Deodorant Tank parade on 4th of July weekend

Obviously 4th of July weekend was weeks ago, but as you might guess my schedule has prevented this update from being timely. During said weekend, I visited an old friend of mine in Cincinnati (we shall call him 'Doctor'), He was in the process of cleaning out a lot the extras and overstock that he has accumulated over a period of  2 decades of being in the GW hobby, and also working on his Dark Angels. While doing so, he noticed he had a lot more of the original Rogue Trader era Predator tanks than he thought! Which led to us discussing what the Iron Wing was supposed to be, and if GW were to ever elaborate on it, how they intended it to function etc. (The Iron Wing, BTW, was the mechanized vehicle arm of the Dark Angels, discussed only once - as far as I can tell- in early Epic materials), Then he pulls out the deodorant tank!

Yes, somewhere, he acquired this thing in a trade, we're pretty sure from an old HS buddy. The missile launcher on it's side is made from Legos!

On the other side we have an oddly place satellite /radar dish which appears to be the hatch from a Rhino tank, as are the handle in front of it.

The turret is an actual original Predator tank turret, only that it doesn't swivel and is therefore set up for fixed fire. This was the reason the Doctor pulled this out; he intends to break it back down and restore the turret back to a Predator chassis. He told me this after I got such a great kick out of this that I even offered to paint it! "No, I'm going to reuse that turret!"

Back in the early days of Rogue Trader, anything went! The deodorant tank was merely the poor-boy's quick option for vehicle that look 'sci-fi-ish' with just the right amount of imagination and bit of paint.

We also played Necromunda.

None of the models are mine, and most of these the Doctor also acquired in trades over the years. I played the Van Sars (in Xmas red) and he played the painted Orlocks. We spent some time setting up scenery and creating our gangs, and then we played. Here is my side of the field, with a Heavy (with a Heavy Plasma gun) hiding and in overwathc, with my Gang leader and the 2 juves.

He got in the 1st shot of the game, pinning one of my guys on the tower. Here's my guy on the high spire targeting his two gangers. This pic was taken for LOS purposes was never intended to be a blogging pic, but why not? He has a pic of the same situation from his vantage point (if he sends it I'll post it).

Here's my guy taking a shot at a target below. On another turn he'd throw a grenade through that window taking out a heavy and a his gang leader, an action that would force a bottle test which would end the game. The thing about Necromunda is, it's not ALL in the actual game, but the post game. We both did fairly well I recall, however next time we meet, he will be the one bringing in the giant-killer bonus! This is the 2nd time using Van Sar models I don't own to play this game, and I really need to commit myself to tracking those models down and painting a gang for myself.

-Joel

Pods to drop and Lands to Raid (and Speed--Part 7)

Just when I thought I had left on a business trip with out my pics, I find them! So, here's an update. While last home, I found myself somewhat surprised to find that on e-bay the Land Raider Crusader bits I wanted to get extras of were going for more than the cost of just buying the sprue out-right from GW! Amazing! While pondering my next move I found myself working on the Landspeeder Typhoon that can be seen throughout these 'Pods to drop' articles (funny that I'm not currently working any Drop Pods, but I like the title!). So there I was working on the model, when I decided it was time to put the pack markings on their right shoulder pads. However I quickly discovered that trying to get a brush into those spaces, especially one dabbed in red paint, was far too messy and futile than I had suspected. If you've been following this series so far, you might have gauged that I like to build these models after I paint them to avoid having areas my paint can't reach. Therefore I was left with no choice but to get a bit crude and rip the gunner out!

Another thing that had bothered me about the gunner was that whoever the person was that assembled this model (I think I wrote before that I pulled this out of a garbage can at an old FLGS) was trying to get a more dynamic pose for the gunner, so their solution was to hack the bar that the gun is supposed to be mounted on, so that it rested lower. When I reassemble this, I will remount the gun back onto the bar, and just apply 'battle damage' to the area with the damaged bar. As you can see with this pic, the driver has a vast area where my paint was not able to reach, as well as the back side of the gunner and the area he sits at.

This other pic shows that the gunner's legs were difficult to reach too. I know that while being used in the game, the likelihood that anyone would spot this would be slim, but it would just bother me if anyone could.

Here is the detached gunner, and you see the very limits to where my paint could reach. Again, although the likelihood of the gunner's back being spotted is slim, the shoulder pad would definitely me an annoyance.

Here you can see that I did the base coat for the pack markings and touched up the Shadow Gray base coat.

Another thing that bothered me was the tail of the Land Speeder. In the top image, you can see that the previous owner put it on backwards. While liked this because it distinguished it from the other one I have built already, I always thought it was a bit fragile. Scrutinizing it while working on it, I decided that this was just fricking stupid, and tore it off. After all, the 'flaps' were backwards!

It's subtle, but you might be able to detect a slight 'bowing' in the center of this tail. Not sure how to fix that...

Here you can see that I have touched up those hard to reach spaces. The driver was secured a bit too firmly, but having the driver out was enough to enable me to get a brush into those tight areas. Having base coated those spots, I then applied the pack marking base coats. This picture really shows off the barren spot where the heavy bolter was, and where I'm going to have to apply battle-damage.

And this is pretty much were I left off! More updates on this, and the Land Raider, in about a week!

-Joel

An update, plus some Terminator basing.

First update: Concerning White Dwarf, GW announced on their website the other day the changes to the release schedule and when subscribers should expect their copies to arrive. And, true to their word, I walk down to the mailbox and pull out the latest issue! Which, although focused on the new Storm of Magic expansion for WHRB, did have some interesting changes: 1. Zero LOTR content! No, really! 2. Usable content in the way of City Fight stratagems and some fairly inspiring articles revolving around the Cities of Death Codex. Although not a 'return to form' I was pleased with this issue.

The picture below is a collection of old terminator marines that I decided to glue to the bigger style bases in preparation for a game I played to today with Warfrog. Ultimately I will use green-stuff to smooth out the base. I've found that gluing the original base to the bigger base, not only makes the model a tad taller, and more in line with the current size of the terminators, but also provides some cool opportunities with modeling.

These models are all fairly old. The oldest being the models from the '89 range of terminators. The 2nd edition terminators tended to to be a bit more robust, and the finally the 2nd edition Space Hulk plastic terminators (pictured up front). But none of these guys freak out the kids at the local game-store quite like these guys:

These are the original Space Hulk terminators! LOL! I love 'em! So clunky, yet so much character. These miniatures were painted just before I truly came to grips with how I wanted their paint scheme to work for me, so they tend to be a bit muddy looking. Also, back then I never primed miniatures. I'm not sure why, I just didn't. For the most part, this worked out OK, but on these models, which were molded in a dark blue plastic, it really made a difference with the paint scheme. I intend to have all my terminators painted up to the standard that this Rune Priest Terminator (below) has been painted too, hopefully sooner than later:

Ha-ha,...damn, I just realized I'll have to fix his base too!
By the way, all the terminators above died at the hands of Warfrog's Eldar (accept for the the 2 that ran...I mean 'withdrew'... from the battle). We took pictures of the event which I think Warfrog plans on posting on his blog http://warfrog.blogspot.com/ so keep an eye out for that. Also, I got to see the roll-up 'rubber' battle mat that he recently reviewed; very cool products! If time, and my burning stomach ache, hadn't been against us we were hoping to paint it this evening.

Here was the army I used, lined up for pre-deployment.

The land raider crusader hasn't progressed much since the last write-up mainly due to some extra bits I've decided to order for it that I haven't managed to find yet at a price I can accept. (Why people will pay more money for a single piece off of a sprue than buying the entire sprue from GW directly is just a mystery I can't seem to solve). However I have made some progress on the landspeeder that appears in that series of articles, and I will be posting an update on that soon. That's all for updates that I have for now,
take care!
-Joel

Changes coming to White Dwarf (Part 2-What I would change)

If you read my last post, you might understand my current dissatisfaction level with the current format of White Dwarf and my love of 'formats past'. So, here are some content items or features I would adopt (in no particular order):

1. Background content. Articles like the Index Astartes articles were brilliant (and even included customization rules which were nice).
2. Fiction. One of the elements that kept some readers continuing to buy Dragon magazine for so many years was the short story you got with each issue. With the cessation of Inferno! magazine, White Dwarf should've picked up on this. In fact, now that I think about it, it would've been nice to have seen more Inferno! elements adopted by the Dwarf (comic features, diagrams, etc.)
3. Paint articles. The current painting articles aren't bad, indeed, I think they're quite good for introduction articles, but old 'eavy Metal / Blanchitso articles were extremely helpful and not afraid to speak to new gamers in such a way to encourage them to become experts.
4. Fanatic. Whatever became of that imprint? Anyway, it would be nice to have at least a few pages each month with some Specialist Games scraps.
5. Experimental/playtest content. Pre-releasing lists for greater trial and error and player feedback would be nice. We could perhaps nerf some cheese combos before particular books are published. It'll be interesting to see just how the upcoming Sisters of Battle list will be presented (hopefully not as disappointing as the WD Blood Angel list a few years back, granted the codex they got was arguably loaded with compensation for the BA players out there...)
6. FAQs. Seriously, why can't these be in WD? "We don't want people showing up to tourneys with a stack of White Dwarfs!" Fine, put them online after you publish them in White Dwarf. This was a valuable asset for WD, and used to be the first few pages we turned too went back when WD had this feature.
7. Chapter Approved. Granted, the #5 & 6 probably covers this, but the feature was often always different, and well worth the read. There was a WHFB version, but I don't recall it being around that long.

That's all that comes to mind at the moment, but I think I could definitely fix the 'content' issue the magazine has now if I could only get 1/3 of my wish. Big flashy pictures are great, and they still need to be in there, but not at the expense of reading material. Which makes the experience of reading through a White Dwarf seem so 'huh' right now. If this means they even go back to sneak-peak content from upcoming releases, hey, it's better than nothing.

So what would you include?

Changes coming for White Dwarf?

So according to a rumor picked up by BOLs from a release in Germany changes are finally coming to White Dwarf. You can read that stuff here (and watch as the conversation descends into rants about finecast etc.): http://www.lounge.belloflostsouls.net/showthread.php?t=15873

And I'm talking about this on my hobby blog because...?
Ah, well, if it wasn't for White Dwarf Magazine I can say with honestly I would not be in this hobby. When I was introduced to Warhammer 40,000 it was during it's 1st edition, before Kirby, before the corporatization. At this point, late '88 early '89, White Dwarf played a vital support role for all of it's games. It was prior to this point a general hobby magazine, with RPG reviews and support. It even had a book review section (Critical Mass) by a great reviewer that rated Sci-Fi and Fantasy genre books that they thought would appeal to gamers (in fact, for the sake of trivia, the last Critical Mass reviewed a book by David Zindell titled 'Neverness'- read it if you can find it!). And let's not forget Thrud! But, even at this point, GW was concentrating on their games and support for them. And we were NOT complaining! Back then we were living in the growth and evolution of 40K. The game was truly young, and each month the 40K universe grew a little with each White Dwarf. Tony Cottrel's amazing conversion kits for the modeler who wanted more variety out of their Rhino and Landraider kits (in the case of the Spartan, a hybrid of each!) or instructions for scrap building Ork tanks and in one issue a Baneblade were just amazing. These issues of White Dwarf introduced a wealth of background material that continued to evolve the game and the game's iconic back-story. Hive Worlds were explored in great depth with the experimental rules for Confrontation (this later became a stream-lined, less RPG-oriented product known as Necromunda). This was an exciting time to be following this hobby for sure, and I was hooked.

Even back then White Dwarf had sections (literal pages) straight out of new releases, as sort of a teaser sample. Pages from Realm of Chaos, Waaagh The Orks, Freebooters, etc. And still they premiered unique lists (The Eldar) and experimental rules (the rules that would become the Vehicle Manual and the Battle Manual). This show-case of pages out of new releases continued really strong with the launch of 2nd edition, with pages pulled straight our of rulebooks and codex releases forming the foundation of each issue, end-capped by a battle-report, which had become quite popular by this point. Unique rules exclusive to WD started to lesson, but it still existed. Although background material certainly began to decline.

With a change of editors (Robin Dews for Jake Thorton) saw the introduction to the FAT Dwarf! White Dwarf magazine ballooned in size and practically dripped with content. I would say that this period was certainly White Dwarf's most appealing era. The Battle reports were even more exciting, the content was unique and useful, the painting and scenery article remained useful as well, even the collecting articles were pleasant to read (usually). Back then both 40k and WHFB games (and even the specialist games) used a lot of card stock for templates, spell cards, psychic cards, vehicle cards, wargear, treasure, etc., and the Fat White Dwarf was providing pre-perforated card stock components for these games. White Dwarf may have been calling itself a catalogue at this point, but you HAD to have it to play these games! Also during this time, another reason to have it was the FAQ support.

I think the generosity of this product began to be cost prohibitive, and the 'Dwarf shrunk back down in size by the time 40K 3rd edition was launched. However we still saw a lot content, and even experimental rules (BFG, Mordheim, the retro editioned Necron rules (I interviewed Rick Priestly at Games Day '99 where he told us that the Necrons were created for 3rd edition, and that it was a real challenge to retro-fit them back into 2nd edition for those articles, but I digress). During the 3rd edition period White Dwarf continued to evolve, but continued to be useful. The 3rd edtion FAQs (now Chapter Approved articles, which made the old vets like me swoon with pride!) continued to be vital. Just ask anyone who messed around with the VDR and you'll hear some fun stories! Eventually White Dwarf was used as a support vehicle for GW's LotR line, and it was harshly divided into three sections. Lord of the Rinds, Warhammer, and Warhammer 40,000. Specialist game support disappeared entirely, but these games had their own support magazines (which were quite nice! I loved Town Cryer for Mordheim the most!). Lots of painting and hobby articles usually with content unique to the content that it was now being printed on (GW US, GW Australia, etc) with some of it unique to that country.

GW reeled all this in right around 4th edition (2004) and to be quite honest, White Dwarf has remained a sort of sterile entity ever since. The new releases are very much heavily featured (the sprue break-downs are nice to reference) but there is little in the way of tangible content. In 2011, not much has changed. White Dwarf doesn't even pull pages from new releases any more! It's even unfair to call it a catalog, since even they don't put prices anymore (probably due to it being published in pretty much one country and circulated throughout the English-speaking world, but this is just my guess). The writers comments on new product are OK to read, and the occasional tasty rules article comes out, but for the most part, I just look at the pretty pictures before nodding off to sleep at night. White Dwarf is no longer vital.

I hope I illustrated why people tend to complain about the current state of White Dwarf: it's because the older issues truly had content and at one point you had to have White Dwarf. And those of us who remember it, miss that. I cling to it more out of hope that it will improve, but I still enjoy it. But I don't thirst for it like I did just a few years ago.

This went on longer than I thought, so next time I will plot out what White Dwarf would be like if I could control it. it's a fantasy, sure, but if my hopes and these 'changes' are anywhere close to similar, than I'll be a happy guy!

-Joel

Pods to Drop and Lands to Raid (part Six)

It's been a long week since I've been back and it doesn't feel like I've spent as much time on my painting projects as I would have liked. However, I did manage to get the bulk of the highlights done:

I have also added a base coat of 'Tin Bitz' paint to the frag defenders, the imperial eagle, and to the numerous skull icons that cover this tank. Not all of these icons will end up the same color in the end, the skull icons and imperial eagle will end up a goldish color in the end.

I also worked on the Storm Bolter gunner:

Applied the highlights to his armor, brought the orange on the shoulder pad up yellow and painted his head. I need to paint the 'cog-boy' symbol on his red shoulder and bring the flesh up to another level and this piece will be about done. I also the same to the Land Speeder:

However the land speeder and crew still need the Space Wolf Grey and Skull White highlights that the Land Raider now has. This is proving to be a challenge to properly paint the crew, and when I build the third Typhoon, it will be assembled like this and the Drop Pods, and painted while still on the sprue. The crew will definitely be painted before assembly. Detailing the right shoulder pads of both of the crew will be a real challenge...

++++BONUS UPDATE FROM THE FRONT+++

On Saturday night I led the Wolves to battle versus the treacherous Aurora Chapter and their fiendish overseer Da Masta Cheef, who sought to seize the spoils of war for their own. It was a fierce battle (fought mostly against my dice, whom I assume have been selling their allegiance to my foes for sometime now) but I focused on the two objectives by keeping my troops on the objective in my deployment zone, and focusing on riding the fiendish traitor from his. The comedy of my dice rolling saw about 8 terminators brought down in the 2nd turn (note, about 6 of these deaths were 2+ saves!!!) and my Runepriest Terminator gibbed by a treacherous scout team. My Lone Wolf was particularly heroic, wiping out a squad all by himself, and fending off the hail of fire by the Aurora snipers (he would find his glorious death only in the after match). It was a fun game, in spite of the wretched dice. Da Masta Cheef's dice started to crap out on him in the 2nd half of the battle, so clearly the dice gods were not pleased with us. Somehow, despite my grueling loses I managed to get a victory, technical though it was. We continued on even after victory was formally declared just to see how things would've worked out if we played to the death, and I clearly lost! Keep an eye on this blog http://www.dlwdg.blogspot.com/  to see if the Da Masta Cheef writes a blog about this fight.

That's all for now,
-Joel

Space Wolves Gallery (part 3)

Who are you call'n VENERABLE?!!!

This bad-ass old School mini has been appearing in my army lists pretty much since the day I sealed him! He's old, but definitely has a lot of character. I got a pair of these over a decade ago (ebay I think?). I can not recall what color this one was, I just remember it was in a bowl of paint stripper within the hour! (The other one is Ultramarines blue, and I have left it untouched and gave it to my brother for his Ultramarines army). All of the Space Wolf Icons are hand painted, and the runes were done with a micron. I painted this up around 2000-2001.

I get a real kick out of the 'Taz' look these older Dreadnought had. I know there is a, mostly-dead, guy stuffed into it, and I have often wondered just how much of the guy is in there...any way, he's on the proper sized base, however, as time rolls on I'm less impressed with it. Rubble made from a chopped up sprue looks OK I guess, and the tube cut from a thick drinking straw does too I guess, but it's bit distracting. However this is the thin base from the Epic range, and the newer thick bases are a lot more appealing.

Those of you familiar with this classic model, will realize that the twin linked lascannons are not the ones that it came with. The guns provided for this model sucked (except for the missile launcher, it was cool). If you read my previous post (Space Wolves Gallery part 2) you'll know that I had an old Predator Tank that I opted not to use the lascannons, glued them together to look similar to the original Land Raider's twin-linked lascannons, and stuck 'em on 'Venny'. (note that I had painted 'Rex' on the model, but everyone else always calls him Venny... usually right before their Tyranid MC rips his Dreadnought CC off and beat him over the head with it, but I digress...), Back in 3rd Edition, the Spotlight was an extremely valuable vehicle upgrade, and it made sense to have it on a thing that was totting a twin-linked las cannon (I sometimes count it as a twin-linked Autocannon, I mean, who can tell right?). There was an awkward smooth spot on the top of the top cannon to allow for the swivelling effect of the sponsons on the original Predator kit. The spot light fit in that spot perfectly, and just ups the coolness of this model in my opinion.

Ok, how's this for old:

The kids are all going OMGWTF? when they see this little bastard hit the table. Especially when it starts throwing flamer templates about. This is the original RT era Space Marine Land Speeder. It even as the original hex flying stand! I have recently affixed that hex base to current scaled flying stand for both balance and game purposes, but I have yet to model it up. I painted this up right around the time I painted up Venny. (2001?). The 2nd edition version was bigger and had less of a suicidal-fast-moving-chairlift-with-guns -look about it -It had big metal plate in the front!

The banner is the from the '89 Space Marine Paint Set booklet. It's OK, the other side is smaller and has a black trim. I'm thrilled about that, but I've moved on enough to not let it bother to the point of wanting to redo it. Maybe when I do up the base I might redo it...

I miss the beaky marines, and want to see more of them! I think I make a crewman for Land Raider Crusader be a beaky.Note the old school Space Wolf Chapter markings on their shoulder pads. When I was scrutinizing this model recently, I remarked on how well those look on these guys. I'm seriously considering using them on my ground troops. Yes, I do have the newer 'blackmane' style icon on the sides of this model, and on other models, but I think it might mix well. Note the minimal usage of the pack markings on both the Landspeeder and the Dreadnought above. Where it appears here, I have placed a yellow runic number decal over it.

Hope you enjoyed this!

-Joel