Recent Disappearance.

So, for those that dont already know, my energy level for gaming stuff fluctuates. Sometimes I have the energy, but the migraines, or their precursor symptoms jut dont let me do anything at the modeling desk.

I mean, when you cant stand bright lights, strong smells, and have trembling hands, the options are pretty limited.

To add to the complexity of this, its highly likely Im not just dealing with migraines symptoms. My Dr believes its very likely I have MS. There will be more testing to follow, and its something Im trying to get my head around.

So, I'll had good weeks and bad, with hopeful spurts of creativity during the good.

Digital Camo anyone?

So, Ive ebeen laid low by a string of successive migraines, which cuts out sitting under bright lights making cool minis :(

But! Fret not my fellow nerds, as its not all wasted time. Its given me time to think about stuff- what might look really good, and how to accomplish it.

That brought me to IG and Camo jobs. Weve all seen the rare well done camo covered tank that was weathered and look great. And we've all seen the many badly thought out camo covered tanks.

With infantry, the camo is even harder to scale down, and palce well on a repeated basis. How many of you IG vets have started a camo scheme that looked great, but after spending 2 weeks on one squad- you decided that sqaud got camo and the rest were getting plain fatigues?

I have in mind a technique to make camo easy, and consistant. For tanks and infantry ^_^

Some of you are probly thinking 'Ya, Ive heard this bullshit before...'

So, to set the nay sayers at ease- Im not just planning on doing regular splotch camo. Im going to be doing digital camo(which is alot more difficult). Now, obviously it wont be at the same scale of our modern BDU equivalents, it will be a little blockier to work at 28/35mm scale. But, the tests Ive already done are very promising.

I jsut have to pick an IG color scheme, and get on it. So, any ideas for 2 or 3 color camo that will go on a base coat of grey or tan- lemme know!

Wow....Airbrush goodness at a new level.

Its not often that I see a paint job that really, really impresses me, but this guy did it. In case you missed the link in my post title:

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/251250.page#888793

Seeing work like that gives me one of those moments where I want to buy a 50 gallon drum of simple green to throw all my figs in and start over.

But, then I realize Im lazy and thats not a good idea.

Anyhow- the monolith pics linked above is why I got my airbrush- there are just some things you cant do with regular brush techniques- or rather- an airbrush makes them practical. I sure someone could do the same sort of thing with regular brush & paints- but it would take like 2,000 layers of shading and a couple hundred hours to do what an airbrush likely did in less than 40 hours.

So, with that monolith in mind, I have several chaos and eldar paint ideas forming. But it will be down the road, as Im still in a space marine mood ;)

Also, the flu/eye booger nurglings are still plaguing me, productivity has been minimal. The only thing I accomplished was an experiment to slow down the curing time of the resin I have- it was drying in the mixing cup and pouring thick-hence screwing up my casts. So, I put part A in fridge. This slows the cure time alot, pot life goes from a minute or two, to almsot 4 or 5. But, the de-mold time goes from 5 minutes- to 15 or so. But- Im not mass casting anything- so speed isnt an issue.

Not jsut a migraine...the flu too!

Yay. So, either at the Dr office a couple weeks ago- or the hospital last week I picked up a flu bug.

The congestion is so bad I feel like I snorted a bunch of nurglings.

I was gonna paint, but the congestion has worked its way into my eyes. So, in a TMI moment, eye boogers make it hard to paint when your vision is blurry.

So I figured I'd work on something less detail oriented and Im makin some molds. Did up the tire molds Ive been wanting to do for a while. And an old turret I had laying about.

And did a single cavity for my microwave blaster/melta. But, too late realized I didnt leave space for any air vents. So, luckily I will only need to use it 4 or 5 times to makes a multi chamber mold.

Nothin for the weekend :(

Sorry guys, have a monster migraine thats shut down the paint dungeon.

Hopefully be back with more goodness soon. My Librarian conversion has been talking to me....

Somethin a lil different

So, not all paintin I do is 40k. I have a potential commission for a fellow with an enormous Axis and Allies collection. I did these up as a couple of samples for him.

And, in the grim darkness of the future, the Ultramarines will take your toys away.

The Poll Results

So the poll I posted has finished up, and it would seem you evil bastards are intent on making me paint, 53% of you anyway.

So, I figure I'll split my time between getting some paintin done and the usual modeling stuff.

As for what to paint- I think I'll be doing some of my Ultras up. Save the gasps and sighs ;) I have about 1400 points of imbalanced units painted up, and would like to bring that up to a nice 2500 non-Vulkan list.

Heres what I have thats already started:
4 Full tactical squads, w/misc heavy and assault weapons, and Sgt's with fists.
1 Whirlwind
1 predator that needs its turret changed out to an auto cannon.
1 Landspeeder with a MM
2 dreadnaughts (1 Assault cannon, 1 assault cannon & ML....4th ed leftovers...I was short on bits)
1 boring lil commander

What I have that I want to add-
5 Landspeeders- and typhoon bits for all of them.
A ciuple more tactical squads- might be painted up in 2nd Founding UM squads just for variety.

9 bikes-most of which have no fairings(weird stuff acquired in trades) so I'll need to model some uber cool fairings of my own I guess. Also short about 5 or 6 sets of biker legs.
1 Biker commander (same as above on the bike)

A cool Librarian conversion that been collecting dust for several years.
A dread that is gonna become a Ven dread. It came ot me in a trade covered in bits and glue. Poor lil guy could be salvaged as a regular dread, so was in the box to get chaosified- when I realized a Venerable sculpt up could save him.

What I want to acquire:
A couple MM marines to round out my Heavy assortment.
4-6 rhinos
4-6 drop pods


I have 2 MKII rhinos in my IW army I can steal(I dont go retarded on CSM bits- so they'll be easy to recalim). And I have a few MKI rhinos, but I like to use them for my other chaos armies.

I may just flex my mad Scrathbuild-fu and get all over some drop pod builds. I think going to a 4 section design, rather than GW's 5 section, will make for a much simpler model. And it will be more symmetrical, hence easier to mold if I decide to go that route.

For those curious- I run a 7th Company army, which is a reserve company. The 7th is loaded with 10 tactical squads, that are all cross trained as speeder pilots(Hence having a heavy speeder presence in my army). The biker squad I'll likely color up out of the 6th Company(or a diff chapter) as theyre the biker trained ones. I doubt I run assault marines or termies anytime soon, but if I ever add them I'll either paint them from a related chapter, or get them out of the relevant company.

Oh, and in researching 7th company stuff, I discovered the 7th has the Master Victualer for the chapter. Factoid of the day- thats the dude that buys the groceries O.o

And last, Im very tempted to paint up my IG as an Ultramar Defense Auxilia unit. Just means less Imperial iconogrphy and a few more blue and white insignia.

Micro-waver(Melta) MK II-A

Ok, alot of people seem to think its too much like a plasma gun.

So, Im trying to avoid hose bits- the damn things trap air bubbles, sometimes even with a pressure pot.

So heres the changes Im thinking of making. Basically just adding a melta type cel in the mag well- which makes more sense than the odd-ball side mount on the Imp versions.

This also makes Multi-Micro blasters easier as I can just go for a nozzle like the original.

In the grim darkness of the future....where are the melta guns!?!?

So, I decided to make my own melta gun variant.

With GW having them back ordered until the middle of 6th edition, I figured I'd save myself some head aches. Ironically I have a buncha melta guns already.....but I like my sculpt better....

Took me about 5 hours, all bare styrene stock with a lil procreate. The pics have some styrene fuzz on them still, cant be helped, the lil micro saw makes a mess of staticy dust.

I'm gonna make a single throw mold for arming up my own guys.

Im also making it IG compatible- flame thrower arms(cadians) and theres a divot on the left side for the side-handle to stick into. Crapachans can pack it just like the marines do, so no probs there.

Officially, in case I sell some of these- they are Microwave Blasters MkI ^_^

Gobber da mighty Sqiggoth WIPs

So, I havent posted pics of Gobber in a while, and Ive been getting progress made on him between rounds of sculpting I was doing on my Hellhound.

Mounting the kannon and gunner between the driver and the Rokkits up top has been the fiddliest part to fit, mostly because I couldnt decide exactly how I wanted to do it before I started.

So I figured the gunner would be frustrated too- since they miss most of the time I have him displaying the Orkish good luck symbol to some foe that he missed with his last shot (the finger still needs sculptin)

The driver Im gonna have haulin back on some chains for all he's worth- sort of a Yosemite Sam screamin 'Whoa mule!! Whooa!' sorta moment. And for those that might be too young to know who Yosemite Sam is, you suck and arent cool enough to read my blog, GTFO ^_^

The rest of Gobber is pretty obvious, lots of strapped on armor plates, rivety goodness all over, dag decorations.

Still planned is some trophy rack sorta stuff and glyphs, the right side/top of the howdah needs a bit more buffin up to look AV12-ish

Assault Cannon > LasCannon ?!? Math-hammer says yes...

So...numbers can be funny sometimes. We all know meltas are teh uber tank rapers in the current rule set.

But, there are other weapons out there that do things meltas dont, and Ive been toying with them. I saw a post in which someone said they thought Assault cannons were better Vs av 14 than las cannons. I think most initial reactions will be 'Bullshit!' Mine was.

But, then I crunched the numbers with the nifty Vassal40k- this is 100,000 rounds worth of fire for each weapon- hittin on a 3+ (PS- crunchin the numbers for 400,000 ac shots made my laptop use its safeword)
So Lascannon vs AV 14 11056 dice glance (5), 11186 dice penetrate (6+)
Metla-with 2d6 vs Av 14= 9074 dice glance (6), 38830 dice penetrate (7+) =
Melta w/1d6 vs Av 14= 11071 dice glance (6) =
Assault Cannon vs AV 14 14786 dice glance (8), 15082 dice penetrate (9+)


Lascannon Vs AV 13= 11036 dice glance (4), 22466 dice penetrate (5+)
Melta w/2d6 vs av 13=7274 dice glance (5), 48219 dice penetrate (6+) =
Melta w/1d6 vs Av 13= 11085 dice glance (5), 11089 dice penetrate (6+) =
Assault Cannon vs Av 13 = 14288 dice glance (7), 29664 dice penetrate (8+)


Lascannon Vs Av 12 = 11097 dice glance (3), 33222 dice penetrate (4+) =
Melta w/2d6 vs av 12=5496 dice glance (4), 55943 dice penetrate (5+) =
Melta w/1d6 vs Av 12= 11042 dice glance (4), 22196 dice penetrate (5+) =
Assault cannon vs AV 12 = 45188 dice penetrate (7+) (note- cant glance AV 12 since a 6 pen roll adds the 1-3 to its AP)

Lascannon Vs Av 11 = 11019 dice glance (2), 44327 dice penetrate (3+) =
Melta w/2d6 vs av 11=3655 dice glance (3), 60849 dice penetrate (4+) =
Melta w/1d6 vs Av 11= 11207 dice glance (3), 33192 dice penetrate (4+) =
Assault cannon vs AV 11 = 44201 dice glance (5), 44956 dice penetrate (6+)

Lascannon Vs Av 10 = 11007 dice glance (1), 55415 dice penetrate (2+) =
Melta w/2d6 vs av 10= 1902 dice glance (2), 64722 dice penetrate (3+) =
Melta w/1d6 vs Av 10= 11067 dice glance (2), 44509 dice penetrate (3+) =
Assault cannon vs AV 10= 45276 dice glance (4), 89708 dice penetrate (5+) =


So, Meltas within 12/6" are king Vs Heavy armor. Assault cannon are however capable of more penetrating hits than Lascannon. But the Lascannon has the edge over Meltas when they are only using a single penetration dice.

Once you get to lighter armor however, the sheer number of Pen & glancing hits the assault cannon puts forth is pretty impressive. This seems to make it an ideal weapon for working over squadron based vehicles.

And, all this isnt even getting into using the weapon Vs Infantry.

All this being said- I really think the Assault cannon- while 'nerfed' from 4th ed, is still worth the points in 5th ed.

This also has me wondering if the Assault cannon is better than the Cyclone/Typhoon, as for anti vehicle use krak missles are very easy to compare (use the melta w/1d6 stat line and jsut x2 for the results- its rough but close enough), however, 2 frag missles are pretty random, so are really hard to balance in an anti- infantry role. Oddly, it looks like the Assualt cannon is better Vs Av 14, and AV 10, but a Cyclone/typhoon would be noticably better Vs 11,12, and debatable vs 13 if you look at the glances. So, I think for termies, the assault cannon is better- as it cooperates with their 24" storm bolter range. For speeders, the typhoon gives better stand off range.

Note: I realize this is pure meta-gaming- there are numerous factors unaccounted for.

A Space Marine a day?

My early A.M. epiphany of the day- I should be sleeping. But, the migraine says "^$#* you!!" So I'm geeking out on 40k as usual.

I made the mistake of digging through my Space marine box looking for a looted bit for my Squiggoth. While goin through the box I realized I have alot of SM crap.

I think the biggest thing that bores with SM's is painting them. Im not a perfectionist type painter. I paint them to a 'better than most' standard with some conversions thrown in and call it a day. But, painting a SM army is pretty boring, so uniform, the base color starts to get old as theres little variety. Base, trim, high light, wash, highlight....zzzzzzz

So, it got me to pondering. The old Rogue Trader 'Rainbow Marines' may have been stuffed back in the closet- but that doesnt mean I cant make my own Rainbow Marine army!

There are alot of cool color themes for various chapters out there, so why not make an 'All Star' sort of space marine army? Keep it regular 'nilla codex entries, but take different squad/selections based on the chapters fluff strengths. Like Blood Angel & Ravn Guard assault marines, Ultras and Imperial fists for tac squads, White scars/ravenwing bkers, stuff like that.

To take it a step farther- Im taking a unit or two of Stern Guard- and modeling them after the unit that pretty much gave birth to thier rules- DeathWatch.

This all works out pretty well with the UM army I have painted so far- as its painted ot 7th Company- which is the reserves- so any holes in my roster I can just fill in with UM reserve units :)

So, along with my usual modeling stuffs- Im going to try and paint up a Marine each day from a different chapter. This will help me get my paintin skills back up to speed, and after a month or two, I'll have a colorful SM army in addition to whatever else Im working on.

2nd half of july productivity....

So, for all practical purposes my hellhound armored car is 90% complete. If I could get a more solid image in my mind and work off that I'd be able to model faster- but the ideas mutate in my head as the models get built. Its not a bad thing really, one idea spawns another, something doesnt look right(or could look better). Anyhow, the only things left on the HH is rivets, and some suspension/wheel mounts for the front tires. I ended up boring out the front wheel wells to take a set of 1/35th LAV tires like on the back- using the GW tires, even the modded ones, just made it look too toy like. The bigger tires up front give it a much more solid appearance. I tac'd on the finish gubbins, Some aquilas on the side, stowage bits, smoke launchers, turret mount and ring. I didnt want any of those bits on the body when I make a mold of it, I want to keep the customization options as open possible. Im also probly going to work up an extension for the cargo section- make it longer and add an extra set of wheels- make it able to function as a troop carrier also ^_^ Im also thinkin it could work as a Manticore or Hydra platform(both low recoil types of artillery).

So. Im realllly slow doing IG vehicle builds. And I need a break from the HH project. So, its on to the Squiggoths. Gobber is on my desk at the moment. I armored up his driver seat last night. Need to do some more armor plates on the side and front legs. Knock some gunners and a driver together. Add some rivets and Orksy gubbins, and gobber will be ready to paint ^_^

Brilliant idea, or retarded gimmick? Psychic tricks for IG

So, with my memory being spotty these days, this blog might help me keep track of my genius moments when I figure out something that seems really cool.

So, Im really enamored with the new IG Psyker Battle Squads. Cool conversion possibilities, and a ordanance blast attack were what caught me at first. Then I started thinkin about Weaken Resolve- and alone its just, meh. But, in combo with other stuff...its pretty uber.

My first thoughts of it- were direct IG related stuff. Snipper and barrage pinning. Lets face it- with a Ld of 2 a squad is probly gonna piss its pants off a single pinning casualty. Might make a unit or two of cheap mortars worth taking- still better than ratlings.

But, pinning isnt good enough for lil ole me. So I carried it over to the joys of Tank Shocking- which can be useful for breakin squads, or making them move into lil bunches for template stuff. But, that wont work- WR its used in the shooting phase, and thats after the Movement Phase. Bummer really.

So, I had an epiphany, and a pretty good one. Callidus assassin. This is a good unit as is, Word in your ear to shuffle an opponents unit out of cover at the game start, Phase sword to ignore pesky Invulnerable saves. But, its the Neural Shredder and Polymorphine Im lookin at. the NS treats the enemy models LD as their toughness, and its S8 vs that. So, Hittin the unit with Weaken Resolve, dropping their Ld to 4 or less, means you have an AP1 flamer, wounding on a 2+ and instant killing anything it wounds. With polymorphine letting the assassin pop up anywhere without deviating- its a very surgical sort of strike- that could be devastating against things like Nob bikers, plague marines, or a Hive Tyrant with a full unit of guard. Any non fearless unit (like the Nobs) will likely take more than 50% casualties and flee off the table unless they have something that might rally them once the WR wears off.

Now, to take an assassin, you gotta take an Inquisitor. No biggie, an =][= with mystic side kicks is common fare. But takin a cheap Inq and an assassin wont work using WH allies, so its gotta be an Inq Lord as an HQ slot- which actually is better. Heres why:

A reg Inq has a Ld of 8, so is pretty useless with a psychic hood. An Inq Lord can take Purgatus- and has a good shot at reducing any opponents IC psykers Ld by3 pts for the rest of the game. Which means any other psyker is probly gonna be neutered totally by the Inq psychic hood.

The next trick is a second psychic power that was pretty lame in 4th ed. Divine Pronouncement. Heres where the PBS tag team comes into play. Say hi to the new Lash for the Imperium. DP makes the target squad roll a Ld check as though they just took 25% casualties. Further- for every pt if Ld the target unit is lower than the Inq, that diffference is a penalty to their roll. So, even if your PBS has taken some losses from Warp perils, just droppin a target units ld to 6 will have them needing a 2(auto success anyway) vs a Ld 10 Divine Pronouncement. It doesnt work on fearless units though. But, could still be useful for runnin off squads that cant rally off objectives, and using it on the last turn to break a squad for an extra KP (fleeing units count as destroyed correct?)

And my last bit of insight. I got this idea lookin at some Ard Boyz battle reps. An IG player lost the tourney because of a drawn game because of being one objective short. A squad of CSMs with double flamers had cleaned his infantry off an objective. Only thing near it was 2 armored Las cannon senitnels, with 2 turns left he sat there and shot at the CSMs with it. 7 CSMs,in 4+ cover, 4 lascanon shots. Not gonna happen. He had a PBS with LOS to this 7 CSM squad, a soulstorm shot wouldnt be likely to kill all 7 with scatter & cover. So he shot at something else. I see a different option- and yes, one of desperation- but hey ya never know. I think he should have hit them with WR, woulda dropped them to 2 Ld. And, charge the sentinels. The CSMs without a p-fist cant hurt them, really, krak grenades vs walkers isnt reliable. But, jsut a single CSM casualty would have most likely had that squad breaking with a 2 Ld. 2 turns left is 4 assault phases, so 4 attacks on the charge, then 6 more from 3 subsequent phases- math hammer is 5 hits, and 3 or 4 wounds- one casualty is likely. Better odds than 4 LC shots(if only he had plasma or H-flamers on these! ), of which half miss, and the half that wound get soaked up by cover. So, ya, WR for Assault support of walkers-sorta last ditch, but it could have one the guy the game. If he had broke that scoring unit. I suppose this would work for any assualt- but short of a 30 man infantry blob (with commisars and priests lol)charging with Creed giving them 'For Cadia' its not likely that we'll see IG winning an assault.

Scratch building, and precise conversions.

So, different armies have different styles of conversions.

Orks are easy, and fun. You just take an absurdly large bitz box, get a shape in your mind, and get creative with it. Its more art than anything else.

Chaos, is alot of mutation. You break out the sculptin gear and have fun making tentacles, pustules, claws, weird muscly stuffs. Its pretty forgiving, as theres no set way something has to look. And any mistakes can be covered pretty easy.

Nids are similar to chaos, they mutate too, so some simple & clean sculpt work can go a long way.

Now, the humans. This is where things start needing to be a bit cleaner. Sure, you can use battle damage and weathering to cover alot of of stuff if the convert isnt great. But, as Ive been learning with my Hellhound armored car variant- keeping clean symetrical lines is not easy.

Im pretty sure my next IG project will have some differences. First, Im going to acquire a set of sliding calipers. This will let me measure a spot and fit in pieces exactly, rather than wasting time getting it close, then filing/cuttin it down to fit. As an example, with some sheet plastic, and a set of calipers I could make a set of IG track guards in about 5 minutes. With the stuff I have now- probly 20 minutes and may, or may not, come out symmetrical/even.

For small projects this isnt an issue, theyre easy to adjust/compensate on. But I'm looking at getting into some more advanced kit bashes. I hate the basic chimera & leman russ hull designs. Ive been lookin over several ways to update them- much like they did with the MkII Rhinos and Land Raiders. They kept the spirit of the previous models, but 'updated' them in a very pleasing way. Why GW didnt take the opportunity to do that this time around is baffling. Until you look at sales- the clunky old models are still selling well- no point in replacing what still sells. So, if my ideas take form as I hope, I'll be able to either create a conversion process for the existng models, or something of my own creation that will look different, but still be recognizable as an 'upgraded' version of the original.

Another project idea- will be kit bashing some Valk/Vendettas out of some much more affordable Hind 24 gunship models- which are actually an almost exact equivalent in terms of tactical usage and effect. And the 1/48th models are almost spot on for size (minus the wings).

My latest Modeling effort...

So, heres a catch up thread for my Hellhound variant

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/246737.page

It was origianlly just gonna be a Land speeder based sort of buggy. But with the new IG codex, I find myself liking the tactical uses of the HH and variants, but I hate the model (yes- even the new ones). Hence an armored car, that actually looks like it can move fast was born.

Many nay-sayers are complaining its too small. I think theyre retards-a full sized tank frame(ok APC) without suspension isnt gonna go faster jsut because the fluff claims a bigger engine. And flame & chem weapons dont need huge resivoirs. Too much bad stuff in them would make them too explosive. So basically- you just need something that can spray liquid. Like a fire hose, or farm equipment. Not too complex ;)

As I get more done on the sculpts, and possible casts I'll post pics from my free but craptastic cam.

Nerd +1

So, its Dvernings fault.

I simply cant be upstaged by not having a gamer-geek blog too!

And now I can rant and feel important in my own lil nerd-bubble. Grants a 2+ ego save in case you weren't aware.