Another report from the warzone!

I was able to take some pics this past weekend for 2 battles fought at the local hobby town. Masta Chief wrote up a big report using the pics I took, and you can read it here. He used his Exodite Eldar in a fight against their Dark Kin led by Archon RTVoril. It was a lot fun to watch!

That battle seemed sparse, and indeed it was considering the model count over on the next table: Chaos and Imperial Guard vs. Tyranids! Not sure if anyone is planning to use my pics to post a battle report of this one or not, but I sure did take a lot of pics of this game!

It was crazy fun to watch, and utterly horrifying to see the Doom of Malan'tai in a situation where it was unstoppable!

As far as my hobby out-put this week is concerned, I did very little, but I did get further along with the painting of the 2 Space Wolf Rhinos. Saving those pics for the next post specifically about them however.

-Joel

Return of the Exterminator Part 1

It's been mocking me for years.

I started on the construction of the my Space Wolf Leman Russ Exterminator way back in 2004. And got about halfway with the painting. I used it in the 2 games of Warhammer 40,000 4th Edition that Warfrog and I played. It performed well back then, the BS4 heavy bolters and autocannon were a nasty combo to lay down against a typical foot unit. But I never picked it back up again as other projects had snared my attention (mostly WHFB related). When the Space Wolf Codex was released during 5th edition I was disappointed to see my wicked little tank deleted from the roster....very disappointed.

My Imperial Guard can use it, I know, but my army is far from field-able at this stage, and well, I hated the idea of stripping it down just to repaint it a different shade of grey! (Although Da Masta Cheef is quick to point out that my army isn't gray, it's baby blue! LOL)

 So I did nothing with it. I requisitioned the storm bolter and gunner who is now residing happily on my Land Raider Crusader (hmmm...I should finish that, huh?) but I just couldn't decide what to do with this tank! Until this new, shiny 6th edition of Warhammer 40,000! This edition brings allies back in a big way, and although it's been subtle in my posts, I have slowly been tinkering on my IG army in between painting Bastions, Rhinos, and Fighta Bombas (none of which are complete yet!) as something I can mix with Space Wolves. Thus, my Leman Russ Exterminator is back! -All I need to do is finish it. However, as I sort have been sarcastically noting, I have a habit of not completing everything, at least not in what my fellow mortals consider a timely fashion anyway. I envisioned when I stuck on the wolf heads above the sponsons that I would sculpt more fur on the the top using green stuff as the heads just floating there look odd. I know this will take me some time to pull off.

I will replace the storm bolter, sans a gunner, in the event that in the next Space Wolf codex this tank suddenly reappears (GW is good for pulling tricks like this) and having an IG gunner up there in a Space Wolf decorated tank might look weird, and having a Space Wolf up there would irk me considering I will be using IG stats (BS3) although it might be a funny gag to say that the worst shooter In the army is forced to ride in the Executioner for the next battle until he can figure out how to shoot! LOL, -but considering how poorly my Space Wolves tend to shoot, the whole army would end up riding in "pray 'n spray" mobiles if that were the case! So, I will simply leave the storm bolter up there with the hatch closed.

Anyway, here it is. Or was back on 7/4/12 when I snapped these photos. The idea has been in my head at least that long but other projects kept putting it off. With the recent work on my rhinos, I decided this ought to get moved up on the production queue. Look forward to an update on this one some time in the New Year!

Eye witness footage from the war zone

This past Saturday, I was working too late to join the boys for a good old romp in 40K land, but I did show up and take pics of the game between Screech and Da Masta Cheef! I sent these to him so he could do a longer than usual battle report which shows off a full deployed Long Wayz Dezert Groop in action against Screech's army of allied Tau and Guard. It also got us some nice pics of Da Cheef's ork minis in a cool battle setting. Check out the rest of my pics (BTW: Cheef used the best ones) and enjoy the report:  green-iz-best-when-fightin-da-oomies


Spoiler alert: This pic pretty much encapsulates how it all ended up!

And if you found this page by following Da Masta Cheef's link, thanks for checking my blog out!
-Joel

The Imperial Infantryman's Handbook -has been received

The Imperial-Infantrymans-Handbook is the combination of the Imperial Munitorum Manual and Imperial Infantryman's Uplifting Primer. I did a raving "drink the kool-aid" endorsement when Amazon first listed it.

I found this on an image search. This is from the Uplifting Primer, which has lots of great diagram art like this.

Nothing is really new here (with exception to the brusque warning -attached below- that if I were YOU citizen, I would heed!) however this still remains a great reference for the RPGs (Dark Heresy and Only War particularly) and is generally just great Imperial propaganda that adds a great feel and sense of duty to the budding Imperial Guard commander. When I ever get around to fielding my IG army, I think I will take this with me to the game and randomly read litanies and propaganda during my opponent's turn. I mean, why not? Spirit of the game and all that...:D

If you missed my endorsement, or the link above elluded you, here is what the intro page says of the book:

"You there soldier! Don't know a las-cutter from a lascannon? Not sure which prayer to the God-Emperor will protect you from the enemy artillery fire? Need to know how to survive an explosive decompression on your drop ship or set up a crossfire ambush in a death world jungle? Better consult the handbook. The Munitorum adepts give us those things for a reason, you know..."

That proceeds this:

And it only gets more awesome from there! If you don't have it, you should. If you need a fun stocking stuffer for a fellow player, this is a great thing to give.

Enjoy.

Distracted by Rhinos...pt1

The 3 rhinos, in the state that they have been in for close to 10 years...

As I played through the last few games, I grew more and more dissatisfied that the vehicles that I tend to use the most were only half painted (and barely even to that level). Worse, they were this weird fusion between the old style (see the Space Wolf Gallery: Vindicator) and the current (in the same gallery, see the Land Speeder Typhoon). The current being of a darker tone over all with more Shadow Gray, as opposed to the older style which had Space Wolf Gray as the dominate tone. Oddly, these 3 old (this frame remained in production longer then ANY 40K models! I challenge you to find another!) Rogue Trader era models were in my collection in a weird transitional state where one was highlighted up to Space Wolves Gray, one in the middle tone, and one half-assed base-coated.

In recent games I have been only using the two with the most color, and I decided that I just needed to finish them. In October I took a small vacation and during that time while working on the Bastion (another blog entry coming soon) I decided to throw some paint on these things with the delusion that this would be fast (ha!).

The 1st thing to do a was tone down the over-bearing highlights, so I went in and did that with a watered down Shadow Gray using pure paint for the darkest areas.

This particular one I really deepened it quite a bit.....

 

One I was satisfied with this recovery of the deeper tone, I proceeded to tighten up the the middle color (a sort of ...Masta Cheef don't start...Baby Blue-ish color) and the Space Wolf Gray highlight. As well as the free-hand forms of the Grey Hunter pack icons.

 You might spot in my battle-reports that I don't glue down the rear hatch or the smaller pair of hatches that the bolters rest on. This is so I can remove them during game play, as well as swivel them when the tanks become imoblized. I am contemplating magnetizing them...

It's a bit subtle, but here is the transitional state of the storm bolter hatches. And the hunter-killer (guaranteed to miss!) missiles as well...
 Well, over this past weekend I picked these rhinos back up and damn near finished them!

 They are not done yet, but i  am very pleased with their progress up to the this point!

All I have left to do is to paint the lights, finish the metallic areas, and apply decals.

 Also, during the aforementioned vacation, I decided to spend some time (and money) organizing my bitz bins to a more user friendly state. I think it has done wonders for my whole modeling area and saves me time from having to look for weird and wonky bitz.

Another update coming soon!

Review: Farseer

Farseer by William King.  Despite my efforts to write these reviews without spoilers, naturally some are bound to occur even when describing characters, so, be warned, SPOILERS AHEAD! While recently reorganizing my paperback book shelf, I stumbled upon this book that I truthfully do not recall buying. Being self-contained, and by Bill King, I decided it looked like an interesting diversion while waiting for Pariah to be released and taking a break from reading the original Ian Fleming 007 novels.

Part of the attraction toward this book was that it was by William King, whose work on the Space Wolf novels, and Gotrek & Felix novels, as well as some very important and long lasting Warhammer and Warhammer 40,000 background elements were undeniably crucial evolutionary steps in both world's post-'80s development. They still are! So a short self-contained novel by him seemed like a perfect morsel to munch on over these past autumn nights, right?

The story starts off in a very... how should I say it? "D&D module-esque" way. For those of you that have never played a classic D&D module, they tend to start off with all the characters gathering in a bar or tavern, somehow coming together awkwardly before being led by the nose on an adventure which usually climaxes at a specific destination point (castle, tower, dungeon, etc, usually this place is in a forbidden locale or is specifically forbidden) while typically being lured there by the promise of riches. We've seen this in movies and TV as well:  a half-drunk anti-hero is discovered, usually having fallen from a previous grace and fortune and now is wallowing in drunken obscurity to be plucked up by someone who desperately needs this anti-hero to "get over it" and be a real hero! Shit, I may have just gave away the 1st half of this book...

...because Janus Darke is that drunken anti-hero wallowing in drunken failure. A pathetic man who was once a powerful Rogue Trader, Janus is now an in-debt drunk wasting what little fortune he can find on bad gambling choices. The "someone" are the pair of Eldar characters you see flanking him on the cover: Auric, a Farseer and Athenys a..., well, I'm not sure, but she proves to be quite a bad-ass! I assume she might be an Autarch or some-such warrior who is no longer adhering to her warrior path. Never-the-less, I found her to be the most interesting if not the most under-developed character in this tale. So they find Janus Darke, and ask him to take them to the "forbidden destination", the planet of Belial IV, in the Eye of Terror. This plot structure is quickly established, and as a reader I thought the journey would be the bulk of the adventure as the characters navigate their way around the Eye of Terror etc.

Nope! Instead we have to deal with the fact that these eldar have chosen Janus Darke, and King is not going to let Janus off of his failure perch that quickly. Janus has to somehow retrieve his ship, survive his girlfriend Justina's attentions (hehe), and survive the gangsters who want him to pay off his gambling debts. All of this turns into some interesting hive world adventures, although I felt while reading this King could have developed the hive world on Medusa better, as it felt more like the descriptions you'd read of a fantasy port city than of an over-populated hive world. Regadless, all of this makes for a fun read, as you learn that Janus Darke is being hunted down by a Daemon Prince of Slaanesh, Shaha Gaathon, who wants to possess Janus.

Although this all made for fun reading, my favorite elements of the books had to do with Simon Belisarius, Janus' partner and Navigator. I enjoyed reading how the Navigator house he belongs to has a centuries-old outstanding debt with Craftworld Ulthwe which the eldar have come to collect from him. I was also thrilled to read Kind's description of the journey through the warp and what it was like to make such a journey into the Eye of Terror. Players of the Rogue Trader RPG should read this passage alone as required reading before sitting down to play.

Another fascinating detail here was the history of Belial IV itself. King describes this shattered eldar crone-world through the eyes of Janus whose visions reveal to him (and us) the corruption, fall and destruction of the eldar race and this world and the birth of Slaanesh.  This is fascinating reading, and even if you find the rest of this book difficult to grind through, these parts are well worth it.

And without revealing too much more or touching on how this all ends, I have to mention Zarghan. Zarghan is a fallen Space Marine from the Emperor's Children Legion. The funny thing is that he's bored with constant orgies and other such silliness that his minions are involved with, but is totally getting his rocks off on wanton slaughter and inflicting pain in combat while blaring loud music into his ears. (..'Noise Marines: Live at the Palace of Pleasure'?)  He actually wonders if he would make a better khornate follower at some point, which makes for a far more interesting character than if he was a more stereo-typical Chaos Marine.

Despite how predictable I thought the book was starting out, I didn't foresee the outcome, but when some of the reveals occurred I found myself physically face-palming... ("Auric...rhymes with Elric...got it..."). However, over-all, this was a good book. Again, the most rewarding elements were the details on Belial IV, the history of the Eldar Fall and the birth of Slaanesh, and the final chapters of the book which are pretty much a dramaticly written massive blood-orgy of combat.

Did I like it? I did. But things really started to get interesting as the book was winding down. Clearly, and this isn't evident or obvious until the last few pages, but King was setting this up for a sequel, which never happened and I wonder if it ever will...

Was it hard to put down? Um...no, not really. I kept at it, but I didn't thrist for it like I did the last batch of BL books I had read.

Could I care about the characters? Janus, not so much. I felt that he was being protrayed to us as a bit of a dumb-ass jock-like character. In fact, looking back on it, I just don't see how this guy was ever a Rogue Trader in the 1st place! I just don't see how he got a crew to follow him, unlike Belisarius. Also, I am undecided on just how to pronounce his name: Is it JANus? Perhaps with a Nordic twist: YANus? Or something weird like JAWnus? I just read it as JANus and moved on. I was more concerned about the eldar characters, but more so because I wanted to learn more about Athenys. Auric was what he was: a Professor X in an eldar outfit.

Did the writer truly grasp how the 'world' of the 41st millennium works in the sense that it doesn't betray or retcon previously established (as I know it) lore? Or is this the work of a hack chasing a paycheck vs. establishing his mark on the ever-expanding 40k universe? Yeah, he's Bill King! However, this story did come off in places as a bit hacked. However, the story kept moving and even though it could've used more descriptive elements on Medusa, at least it didn't get bogged down in over-developed minutiae either.

Was I being talked down to? I didn't think so, but when the story focused on Janus, I couldn't help but want something horrible to happen to this guy. He reminded me of Jimmy Bond from the old Lone Gunmen TV show...

How predictable is this story? It starts off very predictable, until you realize that that you've ploughed halfway through the book and we haven't left Medusa yet! The most unpredictable parts weren't in the ending or climatic battle, but in which subplots were left unresolved. The ultimate fate of Justina remains unresolved, and well, clearly a sequel would be appreciated at some point.

Unused pic I drew for some 40K fanzines back in the '90s.



White Dwarf now

If you've been following my blog for a while you might have seen me rant about White Dwarf Magazine, but in a nostalgic 'yearning for the days of old' kind of way. You might've also seen me offer up some creative criticism as well, with hopes for a new direction for the old dwarf.

Since I wrote those articles, I got a fraction of what I had hoped for. Mainly a boost in usable content. New releases with rules support in White Dwarf, although inconsistent, was enough to make me feel a little bit better about it. In recent months they really wowed me with the Daemon booklet which was a double-sided rule addition for both army books for both Warhammer Fantasy and 40K. Short, but nicely done! Also we had that great flyer's issue which was just a tasty bit of fresh 40K goodness. Sadly there was a downside. It seemed that more good articles we got, we got 3Xs more photos to over compensate that content. In fact, there were some issues that were so focused on a particular release that the photo-spread abuse was just so blatantly over-whelming that it was clear that the magazine had more pages to fill then they had readable content to fill it with. The Dark Vengeance release issue was a clear example of this. Yes, it was cool to see these pretty pics of the flashy new miniatures, but you know, that glitter and glam wheres off, especially after I go out and buy whatever it is that's being show-cased.

OK, so as you see, I was somewhat, OK with White Dwarf, but still having some degree of disappointment with it. Usually every issue or two I felt 'meh' about it.

Then there was last month (Oct. 2012):

Bold new direction! In every aspect! Even the paper is different! The logo is different (reminds me of the logos that Paizo came up with for Dragon and Dungeon it those publication's final days) Only Blachitsu and Jervis Johnson's features remained.

The presentation of new releases, although a major feature of the magazine still was done in such a way that it feels oddly helpful and informative. It didn't feel like I was being talked down too by an editor who can't believe he's writing for a kid's magazine, but rather that the new team are fellow hobbyists who are 'coming from the same place' as us. Sure, they're still pitchmen of new product, duh, but they're pitching it right.

You can't talk about the new White Dwarf without saying something about the amazing photo-work within. Not that this magazine ever slacked on good photos, but the new team truly upped the ante on the presentation here. Never has this magazine looked, felt, or even smelt this professional.

Content? Well, no new rules were presented, but I didn't mind considering I felt like I was actually provided some true reading content this time around: I had something to read as opposed to a re-reading of the previous ad-copy on the new release pages, which many of the past few years WDs were guilty of committing. No, I felt really engaged with the articles. Feels to me that it has to do with the spin on the presentation. Another added source of content is that finally White Dwarf is show-casing Forge World and Black Library product with more than just a 3-4 page spread, but presenting actual featured articles! Still not to the point where we're getting a story (seriously, give us this! This magazine now costs more than a paper-back, surely you guys can spare something from Hammer & Bolter each month?)

I could rave on and on, However, I just want instead to talk about how I feel that this is a good progressive step in the right direction. Instead of throwing in the towel on this old institutionalized concept of a hard-copy magazine, like WotC chose to do (and, far as I can tell, fail) with Dragon and Dungeon, they revised it to make it worth it's price tag. Hell, they even had the balls to raise it an additional $1 and I still don't care! LOL! But I'm straying; the point is, they could've dumped this, and just gone to relying 100% on the web-site and mailing list. Instead, they made the printed product better and, in doing so, made the digital product. The people I know who are getting the White Dwarf digitally on the iPad have really been pleased with it! One added bonus that I am envious of is that they get it instantly as opposed to waiting impatiently for it to show up in their mailbox like I do each month. That could be a blog article itself actually, but again I'm straying: to sum up:  I'm thankful for all of this actually. The new team has done a fantastic job and I look forward to reading the Nov. 2012 issue (which I saw, not in my mailbox, but in the local Hobbytown USA today... grumble...)

I am also thankful that maybe, once again, we'll see White Dwarf used as a tool to attract new players/hobbyists. Case in point: I was quite pleased to see the Oct. 2012 issue on display with the hobby magazines in my local Barnes & Noble bookstore the other day. I haven't seen that happen in years!