Clearing Out My 40K Cabinet

As you might've guessed from the conclusion of the battle report earlier in the week, I've decided to sell off a good chunk of my 40K collection. This post serves as a shameless plug for the items that I'm selling. Feel free to ignore it!

Sector Mechanicus Scenery
I've got quite a collection of this that I bought with the intention of making a Necromunda table. Sadly the Necromunda campaign never got off the ground so that will all be going up soon. This kit was the only bit still sealed though. It's technically Imperial Knights scenery since it has rules in their codex.

Sacristan Forgeshrine: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/264496751347

Space Wolves Kits
Like the Ork stuff below, this is mostly extra kits I acquired to expand my SW force around the time of 8th.

Wolf Guard Terminators: https://ebay.co.uk/itm/264496741647

Wolf Pack (Grey Hunters/Blood Claws/Wolf Guard): https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/264496743128

Thunderwolf Cavalry: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/264496739616

Ork Kits
This stuff comes for various battleforces, boxed sets, etc. The intention was to expand my Ork army but as you can see, the kits never made it off the sprues.

Nobz: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/264496747904

Two Trukks: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/264496736053

T'au  Empire Accessories
I decided to keep the Tidewall separate from the army below as it isn't painted. I've also put the codex and cards in a separate auction because whomever buys the army may already have them. There's also an used Start Collecting set here.

T'au Codex and Datacards: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/264496784589

Start Collecting T'au Empire: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/264496723361

T'au Tidewall Scenery: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/264496731464

T'au Empire Army
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/264496778864

Finally, last but not least to go will be my T'au army. They're the only army that hasn't even seen the tabletop in 8th. There's about 3,500pts here and the vast majority of it is painted to a pretty good tabletop standard. This is the hardest thing for me to sell because I've had a lot of fun using this army over the years. They were the first xenos army I collected after returning to 40K (second only to the Space Wolves). I've always lamented not buying an airbrush before starting this army as when I've used it on some of the later additions to the army e.g. the second Sky Ray/Hammerhead, it's saved a huge amount of time.

The Winter Scenery Project (Part 4 of Many) - Snowy Imperial Bastions and Progress Update

There's probably going to be a delay to the scenery project for a while since I've got to get my Blog Wars army sorted as a priority. Still, I've managed to add another couple of pieces to the completed pile. All of this stuff needs some protective varnish but I'm putting that off as I'm convinced it's going to ruin it all! I've got a can of Purity Seal waiting though and I'll test it on one of the ruins first to make sure it doesn't do anything drastic. If all else fails I'll pick up some matt varnish that can go through my airbrush. Anyway, onto the bastions:

I started off with a basecoat of Catachan Green/Castellan Green through the airbrush.

I then drybrushed some Camo Green over the details followed by some Leadbelcher.

I painted in some details like the aquila around the door in Ceramite White and the door itself in Mephiston Red with Leadbelcher metalwork. I also painted the heavy bolters with Abaddon Black and more Leadbelcher (for the skulls above the bolters too). Finally I painting the floor on the battlements with Leadbelcher before applying a wash of Nuln Oil to all the metal work and some Agrax Earthshade to dirty up the floor a bit.

Now it was time to make them look more wintry. I hit the bottom of the buildings with a drybrush and successive layers of The Fang, Fenrisian Grey and finally Ceramite White. I also hit the top surfaces of everything with Ceramite White as this is where the snow will go.

You can see here that I've focussed the white drybrushing around the edges where the snow will go and you can see the muddy look the Agrax Earthshade has given the top. I deliberately applied in in a messy fashion to make it look, well, messy.

Here are the final shots of the Bastions with snow added. There isn't really anywhere to put any grass tufts so none of those this time around. I had thought about basing them but if I ever want to use them in a tournament that might cause issues. I may change my mind at some point but it won't be a big deal to paint a base up.

Finally, I thought I'd take some shots of my current stash of winter scenery on the mat. I'm extremely happy with what I've done so far. It's not perfect of course but it's a huge improvement on the old grey or black scenery we were using before. I'm considering applying a watered down coat of Drakenhof Nightshade wash to the snow flock to make it more like the colour of the mat but I'll need to do this on some test pieces to make sure it isn't too detrimental.

As I say, I'm now going to be focussing on my Blog Wars army but I'll probably do a couple of scenery pieces here and there to break up the monotony. I'm particularly keen to make some rocky outcrops and/or large ice crystals. I'd also like to keep my Citadel Woods in their current colour scheme to avoid the time I put into them being a waste. That means I need some other foliage so I'm on the look out for some aesthetically pleasing but reasonably priced snowy fir trees. I hope you're enjoying this series of hobby articles. It's a refreshing change for me to be talking about painting rather than just rules and tournaments.

The Winter Scenery Project (Part 3 of Many) - Snow/Ice Corner Ruins and Moonscape Craters

In spite of the many doubters (myself included), I've actually been making decent progress towards getting an entire table full of snow/ice terrain completed. In the last post I showed you a test piece I'd been working on. I've since applied the same technique to the other two 3rd edition ruins I have in my collection which can be seen below:

The ruins themselves were already painted but the bases got a coat of The Fang followed by Fenrisian Grey (both applied with my airbrush). I then drybrushed Ceramite White (since it's thicker than White Scar) before adding Citadel Snow and some Army Painter Winter Tuft. The drybrushing wasn't limited to the base though, I tried to work it up the walls at little way to make them look frosty. I hope this comes across.

Whilst I had the airbrush out I decided to attack my Moonscape craters too. You'll remember that one of them is mounted on the base of my Shrine of the Aquila but the remaining four only had a black undercoat (plus some sand around the edge) until I got cracking. I covered the whole crater with Mechanicum Standard Grey before applying The Fang around the outside (mostly on the flat bit around the edge but also up onto the crater slightly). I then hit this with a lighter coating of Fenrisian Grey. Finally I sprayed the middle of the crater with Abaddon Black to make it look scorched. This process took less than an hour thanks to the airbrush (and that includes the airbrushing on the corner ruins too). I'm very glad I picked up an airbrush at this point as getting the base colours down is tedious even with a tank brush and you end up struggling to only put a thin coat on.

I then drybrushed the whole thing with Ceramite White. I focussed this more on the outside edge as this was more frosted but also picked up the edges everywhere apart from the very centre of the crater. My thinking here is that these craters come from a battle before Winter set in. Maybe a previous war actually caused a kind of nuclear winter and that's why the planet is frozen now? Of course this would mean you'd expect there to be snow in the middle too but I theorised that repeated use as a fox hole would mean little was left in the centre. Anyway, I finished the craters off like the ruins with Citadel Snow and more AP Winter Tuft. 

Finally here's a shot of Ragnar and some Blood Claws using the ruins for cover. This helps highlight one of my current problems. My Space Wolves were based to match my old brown home made Realm of Battle board but they don't fit in with the new terrain. Problem is, the colours I'm using on this terrain are effectively the same as their armour so you wouldn't get much contrast between the model and the base. I think I'm going to stick with Graveyard Earth/Steel Legion Drab for their bases for now though as I intend on revamping the Realm of Battle board at some point. When I eventually get around to painting my DE and Orks though I'll probably give them snowy bases. The Tau have a desert them but that's going to work with the revamped RoB board too. 

The Winter Scenery Project (Part 2 of Many) - Snowy Test Piece

As you read in my last post I'm working on getting my scenery up to scratch. The aim is to have a good quantity of scatter terrain to work with my Alpine F.A.T mat and give me plenty of variety in my games. I think two tables' worth of scenery would probably be enough to create enough combinations and therefore prevent boredom. This project is motivated by my current boredom with the same scenery I've been using for years. I want to start by painting up the pieces I've already built but for some variety I'll probably make a few new pieces to break up the tedium of painting my old stuff.

Anyway, today's post is about my first test piece for a snowy look. Of course I'm trying to tie the colours in with the F.A.T mat but it doesn't matter too much. I've never made anything look snowy before so I'm just going with my gut. I'm intending to do a bit of YouTube research to see what others do but I want to find a technique that I'm happy with. That basically boils down to maximum results for minimum effort.

I decided to start with some of the 3rd edition corner ruins. Mainly because they're small pieces but also because I'm not too worried if I make a mess of them. The ruins themselves were already painted which took all of about half an hour (albeit a while ago). The bases had sand and rubble (gravel) but just Chaos Black primer in terms of paint. I started with a basecoat of Shadow Grey then an overbrush/heavy drybrush of Space Wolves Grey followed by a lighter drybrushing of  Ceramite White. Incidentally I went for Ceramite White over White Scar as it's a bit thicker and hence lends itself better to drybrush work. You can see the results below with one of the other ruins as a before and after comparison.

I intentionally let some of the Ceramite White hit the bottom third of the ruin to give a frosted look. I then caught the tops of the ruin too as a base for the snow flock. Here's a comparison to the mat:

It's a reasonable match but perhaps needs a different shade of blue/grey as a base to really hit the same colour as the mat itself. I ploughed straight on with some Citadel Snow though to see if that helped:

I think it does help actually as it makes the whole piece whiter. I'm not too happy with the snow as it is though as there are bits I didn't hit with glue that I perhaps should have such as around the front of the column and some bits at the back. I was conscious that I didn't want it to be completely covered though. Finally, I threw on some tufts which I probably should've applied with a pair of tweezers but I wanted this to be quick so couldn't be arsed to find any.

The tufts are Army Painter Winter Tuft but I think I might hit them with some white from the airbrush to help them blend in a bit. At the moment I think they stand out a bit too much and detract from the snowy feel.

That's it for tonight then. I'm very happy with this first piece. Obviously the ruin was already painted but the rest of it didn't even take half an hour I don't think. I'll probably finish the other two ruins that I've got first but then I might look at something a bit bigger. Maybe some of the Moonscape craters with icy water inside. Let me know what you think of my first effort though. It's progress if nothing else!

The Winter Scenery Project (Part 1 of Many)

In an attempt to motivate myself to get cracking I thought I'd write this post outlining the current state of my scenery so that I can look back and see progress. I'm determined that, before the year is out, I'll have a stunning board full of fully painted scenery to make my games much more immersive. I was briefly inspire a while ago by the guys over on Weemen to join their campaign against unpainted grey plastic scenery. I was further motivated by picking up a F.A.T mat in the Kickstarter (again a while ago). Sadly my enthusiasm quickly dwindled and I found myself looking at the same grey scenery just now mounted on bits of hardboard.

Here's what I've currently got built up:

Here we've got some Sanctum Imperialis/Basilica Administratum and Shrine of the Aquila offerings with a Moonscape crater on the base of the Shrine. There's also a random crate that I think was Matt's that I'm going to incorporate into a new based piece. These pieces are all glued onto hardboard little else. They need sand on their bases and some bits of rubble for interest. Then they can be sprayed up black ready for some paint.

This little selection includes two Bastions, the rest of the Moonscape craters set and a Manufactorum building. These have all been build and sprayed ready for painting so need very little work. The craters I could probably get done quickest as I'll just be airbrushing them a suitable colour (probably not the Graveyard Earth/Steel Legion Drab that one currently is. They'll then just get a bit of a drybrushing to get them up to standard.

Finally, here are my "finished" pieces. I use the inverted commas there because they're in the wrong colour scheme for my Alpine mat. Nevertheless these will probably be the last pieces I paint as they're not looking too bad for now. The 3rd edition corner ruins aren't based yet so they're likely to be my first attempts at trying to make stuff look snowy/icy and fit in with the mat.

Speaking of which my theme is going to hopefully be that of an icy deathworld. All of the current pieces will need painting up in a matching scheme with some snow adding for effect. Depending on how well the project goes I'd like to add some more thematic pieces like rock formations, ice crystals and the like. I'd also like to borrow from the Weemen and make some industrial pieces like an abandoned polar outpost kind of thing. If I really get cracking my "stretch goals" would be to have a second set of scenery to match either a new F.A.T mat or alternatively my old home-made Realm of Battle board. This is probably pretty unlikely to happen as I'm good at setting unrealistic targets!

The thing with scenery is, once you get going you realise just how easy it is to paint to a good enough standard. I'm not going to spend hours and hours painting every little detail. I'm hoping it'll mostly be an airbrush/drybrush job i.e. quick and dirty. Of course it won't look as good as a detailed paint job but the idea is for it to be a backdrop for the miniatures rather than detracting from them by being painted better than they are! Since Jamie is quick to mock my lack of progress on this scenery I'm hopefully going to be able to rope him in to give me a hand with the drybrushing and creating some interesting new pieces from my hefty bits box of scenery pieces and general gubbins.

First step I think is to try out some winter effects on one or more of the 3rd edition ruins and see if I can find a method I'm happy with. I don't want to overdo the snow so it's just a white blob but at the same time it needs to tie in with the mat properly. Any suggestions/hints are gratefully received especially if you can link me to a good Youtube guide or something. Wish me luck!

Hobby Resolutions 2015

Looking back at last year's post and reading through my resolutions for 2014 is pretty depressing stuff. Here's what I resolved to do (and mostly failed at):

• Play more tournament games

Well I'm not really sure whether I achieved this or not. I certainly got in a decent amount of tournament gaming in but looking at the numbers I seem to have only played in one GW doubles, one team event, Blog Wars 8 and three Outpost events. That's down on the 9 I went to in 2013 but I'm sure I went to more than that. Anyway, it's down to a combination of GW not running a doubles recently and having less weekends free this year.

• Scenery painted

Epic fail as always. I started off fairly well and got a couple of pieces painted up. Getting a mat from Frontline was suppose to inspire me to make some snow/ice terrain but that hasn't happened yet and I got the mat in late March. This is the year though!

• Dark Eldar painted

The new codex arrived and I thought I'd get somewhere but I don't think I actually painted a single DE model. I've got a voidraven still in shrinkwrap and some scourges I bought when they first came out that I haven't touched either. Of all my armies I'd love to have these finished the most as the models are the nicest I own.

• Orks painted

Again the new book gave me some inspiration but with the SW book shortly after I quickly turned my attention away. I did manage to get a Morkanaut mostly painted but that needs finishing and a massive pile of boys need looking at too. I think it's the sheer number of models I'd need to paint that puts me off. They're probably going to be way down the list again.

• Potential New Army (Tyranids or SM)

Let's not even talk about this idea. I'd still love a Tyranid army but until everything else is painted I'm determined not to start one

• Best Blog Wars yet

I actually think I did this. Blog Wars 8 was easily my favourite ever. No one brought anything particularly horrendous, there were no major cockups on my part and the painting competition was probably the best yet. Additionally BW7 had a massive attendance which was totally unexpected. BW9 and 10 this year have a lot to live up to.

• Plenty of alternative games

Well I played x-wing a fair bit. Does that count? I barely touched Blood Bowl and had a few games of Space Hulk but otherwise that's it. I think x-wing will become a larger part of my gaming but I can't see me starting any other systems this year.

• Great blog content

Difficult one for me to call. I know some of my stuff isn't great but the figures look pretty good for this year so I must be doing something right. If someone could let me know what that is that'd be greeaaattt (Office Space reference anyone?).

It does make me wonder why I bother with these resolutions as I clearly can't stick to them but my plan this year is to be a LOT more realistic:

Tournaments & Blog Wars

I intend to play in both Blog Wars events this year. With the improvements I've made to the admin side of it I'm confident I can play and keep things running smoothly. I'm going to tweak a couple of things from BW8 but generally speaking I'm pretty happy with how it's set up at the moment. The main thing will be to change the last mission to Maelstrom but that needs a lot of playtesting and development work before I'd be happy to make the switch. More on that soon.

Otherwise I'd like to keep attending Outpost events and hopefully GW doubles if they come back this year. Looking at their calendar it certainly won't be back until at least April so I'll keep an eye on that as they redevelop the venue. The team event we played at the end of last year was great fun so I'd be up for something like that again. We're also planning on a little round-robin event between a group of 6 of us once we can get it organised. Generally speaking I find tournaments to be an excellent way of getting a grasp of the game.

As I've already mentioned, this will probably be the year where we start playing x-wing competitively. No definite plans for this yet but it's becoming more and more likely. 

Scenery

This is the year. It has to be. I'm determined that this time next year I'll be reporting that I achieved my aim of having NO UNPAINTED SCENERY on my table (that doesn't just mean hiding it underneath either!). Thing is, it isn't even that big of a job. Scenery really doesn't require much effort to paint so I have literally no excuse especially with my airbrush in hand.

Ideally I'd like to have enough scenery to be able to mix things up a lot and avoid getting sick of the same terrain. To this end I'll be hoping to put some new pieces together and I intend to blog about my progress. Speaking of which...

Blogging

Less blogging, more hobby, more hobby blogging! Got that? Basically instead of writing rambling posts about general 40K topics (see the Highlander post for example) I'm going to use that time to paint some bloody models. I'd love to be sitting here next year with a fully painted DE force but we'll see about that. 

Don't get me wrong there'll still be plenty of content on here but I'm going to try to be more selective about what I post about. Hopefully there'll be more hobby related posts but again, we'll see about that.

Hobby

For starters there will definitely be no new army (unless the Ad Mech stuff actually materialises, then it depends on the models/rules). Otherwise it'll only be the odd kit here and there to bolster my existing forces. My Dark Angels are going, partly to give me funds for other stuff but mostly to make it look like a less daunting effort to get things painted. I'm also going to flog a load of other spare stuff I have lying around. I've got a huge pile of Ork stuff that I'm simply never going to get around to building, nevermind painting, so that can go. The start of my hobby drive this year will be once of consolidation then. Clear out the crap, mend and bolster my existing armies then actually get stuff painted. 

What I'd like to do is write a list of each of my armies that I'd be happy to take to the Outpost and work on having 1,750 of each army painted to a high standard. Wolves would be the obvious first choice here as (a) that would mean very few models and (b) they're already to a decent standard. Next up would be Tau as again they're mostly painted and finally DE need a lot of work. Orks are certainly going to be a back burner thing. I might paint the odd model for a break but generally speaking they're going to be ignored I imagine.

Summary

In the interest of keeping things simple and realistic that's it for now. Here's a rundown of my resolutions then:

• Keep up the tournament attendance - probably mostly at the Outpost 
• Paint the bloody scenery - I really mean it this time
• Clear out the crap - I'd love to have space for every model I own the shelves which means some have to go!
• Paint up forces from each army - less likely but I'd love to do it
• Be more selective about blog posts - quality not quantity is the name of the game

That's it then. A lot more realistic than last year. Here's hoping I can stick to them for a change. Of course the blog is the place to find out how I'm getting on so keep an eye on it. What are your aims for the year?

Summer of Scenery - Part One: Barricades

Earlier in the year I was inspired by Siph over at Weemen to get my scenery painted up. Unfortunately the Tau codex came out right around that time and all enthusiasm for painting scenery was lost whilst I painted up my Tau for Blog Wars 5 (tickets for BW6 are on sale now - dunno if I mentioned it!). Well with the exception of my piranhas (coming soon) my Tau army is painted up to a decent standard. That means I've got no excuse not to get my scenery sorted.

I did make some progress before Tau arrived in that I got some of my scenery based up and sprayed black but that's where it stopped. However, last night I found my mojo again and set to painting up a couple of barricades.

Nothing particularly special but I'm happy with them nonetheless. I wanted them to look like they'd been there for centuries. Looking at them now I'm tempted to carve into them a bit to make them look a bit more battle damaged. Still at least for now they're painted up and that's the main thing. Here's a couple of other shots showing the bits of debris littered around them.

As always with scenery you can get a ton done really quickly since you aren't too worried about the little details and most of it is just drybrushing. I'd estimate that painting these took no longer than an hour. So that means I now have three citadel woods and these barricades painted up. That leaves the following:

• Moonscape craters (going to paint these next)
• Shrine of the Aquila
• Imperial Sector (manufactorum, basilica administratum and sanctum imperialis)
• 2 Bastions 
• Those little ruins from 3rd edition

Most of that stuff is sprayed black and ready to be painted. I'm also going to look at adding some tufts of grass to them once they're all done as well as some other bits of scenery. At some point I also want to repaint my home-made Realm of Battle board as it's looking a bit tired. 

Once all that stuff is painted up I'm going to look at making some other scenery pieces from various bits I have around. In particular I'd like to make some rocky outcrops, industrial things and maybe some faction themed stuff.