Force on Force 40k Style

So something a little different today.  I showed my gaming group Force on Force.  Although these are technically modern rules, we used 40k figures since I don't own any "actual" modern forces.   There is also the future version of FoF called Tomorrow's War.  It's Force on Force with extra interesting chrome added (such as power armor, high tech weaponry, the "net" etc.), but to keep things simple as the group's first game, we used the plain vanilla rules.  Just infantry, no vehicles. The vehicles on the board are used as scenery since we ran out of buildings.

The mission was that a Rebel Tallarn mortar unit has been detected in this area.  A small platoon of IG has been sent in to take out the mortar's security and spotter units. They don't know the city very well, and the Tallarn do (the rebel players called them the "Tallarniban"), so they will have to move in quickly before more rebels arrive from elsewhere in the city.

Tyranids Invade Tournament OP!

OP Tournament Over the weekend I attended my first tournament since the Spearhead tournament I did at the end of November last year. I was really looking forward to this one just because of how long it had been since I have attended any event. I decided after reading all the reports from Adepticon from this year I was going to play my Tyranids since not a single tournament player showed up there and everyone sees the army as dead on the tourney scene (well..which it kind of is lol).

This tournament had a couple things that were much different from your regular tournament. First off instead of using the standard force organization chart it used a percentage system almost identical to fantasy with an added limitation of only being able to select a max of 2 of the same elites and 3 of the same heavy. The rest of the army building process for people (like myself) who didn’t play fantasy was as follows: 25% max for HQ, 25% Min for troops, a max of 50% for elites and heavy combined and a max of 50% fast attack. The thing I noted is that I couldn’t really build an army outside the standard force org chart as all my lists could fit in either system. I also didn’t play against anyone or saw any list that had 4+ elites, fast attack or heavy support. It begs the question of why even use the % system at such a small points value (the tourney was 1600pts)?

Flying Hive Tyrant Finished!

After many hours of work (specifically on the wings..ugh lol) I finally finished this guy. I used the new Swarmlord's head instead of the normal Hive Tyrant head so to me it looks more like a "fin" (think Rocketeer). All I have left to finish now for the tournament is a single Hive Guard then my list is complete and Leviathan will be ready to kick ass and take names. Can't wait!

The Swarm Grows! Flyrant WIP...

I bought this guy pretty much when the two new Tyranid kits came out with the purpose of magnatizing him so I can replace my two metal Tyrants (my regular Hive Tyrant and the Swarmlord). Then I opened the box and actually looked at the parts that made up the Flying Hive Tyrant...and that was all she wrote.  The wings fit into the should sockets incredibly well and are fantasically sculpted.  Very little clean up was involed with this guy and zero green stuff, which is something I can't say for the metal Hive Tyrants.  The quality of the two new Tyranid models is incredible to the point where I would say they are some of the finest kits GW makes. Both models come with virtually every last option you could want minus twin linked devourers for the Tyrant and regular fore-arms for the Tervigon since I will NEVER use scything talons lol. One other really nice thing about this kit is you dont need to build the entire thing and paint it in one go. Since it is plastic you can do it in pieces with ease, which is great.

Immortals Finished!

After another slow day here at the office and a bit more work I finally managed to get the first 5 Immortals finished. I gotta say painting in this style is some of the most fun I have had in ages. I feel really invigorated to paint after so many failed attempts at new projects. One thing that always amazes me is how much a paint scheme for an army changes and evolves as you actually go about painting it. With these 5 guys alone I slightly changed how I was doing things 3 times and the next batch will be done slightly different as well (just refining the order of painting things). Also, again I apologize for the picture quality as it was again taken with an iPhone. Any comments/critiques would be great!

Necrons Part 1

So the last 3 to 4 weeks I have been doing a bit of work on my Tyranids while at the same time trying to find something new to paint. I tried painting ogres last November, even have a bunch of stuff for them but I 100% can't get into the idea of playing Fantasy. Last weekend I tried doing up some Marines (Imperial Fists). I managed to get the bodies done on 5 of them in two days only to realize how much I hate painting Marines. Part of it is because its basically 100% the same painting style as my Dark Eldar, except bigger models with way more pieces. I also tried some Orks at the start of April with the new paints and I just couldn't get into it and the idea of painting 100+ of them made me want to commit suicide.

So, where does that leave me? I dont want to do something super nit pickey like the Dark Eldar (aka Marines) or horde intensive like the Tyranids (aka Orks) and I can't will myself to get into Fantasy. So after seeing this blog post (http://taleofpainters.blogspot.ca/2011/12/tutorial-painting-rusty-necron-armour.html) on one of my fave sites I decided I would give it a try. So here is my first attempt:

I apologize for the quality of picture as it was taken with my iPhone. Overall I am really happy with how it is turning out. The best part is not only is it looking decent (well, in my opinion lol) and it is super fast and very fun to do. Next up I am going do up some chipped paint for the main armor plates (shadow grey) and then I am going to paint the green glow for the eyes/weapons. The bases are also going to be a Mars red earth base (fairly simple) to match the rust and dust on the Necrons themselves. Fingers crossed that this works lol. More pics with my actual camera tomorrow or Monday of the finished models.

Update: 

 I did a bit more work on my main test model trying out new things (as I have literally never painted like this before). For the most part I am super happy with how he is turning out. I went out of my way to do virtually no edge high lighting and just let the chipped metal do the work. This was also my first attempt at object source lighting which is *okay*, not 100% happy with it and I know I can do better.

Tervigon Finished!

Man, I love it when work slows down. This weekend was totally dead so I was able to get in a good 16-ish hours of work on the Old Tervigon. In total this guy took about 20-22 hours, the same as my first Trygon. Only thing is I pretty much rushed this guy were as the Trygon I actually brown washed the whole model and went back and re-high-lighted a second time to get an even nicer finish. Here he is in all his finished glory (well...except the base which is still a WIP lol).







Just to give you an idea on how big this model is I did a comparison shot with it and my converted Tervigon. As you can see they arent even close as the official model is almost twice the height as the one I built. I still feel really good about the one I built as it is super close to the official model. I used the large base, it has spine banks for its cluster spines on its shoulders, egg sacs hanging from below. The only thing I like about mine more is that it has small "manipulator" arms instead of scything talons (its front arms are for walking only) but the official model you ONLY have the option for Scything Talons. Kind of sucks as I would never take that upgrade for this unit and I wish there was a 3rd set of arms (like small hands or useless arms like on the Mawloc) to use. Maybe I will just do up the smallest set of Mawloc Scything Talons to put in its place. Anyways, here they are :)



Next Up: I started working on the Ymgarls over the weekend as well so hopefully I will be able to finish the last part of my Ymgarls articles and get some good shots of the unit when its done.