Codex legal.

Looted Wagon 1:

Looted Wagon 2:

I decided not to give the second Wagon a krewman, instead the hatch is left unglued so one can be added later if the owner decides he wants one.

More pictures can be found on my blog Recalcitrant Daze and the blog also includes a link to the eBay auctions if you are interested in picking one of them up.

I'm going to take a short break from Orks now as I need a break from Looting. Hopefully inspiration will hit for the next article as well...

Untill the next time.

[LuckyNo.5] Airbrushing Deux Razorwings - A Tutorial

2012-01-26T05:52:00.000-06:00

My first article for MWC will be a step-by-step of how I painted my pair of Razorwings featured below.

More final pics can be found HERE

Preparation

First whenever you are working on large projects like these preplanning is everything. It saves time, makes the project flow more smoothly and for me personally stops my head from spinning.

I break each project down into sub-assemblies. In this case there was the core vehicles, the bases, the pilots, the missiles and the jet exhausts. You'll notice certain pieces I mount on popsicle sticks so it makes it easier for me to batch paint the pieces at one time rather than separately. I lay out all the sub-assemblies with all the colors needed for each section in advance so I can visualize how I will paint each section in color succession.

Note: All my airbrush colors are Vallejo Air, they simply are the best pre-mixed airbrush paints out there…period. I don't use a name brand airbrush, just a simple top feed dual action. Top feed for easy paint mixing and less waste and dual action because that allows you to control not only the pressure of the airbrush but the diameter of the spray pattern. This allows you to go from a strong 2" wide spray down to something pencil thin and light width. Great for various model detailing.

Subassembly 1 - Bases

I laid down the base color of Vallejo Air Pale Blue Grey, followed by a splotchy coat of Random Tan and then a highlight color of US Grey Light sprayed at a 45 angle. This breaks up the color instantly adds shading and highlighting.

I follow this with a dry brush of Dheneb Stone then a light wash of Graveyard Earth followed another lighter Dheneb stone dry brush.

After these few simple steps I already have very dynamically textured statue ruins. From here it's just a matter of detailing a few skulls and adding grass and leaves.

Subassembly 2 - Pilots / Cockpits

To achieve an OSL effect in the cockpits is simple if you know the tricks. It's not nearly as complicated as it looks and has tremendous effect visually.

I start by taking the pilots already primed black and giving them a blast of Vallejo Bright Camo Green on the front. This is designed to simulate the glow of the console on them. I then add a drop of yellow to the green already in the airbrush and give them a second lighter blast to create a light center.

After they dried I washed them with diluted Thraka Green to emphasis the shadows. I also hand painted some shadows where I felt the airbrush over sprayed. I then hand painted some fine details onto the consoles & gems with a green/yellow mix.

Subassembly 3 - The Main Hull

The hull is a gradient of red tones sprayed in such a way as to emphasis the contours of the craft. The formula is this start with Vallejo Model AIr Camouflage Medium Brown -> Hull Red -> Fire Red -> Italian Red -> Light Red (and you thought the ship was just 1 shade of red huh?)

Each subsequent color is sprayed on the more protruding areas of the ship leaving the dark colors in the shadows. Any areas that got over sprayed with a lighter red by accident I went back in an re-shadowed with a darker color on a narrow brush setting at low pressure. After drying I lightly airbrushed black onto the side exhaust vents for a gritty effect.

Subassembly 4 - Jet Exhaust

These are extremely easy, quick and effective not only to paint but to add instant atmosphere to the models. I used Armorcast Large Lazer Muzzle effects, sprayed with Vallejo AIr French Blue, then Light Sea Blue around the "Bulb" of the muzzle effect. I then blasted it with white from the rear to simulate the "hot spot" of the blast. The final touch is a light dry brush of white around the bulb to emphasis the ridges.

While I was spraying the blue on the bulb I also sprayed the same blue on the rear of the engines and the tips of back wings closest to the exhaust.

The Final Touches

There were several final touches added. I used some blood red for a thin armour highlight then painted some subtle armor chips with a Dark Brown mix and blood red highlight to simulate paint chipping.

I hand painted the tribal areas on the wings and nose, which are way easier than they might seem. I pencil in the sections right on top of the model then paint. In the case of the white tribal on the hull, stippled a red mix lightly overtop to simulate weathering. The missiles were mostly hand painted with the exception of the blue icy gradient on the Shatterfield missiles which was painted the same way the exhausts were.

Grass and Leaves on the bases were added, Gemstones were painted The canopy was detailed and glued in place with PVA and final details were added on the weapons. Once everything was detailed I glued all the subassemblies together and sat back to relish the final painted models (at least I sat back for about a day before I started my next project!)

DONE!

Hope everyone enjoyed this article! Stay tuned, I have many more in the works!

[Lantz's Corner] Litko's Power Field Markers Review

2012-01-24T07:00:00.000-06:00

Lantz here. It's been a while since I've done a product review, and honestly been a while since I've purchased a product out of the ordinary lately. With the AdMech fandex coming to a close for 5th Edition (don't worry, it'll be updated for 6th once that is officially out,) and awaiting certain models for the Necrons I've been at a slow point for hobby. It also might have to do with a certain game that came out recently, as well... In any case, I'm back with some product reviews, the first of which will be Litko's Power Field Markers. I've never purchased anything from Litko before, though I had seen their store previously. So let's get reviewin'! More after the jump.

As with all new store reviews, let's take a look at the website. Litko's webstore is a pretty snazzy setup. Very organized and admittedly I don't really have anything bad to say about it. Pictures are in focus and often use a measuring device and precise description so you know exactly what you're getting.

The category system (something a lot of webstore muck up quite consistently) is organized well. In each category there are ridiculous amounts of product to sift through, and while I'd normally shun a webstore for not having more categories to cut down the fat of each section, I really can't say that here. As an example, under the "Tokens and Markers" category there is 232 products to choose from. IE; a lot. But Litko has taken notice of their astronomical product range and included sub-categories within the link so as to not further strain the sidebar:

Click To Zoom

As I've said, the product range is pretty massive and Litko seems to have their bases covered on anything in the shape of something we cut out of construction paper at the age of 8. Whether you need magnetic bases, templates, dice towers or even custom tokens they seem to have you covered.

So enough about the webstore; let's talk shipping. Shipping rates are average, nothing out of the ordinary. The time table from payment to shipped was about two days and shipping time to my house took three days. Pretty average across the board. The package itself came in a small, durable box:

The items came in small plastic bags, three to a baggy:

With packing peanuts for protection. For this kind of item that's pretty durable on its own this was more than enough protection:

The item itself is flawless and comes in two pieces. The hex-markings and plastic itself had no defects:

While the picture on Litko suggests the "power field" and the stand be parallel to each other (and I'm sure that's preferred for games played on a grid,) I found them to be much more stable when set perpendicular:

So what the hell am I going to use these for, you might ask. Well, with the Necron codex out and Quantum Shielding being one of my favorite new things in this world aside from gin, lady parts and cheese, I wanted a way to represent what models had Quantum Shielding up and which ones did not:

"What's an Autocannon?"

"Jesus Tap-Dancing Christ! An Autocannon!!!"

My only issue with the item is the peg where the "power field" slots into the stand is very loose and requires glue...and I don't like to make that kind of commitment. Alas, I did anyway and they are pretty sturdy.

If I had to make any changes to these things it would be that the base was round or in a cross rather than just a long stand. I have to realize this kind of product isn't created for 40k, but for a grid type of game like DnD, so I'm less sour about the whole thing and may be able to sleep tonight.

Pros:

Webstore is top-notch

Massive product selection

Good shipping rates/time

Cons:

Pegs for this item are slightly too small for the stand (though this may be by design)

Conclusion:

As my first purchase from Litko, I'm very pleased with my experience. I hadn't combed through their list of products until after I had made my purchase, otherwise I would have order a few more things that have caught my eye. Rest assured I'll be ordering from them again in the future and I would recommend their services to everyone.

~Lantz

(www.twin-linked-awesome.blogspot.com)
As always, if you're curious as to what I do with the products I review, click the link above!

[Redscorps] Thunderbudgie early stages WIP.

2012-01-19T09:07:00.003-06:00

Morning/evening all,

Today I've got about the earliest stages of WIP I think I've ever shown before but I wanted to give you an idea of what I am working on at the moment. About 6 months back I built up a Stormraven to use as part of my gaming board's terrain. The standard model is decent enough if you're a 'build and paint' type of character but I wanted to give it a little aerodynamic freshen-up via an easy tail extension.

I read a while back about the Antanov 225 aeroplane and how when they wanted to transport the space shuttle on it's back, they found that the drag created by the shuttle infront of the tail section was making a pocket of air around the tail rudders which would have caused the plane to be unable to steer properly.

Looking at the SR you'd probably think, 'why bother, I doubt it would fly looking like that anyway' but still, the tail sitting in behind the fuselage of the plane was bugging me a little so I wanted to extend it back and up. It's actually a really easy conversion as there is an obvious line on the tail section you can trim at. All I did then was mock up a stepped piece with the right angles from several thicknesses of plasticard, drill some aero-style rivets into the plasticard to replicate the style already on the tail and pin it in place.

With this model I have also chosen to go weapons free. I am painting it up to be part of of my table which is an exploration station on a desert world, I wanted to make a little cargo freighter that would be going from the RT ship to the FOB. I've added a few other bits and pieces from my bits boxes to fill in the areas where the weapons and top intake would have been.

As far as paint goes I just wanted to block in a few of the primary colours tonight and see how it looked. Being a neutral vessel I painted it a seafoam green colour and the yellow areas you see I have blocked in around the VTOL jets and the edge around the turbine intake are all going to be hazard striped.

The rest of the vehicle is going to undergo a fairly heavy weathering but be mostly damage free due to the nature of it's non-combat role. I think it's going to come up pretty well and I'm quite excited to keep working on it. I'll have it sitting on top of a skyshield landing pad which is joined to a custom bastion, should be able to get a photo of the whole lot together in a week or two.

Then it's on to making some accessories and crates that can go around it on the landing pad to further cement it's role in the narrative. I've already got a little forklift done up in a 40k style but I'm thinking some cargo and a few containment cages with xenos in them ready to transport.

Super early WIP, so yeah, apologies for the crapness but you might be able to imagine where I am headed. Checkit:

Bwarrk!

Haha, a seafoam green Stormraven, can anything be more pleasing on the eye?! Surely not!

[Redscorps] Back again to smash your face in with my Crozius

2012-01-16T02:43:00.001-06:00

Reclusiarch 'Geoff' of the Red Scorpions often questioned his choice to work the door for extra purity seals at the girlie bars onboard the Capital Ship. Sure, he loved the ultra-violence but was washing his armour really worth the half price lapdances and a few extra wax seals? He wasn't even sure if he had the right organs to enjoy the lapdances afterall and his armour was beginning to look like an overused notice board at a community rec centre...

I'm back and my hobby works this time around are either going to wreck your face like my main man here with the Crozius just did to your HQ choice (Obviously not in a game of 40k though with my vanilla codex, I'm talking about his performance in a BL novel), get your girl/mother/daughter pregnant or be totally uninteresting and a massive wet blanket on the rest of the blog team.

Haha, I've actually got no idea. I'm no Rictus in the conversions, I'm no LuckyNo.5 in the paintshop and I'm certainly none of the other guys when it comes to creativity.

I do know how to chip the hell out of everything and add bucketloads of semi-realistic weathering pigment placement on my models though so there is that!

Cheers
Redscorps

[Ramblings of Rictus] Terrain - Minefields

2012-01-11T23:46:00.000-06:00

Welcome to my first article on MWC, I thought I would start with a small and straightforward one to ease us all in...

...so I shall begin with some minefields.

These are mainly for use in Apocalypse games where the Minefield Strategic Asset allows you to take up to 36”x6” of minefields.

The first thing I needed was of course the mines themselves, both anti-infantry and anti-armour. Rather than spending a small fortune on mines from Forge World I made masters and then cast them.

The masters are made from 1/35 scale wheels and fuse wire for the anti-armour mines and another 1/35 scale piece with styrene rod for the anti-infantry mines.

Once the mould was done it was quite a quick process to knock out as many mines as I needed.

I decided to try out a new material for me for the bases, 3mm thick Finnboard which is a material commonly used in architectural modelling and similar applications. It is strong yet light and very easy to work with. It can be cut with a knife thus avoiding any sawing and sanding while it suffers almost no problem with warpage – it can simply be bent back into shape if it does.

I cut two 12x6” and two 6x6” bases to allow me to arrange the minefield either as a continuous 36” strip, two 18” strips or as three 12” strips as per the Strategic Asset rules.

On each piece a small number of mines were added, the backs of them were sanded down to remove excess resin and also to vary the height, some mines would be clearly visible while others would be half buried or only just showing. Sand was then added along with some (clean) cat litter for rocks to break up the sand.

How the minefields looked prior to undercoating.

A few larger rock pieces were also added. On one base I added some razor wire along with a couple of craters made from modelling clay for variety and visual interest. After undercoating in black it was quite a simple job to paint the minefields.

I painted the minefields to fit in with my gaming board, so various browns for the earth and greys for the rocks. The mines themselves were painted metallic but muted down with washes so they were not shiny. I wanted them to be seen so everyone knew what the bases represented while not standing out too much.

And in position on my gaming boards

And that is just about it. I hope it was interesting enough for a first article. If you have any comments or questions I would be delighted to hear them.

[Drkmorals]Through the Looking Glass 2011

2012-01-08T20:00:00.011-06:00

Drkmorals here one of the new member to the M “Dub” C team of writers. After some intense negotiations I have been allowed to spread my online nonsense on the front page on a semi regular basis. In fact my label will most likely be [Drkmorals Nonsense] because let’s not sugar coat it, while there is great tips, fun tactics, and other stuff it’s mixed in the insanity that dances through my thoughts, you could easily call it nonsense I know my wife does. However I’ve heard “A little nonsense now and then is relished by the wisest man.” I could do an entire intro post; however that sounds boring so instead let’s do a bit of a 2011 run down of things 40k that GW lobbed into the field and waited to see what would happen.

GREY KNIGHTS

Yes the Grey Knights, the army that starts off Grey and ends up shiny grey when you actually paint it. They burst onto the scene giving people that yell of codex creep not only something to yell about, but a full song with a catchy chorus. The Imperial Grenade maker’s official chapter. The Knights came with a grenade for everything, there are so many grenades in the book that you could see Billy Mays trying to sell them in an infomercial and they ran out of names so they just named one the “rad” Grenade. They come with the Dreadnaught that makes other dreads cry.The Dread that Long Fangs wished they could shoot like, oh and it comes in the standard sedan and luxury models depending on what you’re looking for to boot. This is the army that proved the power of the troop slot like Ork players wish they could. Terminators are a normal choice. Strike squads aren’t shabby at all. You want Purifiers as troops? We can do that too. Super Paladins as troops? Sure no problem, and if you just want points efficient troops you can take a 12 point 3 man squad. That’s right Gretchin you have been out done and out classed in every way. For a few points more than a small unit of objective grabbing Gretchen, and a few points less than a minimum squad of Plague Bearers I can get a troop choice WITH a twin linked str 6 metal box of safety.

The release isn’t perfect, they have the large robot of death with what must be the worst cockpit design in the Imperial armory. I often wonder how many mothers walked by with babies in carriers before the tech marine designed that thing. The kit just screams to be converted though, which makes it not a total loss. The codex is solid on all fronts, new models, solid rules, added fluff that really takes the chapter over the top. The Chapter master appears to literally be the marine from DOOM with the GOD code on. The codex arrived and put a damper on the Dark Eldar in the meta game, as well as adding its name as a solid contender going head to head with IG, and SW still today as a dominate force on the local tourney scenes.

FINECAST

That's right we also get what I can only laugh at in a resin idea... Man I wish I could have been in this business meeting. "Who ever thought of this" must have got a nice bonus. Financially this must have sounded great on paper. Let's use a cheaper material to cut costs, and then let’s not make anything new. Instead we will use the same old molds and designs we already have. Then repackage or re-image the items calling them Citadel Finecast!!! We can market them as a new high end product line without creating a new line!! I am sure everyone clapped and thought that a great idea. No one stood up in the back of the room and asked if these changes would make people upset. That clearly the Hitler Video will be resubbed again to make fun of us as a company. No of course not...and any wargamer knows that not everything that looks good on paper actually turns out that way.

Finecast has turned into the blond girl at the bar. Some people love her and some people can't stand her. She can be fun or no fun depending on who you ask. I overall had been hearing positive stuff about the new models mixed with the anger of the price increase. It appears that the material and the QA department on them isn't exactly perfect. I have seen many reports of poor quality control resulting in mass air bubbles or molds not being full. Then also I am sure several of you online saw that the blond at the bar is apparently a vampire, because she is scared of the sun. That's right I am sure several of you saw the melted model that had been left in the sun. However sadly like real vampires this too appears to be a bit of a stretch and also what I would point out as a Quality control issue. The only model I could find a picture of having melted from the sun was on the "front line gamer blog". Everyone else I could find that mentions it had no pictures and due to the mass of traffic and negative press it appears the original post was taken down and replaced it with a run down of facts.

I’ll save you some time though; the blonde is not a vampire, most people like her, she is flexible, fun to work with, has great detail, and is like most girls.... is expensive.. (note this was not intended to offend any actual Vampires. If you are a actual Vampire reading this I apologize for calling you not real... unless reading that you are not real made you vanish then it doesn't really matter I suppose)

Sister of Battle

WD Codex sisters of battle just adds to the stereotype that when you give some old wargamer’s a group of girls they have no idea what to do with them. They ended up in a WD and although the update proved to be lackluster in the eyes of many it still proved that putting girls in Magazines tends to sell more magazines. I know several people myself included that picked one of these up after I haven’t even looked at a WD in years.

First off the Nuns with Guns are not as faithful as they once had been for some reason. It could be the stock reports GW released the last year(although this year looks good). It could be that Michael Moore has made a documentary about the false emperor, but whatever the reason they now only get D6 Faith points per game turn it appears. They didn’t get access to more vehicles and they lost the ability to use immolators the way they have been in the past. Plus they didn’t even get any new models or at least a release in plastic making this army still one of the most expensive to field on the table. So many things could be said about this update. They are still playable but I think over all most people will agree this was a missed opportunity by Games Workshop to do an older army some justice. We can only hope they have plans to come back to the ladies in the future and as Grandma would say "Show the ladies some respect"

NECRONS

In the Grim dark future there is no Maytag Repair man, because the robots repair themselves. Yes that’s right unless you live under a rock (like a caveman) you know that the Necron codex dropped and the undead pet project of the C’tan have gotten an update. I don’t mean some shabby windows update that makes you restart your computer two times when you clearly don’t want to right now. I mean a real manly update that would make Tim Allen proud. You get all kinds of new shiny for your Metallo inspired army. What is better than metal hungry soulless killing robot zombies? Well fluffy robot zombies of course! Wait, no I don’t mean like that unicorn in Despicable Me, although feel free to model your new army as fluffy bunny crons if that amuses you.

No I mean we actually get a back story that gives them some character and depth. In the past the codex was cold, like your friends ex wife cold. Yeah that was fitting since they are cold lifeless machines and you can argue that they had some cool points with the ancient C’tan waking up and fighting amongst themselves like children using their new robots to play battle chess because the Deceiver tricked the Nightbringer or some nonsense. (Although he should have seen it coming, he is named “the Deceiver”) Really they had some interesting background things about how the army got to where it is, but the units themselves acted out with less character than the borg. Show up, march forward, shoot, get assaulted , and phase out. Oh wait that’s game play.. I get those confused sometimes.. Moving on..

What I am saying is now they have some flavor. They have bitten the hand that feeds them, threw it in a jar and hell they even march the hand out making it epic slap fight things for them. You even get to choose the flavor of the hand. I am a scissors guy myself, but feel free to try out paper or rock. Time still will show how much the new army on the block will shift the meta game and effect the tourney scene though.

So that was it for 2011 for the most part. There was some fun other small things in there. FAQ’s, the Rumor black out, ongoing GW lawsuits but for the most part it wasn’t a huge 40k year. Plus if I talk about everything what will I write about next time?(A actual intro post perhaps?) So here’s to 2012 as I look forward to several interesting things that appear to be coming down the pipe if rumors are true. Tau, chaos, 6th edition, and more appear to be just around the corner and I for one can’t wait.

What are you looking forward to the most in 2012?

[LuckyNo.5] Joining The MWC Crew

2012-01-07T13:15:00.001-06:00

Cheers Everyone! LuckyNo.5 here. MWC has graciously invited me to become a guest writer. I have to say I am humbled and honored at the opportunity. I plan to post about one to two articles a month that are informative and mostly tutorial based. A newly found airbrush fascination of mine will most likely be the focus of the first few articles.   

About me Personally
I am currently located out of Philadelphia, USA where I live with my beautiful wife and 4 month old baby boy. A Graphic & Web Designer by trade, I've become a dabbler in many art forms including Photography & Illustration.    

About me Hobby wise
I've been building models since I was a little kid. I started off with Star Trek and Star Wars Models. In fact I still have a very rarely updated Trek model blog over HERE

I like to think that I'm constantly improving as a painter, scratch builder/converter and have been getting more experimental with sculpting & casting. Eventually I plan to take this to the next level when I go back to Art School for my Masters in Industrial Design where I will learn more about 3-D rendering, prototype development and conceptual planning. 

About 10 years ago my roommate at the time introduced me to 40k. It was an instant love for me, a sci-fi geek by nature. Now about $40k later I'm still very much in love with the game system and the models despite all the naysayers and new competition out there.  

My 40k blog is over HERE. Some of you may know me for my Dark Eldar obsession. Armies I've started and some I’ve finished: Black Templars, Death Guard, Emperors Children, Dark Eldar and now Necrons.    

Editors Note: Dont forget this bad mofo! And what you are doing with it!

What it comes down to is I love building, painting and converting models and as I learn new tricks I will be sharing them on here. Hopefully my articles will help and/or inspire readers to create their own awesome minis and provide more fuel for this creative fire.

[Ramblings of Rictus] Greetings...

2012-01-07T01:10:00.000-06:00

I was recently invited to write some articles for MWC and it seemed the most appropriate way to start things rolling was with an introduction.

Hello.

My name is Rictus.

It seems to of been Rictus for a very long time though in reality I only started using it when I began posting on Portent not long before its reincarnation as Warseer. I then spread onto Work In Progress, Da Waaagh and The Ammobunker forums before earlier this year taking the step to move into blogging when I set up Recalcitrant Daze.

I fell completely and fully into the hobby we all love and hate back in 1990 when I bought White Dwarf #124 (in the days when WD was worth the price). I have been unable to claw my way clear ever since and over the years I’ve worked my way through many game systems and too many different armies.

I am far more of a modeller than a gamer, and far more into converting than painting; basically I paint only as a last resort. As such I have far too much sitting in boxes unbuilt, half built or unpainted. One day I will finish an army. One day.

Most of you will be unfamiliar with what I have done in the past so much like a pimp pushing his wares here is a small selection of my models…

Hades Drill & Sentinel Power Lifter

Ork Looted Wagon & Mekboy Junka

Deffstrike Rokkit Launcha & Da Choppa

Nurgle Dreadnought, Land Raider & BFG Daemonvessel

AdMech Chimera & Iron Warriors Daemon Engine

Inquisitorial Landing Pad

I’m not sure what articles I will be doing for MWC yet, but I am sure one will not be far away. If anyone has seen some of my work before and has a suggestion for an article please let me know and I’ll see what I can do.

In the meantime thanks for those who took the time to read this and thanks to the MWC guys for inviting me to contribute.

Want To Be A Guest Writer On MWC?

2011-12-21T13:01:00.000-06:00

There's No Shame In Posting Pictures Of Attractive Women; Only Hotness

How's everyone doing? Good? Fantastic! Me too, as we here at MWC, in our sloth of writing lately, have got a great idea that benefits everyone! It encourages us to continue on with our laziness and gives our readers a chance to speak their mind to a very large following of their fellow readers. So without rambling too much, if you or anyone you know would like to be a guest writer for MWC on any topic that is modeling related, please post a comment here. We are looking for a few good guest writers to bring in some fresh ideas and view points on all the games out there.

So if you play one of the lesser known games, feel free to leave a comment here! Even if 40k or WHFB is your game of choice, that works too!

Spread the word! Let us all share what we have learned to those just starting out in the hobby!

[Arid's Anomalies] - Necron Command Barge/Annihilation Barge Magnetisation tutorial!!

2011-11-17T07:52:00.000-06:00

Hey folks.

Yup, I got bit by the metal- man bug. Those awesome new models and rules finally tore me away from my White Scorpions, and so here I sit, surrounded by half build robots and bits of glowy green plastic.

These new Necron plastic kits have one recurring theme; dual kits. Whether its Immortals/Deathmarks, Praetorians/Lychguard, or Ghost Ark/Doomsday Cannon, GW have decided to combine the two units into one sprue, and whichever unit you decide to build, there will be a lot of bits leftover. While this could mean more bits for our bitsbox (and lets be honest, who doesn't love the "shaka shaka" noise of a full and healthy bitsbox?), for the more... tightfisted of us, having the ability to swap out and change up our units from one to the other is a boon, and in my opinion, none more-so than the Command/Annihilation Barge. So, I therefore present to you my first tutorial!! YAAAY

Bear with me.....

Step 1:
Buy/Grab the necessary kit:

...and my mitts....

Necron Command/Annihilation Barge
Magnets, I use Neodymium 2x1mm round magnets for all my magnetisations, which I got here, but you can use something else if you think it will do the same job.
Pin Vice, obviously with a 2mm bit and a smaller one for paperclips.
Paperclips
Paint and Brush
Greenstuff
Scalpel/Modelling knife
Super Glue
Tea/Coffee/Beer/Tequila/Yaks Milk or whatever you want to drink, you decide I'm not your mother jeez

Step 2:
Assemble the model up until this step here:

Note that I left off the pilot/gunner console for ease of painting.

Step 3:
Get out your pin vice, and drill two holes with your 2mm bit between, and a little behind the two slotta holes made for the command console, as shown below:

Then, with your knife, hollow out the hole a fraction more, just so you can get the magnets in a little easier. Do not go overboard here or else you will have a helluva time getting your magnets to stay in place. You should end up like this:

Now, you will notice three little plugs where the base for the Tesla cannons slot onto (you can see two of them on the left and right on the photo above), the rearmost one, i.e the one you cant see there ^^, cut off and drill your last 2mm hole where it sat previously. You should now have three holes ready to accept your magnets!!

You may be wondering why I didn't decide to just put the magnets where the three plugs sit, the reason being that I wanted as secure a fit as possible, and so the extra sturdiness given by having those two other plugs there was a good choice.

Step 4:
Now, take 6 magnets, and separate them into three sets of two. Grab your paint and paintbrush, and on the sides where the magnets are attached and attracted to each other, put some paint. This way, when gluing them in, you wont forget which way they go and end up with the magnets repelling each other rather than attracting, which would be a bit of a mess!!

Using your scalpel, pick up one of the magnets with the paint side facing the metal of the blade, then glue it into one of the holes. Take one magnet from each of your three pairs and glue them into each of the holes you have drilled but remember to have the paint facing up!! Like so:

I hadn't done the rear plug at this point, because I was working out how to do it as I went.

Step 5:
Now, take the base from the tesla cannons, and add a dot of paint to each of the already glued in magnets. Place the tesla base on top, slotting the plugs into the holes on the sides, and you will now have the exact place where to drill you next holes for your other magnets! Drill them out (be careful, the base isn't very thick and you dont want to drill all the way through) and then glue in your magnets, remembering to glue them paint side up again and you should have something like this:

My paint rubbed off on my fingers. Sorry.

And now, ta-da! You have a removable tesla destructor for when you want to blast your opponents troops into smithereens!!

Step 6:
Now, for the command console. Where the little plastic pins sit on the underside of the console, is where we a re going to put in our paperclip pins so that the console can stand up without falling over, like so:

I would also advise drilling the holes on the barge itself a little deeper, and using a longer paperclip than I have done to make it that much more sturdy. And so:

Ta-da! You now have your very own changeable barge, ready for any occassion!!

Let me know what you think, and remember and follow my blog here for more of my new Necrons and other witterings!!

[Lantz's Corner] Necron Codex Review:Part VIII - Final Thoughts

2011-11-11T07:00:00.000-06:00

So after everything we've covered I'd like to go over my final thoughts on the new Necron codex. First, let's get a list of what we've gone over so far:

1) Wargear and Rules

2) Generic HQs and Retinue

3) Named Characters

4) Troops and Transports

5) Elites

6) Fast Attack

7) Heavy Support

For my final thoughts I want to go over some things that need to be FAQed, the great/good/bad units in this dex, playstyle and tactics and finally the new fluff. We're going in-depth into the mind of Lantz, so strap yourselves in. It's going to be a bumpy ride full of an abundance of commas.

FAQs Needed

So, issues that I've run across either on the tabletop or in my head. It's a new codex, it's going to need FAQs, it happens with every army. A lot of the debate on what needs FAQ isn't something that's written poorly, we just need specifics on whether it's as-written or as-intended. I want to hear everyone's opinion on these or others they have found along the way, but for now, here's what I've got:

Anrakyr The Traveler's Mind of the Machine

This is the ability that let's you shoot an enemy vehicle's weapon as if it were your own. My question is, there are a few vehicles in this game that would have the ability to shoot themselves. Namely blast weapons, but also vehicles like the Razorback, that if magneted, could shoot the top of its own hull. Is this allowed or is it not? I would assume it's not allowed, but the question is there for someone who really wants to cheese-out.

Monolith's Portal of Exile

This is the ability to remove models from the table from sucking them into the Monolith's portal. Can this weapon be used to remove models locked in close combat? It's not clear. Shooting rules for 40k state you can't select a target locked in combat, but this weapon doesn't pick a target. In my opinion, this is an as-intended rule as being locked in melee with your enemy isn't going to save you from a portal of doom.

Lychguard's Dispersion Shield and Melta Range

Scenario: A Multi-Melta shot gets reflected from this shield to a vehicle within the 6" range for the shield. Does it get the melta effect off of the Multi-Melta's range or the Dispersion Shield's range or does it get it at all? The Mindshackle Scarabs clarify any bonus' are taken into account, but this wargear doesn't. I could see this argument going all directions so I'm not sure which is correct myself.

Imotekh's Staff of the Destroyer and the Doom Scythe's Death Ray Shooting into Melee

Both of these weapons either nominate a direction or pick points on the board and anything under the line drawn is wounded. The question is, can you intentionally direct these shots into melee or shoot towards a unit out of combat even though to get there you'll be going through a group that's in combat? It's my opinion that you can. See my argument for the Monolith above.

Mindshackle Scarabs and Cryptek's Abyssal Staff Leadership

Both of these items base their results off of the enemy's Leadership The question becomes, with Mindshackle Scarabs is the model or unit's Ld used for the Ld test? And for the Abyssal Staff, does each model use its own Ld or can they all use the unit's? For Mindshackle it's as-intended for me; a scarab takes over the model's brain, not the unit's. For the Staff I say it's against the whole unit just for speed and ease of the game.

Trazyn: Mindshackle Scarabs and Empathic Obliterator

Trazyn's EO ability allows him to wound everything in a unit with the same name as something he wounded. However, he comes with Mindshackle Scarabs. Are wounds caused by this ability included in the EO rule? I don't think this was intended, but I could see people making the argument otherwise.

The Great, The Good And The Bad

Next let's talk about some of the key units. I'll put some of the ones with an obvious category to me in here, but I'd like to hear what the community's take on all the units are as well.

The Great

I categorize these things as under-costed for what they do. The first thing that comes to mind is Canoptek Spyders. Spyders are a mere 50pts for an incredible statline. Tyranid players are going to hate that we get this. And as if the stats weren't crazy enough, you can bring 3 of them in a unit and wargear them out differently making 9 wounds on toughness 6 that you can pick and choose where they go. On top of this they come free with Scarab-making that can go beyond the Scarab's starting size. With some extra costs that are on the cheap you can get even more utility out of them including Psyker-denial.

Probably next in my book is Imotekh the Stormlord. What doesn't this guy do? The Night-Fighting for possibly a whole game for a mid-range shooting army is arguably worth his cost of 225pts. But you additionally get a staff that could wipe out half of a Terminator squad, stealing the Initiative on a 4+, more wounds for assault results, 2+/3++ with 3 wounds and is a Phaeron with a Phylactery. The only downside to this guy is he doesn't have a power weapon, but no one is going to whine about it considering all he gets instead.

Finally, the Barges. One's a transport that allows an HQ to sweep across the battlefield with a Warscythe and the other comes with a Twin-Linked Tesla Destructor. Both comes with Quantum Shielding and a Tesla Cannon. The cost for these things? 80 and 90pts respectively. A steal.

The Good

Triarch Stalker pops up in my brain first. While a lot of people consider these guys to be great, I think they're distracted by the fact that everything else in the Elites section is lackluster in comparison. Even the C'tan Shards that are insanely powerful, but unfortunately they'll cost you an arm and a leg. The Stalker is perfectly priced, not under- or over-costed in my book. The Heat Ray is something very important to this codex and the Twin-Linking the rest of your armour is just icing on the cake.

Scarabs are another good unit in this dex. Their ability you might say is crazy, overpowered, cheese; and I won't argue to some degree. But they're 15pts which is a good price in my book. The glaring issue is getting tied up in combat, but that's just something you can't factor into cost. They're the epitome of good; plain and simple.

Finally, Canoptek Wraiths. Yes, they got a ton of boosts from 3rd Edition, more-so than anything else. While I might say they're slightly undercosted considering they have 2 wounds, I'm sticking with good. My own bias of them losing WBB is definitely taken into account on this opinion, but they're not bad by any means.

The Bad

I'm not going to delve in too much as I think the units I'm labeling as bad are quite obvious. While I guess I don't think any units in this book are unplayable like some codices *cough* CSM *cough*, it's more like they pale in comparison to other things in the codex or in their FOC slot. The thing of it is that the units that seem bad right now have a flavor that screams "I'm going to rock the house in 6th Edition." My opinion of Bad Units are Destroyers, Lychguard, Flayed Ones and Deathmarks. My assumption is that that Preferred Enemy rule on the Destroyers, the shields on Lychguard and Deep Striking with Flayed Ones and Deathmarks are all key pieces to a 6th Edition puzzle. Only time will tell.

Tactics And Playstyles

Now that you've gotten my take on categorizing unit usefulness, let's get into a short tactics and playstyles discussion. I've only played a 2000pt game so far with this dex, but a lot is going on in my head. First, Night Fighting is going to be a key role for this army. With either Solar Pulses, Imotekh or a mix of the two, you're going to see these in lists and often. Another central theme is going to be Stalkers and their Twin-Linking. Anyone else noticed the rules say that units firing at the Stalker's target get all their weapons Twin-Linked? That means Ghost Arks and Monoliths can fire one weapon at that target and fire the rest of their weapons elsewhere all the while getting Twin-Linked on everything. Another playstyle I can see is terrain manipulation. There's so much of this in the codex it's not even funny. Another tactic I see is Res Orbs; maxed out model count on units and Lords tossed out with Res Orbs. Now that WBB/RP isn't hindered by melta and power fists, a Res Orb (while expensive) can make the Necrons tougher than nails. Finally, Scarabs. Basing an army around Scarabs is something you'll be seeing on a regular basis thanks to their cheap point costs and Spyders pooping out new ones every turn.

The Fluff

Last, but not least, I'm putting the rules away and I want to dish about how I feel about the fluff. A month or so ago if you asked me what I thought of the rumors of the new fluff I would have raged for 20mins about it. I hated it. I hated the idea of it. I chose Necrons because of their frightening appeal. There's nothing more menacing than an onslaught of stoic robot-zombies without remorse. So now that I've read it all, what's my take? I like it. Damn me, I like it and I don't understand why anybody doesn't. If you still have the same mindset I used to, the fluff explains there are a lot of Necrons still like this. If you don't like the mindless robots then you have tons of options. It's like Codex: Space Marines. Pick your own story.

Now my fear of Matt Ward and his ridiculous fluff was answered, but only in one entry. Flip your books over to the Thanatos and the Celestial Orrery entry on Page 15 and tell me with a straight face that you couldn't tell if that was written by Matt Ward or not. All in all, Mr. Ward didn't go too crazy with the fluff and gave everyone a way to play with the backstory they prefer.

I suppose that's all I've got for now. In the coming weeks and months I'm sure I'll be pushing out more battle reports over on my blog at Twin-Linked Awesome so be sure to keep an eye out and good luck my fellow Gauss-brethren.

For the Phaeron!

[Lantz's Corner] Necron Codex Review:Part VII - Heavy Support

2011-11-10T07:00:00.000-06:00

Here we are, the heavy hitters. Last time we looked at the Fast Attack choices available, and while you may think that the Heavy Support is full of slow-crawling powerhouses, the Necrons are significantly faster than they once were. The options available in the Heavy Support FOC slots are extremely diverse so you can create a list to your playstyle with the big shooters, which is something this codex does well. So let's move into it.

Doomsday Ark

First up is the Doomsday Ark. This thing shares some similarities with the Ghost Ark in that it's an Open-Topped, 11/11/11 Skimmer that comes with Living Metal, Quantum Shielding and two Gauss Flayer Arrays. That's where the similarities end, though. Where the Ghost Ark carried troops, the Doomsday Ark carries a giant weapon of doom, literally. The Doomsday Cannon fires in 2 modes. If it sat still; 72" S9 AP1 Heavy 1 Large Blast will bring death upon...well, anything. If the Ark moved, however, it fires a less impressive 24" S7 AP4 Heavy1 Small Blast.

Considering this thing has a front/side armour of 13 for a time, thanks to Quantum Shielding means it can afford to sit still in the backfield and have a chance at Space Wolves' missile barrage. Should something get close enough to melee, however, you'll typically have two choices. First, move and take your weak shot at probably a vehicle considering a small blast isn't going to do much if you're fighting infantry that knows to spread out. Second, sit still and hopefully blast the crap out of them with your pie plate of doom. Outflank armies are going to cause this thing issues, but aside from that this is a powerful choice coming in at 175pts.

Annihilation Barge

This Open-Topped Skimmer shares the same statline with the Doomsday Ark and also comes with Quantum Shielding, Living Metal and a Tesla Cannon that can be exchanged for a Gauss Cannon for free. What makes the Annihilation Barge powerful is the Twin-Linked Tesla Destructor.

This thing is a powerful anti-infantry tool that I think will see some use. While most things in this codex can kill infantry quite easily, this thing is durable with Quantum Shielding and comes in at a slightly more than half of a Doomsday Ark.

Monolith

Anyone who's seen Necrons knows about the Monolith. While it still retains its hefty 14/14/14 statline and can't move more than 6" a turn, a lot has changed. First, the Gauss Flux Arcs no longer hit everything, but instead fire three S4 AP5 shots at 24" each and each weapon can fire at a different target. It comes with Living Metal and if held in reserve must arrive via Deep Strike. The Particle Whip's Strength has been reduced by 1, but still retains its Ordnance, Large Blast, AP of 3 and range of 24". The Eternity Gate has changed quite a bit. Any unit in reserve or anywhere on the board can disembark from the Monolith's portal at the beginning of the moving phase as if disembarking from a moving vehicle. If this option isn't used, this thing can choose to use its Portal of Exile ability: any models within D6" of the portal must pass a Strength test or be removed from the game without any saves. This includes Walkers, but not tanks as anything without a Strength value automatically passes the Strength test.

First, I want an FAQ on this thing. Can I use the Portal of Exile on things locked in close combat? The rule doesn't say I can't, but this ability counts as a shooting attack. On the flipside, in the 40k Rulebook it says when picking your target you can't choose a model/unit that is locked in close combat, but this weapon doesn't choose a target, it just fires away. This needs to be clarified, badly. If you can hit models in close combat, this thing gets significantly better, if it can't I don't see this used much as anything can outrun the portal of doom with ease. You see, the Monolith has a lot of issues, the first of which is the reduced Strength on all of its weapons compared to its 3rd Edition self. The Particle Whip is a strong hitter, still, but isn't as much of a tank-popper anymore. And the Gauss Flux Arcs are just awful... In this day of T4 3+ armor saves, the Flux Arcs aren't going to do much. As for the Portal, it's nice there's infinite range for teleporting units, but since this is happening at the beginning of the movement phase you've now crippled your ability to move in whatever direction the portal is facing since the unit can't move out of your way. 200pts for 14/14/14 is still good, but with how slow this is it can't outrun anything and with the loss of Melta-immunity it becomes a liability upfield. If killed, it's an expensive loss without much killing power past the Particle Whip. For teleporting units; there's nothing else as reliable in the codex, and supposedly it'll be errataed so it can teleport units out of close combat, again. With heavier hitters like the Doomsday Ark and Doomscythe to compete with I just don't see this thing being used much. And speaking of the Doomsday Ark...

Doom Scythe

The Doom Scythe's counterpart is obviously the Night Scythe, with the same statline, Fast/Skimmer type, movement up to 36", Twin-Linked Tesla Destructor and the ability to fire all of its weapons at cruising speed. And speaking of weapon, the Doom Scythe comes with what I consider to be one of the more powerful weapons in 40k; the Death Ray. Do you have chills? Well you should. This weapon fires a S10 AP1 laser that works in a unique way. When fired you choose any point (not enemy) on the board within 12" of the weapon and then select another point on the board within 3D6" of your original point and draw a straight line between them. Anything under this line takes S10 AP1 hits equal to the number of models hit by the line.

I'm a fan of this vehicle. Even though the first time I used it I used its Death Ray in an incorrect and overpowered manner, I still feel it has a lot of oomph. It's pricey, at the same cost as a Doomsday Ark, but with both the Destructor and Death Ray it's a potent hitter and is meant to pay for itself quickly. The downside is that flimsy 11/11/11 statline since this thing needs to be pretty close to do what it needs to do.

Canoptek Spyder

The Canoptek Spyder is modeled after the Tomb Spyder of 3rd Edition, though like the Canoptek Wraiths looks like it'll be getting a new model. This unit has changed so much from 3rd Edition it's not even worth making the comparison, so I'll start fresh. This thing is a MC with Fearless and a powerful T6, S6, W3 and a 3+ armour save. You can bring 3 in a unit and each comes with the Scarab Hive ability: on a roll of 2+ a Spyder will generate an extra Scarab model for a Scarab unit within 6" of it. On a 1, however, the Scarab model still gets placed, but the Spyder takes a wound with no saves. For upgrades, you can buy a Twin-Linked Particle Beamer for 25pts per model. For 10pts per model you gain the ability to repair Weapon Destroyed and Immobilised results on vehicles and for 15pts per model anything within 3" of a Spyder, including itself will ignore psychic attacks on a 4+. The price for each Spyder is 50pts.

I don't have words to explain how powerful this unit is. Even without upgrades, a MC with a great statline and the utility provided by pushing out more Scarabs is obnoxious at 50pts. If Scarabs are a pivotal unit for your Necron list you'll want a Spyder or three hanging around.

And there we are; the entirety of the codex. In the final installment I'll go over my final thoughts on the codex as a whole and provide some game-play experience that I've had thus far.

[Lantz's Corner] Necron Codex Review:Part VI - Fast Attack

2011-11-09T07:00:00.000-06:00

Welcome back for Part VI where we'll be looking at the Fast Attack choices available to the Tomb Kings in Spaaaaace! Out of all of the FOC slots, Fast Attack is the smallest aside from Troops, but carries with it what I consider to be one of the most important units in the Necron arsenal. While the Fast Attack choices aren't as powerful as some of the Elite choices, they still fill a pivotal role for the army. Without further rambling; Fast Attack:

Canoptek Wraiths

Canoptek Wraiths are very similar to the old Wraiths of 3rd Edition rules-wise and still fill the same role as before, but looking at the picture for the unit are probably getting a new model. So let's talk similarities from 3rd, first. These guys still hold their same WS, BS, S, T, A, Ld and 3++ save. They still carry no power weapons and while they still have the Wraithflight special rule, it's changed quite a bit. Essentially these guys ignore all terrain tests and aren't slowed by difficult terrain, but they no longer ignore impassable terrain and aren't considered Jetbikes anymore, but Jump Infantry. Other changes include that their attacks are Rending, they now come with 2 wounds instead of 1 and have Fearless, but their Initiative has been reduce to 2. The most unfortunate change is these guys don't get the WBB/RP roll, so once they're gone, they're gone. For 5pts per model you can take a Partical Caster (12" S6 AP5 Pistol) and for 10pts per model you can take Whip Coils which will reduce your enemy's Initiative to 1 insuring they'll strike first. Finally, for 15pts per model you can take a Transdimensional Beamer that will remove models from play after failing a Str test, though this is a Heavy shooting weapon so you'll have to sit still to use it. So, base cost with numerous changes for the better these guys come in at 6 points cheaper than before.

I was a big fan of these guys back in 3rd Edition as I'd run them around with a Destroyer Lord with a Rez Orb and pissed off many an opponent. And while these guys now get 2 wounds, Rending and are Fearless, without the RP rule attached I'm just not sure whether I'll take them as often. For their price they're a steal, don't get me wrong, I'm just disappointed on them losing that RP. The real problem here, along with all of the Fast Attack choices is how pivotal Scarabs are to a lot of Necron tactics. Speaking of which...

Canoptek Scarabs

Here we are, the creme of the crop. Scarabs in 3rd were nothing more than a tool used to tie up Dreadnoughts for an entire game, but now are pretty efficient at killing them. Scarabs work off of the same statline they had before, but now get 4 attacks instead of 3 and are Beasts instead of being considered Jetbikes. The real purpose and major change from 3rd Edition is the addition of ES to their melee strikes. With 5 attacks on the charge, these guys can do some real damage to vehicles. Coming in at a cheap 15pts, you'll be sure to see these in a lot of games.

This unit is by far the most important in my book. With lack of reliable tank-popping ability, these guys can put the balance back in your favor. Having played with a unit of these already, 5 Scarabs assaulting a Land Raider that moved 6" in the previous turn took its armour down from 14 to 8 in one assault. At this point, mere Bolters would glance on a 3 which puts vehicles in alarm. With a full unit of 10 Scarabs only costing 150 and Spyder's (we'll talk about these tomorrow) able to create more Scarabs than you already have, this can create a real mess for mech armies.

Tomb Blades

Tomb Blades are the new shiny toy for the Necrons. They're basically Warriors on Jetbikes with the same stats as a Warrior with 5 Toughness gifted by the bike. They still get RP and have Twin-Linked Tesla Carbines that will give you extra hits on 6's. The entire unit can exchange that weapon for Twin-Linked Gauss Blasters for free or Particle Beamers for 10pts. The upgrades is where it gets interesting; for 5pts per model these guys get a BS of 5, for 10pts per model they'll get Stealth which puts their Turbo-boost cover save at a 2+ and for 10pts per model they'll get a 3+ armour save. Base cost is a modest 20pts.

I'm not a fan, personally. Even if Scarabs weren't as good as they are, Tomb Blades are made to kill infantry...along with everything else in this book. The 2+ cover save is nice, but to get it you'll be spending 5pts less than a Wraith which gets 2 wounds and a 3++ save. The problem isn't what they do for the Fast Attack slot, it's how expensive they are, I suppose. To make these guys worth it you'll want to bring at the very least the Particle Beamers, but you're then paying 30pts per model with 1 wound and a save of 4+... I just don't see many players taking this unit to the field.

Necron Destroyers

Necron Destroyer's start out at 10pts less than their former 3rd Edition selves with the exact same statline. An addition from the last codex is these guys get Preferred Enemy against everything. While they still get RP and a Gauss Cannon, their weapon's stats have gone down the toilet. With a loss of 12", 1 shot and 1S this weapon has lost its flair, though the AP is now a 3. The Destroyer itself is now Jump Infantry instead of a Jetbike, which is why the Gauss Cannon was changed to Assault I would guess. Increase this model's points by 20 and you'll be upgraded to a Heavy Destroyer. That's right, they're no longer a separate unit anymore. Upgrading to a Heavy Destroyer will gift you a Heavy Gauss Cannon which has gone unchanged from 3rd Edition aside from it being an Assault weapon as well.

There's the good, the bad and the confusing in this unit. The good: a reliable mid-long range tank-popping option that doesn't take up a Heavy Support slot. The bad: it'll cost you 60pts for a single wound and no invulnerable save. The confusing: why does a clearly shooty unit have Preferred Enemy? I think this will be the unit everyone will want to take, but just can't justify it. Maybe if Scarabs didn't exist they might be viable just through pure desperation for tank-killing ability, but Scarabs do exist and 15pts for 3 wounds that munch armour versus 60pts for 1 wound and 1 shot that will miss 33.3% of the time is a no-brainer in my book. Maybe with some night fighting tricks they'd survive long enough to do what you need.

There we have it, Fast Attack readers. And we're more than half-way through this codex review! Next time we'll be looking at Heavy Support and what that has to offer. Stay tuned.

[Lantz's Corner] Necron Codex Review:Part V - Elites

2011-11-08T07:00:00.000-06:00

Keeping pace with the Necron's FOC section, we'll be going through the Elites next. Last time we took a look at all of the Troops and Transports available to the robot zombies, and this time we'll look at some fairly more powerful selections to protect those Troops and Transports. Of the Elites we have a wide range of unit types from Monstrous Creatures to Walkers. This is one of the larger sections of the Necron FOC, so let's break it down.

Deathmarks

Coming in at just over what a Vanilla Assault Marine will cost you are the Deathmarks. With the same statline as an Immortal and the same transport option available to them, these guys come with the ability to DS, RP and the ability to DS in on the enemy turn (so long as the enemy is coming into play via any kind of reserve.) They also come with a free marking system; when deployed they may elect an enemy unit as marked and any Deathmark units that shoot at the enemy unit will wound on a 2+. Equipped with a Synaptic Disintegrator, these are odd weapons. A 24" range Sniper and Rapid Fire weapon with an AP of 5; they're capable of taking down tougher targets.

The more I think about these guys the more they change from bad to good. Essentially they'll typically be used as a suicide unit to come in and take down a Daemon Prince before dying to assault on the next turn. I'm not a fan of suicide tactics, but I'll admit these guys are a pretty cheap option for it.

Lychguards

Starting out at the price of a Vanilla Terminator, Lychguards are some tough cookies. With the statline of a Lord (not an Overlord,) and equipped with Warscythes, these guys can hold their own in combat should they survive the higher initiative attacks. They all come with RP and for a mere 5pts per model, Lychguards trade out their Warscythe for a Hyperphase Sword and a shield that provides a 4++ save and can reflect shooting damage to enemies within 6". As a transport option, they're allowed to take a Night Scythe.

These guys are pretty nice. I'm not a firm believer in putting more than ~30pts into a model with only 1 wound, but a 4++ save can hold its own. The choice between a S7 power weapon and a 4++/S5 power weapon is a tough one, though. The damage reflect is more of a gimmick as you won't find yourself that close to an enemy without being in close combat more than once or twice per game, but as far as I can tell you're not really paying much for this ability. My question is if the rumor about 6th Edition's phases being changed to Movement > Assault > Shooting, will the shield's reflective blocking ability ever see play.

Triarch Praetorians

For the same price and statline (except 1 less attack) as the Lychguard, we have the Triarch Praetorians. Like the Lychguard, these guys come with RP, yet unlike the Lychguard they have the Fearless special rule. It's also worth mentioning that these guys are jump infantry, not just foot-sloggers like the Lychguard. Their wargear is what truly makes them unique; the Rod of Covenant that all Praetorians come with is a 6" S5 AP2 Assault 1 shooting weapon and also counts as a power weapon in close combat. At no additional cost, however, they can exchange their rod (/giggle) for a Voidblade (Rending and ES) and Particle Caster (12" S6 AP5 Pistol.)

In my opinion the choice between to the two weapon sets is obvious; take the Rod of Covenant. While the Particle Caster is higher Str and longer range, the Rod has just as many shots and can take out Terminators. And while the Voidblade will eat armour and has Rending, Scarabs eat armour faster and for cheaper and the Rod will always ignore armour saves rather than Rending which will only do it 1 out of 6 times. The fact that these guys are jump infantry is their claim to fame. With an 18" reach to assault and weaponry that ignores any armour, they're something the enemy can't ignore. My only qualm is no invuln save, so I'd say bring a Destroyer Lord with a Rez Orb to keep you coming back. Or have a Wraith following along to knock Initiatives down to 1, but we'll go over Wraiths in another article.

C'tan Shard

Ah the C'tan Shard, or as my friends liked to call it, "Are you kidding me?" The C'tan Shard starts out at an expensive but fair price of just under the cost of Vulkan He'stan of the Space Marines. With a statline that would make a Daemon Prince blush (5 5 7 7 4 4 4 10) and a 4++ save, it's worthy of the name Star God. With Eternal Warrior and Fearless, the C'tan also ignore all effects of terrain while moving, (but not while assaulting from the way I understand how it's read.) In addition, when the C'tan dies, everything within D6" takes a S4 AP1 automatic hit. But that's not where the C'tan's abilities end. Every C'tan Shard must purchase two powers from a list that range from 10pts to 50pts in cost and no power may be selected twice per army. These powers are vast and diverse ranging from the ES ability, to removing a model from play on an Initiative test, to exploding all flame/melta weapons on the board on a roll of 6, to DSing mishaps for close enemies, to creating dangerous terrain for your enemies. Some powers are lackluster while others are very powerful, but all are costed accordingly.

These guys are tough as nails. Having played with one on the tabletop, I can attest to its power. I ended up testing ES and removing models on an Init test out and while ES was lackluster as ES's true shine is in large numbers of attacks, the Init test removal proved to be worth its weight in gold (it's perfect for getting rid of those Power Fists, which is one of the few things you're actually scared of.) The Toughness of 7 is what really climbs this thing's potential to the skies as S3 weaponry doesn't even have a chance of wounding you and Bolters only wound on a 6. With Eternal Warrior, your enemy has no choice but to just deal with this thing and that's a hard task to accomplish. In my game with the C'tan he ended up taking out 8 Terminators, 8 Nurgle Marines, 4 Space Marines and a Rhino before getting taken out by a Missile Launcher to the face. If you can manage some 4+ rolls for his invuln save, this model should pay for itself and then some.

Flayed Ones

Next up is Flayed Ones. What was once a lackluster waste of points in 3rd Edition might now prove to be worth it. With the statline of a Warrior aside from 3 base attacks and a BS of 1 (which doesn't matter since these guys don't shoot anything,) their modest point cost of 5pts less than they were in 3rd Edition is a steal. They've kept their RP, DS and Infiltrate from 3rd Edition, but lost their Move Through Cover. There's really not much to say about these guys, they lost their Terrifying Vissage so now they're straight-up close combat attack bodies.

I'm torn on whether these guys are worth it or not. If anything they'll be hiding in cover or behind your Monoliths to get into combat, but with the loss of Move Through Cover it's hard to see taking these guys over some of the other options in this FOC slot. Regardless, 4 attacks on the charge isn't something to scoff at and if these things are on the table your opponent will have to deal with them.

Triarch Stalker

Finally we have the Stalker; the main reason people will think twice before taking any other Elite choices. As you'll find looking through this codex the Necrons lack long-range fire, specifically reliable long-range tank-busting. Despite being mid-range, the Stalker is one of the few options for reliable tank popping and with good reason. This thing is an Open-Topped Walker with 11/11/11, but comes with Quantum Shielding which will boost up the front and sides for a time. He comes with Living Metal, Move Through Cover and an ability called Targeting Relay. Basically anytime this thing shoots at something and gets at least one hit, anything else that shoots at that target gets Twin-Linked for that shooting phase. Now, this may seem strong enough, but you'll then see that the Stalker comes with a Heat Ray. The Heat Ray is a 2-shot Multi-Melta, but may also fire as a Heavy Flamer. Not seeing the point? Flamers auto-hit, so marking something is automatic if it's within the Heavy Flamer's reach. With all of this going for it, the Stalker is still cheaper than the base-cost of a C'tan Shard.

As I was writing this the Move Through Cover rule is glaring at me. In the game I played with this thing it didn't get to do much because it kept rolling 1's for moving through cover. Unfortunately for me I didn't look at my rules close enough. Anywho, aside from the reliable Melta shots, the providing Twin-Linked to other things is awesome. A cheese-move would be to hit something with the Stalker so it's Twin-Linked, then have something that can shoot at multiple targets shoot that target first and then shoot at something else and still have Twin-Linked. The wording states that the model shooting at the target counts all its weapons as Twin-Linked for that phase, so I read that as legal. The only problem with this Walker is that he has to be relatively close to make his mark and if a melta or powerfists get in its face that 13 armour isn't going to save you and without a Dread CCW it's not going to be winning any fights.

That's all for the Elites section! Stay tuned for some really powerful stuff in Part VI where we'll look at the Fast Attack choices.

[Lantz's Corner] Necron Codex Review:Part IV - Troops and Transports

2011-11-07T07:00:00.000-06:00

The posts just keep on comin'. Last time we looked at all those spiffy special characters the Necrons have access to. In Part IV we'll be taking a peek at the two Troop options and the three transportation options for the Necron army. While the Troops section is pretty underwhelming, the transports the Necrons have access to are very interesting. More after the jump.

Necron Warriors

I suppose the best way to make an assessment about these guys is comparing them to their former 3rd Edition selves. All stats are the same for these guys as it was before except their save is now a 4+ instead of a 3+. Aaaaand that's it. They have RP which has changed from WBB, but they're still infantry and still carry a Gauss Flayer which hasn't changed either. With an armour save reduced by one, the Warriors receive a 5pt reduction from their last codex and can take a Ghost Ark or Night Scythe as a dedicated transport.

Considering RP can always be rolled, unlike WBB, I put them both at the same cost even though RP is on a 5+ to WBB's 4+. So really all we lose here is a point of armour for 5pts. This is pretty fair in my opinion, after making a fandex the last couple of years and researching the crap out of point costs 5pts is spot on if the only change is the armour. On top of everything, the ability to take a minimum of 5 Warriors instead of 10 is a godsend. But, just like before, there aren't any weapon options for these guys.

Necron Immortals

Next up we have Immortals, the second of two Troop choices for the Necrons. Previously these guys were a popular Elite choice for 3rd Edition Necrons. With S5 Assault 2 weaponry and a Toughness of 5, these guys were tough to kill and tougher to survive. Unfortunately, the new Immortals are pretty underwhelming compared to their former selves. Currently an Immortal shares the same statline as a 3rd Edition Warrior (no more T of 5.) Their weapons have been changed to Rapid Fire as well, meaning you must be close to still get those 2 shots, but they still fire S5 shots. With a 1 point reduction in Toughness and weapons changed from Assault 2 to Rapid Fire, an Immortal costs 11 points less than it did previously and may take a Night Scythe as a dedicated transport. As a change from previous Immortals, all models can exchange their weapons for Tesla Carbines for free, which will give you a 24" S5 AP - Assault 1 shot that will cause two more hits on a 6 as with all Carbine weapons.

While the S5 shooting is nice, I'm just not much of a fan of these guys anymore. The Toughness change doesn't bother me as much as the Gauss Blaster change, but Tesla Carbine makes it easier. I'm just not sure these guys are worth their points cost. In my mind I compare them to a Tac Marine which costs 1 less point, has numerous weapon options if you bring enough, has ATSKNF and 2 higher Initiative, though they suffer from 1 less S on their shooting, don't have RP and have 2 less Ld. I suppose the point cost isn't too off-base, but I would have liked to have seen these guys at 1pt lower than their current cost and those that understand the value of ATSKNF I would guess would agree with me.

Catacomb Command Barge

The CCB is a single-character transport that's BS4, 11/11/11 (as most vehicles are in this book.) Also, like most vehicles in this codex the CCB comes with Living Metal and Quantum Shielding. This transport is a Fast, Open-Topped Skimmer that comes with a Tesla Cannon or Gauss Cannon. An interesting ability is using the IC's wounds in exchange for ignoring Immobilised or Weapon Destroyed results. The big claim to fame for this vehicle is its sweeping attack. One enemy unit this thing has flown over will get hit three times on a 3+ at combat speed or 4+ if any other speed. For each hit you roll to wound/pen using the character's melee weapon and any bonus'. Hits on vehicles are resolved on back armour and rolls to hit infantry are allocated by the Necron player on a 6. No cover saves allowed.

This thing is impressive. Though with an 80pt cost plus the cost of whatever guy you put in it it's a quick way to lose a lot of points to your enemy. Its wound soaking keeps it going, however, and the sweeping attacks are pretty awesome considering you can move as fast as possible and still do damage.

Ghost Ark

The Ghost Ark carries 10 models and has the same stats as the CCB. Also like the CCB this thing comes with Living Metal and Quantum Shielding. It's an Open-Topped Skimmer that is only allowed to carry Warriors, Lords, Overlords, Crypteks and Special Characters. On either side of this thing it has what's called a Gauss Flayer Array which is essentially 5 Gauss Flayers shooting as one, and both Arrays can shoot at different targets. Another claim-to-fame of the Ghost Ark is its repair ability. On a 2+ this thing will add D3 Warriors to a unit, though it can't exceed its original starting size. On a 1, the Ghost Ark takes a glancing hit with no saves allowed.

I keep going back and forth on this, which will probably end up being my tactic. This is a transport where you want to keep your infantry on the outside rather than within. I see 10 Warriors inside and 10-20 outside swapping places when one of them runs low on bodies. The limitations on what can and can't be carried in this transport is curious...I'm wondering if this thing will be the beginning of how transports work for all armies only allowing certain units to ride. The price of this thing seems steep at first, but when you consider it replaces lost bodies within 6" of it, it's essentially protection for numerous units.

Night Scythe

With the same stats as the above transports, the Night Scythe is supposedly the first flyer for 6th Edition. For current rules it has the same statline as the two transports above and is a Fast Skimmer, but does not benefit from Quantum Shielding making this thing significantly weaker. As mentioned in Part I of this codex review, for every roll To-Hit a Tesla weapon fires it will get an additional 2 hits. As a weapon, it comes equipped with the Twin-Linked Tesla Destructor. The unique thing about the Destructor is that it has the Arc ability: any units within 6" of the initial target will take D6 S5 AP - hits on a roll of 6. This thing can also DS into battle. The base of the model is the access point as it sucks up its buddies like a bad sci-fi movie. The weird quarks this thing has is it can move flat out at 36" and can fire all of its weapons at cruising speed. It can also carry 15 infantry, 7 1/2 jump infantry or 5 jetbikes. The most unique quality is the fact that if the Night Scythe is destroyed the stuff inside isn't allowed to disembark, but instead is put into reserve and cannot DS in.

That last bit is what makes this thing either really good or really bad. If it's last turn and you've got stuff inside going to contest a point and it gets taken out; it's really bad. If some GK assassins are just outside your Night Scythe when it goes down; it's really good. It's a little cheaper than the Ghost Ark and can transport anything, but without reliable disembarking this thing could end up being a nightmare for point-capturing games and a MVP for annihilation games.

That's all for now. Come on back for Part V where I'll be going over the Elites section of the new Necrons.

[Lantz's Corner] Necron Codex Review:Part III - Named Characters

2011-11-06T07:00:00.000-06:00

Welcome back. In Part II we took a look at the generic options for HQs and Retinues which will help segue into Part III; special characters. The previous faceless Necrons didn't have any options for an inexpensive special character, but not anymore! The Necrons, along with their new fluff, now have a personality all their own. Like it or not, with the new personality comes numerous named characters to select from. All of the following characters have the EL, RP and Independent Character rules, so keep that in mind as I won't be mentioning it 7 times. We have a lot to cover in Part III, so let's get to it!

Nemesor Zahndrekh

For roughly the price of two Overlords you get this fellow. Stat-wise he's the same as an Overlord, except a 2+/3++ save. He comes with a Rez Orb (which hardly any of the named characters do, which I find odd,) and a Staff of Light and can take that Command Barge as a personal transport. As for his neato abilities he's able to give a USR from several choices to a unit each turn for a whole turn. Included are some nice choices such as Furious Charge and Stealth. In addition, so long as he has line of sight to an enemy, he can also take USR from his list away. As a final ability, while he's on the table anything that's arriving via DS can come in on the enemy's turn as long as something of theirs has come into reserve.

While that last ability may not seem glamorous, this means an enemy can outflank in ready to pop one of your transports or tie up your infantry in combat, but is denied because you've dropped a Monolith in their way. This also means that the enemy (typically) can't assault from DS, but if you DS something next to them, when it's your turn you can assault.
As for this HQ as a whole, he's a STEAL, and I truly hate capitalizing words people. Think of it this way, to get an Overlord with 2+/3++ and a Rez Orb it'll cost you 5pts less than what this guy costs. So for 5pts you're getting the giving and taking away of USR as well as some reserves tactics. You'll see this guy a lot.

Vargard Obyron

Obyron is a bodyguard of sorts to Zahndrekh as far as I can tell without getting to this point of the fluff. If you take both Zahndrekh and Obyron, Obyron won't take up an HQ slot. If Obyron is by his lonesome, he will. Obyron is a bit cheaper than his counterpart and has the exact same statline except you'll be trading out that Invuln save for a WS of 6. He comes with a Warscythe for free. His abilities include the 3rd. Ed Veil of Darkness (the one that can pull you out of melee) and it isn't just a one-time use ability for him. Where this guy really starts looking sexy is his Cleaving Counterblow ability. It works like this; any enemies that fail to hit him in close combat before Obyron swings count up their misses. The number of failed hits on Obyron, to a maximum of 6, are how many additional attacks Obyron will get for that round of combat. So on a turn he launches an assault he could potentially get 10 attacks with a Warscythe. His last ability is more of an addition to his Veil of Darkness; essentially if he Veils within 6" of Zahndrekh he won't scatter. But there's a downside, too. If Zahndrekh is ever assaulted Obyron pretty much drops what he's doing to move towards him. Not locked in combat? Move towards Zahn. In close combat? Veil towards him. In a transport? Get your butt out. Part of a unit? Not anymore.

I want to like this guy so much with his upgraded Veil, but he's too much of a gimmick HQ. Competitively, he's a nightmare if you bring him and Zahn. If people use this guy, they won't be coupling the two unless you're keeping them together. Another thing that irks me is the additional attacks rule. Sure it looks good on paper, but without an invuln save as an Independent Character this guy isn't going to be living very long in close combat. I'm also just not a fan of abilities that rely on your enemy's actions.

Illuminor Szeras

This Cryptek is an interesting choice and dirt cheap. At barely more expensive than a base-cost Overlord, his stats are that of a Cryptek with the exception of a 3+ save, 2 wounds and 4 attacks. He comes with the Eldritch Lance and Gaze of Flame we talked about for Crypteks in Part II. His claim to fame is the Mechanical Augmentation which randomly gives a unit of Warriors or Immortals either T5, BS5 or a S of 5 for the game.

I just don't think this guy is worth it. His points cost seems a little high for only having 2 wounds, but the real thing that bothers me is not having Solar Pulse. You would think he'd come with it, but does not which is unfortunate as I see that as the breaking point for whether this guy will show up on the tabletop or not. However, he is the cheapest HQ option aside from a base-cost Overlord, so he has that going for him I suppose.

Orikan The Diviner

Stat-wise, this guy is weak to start. With the stats of a Warrior with the addition of 1 wound and 1 attack. He has a 4+ armour like a Warrior but comes with a 3++ save which is odd. Point cost coming close to Obyron's his stats don't seem to reflect his cost, but things get interesting. First his staff is a power weapon that rerolls failed to-hit rolls in close combat. He comes with a Transdimensional Beamer mentioned in Part I. As a once-per game use he'll force rerolls to failed reserve rolls for a turn. In addition, the first turn of the game he makes all enemies move like they're in difficult terrain. Lastly, every turn Orikan has a chance to Hulk out, should the "stars align", and get a huge boost to his stats; +1 WS/BS, +3 S/T, +2 W/I/A; essentially making him a MC without the MC rule. However, he'll always have a chance to turn back to Bruce Banner, and wounds lost are carried over. So while he might have 4 wounds for a bit, if he takes more than 2 in this form and turns back to his normal self he's gone.

Not since the Ork codex have I seen an HQ's rules mirror his/her fluff so perfectly. Does that make him viable? I'm not so sure. While his boost to stats is cool, he basically always has 2 wounds depending on luck. It would be far better if he stayed beefed up, and while this is possible, it's not likely depending on how many turns the game is. This is more of a 'fun' option than competitive.

Anrakyr The Traveller

Arguably the most boring out of all of the selections available is Anrakyr. Stat- and wargear-wise he's a pre-made generic Overlord. He comes in with the exact same stats as an Overlord, comes with a Warscythe and Tachyon Arrow mentioned in Part I and may take a Command Barge as a personal transport. His Special Rules is where things get changed up a bit. He comes with Counter-Attack and Furious Charge, but also gives these rules to a unit of Immortals if you so choose. In addition, he gets a 2/3 chance to take over a vehicle's weapon within 18" of him.

I assume everyone's minds went to a Grey Knight Dread popping his buddy in the side like mine did. While not the most exciting of choices, this guy's price is about right and is pretty competitive. His biggest failing? No invuln save. So don't expect him to last long should your opponent really choose to focus on him.

Trazyn The Infinite

Just like Anrakyr, Trazyn will have the same statline and fail to possess an invuln save, but for only 10pts more than Anrakyr, this guy has some amazing abilities. First, he's a Phaeron as mentioned in Part II for Overlords. He comes with Mindshackle Scarabs, can take a Command Barge and always counts as a scoring unit (that's right, you can have 7 scoring units in an army.) Also, when he dies, on a 2+ he'll come back onto the battlefield replacing a random Lychguard, Cryptek, Lord or Overlord much like the Chaos Space Marine's Summoned Greater Daemon comes into play. Finally, the ability that's made the internet abuzz with cries of cheese; if Trazyn kills a model in combat you'll roll a D6 for every model with exactly the same name in combat with him. On a 4+ those models take a wound, but are allowed armour saves.

This guy is another case of rumors that kinda, sorta came to light. He's the guy that just won't die and can cause a whole unit of Genestealers to die off, but with a 50% chance after surviving to wound something and the after-wounds still get armour saves this thing was not as powerful as everyone anticipated. Don't get me wrong, it rocks, but it's not an auto-lose for Orks. Ontop of this, his Initiative is still a 2 and he has no Invuln saves and the armour of a Space Marine. It won't be hard to keep this guy from attacking if planned accordingly. Overall I like him and his cost is dirt cheap. He's got some gimmicks, but they're just reliable enough to be used tactically.

Imotekh The Stormlord

Last, but certainly not least is Imotekh. Coming in at a little cheaper than a Land Raider, this guy is pricey. So what do you get for this price tag? Once again we have that typical Overlord statline, except Imotekh gets 2+/3++ for saves. He can take the Command Barge and always counts as a Phaeron. As far as basic wargear, he comes with a Gauntlet of Fire and Phylactery as mentioned previously. Now for the extras; he has the ability to randomly choose a non-vehicle enemy unit. Any Flayed Ones that DS within 6" of this unit will not scatter. He also comes equipped with the Staff of the Destroyer; a 2D6, S6, AP1, Assault 1 shooting attack that is one-time use. In addition, when you roll the range for this weapon it affects any units in its path and a unit will take hits equal to how many models are in their unit (I'll give you a minute to get a change of pants as there's more to come.) Imotekh will count as having scored an extra D3 wounds for the purposes of the assault result in close combat if he's the one that killed an IC that round. On top of this, if you take Imotekh you'll be stealing the Initiative on a 4+. No I'm not kidding. The only exception is if you're fighting against Orks you don't even get to attempt to steal the Initiative. Finally, if all of this wasn't powerful enough, the Stormlord himself can create storms. On the first turn of any game he creates night-fighting for everyone and every turn must roll for a chance to keep it going (and if your game ends on turn 5, it can last the entirety of the game.) In addition to this, as long as the Storm is going, you get a small chance of shooting a S8 AP5 lightning bolt down upon unengaged enemy units (hitting vehicles on side armour.)

This guy is expensive for a reason and in my opinion slightly undercosted. I would like to see how a list built around the Night Fighting would work. If you end up taking a Solar Pulse you could effectively turn on the lights and shoot before the storm darkens things again, or prolong the dark for an extra turn. Considering the expensive nature of transports in this codex I could see this being an alternative to transports, though not nearly as reliable. With his staff, the bonus to stealing initiative, 2+/3++ saves and creating a giant storm; this guy is going to be scary for his enemies.

That's all this codex has to offer for named characters, and I'm sure my fellow Necron players will join me in my opinion that we're not disappointed. The options are vast and diverse and allow many kinds of playstyle.

Stay tuned for Part IV where we'll cover Troops and Transports!

[Lantz's Corner] Necron Codex Review:Part II - Generic HQs and Retinue

2011-11-05T07:00:00.001-05:00

Hopefully by now you all have your own codex and can follow along. If not, no worries! We're going to keep trucking along. In Part I we covered Army-wide Rules and Wargear that will help dissect the rest of this codex. With Part II, we'll go over the unnamed ICs and the Retinue options they have. There's some key changes from the previous generic HQ options as far as wargear and rules go, but the Retinue options are what will really get you 'cron players drooling. So let's dig in!

Necron Overlord

This is essentially the Necron Lord from 3rd Edition with a few changes. First, he has a 10pt reduced cost, but also loses 2 Initiative (all other stats are the same.) He comes with the EL and RP special rules and can be upgraded to a Phaeron which gives him and any unit he joins Relentless. While there's hardly any heavy weapons carried by infantry, there's plenty of rapid fire to make use of this rule. For 20pts, though this addition loses its shine. Starting out with a Staff of Light he can exchange this out for numerous options; power weapon, Gauntlet of Fire, Voidblade or Warscythe. As for extra options he can upgrade his armour to a 2+ for 15pts which is a steal in my book. On the flipside a 3++ save will cost you 45pts, so this guy can get expensive quick. Other options include a one-time S10 AP1 unlimited range shot, Mindshackle Scarabs, Phylactery, Tesseract Labyrinth and a Rez Orb. There's no cap on how many points he can take, so that's an improvement over 3rd Edition. Something new is the option to take a single-passenger transport; the Catacomb Command Barge which we'll dive into later next week.

There's really not much to be said about this guy. He's a build-your-own HQ just as he was in 3rd Edition. There's more options, of course, but if you're not careful you could end up paying too much for this guy. One thing I wish he had was the option of a 4++ save for those of us that can't afford that 3++.

Destroyer Lord

This guy is the same as the Overlord except he'll move like Jump Infantry (not a jetbike like in 3rd Ed.) and has a base Toughness of 6. His options are a bit more limited, but still has plenty of things to choose from. He also has the added bonus of Preferred Enemy against everything, literally.

One thing that bothers me is the inability to take an Invulnerable Save of any kind on this guy. Why? I have no idea, maybe it's buried in the fluff I haven't read yet. Other than that his price is a little on the high side (maybe 10pts more expensive than what I think it should be) compared to the Overlord, but not so high that you won't see this guy in play.

Royal Court (Retinue)

For every Overlord (including several named characters) in your army you are allowed a Royal Court. Think of a Royal Court as a Wolf Guard Pack for the Space Wolves in that each model can split off and lead other units. For the Necrons, these units include Warriors, Immortals, Lychguard and Deathmarks. You can bring 0-5 Lords and 0-5 Crypteks for each Overlord and these guys don't take up an HQ slot, or any slot for that matter. Both Lords and Crypteks have the EL and RP rules. So what do Lords and Crypteks do, exactly?

Necron Lord

A Lord is basically a dumbed-down version of an Overlord. He has 2 less wounds and 1 less attack, but everything else including Special Rules are the same (aside from being an IC, of course.) This guy has less upgrade options than an Overlord, taking away that S10 shot and of course the Phylactery (having only 1 wound and all.)

This is essentially a build-your-own Sergeant, but with only one wound it's a good idea to keep costs down. Fortunately this is easy to do since the Lords start out at a cheap 35pts.

Cryptek

Crypteks are a weak statline (same as the new Warriors) but in exchange have a 10pt cost reduction from the Lords and get some pretty ridiculous powers that do not require a psychic test. These powers work in a tiered system. First, you buy one of five staves available. Each staff unlocks two powers that you must also purchase. You can take more than one of the same staff in a Royal Court, but not more than one power. So at most you can take two of each power because you can only have two Royal Courts per army (because you can only bring two HQs.)

Confused? Here's a diagram I pulled out of my butt to help:

Buy an HQ > Unlocks the ability to buy a Royal Court
Buy a Royal Court > Unlocks the ability to buy Crypteks
Buy a Cryptek > Unlocks ability to replace Staff of Light with one of five Harbinger Staves
Buy a Harbinger Staff > Unlocks two purchasable powers under that specific staff*

*may only buy 1 power of the same kind per Royal Court

So what are these staves and powers I speak of? Let's list them out, bare in mind all of these staves and powers range from free to 30pts:

Harbingers of Despair

Abyssal Staff - Template, S8, AP1, Assault 1 shooting weapon that rolls to wound against the target's Ld instead of T.

Nightmare Shroud - Force moral check on a unit within 18" instead of shooting.
Veil of Darkness - Same 3rd Ed., it just can't pull you out of close combat anymore.

Harbingers of Destruction

Eldritch Lance (it should have been Eldritch Lantz) - 36", S8, AP2, Assault 1 shooting weapon.

Gaze of Flame - Gives his unit defensive grenades.
Solar Pulse - One use only. Basically the same as before; turns on and off the lights for a turn.

Harbingers of Eternity

Aeonstave - When an enemy takes an unsaved wound from this CCW they lose the Fleet USR if they have it and their WS, BS, I and A values are reduced to 1 for the rest of the game.

Chronometron - The model or the unit he's with can reroll a single D6 each phase.
Timesplinter Cloak - Confers a 3++ save to the model.

Harbingers of the Storm

Voltaic Staff - 12", S5, AP -, Assault 4 shooting weapon that glances on a 2-5 and penetrates on a 6.

Ether Crystal - Enemies DSing within 6" of this model take D6 S8 AP5 hits.
Lightning Field - Enemies that assault this model or the model's unit take D6 S8 AP5 hits.

Harbingers of Transmogrification

Tremorstave - 36", S4, AP -, Assault 1, Blast shooting weapon that causes open ground to become difficult terrain for enemies hit by it.

Harp of Dissonance - Infinite range, S6, AP -, Assault 1 shooting attack with ES (eats armour.)
Seismic Crucible - Reduce a single enemy unit's assault movement towards this model or the model's unit by D3 inches.

In my opinion none of the five options are bad. The worst one is arguably the 'of the Storm' as far as powers go since it relies on your enemy's actions, but the staff is one of the best staves and the powers and staff for 'of the Storm' is the cheapest option of all the Harbingers. My favorite is probably 'of Eternity' considering all it does for how cheap the options are. There are so many combos for this retinue and being able to split off these guys to other groups makes the options endless for an army.

That's all for Part II. In Part III we'll be looking at Named Characters for the Necrons and hoo-buddy are there some amazing choices. Stay tuned.

[Adept Zero] The case for Adepticon

2011-11-04T22:35:00.001-05:00

I just wanted to chime in here for a moment to talk to you about Adepticon.

You get to see incredible stuff like this.

Even if you don't have a ticket, if you live within driving distance, you should go.

All the player slots are filled, and I believe the openings for the team tourney will be gone by the weekend. You should still go.

This may be the year that all of the painting and modeling seminars will also be completely sold out. You should still go.

All the pics in this post were takem by me.

Why?

There's something about seeing that many people playing 40k at once that's just awesome. I'll admit, on Sunday afternoon, it sort of takes on that locker room ambience, but seeing people's display boards makes you feel like you belong to something bigger than your own little FLGS.
The models are awesome, and I'm not just talking about the CMON contestants and the dioramas like you see above by Mr. Sabol. Almost every army I saw there, even the ones that were painted poorly, gave me unique perspectives I never would have gathered had I not seen it in person.
You get to put a face to the avatars. I had a really great conversation with Goatboy last year, and I met at least a dozen folks that I knew from the message boards.
Most vendors were offering about 30% off, plus there is no sales tax at the event.
Forgeworld. Enough said.
You get to see people playing FoW, which is always awesome.
All those awesome miniatures at the CMoN store? Yep, they're there.
The GW Battle Bunker is about a 1/2 mile away.
You might meet me, and you might get Zero swag. Stay tuned!

Is it worth going without a ticket to anything if you live far away? Probably not. But if you are anywhere within 60 miles, I'd say some check it out!

[Lantz's Corner] Necron Codex Review:Part I - Army Rules and Wargear

2011-11-04T20:25:00.002-05:00

Welcome to Part 1 of an undetermined amount of parts reviewing the Necron Codex and the units within. First what you need to know; My name is Lantz and I'm a 'cron-o-holic. I've been playing Necrons for almost three years and I know the Necron 3rd Edition codex in and out. Consequently I also cut myself from depression...but no more! The Necron's 5th Edition codex is out and I'll be your guide through its entirety. Throughout this codex review I will go over the important pieces of each unit, what has changed from the last dex, how it will affect game play and in green, my personal opinion on well, everything. Fear not; I haven't been wrong about anything since 1992. So let's begin with the information we'll need to know for the rest of this series: Army Rules and Wargear.

Army-Wide Rules

Reanimation Protocols (RP)

This is essentially We'll Be Back, renamed and retooled. There are some minor tweaks for better and worse. First, the bad news. WBB was a 4+ and RP is a 5+. There are ways to increase this to 4+, but we'll get to that soon enough. That's the bad, what about the good? Well, instead of waiting a full turn to bring your robot-zombies back to life, you make these rolls at the end of each phase. Still not good enough? Well, you can attempt RP no matter what you were wounded. Power Sword? No problem. Instant Death? We'll see about that. Lastly, I suppose another tidbit of bad is if the unit is Falling Back before rolling for self-repairs they lose the chance to do so. Overall I think this is an improvement and makes infantry cheaper. Yes, that last bit is worse than the last dex, but it flows better and doesn't slow down the game with wonky rules (as the book continues this clean-up method of sorts,) so I'm for it.

Ever-Living (EL)

This rule was more of a tack-on to the Res-Orb in 3rd Ed. Basically if you have this rule on a model, he/she can get still use RP even if the rest of their unit isn't there. You'll mostly see this on HQs as a caveat to the RP rule of not getting back up without your buddies around. Not much to say here, pretty straight forward.

Entropic Strike (ES)

As we make our way through this dex you'll find that the cries and tears of the leaked information were for nothing and things are quite toned down compared to what the internet shared. However, ES is not one of these examples; it's as good as the leaks implied. This is that armour-eating rumor that's been flying around for months and here's how it works. If Necron with ES or a weapon with ES wounds a model one or more times its Armour Save is reduced to literally nothing. In addition, if you attack a model with Armour Values you will roll a D6 for each successful hit. For every 4+ result the model will immediately lose 1 point of armour on all sides and is destroyed if any side reaches 0. While everyone seems focused on the AV portion of this rule (and don't get me wrong, I'm drooling,) I'm quite curious how the models with wounds will have their armour save affected if they are also a Necron. If they get back up, is their armour save still jack diddly? God, we're only 3 rules in and we already need an FAQ! Not much to say on this; it's new, it's unique, it's awesome.

Living Metal (LM)

Ah yes, the rule that made everyone cry cheese until it was given to Blood Angels 7 years later. Well, guess what? Necrons don't get it anymore...instead of being immune to melta/lance/rending weaponry LM now ignores Crew Shaken on a 2+ and Crew Stunned on a 4+. This is pretty disappointing as the previous version was so much more powerful and yet the new rule isn't even as good as Grey Knight's Fortitude. However, just like RP; this thing has been toned down so it can be given to almost everything in this book. I suppose this is a nice change in that respect, but why Crew Stunned on a 4+? Why aren't they both a 2+? The tales of Matt Ward's Cheese-ness has failed me on this one.

Army-Wide Wargear

Gauntlet Of Fire

A close combat weapon that re-rolls failed to-hit and to-wound in close combat. It can also fire a flamer. Boring, moving on.

Gauss Weapons

Anything Gauss still glances on a 6, no change there. However, Gauss Blasters are Rapid Fire instead of Assault. Gauss Cannons have one less AP, Str and one less shot, but are now Assault instead of Heavy. Heavy Gauss Cannons are changed to Assault as well. Finally, the Gauss Flux Arcs can shoot at one target each (targets can be different than other weapon's targets on the vehicle still,) range is doubled, has the S/AP of a Bolter instead of a Heavy Bolter and fires three shots instead of D6. These changes are mostly disappointments, especially the substantially weakened Gauss Blaster and Gauss Cannon and even more of a decimation, the Gauss Flux Arc. My reasoning for disappointment should be obvious, moving on.

Hyperphase Sword

A power weapon, nothing special.

Mindshackle Scarabs

This wargear is pretty spiffy, even if it is a gimmick. Basically, randomly select a model in base contact with the Necrony fellow with this wargear. That enemy must make a Ld check on 3D6, and if failed the enemy model will strike his own allies in the combat; D3 attacks using all bonus' the model would already get. This effect wears off after the round of combat it was activated in. I like this ability, but like so many things in this book it's extremely situational and is based on luck. Having to randomly choose your target is awful and then only getting D3 attacks. This might benefit you if the model only has 1 or 2 attacks, but chances are if you're playing Necrons you're not going to go out of your way to get into melee anyway.

Particle Weapons

There's really nothing special about these weapons. They're all S6 or higher and range from Pistol to Ordnance. There's no super effect that comes along with them, just straight shooting.

Phase Shifter

Previously this wargear offered a 4+ invulnerable save. For 5th, it's a 3+ invulnerable save and can be taken on a lot of different options in this book. Jesus tap-dancing Christ this thing got better. I am pleased.

Phylactery

This works similarly to its 3rd Edition counterpart. This time, it's a one-time use only item that gives you D3 wounds after passing a RP roll. I don't understand why this isn't an 'always active ability' considering it's the same points cost it was 9 years ago. Perhaps the reasoning is there's no longer a cap on wargear an Overlord can take, who knows. Either way, I don't see anyone taking this option.

Quantum Shielding

This is vehicle wargear and a staple to the 5th Edition Necron codex. Any vehicle with this wargear counts front and side armour values as 2 higher than its statline. Once a penetrating hit occurs on any facing this armour increase is removed for the rest of the game. I love love love this thing. For anyone else sick of fighting rhino-spam this will shake things up a bit. Even with high vehicle costs in this book I believe we'll be seeing a lot of Armour 13/14 walls in lists to come.

Resurrection Orb

RP checks are on a 4+ instead of 5+ for the model with this wargear and any unit he is apart of/has joined. Far different than before, and arguably worse since it no longer has that bubble range. Though it is 10pts cheaper than it was 9 years ago, this is essentially an expensive way to get the old WBB check for a single unit...lame.

Sempiternal Weave

That's right! Necrons now get some 2+ armour saves here and there!

Staff of Light

This thing is exactly what it was before, but no longer counts as a power weapon. Once again another piece of wargear that got nerfed to hell for no reason. Cheers..

Tachyon Arrow

Once per game a model with this wargear can fire a S10, AP1, Assault 1, Infinite range shot. Pretty hot, right? Well, with it being once per game and costing a whopping 30pts, you may consider not spending the points. I sure as hell welcome some access to S10 AP1, though.

Tesla Weapons

All of these weapons are Assault, all are 24" range, all are AP '-', range from 1 to 4 shots and range from 5 to 7S respectively. The tack-on to the Tesla weapon type is that for every roll to-hit of 6, the target enemy unit suffers 2 additional automatic hits. Now there is one weapon called the Tesla Destructor that can spread to other units within 6" of the target unit on a roll of 6. If this occurs the other unit(s) will suffer D6, S5, AP '-' auto-hits. Yet another weapon that relies on 6. While I do like it, there's already some better options for killing infantry. Literally 80% of the units in this dex are made for killing infantry and there are more reliable options.

Tesseract Labyrinth

A one-time use item (seeing a pattern, here?) Used in place of making close combat attacks for a round of combat. Target a MC or IC in base contact with the wielder of this wargear; the victim must roll equal to or under its remaining Wounds on a D6 or be removed from the game with no saves allowed. This wargear is one of many you'll see with things getting removed from the game without any saves. While this item is very situational and one-time use, it's a 50/50 shot of removing a lot of ICs and MCs out there for the same price as Mindshackle Scarabs. I'm curious to see how often this item comes up in lists.

Transdimensional Beamer

A shooting attack: 12" range, single-shot strength test or be removed from the game with no saves allowed. See? We've only looked into three pages of the book and we've already gotten two ways to remove models from play. This thing is equally as reliable though as your target is random from the unit you're shooting at and most MCs and Walkers aren't going to have an issue passing a S test.

Voidblade

A CCW with Rending and ES. Removes armour values and rends? Yes please.

Warscythe

Just like some CCW tomfoolery in the GK dex, this weapon has arguably gotten worse. Everything is the same as it was before except you will be exchanging the ignoring of invuln saves for +2 Str. Personally I would rather have the ignores invuln, but I do see extra Strength having its uses.

That's it for now, folks! In Part II we'll be going over some of the HQ options, so stay tuned!

[Arid's Anomalies] - Aw yeah.

2011-11-04T03:58:00.000-05:00

So Aurelian came out. I bought the Gold edition, which is the larger hardback book signed by Aaron Dembski-Bowden with the number of your edition printed inside.

I WIN.

Also, NECRONS THIS WEEKEND OMG OMG!!1 I know that both Lantz and myself will be purchasing plenty of stuff this weekend, and as I have to get mine ready for a doubles tourney the first weekend of December at Warhammer World, you can be sure that I will have some stuff converted and painted by early next week, and Lantz will drop in with his thoughts as well.

++STAY TUNED FLESHLINGS++

Contest Winner and Necrons Leaked!

2011-10-14T21:04:00.000-05:00

First, I'd like to apologize on the behalf of MWC for the delay on announcing the contest winner and starting up the contest for October (which looks like it will probably be delayed at least to November.) Things happening behind the scenes and whatnot. Anywho, before I get to the real important issue at hand (see diagram above,) here's the winner for September's MWCMCC!

Winner! Jan's Dark Eldar Razorwing

Congrats to you, Jan. Please email us with the same email address you submitted your entry with to claim your prize!

Now on to the good stuff. To my delight I woke up this afternoon (partially because I'm lazy and partially because I work nights) to find some Necron goodies leaked for my enjoyment. Now, if you know me even slightly you'll know I'm without question the biggest fan of Necrons ever to walk this planet. I don't care who you are or if you've gotten a tattoo of a Warrior skull on your eyelid; I'm a bigger fan, sorry to break it to you.

So naturally I'll have to review all the new sneak peeks we've witnessed this evening. This will help hold me over until we can get a Codex: Necron review going (and it's a'coming.) All pictures ~~stolen~~ borrowed from BoW. Be sure to click the pictures for a better view.

Flayed Ones

First up, an old favorite of mine, and even more-so after reading FoD, Flayed Ones. A trend you'll start to see is that these new models are a lot more dynamic than their previous counterparts. This holds true to the Flayed Ones above. Every pose is different, and some have skulls or corpses donned on their person. A few things I'm noticing that seems odd is the changes to some of their bodies, but not all. The top left one has what looks like a generator on his back and the legs of a velociraptor while the one on the top right has an extension to one leg that seems not-very Necron-ee. Maybe these will be wargear options?

Immortals

As far as dynamic poses go, once again the Immortals are far from that description. I don't really blame the sculptor for this, though. There's only so many ways one can hold a weapon similar to a Heavy Bolter in girth. One thing that can be said for uniqueness is their weapons themselves. They're looking a lot more complex and interesting than before. Also, the obvious statement to be made here is confirmation of wargear options!

Triarch Praetorians

Here's a new unit for you! Looking at the models these guys are obviously an assault-type of unit per the arm-mounted weapon and dual-dagger type of melee device or donning a two-handed glaive of some sort. I'm tempted to ask if this sculptor had Grey Knights in mind when creating these guys. One thing I can't get over is that tail... The only thing with a tail previously was the Wraiths, but that's arguable since they had no legs. I'm personally not a fan of these models as a whole, but seeing something built for melee tickles my rupture button.

Lychguard

Here we have the ~~Tomb Kings~~ Necron Lychguard who appear to be another melee-focused unit. The shields are a bit much in my opinion. Maybe I'm just used to the hordes of shambling no-name robots, but these guys are decorated better than a Grey Knight Paladin. The poses for these are superb as well, though. And at least there's no tails... One thing I'm noticing is almost every unit has something on their person that resembles a Rez Orb which may give way to the rumors that We'll Be Back rolls will be a 5+ on anything, even Power Weapons and Instant Death.

Deathmarks

While I'm not a fan of any of the sniper units in the game currently (save the GKs,) I'm a huge fan of this model. Not much info has been leaked about a sniper unit for the Necrons, but it seems pretty apparent that's what these guys are. I absolutely love the single-eye. I mean, a sniper really doesn't need two eyes; it's just wasteful. This is why the Necrons are of supreme technology and why Space Marines snipers still have a Ballistic Skill of 3.

Overlord

Okay, I've gotta ask. What is with the metal pigtails? I realize Necrons don't need to be aerodynamic, but come on...it looks ridiculous. You can be sure my robot-zombies won't be showing these off any time soon. Anywho, the first question is is there a difference between Lords and Overlords? Only time will tell. As for the models the one on the left looks fantastic in every way (except the pigtails,) while the one on the right is in a pretty static pose, though the details are still phenomenal compared to the current line.

Special Characters

In all honesty, the Stormlord is just how I pictured him from FoD...except once again for those damned pigtails. We see him in the typical Necron pose called "I would have gotten away with it, if it weren't for you darn kids!" As for Trazyn, I would guess he's a psyker. His armour looks like it has a Psychic Hood. His pose is boring, but without knowing his fluff (he could have been a grandpa back in the fleshy days) I'll hold my judgement on this guy.

Barge

This model bothers me a tad. Something about a Necron at a computer console rubs me the wrong way. The most advanced technology in the world still uses a touchscreen like my phone? Really? Even the Adeptus Mechanicus jack their brains into their computers. Either way the details on this thing are fantastic. One question I have is the giant cannon in the smaller picture, is that the Doomsday weapon we've all heard about?

Doomsday Ark

Well that answers that question... For what might look like a transport, this thing upon closer inspection looks like a simple skimmer with a giant ass cannon on it. Once again we have a Necron at a console, which still bothers me a bit, but something that catches my attention is above that pilot we have another Rez Orb looking item. We'll Be Back on vehicles, maybe? We'll see. Something else that stands out is the Gauss on this vehicle doesn't have the green see-through bars we all know and love. I'll be quite annoyed if I have to end up replacing all my green rods with non-see-through ones to match the rest of my army...

Ghost Ark

I'm still not sure how I feel about Necrons on viking boats, but it looks like I better get used to the idea. This thing looks to have all the same features as the Doomsday Ark, yet will be the rumored transport vehicle for infantry (what looks to be 10-11 bodies total depending on if we're including the pilot.) Overall a great sculpt, though I'm a little frightened about how much of a pain this will be to put together.

There you have it ladies and gents, the Necrons are coming and with some good-looking sculpts in my less than humble opinion. What are your thoughts on these newly released photos?

[Arid's Anomalies] - An Introduction

2011-10-04T04:38:00.000-05:00

Hello, lovely ladies and gentlemen of the world wide interwebs. I am AridMonk, and you get to read my ramblings on MWC now that Matt very generously asked me to be a staffer on here. So if I wither, blither or otherwise dither, you know to blame him. :D

Yes lady readers, I am this good looking...

So, now to fill you in on my blogging background... um, well...

There isn't any. I am very very new to the blogging scene. As of six months ago I thought a blog was where emotionally challenged teens went to vent their frustrations about their tyrannical parents 'cos they didn't let them wear all that black makeup to school/children's parties/grandma's funeral.

I didn't know that there was such a plethora of wonderful, wargaming filled blogs where talented guys would show off their wares to their equally talented brethren in a cacophony of plastic glue, resin and paint; where rapturous groups of ecstasy riddled individuals would heap praise upon the alters of the model gods; where skill, effort and raw talent coalesced into a wonderful mix of pure brilliance and were rewarded with the ooh's, aah's and soft intakes of breath of their followers; where giants amongst men stood tall and proclaimed to the sea of people that it was time to cast off the shackles of the oppressive mould-line overlords and declare to the world "Look at my brilliance, and be amazed!!" and where... and where.....

Oh, I uh, *ahem*, I seem to have gotten carried away there. Basically, what I am saying is, I was wrong. I came across a friend of mines blog, after ridiculing him for starting one. After a while, I relented and read it, and I was impressed. I read a few more, coming across here and places like Reds Corps and Warflakes and decided that maybe it was time to get my own. And so AridMonk's Mechanicum was born!

My own wargaming experiences started when I was in my first year of Secondary School (in Scotland you start that when you are about 12/13) and went along to the little club that resided therein. After seeing some of the older kids' space marines, and after hearing that they were 8 foot tall killing machines who wear nigh unbreakable armour, spit acid and could tear my English teacher Mrs Gray in half, I was hooked. That next weekend I went to my local Games Workshop with my saved up pennies and bought my first tactical squad.

99% sure she was a Daemon

That was now 10 years ago, and after a 2 and a bit year hiatus to concentrate on my work and sporting careers, I decided to come back. I currently have a couple of ongoing projects, the main one being my White Scorpions for Warhammer 40,000, as well as being one of the guys behind the Blood Ravens Charity Army Build.

As I mentioned, I'm still a bit fresh to the whole blogging game, but if you'll forgive my lack of experience, I hope to show off some of my work, as well as provide some news and reviews as best I can. Indeed, in the next day or so look out for my review of Dreadfleet, something I am having a ridiculous amount of fun with. In the meantime, you can look me up on Facebook and we can chat about the hobby.

Until next time!

[News Flash] Games Day 2011 - Down under!

2011-10-02T11:04:00.000-05:00

Gotthammer from BoLs Lounge posted this excellent write up of GD Australia on this blog. I'd post it all here but I've not asked his permission, so here are some highlights:

Quote The Q&A was well populated and fairly interesting. Some points of note:

- In regards to new races they asked "raise your hand if you feel your army is laggin behind in attention?" and used the fair number of hands to illustrate the more pressing need to update the current crop of Codexes first.

- Adam did go on to mention Necrons and Dark Angels as two in need of help, but it didn't sound particularly to indicate any info on forthcoming releases.

- Phil commented he would change the Court of the Archon and Dias of Destruction if he could in Codex Dark Eldar. The Court was at one point planned for a boxed set so you'd have to buy one of each so it made sense to have it that way. The Dias was a last minute job, and needed more tweaking.
He also mentioned changing the Decapitator and making some units better and some worse, but no specifics on why.

- In regards to supplements like Cities of Death and Planetstrike they said the designers used tose as a change of pace or a reward "like desert", and they wanted to do more.

- This led into a discussion about global campaigns. They are limited as they can't have huge ones that change the universe as the results might mess up the story - Adam specifically mentioned that the results for Medusa V were not what they expected. The questioner brought up that it helps get gamers involved in the universe by having a shared goal. They did ask who would be interested and got a strong positve response.

- There was talk about the design process and how ideas come about. Phil said they are trying to change the process from "you will design this" coming from above to a constant stream of pitching ideas and having a more free-flowing creativity.
They have a giant whiteboard where the studio just put up ideas for anything and get feedback and response on it. Assignments are generally given to the most eager studio member as they'll put the most work in, "and lots of unpaid overtime". There is however competition, including knife fights in the carpark, for some jobs so they painted the studio as very free-flowing.

- Someone asked about FAQs, and the reply indicated there's an assistant designer who is chiefly responsible for them all.

- On playtesting, Adam used the example that for High Elves he personally played 40 games, recording the results, as well as other studio members, White Dwarf guys, "their external playtesting group", and other in-house team members.
There was no fixed amount done though, and it is an elastic amount.

- When asked what they thought on balance, the reply was having a tough but fun game where it could have gone either way at any point. They did acknowledge that they sometimes screwed up, and that they all find it terribly embarrasing.

- A question was asked about release schedules, with Dark Eldar getting more models while some armies are still waiting (this got a chorus of "Tyranids!" from the audience). The reply was that they were changing to try and do a single major release for as much as possible with only some Special Characters being delayed as they can be troublesome to get right.
Ogre Kingdoms was used as the example of this.

- Phil then went on to talk about how they won't be re-treading Forge World, and the Mournfang are distinct creatures from the Rhinox riders. Forge World is there to flesh out the fringes and add depth was they way it was put, and they do their own thing.

- Jervis reads every letter he gets sent, and tells everyone in the studio about them. Adam did a Jervis impersonation for effect.

And

Quote He further elaborated that they won't be discarding and races, as they learnt from their mistake with Squats (and he did specifically call it a mistake) and that they realise now that "they can't pretend like things didn't exist".

Go read the rest, it's very good. Sounds like GD Australia may have been better than GD UK. So add that to the list along with cricket.

[News Flash] Out of Left Field: Citadel Finecast Experiment Over?

2011-10-02T00:13:00.000-05:00

Out of Left Field: Citadel Finecast Experiment Over.

Credit goes to Faeit 212

Finecast production to be limited or stopped completely. This morning's rumors declares Citadel Finecast an experiment that is coming to a close.

Rumors Out of Left Field are really rumors that I do not think are going to come around. I find quite a bit of information and some of it gets disqualified almost immediately. I've decided to start sharing some of these. Can they be real?, of course. There is just something about them that makes me feel uncomfortable about posting them. Sometimes its just the source, or how the source released the information, sometimes its the information itself.

Please apply extra salt

via TywinLannister
I don't know how reliable GW staffers are, but one has strong feelings that fine cast will be no more in a few months, something about a lack of return, and better plastic casts, apparently the new approach is to focus on the plastic blisters and to slowly but surely stop producing finecast or reserve it for truly exceptional minis.

September's Voting Has Begun!

2011-09-26T05:53:00.000-05:00

Its finally that time! Let the voting begin! Please do vote using the poll at the top right of the blog. Sorry for the delay; note that we'll still have a 10-day voting period, we'll just be extending out the end-of-voting into next month. As always, feel free to leave comments so that the creators of these awesome conversion can read them and bask in the feedback all the readers here will give!

Onto the show!

Entry #1

Strakov

This is version of Col. "Iron Hand" Straken, ala Vostroya. I call him Strakov. I started the Vostroyan officer with a Power Sword and Plasma Pistol. To represent his bionics I replaced one foot with a with the foot of a necron warrior. For his power sword arm, I used the bionic arm from the Space Marine captain sprue. I cut off the chain-sword blade with the original Power Sword blade from the Vostroyan offfcer model. Since Straken also carries a shotgun, I added an Empire repeater handgun to represent the shotgun.

Entry #2

Nephilim Soldier for Hordes

This is my Nephilim Soldier for Hordes, based on the cover art of the rulebook.
It has the arm and hand from a Teraph and the rest of it is the original Nephilim and a lot of super sculpey.

Entry #3

Rat Ogre

This Rat Ogre is actually from some years back and is my first serious attempt at sculpting in green stuff.
I'm quite happy with it, but I have never done anything from scratch and as serious ever since.

Entry #4

Minotaur

My entry: hmm what is it, some kind of steam punk esque minotaur.
(Quite proud of the tiny snail on the base)
Made from:
    Body: GW/LOTR trolls
    Head: GW Minotaur
    Right Arm: GW/LOTR troll arm & GW/Imperial cannon.
    Left Arm: GW Dreadnought legs, GW giant hand, sculpted staff.
    Rigt Leg: GW/LOTR troll.
    Left Leg: GW Dreadnought legs
    Back: GW Dreadnought power pack.
    Plus GW ogre & minotaur bits.
    Plus putty.

Entry #5

Destroyer Lord

This is an older conversion of mine that I recently blew the dust off in light of the new Necron Army coming out soon.
Basically he's a seated Destroyer Lord, but I wanted him to be hardwirted into a throne rather than just a Torso mounted in a skimmer and I wanted to add a more egyptian feel to him, aka Tomb Kings in space!
He is a combination of destroyer and warrior pieces cut into new poses. I custom built the throne and staff from sheet styrene and used a WFB empire wizard hat for this egyptian style helm. I also used a WFB wizard staff topper as a chronometron. If you look closely you'll see a Necron symbol as the back for the chair.

Entry #6

Dark Eldar Ravager

Is that a Dragon with freakin disintegrator cannons on it?...
…Yes it is!
I made this conversion with the intention of bringing a little bit of the fantasy back into 40K. The Dark Elf Black Dragon model was just too cool to pass up, so I tried to find a way to make it a 40K vehicle and this is what I came up with.
Essentially on the table this would count as a Dark Eldar Ravager with 2 disintegrator cannons and one dark lance. I added subtle cybernetics all over it and modified the rider to have more Dark Eldar looking armor vs. Dark Elf. A left over Finecast Archon helmet was just the bit of dandy fopism I needed for the rider and voila!

Entry #7

Menoth Templar Warjack

This is a conversion of a Menoth Templar Warjack for Warmachine.
It started out as a regular Crusader Warjack. I reposed the legs upon the rock. The grill on the head was flipped to give the face a different look. The shield was scratch built from plastic card. The Ball & Chain weapon was custom built and uses a jewelry chain.
The painting uses a much darker color theme than the Privateer Press colors. I also used pigments to apply smoke effects to the exhaust pipes along the top of the model.

Entry #8

Hive Guard

All parts from Warriors
Legs are my lease favorite looking scything talons, so I had a lot laying around
Gun is a mix of several different ones, to give it a new look
Covered eyes, because game wise they are blind
Green stuff just filled in gun gaps so two halves would look like one
Converted these to save money. Real ones are expensive. I picked up a bunch of Tyranid Warriors on eBay for about 40% of MSRP
This is one of three

Entry #9

Thousand Sons Defiler

My entry for the September Conversion Contest is an upright Thousand Son theme Defiler. It is completely built from the Defiler kit, greenstuff, sheet styrene and styrene rods.
I wanted my upright Defiler to actually look like it was capable of moving, but maintain a Defiler feel. This required a lot of work in addition to the typical upright Defiler conversion, which was made especially hard due to the clean nature of my Thousand Sons army. I first did a 180 on the torso and upper thigh to allow more range of motion. Next, I made a ball and socket joint for the arms with styrene, then packed the torso with packing peanuts to provide friction. This allowed me to have a completely posable shoulder joint. Then I extended the arms and thickened the upper thighs.
Magnets were used to connect the torso to the legs for easier disassembly. The weapons are interchangeable, both the shoulder mount and the under-the-torso groin mount. With this, I can field any Defiler weapon configuration.

Entry #10

This conversion used a standard Marine bike with a Ravenwing front. The front wheel has been removed and the supports extended ti give the bike a unique, chopper look. The captain is a normal Marine Captain kit with a resin Storm Shield and a Spear made from a Space Marine Command Squad banner bearer pole with a greenstuff head.

Entry #11

The model comprises of a standard bike with a Ravenwing front and a flag from an Imperial Guard Cadian Command Squad. The captain is made mostly from a standard Space Marine Captain kit, using a Storm Shield from a Terminator. The legs are repositioned to show the captain stopped with his foot on the floor, spurring on the rest of his forces.

Entry #12

Iron Warriors Aspiring Champion

Forgeworld MK3 body, Forgeworld bionic fist, plasma pistol and leg parts on mechadendrites.
Also, some bitz from Maxmini - steampunk helmet, bionic hands on mechadendrites - and common bitz from Chaos Rhino sprues.

Entry #13

There were a fair few bits used on this one, so I thought I'd bullet-point them in the interests of clarity.

Head - One of the standard catachan jungle fighters heads with the hair/bandana/whateverithadIforget shaved off, and the chin slightly narrowed with a craft knife. Hair and 'tache sculpted with green stuff.
Torso - Standard plastic mk. VIII torso slightly widened with gs/milliput and embelished with grandt line rivets.
Belt - plasticard belt. 'Buckle' is made from removing the top and bottom prongs from a terminator honours pendant.
Legs - Normal plastic mk. VI legs, re-positioned, slightly widened and embellished with GS and more rivets.
Hip plates - green stuff & GS/milliput mix + rivets
Arms - Standard plastic arms re-positioned, with the cuffs removed and then embellished with 50/50 gs Milliput mix.
Shoulder pads - GS/milliput sculpts + rivets.
Sword - large marine power sword (the one with the skull) shortened to correct size, with the sheath built around it out of plasticard. The shaft was removed from the hand down, and then the portion below the hand was reattached. Buckles are cast from the sheathed scout knife.
Combi-plasma - Body from a bolt gun and stock from a plasma gun. Plasma barrel is a narrowed plasma pistol. Bolt Barrel & Scope are from a Scout bolt pistol, bolt magazine arrangement is from a regular marine bolt pistol. Plasma 'bit' behind the mag comes off a plasma gun.
Backpack - standard plastic backpack with the top removed, then 'sawed' down the middle with a needle file (to make it narrower). new top is a melta bomb and the 'vents' are sculpted from gs/milliput. Final finishing with gs/milliput and plasticard details.

Entry #14

Ecclesiarch Super-Heavy Sisters Of Battle Exorcist

Details: This is a super-heavy version of the Sisters Of Battle Exorcist; I call it the Ecclesiarch.
Overall, pieces from 7 kits were used: The Baneblade, the Exorcist, the Leman Russ Demolisher, the Land Raider Redeemer, the Sentinel, the Empire Hellblaster Volley gun / Hellstorm rockets, Cities of Death Imperial Basilica, plus some green stuff, plasticard, sheet, tubing, rod and c-channel, and a tech-servitor.
The hull is a basic baneblade hull modified to make things fit – I flattened out the top where the turret normally sits and added sheet styrene as a base for the pipe organ of doom.
The pipes are simply two sizes of styrene tubing cut in a mitre box and arranged by size to form the proper shape. I moved the front of the upper hull forward about a half inch to be able to fit the ‘organist’ from the Exorcist kit into its position, filled the resulting gap with sheet styrene and built up a platform to hold the organist.
One of the Servitors is from the Exorcist kit, the other is a Tech Servitor with his legs replaced by a piston from the bulldozer blade on the IG tank accessory sprue. Both Servitors received arms made from the Chainsaw blade on the IG Sentinel. The reload ammo for the pipe-organ was made from WHFB Empire Hellblaster rockets, the racks holding the reloads are pieces cut from plasticard to mimic the reload racks on the Exorcist kit scaled up to Super Heavy size.
The sponson weapons are twin-linked multi-meltas made by grafting the Demolisher’s Multimeltas onto the twin-linked heavy flamers from the Baneblade. The sponson turrets are the original sponson turrets with Flamestorm cannon grafted on to represent Inferno Cannon.
The ‘bling plates’ on the sides are castings from the Imperial Basilica Wall-o-skulls bordering the door emblem from the Immolator/Exorcist kit. Then I bordered the whole thing with C-channel and added rivets from 1 mm plastic rod. I also did extensive carving on the hull sides to get the metal plates from the excorcist to fit.
The statues on the organ are castings from the Cities of Death basilica, altered to fit on the concave surface. The Fleur-de-Lis and scrolls on the rear are scaled up versions of their counterparts on the Excorcist kit.

Entry #15

Dark Eldar Razorwing

What you need: Fireprism turret sprue, Dark Eldar weaponary and some spikey bits were taken from two raider kits, styrene (1mm thick), Epoxy putty, Missile racks from a Lanspeeder Typhoon launcher (can be done with tooth picks as well)
The conversion was done way before GW released their own version which I think is good.

Entry #16

Space Wolves Thunderwolve Mount

What I used: Dire Wolf model from Dungeon an dragons and a lot of greenstuff. Since I wanted to habe my own Thunderwolf cavalary I chopped the model apart and made a mold. With my resin casts I started to get them into different poses and finally added details with greenstuff. Since I do not cast on a professional level there is a lot of gap filling included. One of them was even partially resculpetd. A lot of work but hopefully worth it in the end, Currently I have 5 models and everytime I do some modeling I add a little more variation- I fear they will never see paint ^^.

Entry #17

DEldar Baron

The model has all the wargear that the baron has (e.g. Splinter pistol and Phantasm grenade launcher); plus, unlike most Baron conversions, my Baron's skyboard actually looks like it gives him +2 str on the charge! The board is made from two Reaver hulls and the seat/engine of a Reaver. The chains and the blade in the back are from the Raider kit. The sail is from the Raider kit, and the two curved bars on the sail were leftover from Ravager kits. The Phantasm grenade launcher--which is split up and placed where the Reaver pop-up screens would go--is from the Hellions kit. The Splinter pod--which is inside the board and shoots out the front--is made from two leftover Reaver Splinter rifles. The Baron himself has Hellion legs, a Kabalite Warrior chest, Hellion arms, a Reaver head, and some hanging skulls and a Splinter pistol which were from my DE bitz box and I think are from the Hellion kit. No green stuff was required for this conversion.

Entry #18

Slannesh Dread

This is my Slannesh Dread. I made it out of the following:
Warmachine Cryx Helljack Plastic Kit ( Head and Arm)
Warhammer 40K IG Sentinel kit ( two rocket launchers )
Warhammer 40K Blood Angel Librarian Dreadnought body
Warhammer 40K Chaos Space Marine rhino accessory sprue ( Various whosits and whatsits )
Warhammer 40K Valkyrie light plate ( back decoration )
Warhammer 40K IG Heavy Weapons Crew kit ( Battery packs on the back )
Warhammer 40K IG troop sprue ( helmet and gun on the base)
Warhammer Fantasy "Dead Guy" from the Vampire Count Corpse Cart (Basing)
Flexible electrical conduit (Tail)
Guitar String (Formed the framework for the "goo")
Green Stuff ( flesh )
Hot glue ( "goo" )

Entry #19

Custom Built Penitant Engine

Parts used:
Sentinel Legs
Hacked up Sentinel cockpit
spare heretic from the real penitant engine set
another pare of sentinel legs converted into arms
hands are made from flamers from an ork set, and chainsaw blades I believe from the Catachan Sentinels
Some good old Chaos Spikey bits thrown on for effect.

Entry #20

Belial TH/SS

I need a Belial TH/SS model, so I decided to convert one. This contest was the perfect motivator.
For the model, I use a standard terminator leg and torso. The shield arm is a standard terminator sergeant Storm shield, with the imperial eagle filed away and replaced with a Deathwing symbol made out of green stuff. The thunder hammer arm is from a space wolf terminator. I filed off the large skull on each side of the hammer head and replaced it with two sword emblems cut from the dark angels sprue symbols. The cape is from a space wolf terminator lord (I believe). I used green stuff to fill in some of the holes to make it look less rustic. The shoulder pads are standard terminator shoulder pads with the addition of dreadnought leg armor. The TH/SS shoulder has an extra dark angels icon added. The model is on a standard base, covered with a textured styrene. I cut up a pillar/column that you would put on a wedding cake, added some brown stuff and a few rocks. Textured the brown stuff to look like rubble.

Entry #21

Blood Axe Shoota Boyz

My entry is a mob of twenty Blood Axe Shoota Boyz, with a Cold-War (Cold Waaagh?) era vibe to their equipment, inspired by the 'Ork Marines' in Grunts (a novel by Mary Gentle).
The basic level of conversion every boy has in common is in having ragged edge between arm and torso carved back, and resculpted as either a rolled up sleeve or a larger, thicker ragged edge as some kind of body-armoured vest.
Many have some kind of helmet, hat, buzz-cut-squig made through a mix of press-mould and scratch sculpting techniques that vary from model to model.
The M16-a-like weapons are made from ~25mm long flying base stems and plasticard scraps. The other weapons (Including Nob Fist/Klaw, the Radio pack, and the Big shootas) are either converted on existing parts, or built entirely from scratch from a variety of thicknesses of plasticard rod, and either 0.5 or 1mm plasticard sheet.
The odd yellow butt-pack or rucksack is from a Tamiya 1/35 US Modern accessories kit.
All sculpting work is done in Procreate, apart from some very early pieces, and particularly fine details (such as stitching) which is done with Green Stuff due to it's increased stickiness keeping it on the model instead of the tools.

[News Flash] Games Day 2011

2011-09-25T17:43:00.000-05:00

I will let the pics speak for themselves!

Voting to start in the September Conversion Contest in 24 hours!

2011-09-25T05:35:00.000-05:00

Folks, one and all!

Sorry for the delay in getting this months "Anything Goes" Conversion Contest entries up for voting. Its been one crazy week here but the time has finally come. I will get them all up tomorrow morning, Monday the 26th at 6am Central US time. There are 17 entries in all, with some seriously amazing conversions that the entire team here has been stunned by. Every one of them has a nice detailed description by each contestant on what it was made with and how each unique conversion was built. Its a nice treat!

Do check back tomorrow morning and make sure to vote!

[Redscorps] Kharn-o-saurus WIP Part 2 & Daemon Prince WIP

2011-09-21T06:00:00.002-05:00

Hello Earthlings!

Not sure if I'm breaking the rules by posting so much (Your not - Other Crew) lately but I figured I would actually share some conversions as opposed to just posting pics of my Red Scorpions junk.

Well after the last post where I posted my initial WIP of my Kharn the Betrayer conversion I had a look at the photographs and decided I wasn't quite happy (Photos have a great way of doing this, showing your errors, showing scale differences and off angles etc..).

I went back to the model and had a look at some of the areas I wanted to change. For starters, the front belt buckle area and the back pack icons are a touch to big for the model in their standard state. Also the squareness of the icon vs. the round surrounding area of the belt buckle looked out of place. On the back pack I'd just done a quick trim and file of the area thinking the icon would fit but it didn't so I went back, broke it off, trimmed both the area and the icon down a bit and fitted it again.

What else did I do.. I added a few more little icons here and there plus a few skulls and trinkets from my bits box... Anyway, I think if you compare the photographs between this post and the last one you should agree that this is a much more cohesive 'factory' looking conversion. More so when you throw some primer on and unify the colours:

Something else I am working on conversions wise is this Daemon Prince. I like the new kit a lot, I think pretty much every aspect of it looks sweet, though a little cartoonish in its proportions. I think the chicken legs have a lot to do with this and though they look pretty sweet on Tzeentch and Slaanesh, Nurgle and Khorne need something a little chunkier.

This is where the old kit reigns supreme in my opinon, I think also that it better represents the DP's Ascension to daemon-hood and his roots as a Lord of Chaos. The other guy seems a little too daemon oriented to be hanging out with the boys on the reg, where as I think this power armoured behemoth doesn't look out of place at the front of his warband during office hours or meeting the boys for a couple of brews after work.

Parts so far:
Old DP Legs
New DP Upper Body
Old Blood Thirster Belt
New High Elf Dragon Wings
Defiler Face Mask

Pics bro:

What do you think? Coming along alright?

Cheers
Redscorps

Editors Note - We got in all the entries for the September Open Conversion contest. Almost 20 in all! So, we will get those up ASAP with all the excellent descriptions everyone also submitted in the next day or 2. We want to thank everyone that has entered and ask everyone that hasn't, please do check back often and vote!

[Redscorps] Hi, My names Kharn. I'm new here, can you show me around?

2011-09-19T08:05:00.000-05:00

A nice and easy conversion for all of you World Eaters players out there. I love Kharn the Betrayer but the model is really old now and not overly imposing. I've always thought the SM Jump Chaplain was a great basis for this model with the cool pose and ancient looking armour but my previous attempt to make a custom Kharn with the metal one was rather unsuccessful (I also managed to chop an almond sized chunk right off the end of my index finger while trying to cut it, BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD!).

I've not worked with the Finecast range before and had read a lot of bad publicity, but I have to say that working with the material is great. The level of detail is superb plus the fact that there were only a few minor mold lines and only one small bubble meant I was pretty stoked!

It's really easy to cut which afforded me the ability to remove the shoulder pad, head and scrolls from the purity seals without much of a headache. It's actually so soft I was able to really easily re-sculpt the leg sections once I removed the purity seals and add the detail of the armour joints back on.

So the parts I used for this conversion:

GW/Finecast Space Marine Jump Chaplain Body
Forge World World Eaters Head and Shoulder Pad (From the WE Upgrade set)
WHFB Chaos Marauders Arm (The one with the dagger)
Possessed Chaos Space Marine Backpack
Forge World Chainaxe Head and Handle (I cut the pole out as it was too thin, I used the handle joined to the head of the chainaxe, joined to the Crozius handle as the thicknesses matched better)
Some bitz from my girlfriend's son's CSM bits box (Couple skulls, some chain, a tooth thing)
Forge World World Eaters Brass-etch Icons
Some barbed wire from Armypainter I think

The conversion is nearly done, a little cleaning up to do here and there but it's finished enough to show you what I managed to achieve in about 2hrs with the above parts. I think it's a much more impressive model to represent the mad-dog Kharn with and I can't wait to hit him up with some blood effects.

Click to enlarge:

What do you think? For the base I am intending to add a small pile of skulls from Secret Weapon Miniatures and probably a cheeky Red Scorpion Helmet.

Thanks for checking in,
Redscorps

Ps My Kharn's tougher than the normal Kharn! Power armour gauntlet to hold your Plasma Pistol OOP Kharn? Yeah, not on my watch sunshine..

[News Flash] Games Day 2011, Birmingham

2011-09-13T16:07:00.000-05:00

BIRMINGHAM NEC LG ARENA

SEPTEMBER 25th, 2011, 10am-4pm

Forge World will be heading to Birmingham for Games Day 2011. The sales team will be bringing a wide range of both Forge World and Warhammer Forge stock including our 2011 Show only models: The Mk III Boarding Marine and the Chaos Dwarf Hellsmith.
The whole of the Forge World and Warhammer Forge Design Studios will be there to show off their latest projects and to answer any of your questions. For more information about Games Day UK and to find out about all the guests and activities taking place click here. To keep up to date with all the latest developments for Games Workshop check out their facebook page here.

Forge World Best of Show

The Golden Demon awards at Games Day UK attract entries from all across Europe and always showcase some fantastic talent. Forge World will be once again checking the models and displays for the best painted Forge World model. The chosen entry can be picked from almost any category in the competition and shall receive our very own Best of Show trophy. In 2010 Brian Best's Renegade Minotaur took the prize. To see more of this amazing model click here.

Available at the Show


Incarnate Elemental of Beasts £45.00	Lietpold the Black £24.00

Bale Taurus £55.00	Skaven Brood Horror with Warlord £42.00

Valthex Astral Claws Master of the Forge £18.00	Space Marine Boarding Assault Upgrade Set £18.00

Kheres Assault Cannon Arms for the Contemptor Dreadnought £7.50	Contemptor Plasma Cannon Arm £7.50

Contemptor Heavy Bolter Arms £7.50	Contemptor Heavy Conversion Beamer £7:50

Skaven Exaulted Vermin Lord £45.00	Skaven Brood Horror £32.00