Games Workshop needs to fire their "designers"

From the latest worthless "teaser" they love to put out these days. First it was the cover of Blood Reaver and now it's Rebirth.

Stuff like letter spacing and adjusting kerning (the letter spacing) is covered in the first class of practical typography. I guess that's why it irks me so much. Making newbie mistakes like this is like waving the "I don't know jack"-flag around. Not only did they use a crappy version of Jenson, but also violated all fundamental rules of typography. Shows how they really care about making a perfect product. -.-

Thats enough of beard rage for today. Gotta paint some necrons...

A crowded paint station...

They said they came in peace. Bringing gifts and stuff. At least that's what I think they said. "010011010110000101110100001000000101011101100001011100100110010000100000011001010110000101110100011100110010000001100010011000010110001001101001011001010111001100100001" is kinda hard to understand.

Which reminds me of a cool short story Stephen King wrote about a dudes army men coming alive. It was my favorite when I was a young teen discovering the joy of horror.

The Warriors are painted pretty standard. Black primer, VMA Dark Metal, Gun & Steel in a progressive zenithal style. Guns are getting more or less black and right now I'm debating wether to do them with red rods/glow or the standard green. Green is more 60s sci-fi, but red is more Terminator/80's LED... Both are themes I love so I have a hard time deciding. Perhaps I should have thought this out before starting to paint them. But meh. Planning is for mortals.

Adventures in Oil: Einstein WIP #2

Found some time inbetween x-mas stuff (for me, assembling Necrons) to paint some more on Einstein. I think I'm done with the basic skin color. At least it feels like this is a good base for adding some discoloration like pinkish lips and some blue to the eye-sockets.

One fun thing about oils is that they kinda behave different from acrylics. Below is a shot of the colors I used for shade and highlight and they are way different than how they acted on the figure. I guess the blue (Winsor Blue (Green)) and yellow (Chrome Yellow Hue) are way stronger than the Yellow Ochre I mix them with. So when blending it turns more green than brown-green.

Start color is #3 but then I realized I wanted more contrast so I upped the highlights a little since the shadow would turn out more or less 100% black if I went down that route.

Anyways. I have to assemble a ton of necrons. See you on the other side of X-mas!

Merry x-mas'es

The best thing about christmas is that noone looks funny at you when you walk around town with bags filled to the brim with stuff. I still feel a bit shameful though... but I guess that has to do with me letting the waagh down for a synthesized "waaargble?!"

The best thing is that you can buy all the gifts for yourself... Merry X-mas & happy new year. :D

It's the Dork Angels -.-

Seroiusly Games Workshop? Please fire the designers you hired when Mattel downsized. I get the "looking like a castle in the sky" idea. But the execution is so bad I want to poke my eyes out.

But then again, I'm glad they look like crap since it gives me no incentive to invest in other models/armies and will happily paint my orks and space austrians.

More pics over at Dakkadakka Millest Mediocre Meanderings

Adventures in oil / Einstein WIP

I don't know what to say. Painting with oil feels like painting with that paint you got at kindergarten and then proceeded to eat and/or use your entire body to paint with. Finger paint?

It's a lot of put paint on & blend. More paint & blend. Blend the blending and then blend some more.

I think I like it though... Picture is after the first round of highlight & shadow.

Quick review, Gobleon by Ammon

Since I buy a lot of stuff so the shelves in my cupboard don't feel lonely I thought that perhaps it would be nice to do some short reviews of what I get before it gets put away in wait for that year when I have 110% free time to paint.

So without further ado...


GOBLEON by AMMON MINIATURES

This is perhaps one of the funniest goblin miniatures out there. The mini really captures what I think of a goblin/gretchin (if you're a 40K fan). In short, it screams delusions of grandeur with a little touch of Don Quixote and a big scoop of naïveté.

The packaging is without any grandeur at all. To be expected of a small sculpter/caster. The parts are packed in a zip-lock within a larger zip-lock with a printout of the painted mini.

The parts themself are crisp and clean. There are some flash to remove, and of course you have to remove some of them from the sprues. But there are no Forgeworld style gates to remove or any gates attached to parts that will likely break unless you try to cut the resin with soothing words and nothing else. 

Dryfitting all the parts showed that there were no significant gaps and everything will probably go together without much filling. There were no dead areas – commonly found on GW/Citadel miniatures – on the mini so there will be no time spent figuring out what is what. Just pure joy of painting!

So if you're itching for a small project to build & paint. I'd say this is the one. It's a perfect weekend project. No big building diagrams (or lack of them) and a mini that's made to be painted.

I bought mine from Figone, Jeremie is a pleasure to deal with. Although with a tight schedule so don't expect one day turnaround on your order. It's worth the wait considering that you're supporting an indie manufacturer / sculptor.

Happy painting! 

Taking the plunge!

Ever since I've started building and painting military scale models I've had a growing love affair with using oil paint. Creating smooth transitions between colour is made way easier due to the long open time. "This must be really useful on miniatures?!" I thought, but didn't really think much of it. Especially since I really didn't know at what end to start painting with oil colours.

Then I got my hands on "Building and Painting Scale Figures". An old book that really only talks about painting miniatures with oil paints. What selection of colors to use, how you plan and perhaps everything you will ever need to know about the fundamentals of painting a miniature.

It's a little dated. From the style of writing I think it came out just before the acrylic explosion (that's a colorful expression!). Acrylics are way handier to paint with most of the time. But if you're starting up, or is an old beard like me, it's worth a read. If not just to brush up on your skills.

Anyhow. I bought a bunch of oil colours (boy are they expensive or what?) specifically limiting my palette so I would learn how to mix colours properly. I'm usually one of those that buys the Mega Paint Set from Games Workshop in order to never have to mix paints. Or that's the idea, I still find myself mixing paints so why not do it right from the start? :)

The unfortunate victim is Einstein. The amazing ork bust sculpted by Allan Carrasco. The orks I grew up with were the ones drawn by Paul Bonner, and Einstein really captures that style. A little more human and a little less comical relief. You can really see the cunning plan he's hatching in the eyes.

So... expect a messy update on my adventures in oil in a couple of days! And if you haven't heard from me I'm probably just trying to get paint out of my hair or off the cats...

Dicerings!!!

This Kickstarter thing... I'm waiting for the backlash when some high profile goes bust. But until then I'm happily parting with my money for cool stuff I didn't know I could live without. This time it's the DiceRings.

Not only will my OCD be less severe, I can also make that critical charge-roll WHEREVER I WANT! On the bus? Need to declare a Waaagh! and charge? No worries! Having a shower when low morale strikes? On the left hand you have a 2r6... roll away! Lost combat with girlfriend? Need to see if she sweeps you? Since you are a good boyfriend you've bought her a r6 as well... Just roll and see if she destroys you or not. (Be a gentleman, let her sweep you and admit defeat!)

So, you see, this is a Kickstarter you need to take part in.

SM Open - Day 2

So... the defeats are finally over. I ended up losing both my games on day two and are now officially the worst 40K player (of the SM Open). I don't fret though. I learned a lot during these two days, and my opponents were real great winners and made me have a good time while I removed buckets of orks from the table.

One of the top moments in my 40K "career" was the game against the Imperial Guard at game three the first day. We both had no intentions to win, lots of laughs was had and it was an -extremely- close game.

LESSONS LEARNED

Lootas need defense lines. The amount of fire they attracted was at some times hilarious. 

Battlewagons have extremely huge sides so that AV14 in the front dont matter that much.

Deffrollas... not that awesome but still awesome.

Feel no pain cybork body ork nobs are... silly fun! :D

And enough with that, onto the pictures!

What I had left on the table at game 1, turn 3... 

"OK men! Re-roll your re-rolls and let's finish this!"

Close game that ended up 12-8 to the Chaos Daemons

Some non-beardy-dude from the south!

Day 1, game 2 vs. Ultra-Vulcan-Marines (and some IG)

It's like the Vendetta is made to get a sharks mouth. It sure eats my troops like a great white.

Soundly beaten by this awesome eybrow bro-dude!

Day 1, game 3. Imperial Guard gunline. 

"Don't give up on me now son!"

The green tide!

The red tide!

First tourney in 20 years and this is what I get! CHEESE! :D

Getting ready to penetrate the rectal armour of my orks!

Jesper, winner of the SM Open!

Rikard, the official swedish champion of 40K!

SM Open - Day 1

Completely unrelated picture apart from Orcs and Die.

So I got lured into playing in the open section of the Swedish Championship, a two day event in Stockholm... The first day was a blast. Really a blast (eheheh-heheh). Even though I got seriously creamed. :D

I brought a simple list consisting of three battlewagons, nobs, two 20 man mobs of ork boyz and some assorted odds and ends. What might have been a mighty force in 5th (lol I dunno) is a mess in 6th. At least when you end up against Grey Knights and other assorted stuff and you DO NOT have an Aegis Defense line to hide behind. My lootas has gotten so shot up today it's not even funny. Or well, it is/was funny in a dark humour kind of way.

Anyhow, three games got played today. The first against Grey Knights ended up with me getting tabled in turn 4. Second game against Space Marines with Imperial Guard allies ended up with me getting tabled in turn 5. Third game, against a pure Imperial Guard force ended up with a really really close game with me losing by just one single point.

But it could have been worse, I could have played Chaos Demons. Apparently they kick serious butt now. At least according to the assorted cries I've heard from the tables where people played against them... :)

I may suck, but I had a ton of fun. Pictures and more details tomorrow if I'm not too exhausted! :)

It was the last night on earth!

I took the car, and a friend and his dog, over to a friends place this weekend and brought my copy of Last Night on Earth for some zombie action. It sure didn't help that all three of us are zombie afficionados. We got one game in, and lots and lots of talking about The Talking Dead, fast zombies vs. running zombies, the awful adaptation of World War Z and zombies in general.

This was my first game of Last Night on Earth and even though I got brutally murdered by the survivors (I was controlling the zombies) it was a blast! I'm a sucker for the old school zombie movies and I think this game really captured the spirit of those movies I was brought up with.

I would actually have won the game if it werent for Sally, the high school sweetheart, finding a chainsaw in turn 10 of 15. She then proceeded to run around the board chasing my poor zombies. :( Very cinematic, very fun, very zombie.

The next day I took my orks over to Uppsala for some 40K action. Prepping the battle report at the moment. :)

Maelstrom Games. THE END!

OFFICIAL NOTICE 

Maelstrom Games Ltd. has ceased trading and will enter liquidation at some point over the next few months. 

A creditor of Maelstrom Games Ltd., Wayland Games Ltd., issued a Statutory Demand under section 123(1)(a) or 221(1)(a) of the Insolvency Act, 1986 on the 17th of October, 2012 for �99,773.61 plus costs of issuing and serving the demand. 

This debt was purchased from Simple Miniature Games by Wayland Games Ltd on the 1st of October, 2012 and payment of this debt was demanded in full by Wayland Games after seven days had elapsed. Unfortunately, Maelstrom Games Ltd. could not pay Wayland Games Ltd. this debt in full within those seven days. 

Previous to the debt purchase, Maelstrom Games Ltd. was servicing the debt owed to Simple Miniature Games at the rate of �500 per working day, claimed by the creditor when convenient for him by charging a credit card owned by Maelstrom Games Ltd., which had been occurring since mid-June and continued to late September, the last payment being taken on the 25th. Maelstrom Games Ltd. did not cancel these payments and were not aware that this debt was being transferred. 

Maelstrom Games Ltd. offered to pay the debt purchased by Wayland Games Ltd. in the same manner as it had paid Simple Miniature Games, but this was not taken up by Wayland Games Ltd. 

Maelstrom Games Ltd. can only apologise to those customers whose orders have not been fulfilled as it is now impossible for Maelstrom Games Ltd. to fulfil them, excepting those for Mierce Miniatures products (fulfilled by Mierce Miniatures in November) and Battlefront Miniatures products (fulfilled by Maelstrom Games in partnership with Battlefront Miniatures and Maunsfeld Gaming in November), all of which will be sent by Maelstrom Games Ltd. Other customer orders for certain ranges may be fulfilled in the future and any customers whose orders can be fulfilled will be contacted by Maelstrom Games in due course. 

All creditors will be issued the relevant notices by the assigned Insolvency Practitioner when Maelstrom Games Ltd. enters liquidation.

So now it has finally gone official. But of course Maelstrom tries to play the victim. Just like when they breached Battlefronts terms last year. Wayland also confirmed over on Dakka that the transfer of Maelstroms debt wasn't done in order to put Maelstrom out of business (although I guess it was a nice synergy) and also that the repayments being done in an orderly fashion is a fabrication. 


Anyhow... I'm too tired to write anymore about this mess. Hopefully you who has outstanding orders with Maelstrom can get this solved via Paypal or your bank.

Freebooter's Fate Indiegogo

With only seven days left I thought I'd advertise a little for the Freebooters Fate kickstarter (even though it's an indiegogo, not a kickstarter... confusing!).

I'm a fan of Werner Klocke, and this is a pretty awesome way to get a bunch of nice limited edition figures. My only problem is that I have too much figures to paint already. But I really can't pass this one up...

At the moment the Captain ($100) level gets you 9 or 10 figures (depending on how you count) and a bunch of extras. If you play the game there is of course a bunch of added value.

So what are you waiting for? Click the image to go and spend some cash for some awesome stuff! :)

In other news... Maelstrom Games is still down, with no reports from any customers about what has happened to their outstanding orders. -.-

Maelstrom Games, the end?!

Since friday the Maelstrom Games website has been showing as "Under Maintenance". And now, a couple of hours ago North Star Miniatures confirmed on their Facebook that Maelstrom Games isn't anymore. The business will be taken over by Eye of the Storm.

So if you have any outstanding orders with MG, what do you do?

First. Contact them (Maelstrom Games). Second. Contact your bank (if using VISA) or Paypal and explain the situation. Request a chargeback.

I can't say I'm sad to see them go. I would've been a couple of weeks ago. But now, after having more or less scammed a bunch of people still waiting for their stuff, with no word from Robert Lane (who owns both Maunsfield Games and Maelstrom Games). I'm not! I hope they burn, slowly.

Finished chaplain!

Not that much different from the earlier post. Some more line highlights and touchups here and there. 

Glow effect in the jumppack got a little "not that glowy". I need to work on that on other minis that have a properly molded jumppack. The innards on the jumppack was rather diffuse.

Stuff I learned: Painting marble is a b*tch! The amount of glazes I put on the base was borderline silly. Leaves from PlusModel are awesome for adding that extra touch on the base. Oil paints are awesome. Need to delve deeper into using them for "normal" painting.

Orky rumours!

From Faeit 212;

In this mornings rumors we have Ork Weird Boys with powers that get more dangerous the more Orks that surround them, with powers directly from Mork (offensive), and ones from Gork (strategic). There are large new squigoth type creatures, new rules for Mega Armour units, and Orks with FnP.

It looks like we get to start off a November with a nice little rumor set.

Please remember that these are early rumors.


via Batty (from the Faeit 212 inbox)

First we can start with orks what i have heard is that they stay the same with furious charge and mob rules but all orks ( not grots or squigs) will get FnP 6+ as a race because they are basically tough and it takes a lot to kill and stop an ork. 

Most weapons will stay the same except choppas are ap6 but gain ap5 on charge and big choppers will be +2s and ap4 and ap3 on charge. 

Nobz stay the same but are getting more characterful upgrades available to them, new kinds or grot assistants such as suicide grots(act alot like bomb squigs but prone to blowing up in unit) and ammo runts and attack squigs also more weapon options like Big shootas and such.

New nob mega armour unit with teleporting abilities but its teleporting works differently from conventional deepstrike bit more random. There is a special mek character that can bestow teleportation on D3 units.

Special bloodaxe character with rules that can bring back boyz units once they are destroyed, much like an imperial guard special character.

A large multi wound squigoth type creature, not FW, it is ever hungry and uses a hunger points system. if it doesn't fulfill the hunger points in enemy's it will rampage nearest unit friend or foe in order to eat.

Two new ork psychic lists for weirdboys, Mork more offencive and Gork more strategic. Many powers in the lists get more powerful the more orks are around the weirdboy, although the more powerful they are the more dangerous they are if they are miscast as they will often misdirect or hit the weirdboy and unit.

New ork only fortifications (including an ork rock) and an ork only warlord chart.

This would actually be -awesome- in all ways possible. Especially for me that has a list/army comp based around a horde (well more a gaggle than a horde to be honest) of orks. Tellyportanobz would be awesome as well, and hopefully hilarious.

These rumours ties into the leaked list of future releases that went wild a few months back. But I wont be letting the grots in my saltmine stop piling up the salt until the fat squig sings. Hoping for all of this to be true though...

Supply Drop!

A small package from Kromlech arrived today. Happy-happy! Joy-joy! Four sprues of "Sturmgewehrs", a bunch of legs (you always need more ork legs!), steel helmet heads and some of their awesome fatty ork-torsos.

I don't know what it is with polish bits-makers. But there sure is an abundance of German world war 2 inspired ork stuff coming from Poland. I like it. They look both hard as nails and hilarious! 

The plan is to use these as Flashgitz with their awesome cover-ignoring guns. 

Hopefully I get these built (there are some gaps and stuff when they connect to GW-stuff) and painted before GW decides to come out with Flashgitz.

OMG! It's a remake of Evil Dead!

And it looks aaaaawesooooome! Actually a movie I'd pay to see in theaters. Hopefully this one will age a little more gracefully than the original. Not that the original is bad, it's more of like Buffy the Vampire Slayer-good if you catch my drift.

PSA: Maelstrom rumour confirmation

The rumour that Maelstrom was in massive debt can now hopefully be confirmed. On the Wyrd forum Graham posted;

Maelstrom won't be getting any more Malifaux from us as he's been cut off due to his massive debt, which has now been sold via a debt purchase company who will be pursuing the debt and legal action. 

MG is running his final sales (several of them) and there is nothing much left. No further stock will be sent from us. 

All fate Decks, Retro Decks, rulebooks etc are all in stock here and you'll find them at any other stockist in the UK who have ordered them in. Try Firestorm, Wargames Workshop, Waugh Games, Arcane, Wayland Games, Waylands Forge, Spirit Games, Total Wargamer, Worthy Wargaming, Titan Games or any of the dozens of others who have plenty of Malifaux on the shelves. 

We have re-stocks coming in every other week and pretty much running straight out the door to all the stockists, so we're just ordering even more

This is further compunded by Taban Miniatures also cutting their ties with Maelstrom. So, if you have outstanding orders with Maelstrom, try calling them. When they don't answer, contact Paypal and/or your bank and request a chargeback.

WIP: Space Marine Chaplain

I've been working on and off on the chaplain for a week now. The base was shown earlier I think. Now it's gotten some paint (marble tiles are a b*tch) and I'm partly done with the chaplain itself. 

Still needs some cleanup and coats of matte/satin varnish here and there. Then some weathering. Trying to keep him clean, not because it's warranted, just because I'm so tired of painting dirty orks. I want to paint shiny stuff every now and then!

Tried out some techniques in oil paint taken from the old book "Building and Painting Scale Figures" by Sheperd Paine. Oils can be really forgiving in terms of blending. Don't be fooled by their long open time though. Oils are open longer, but when working in this small scale it sure aint open as long as they are on canvas.

Not completely sure on the pose. I wanted him a bit more forward leaning, so it looks like he has jumped down and are on his way up again. But I don't want him to look like he has tripped and are falling down. So I guess I'll just sleep on it. =)

Forgeworlds take on a diorama…

… is of course nothing but spectacular! Check out this video of their display table at Games Day UK.


Ah-mah-zing!

Base-mania and an Ork Warboss…

When serendipity strikes, you go with the flow! I saw this pretty nice tutorial by Miniature Mentor yesterday, and today when I woke up I had this urge to do some bases. So after getting home I got into it. Two of them are just repetitions of what was in the tutorial, the third with the lamp post is destined for my Snikrot, whenever I get him done. My workplace looks like a mess. :)

Basemania

I got around to take a photo of the finished Ork Warboss I painted earlier (here & here). Nothing special. I got to try out some new techniques and I guess I'm rather pleased with him.

Looking like a chess piece with that plinth

I guess I will have to kitbash myself a proper warboss some time in the future. After I have gone through my backlog of ork stuff that needs to be painted. So next year perhaps... -.-

+++

In other news, the Maelstrom Games saga continues. Check out the thread on Dakka for updates. Still nothing really new. Mostly speculation. Hopefully it'll come to an end – good or bad – pretty soon. My money is on them going bust. :/

Maelstrom & Ponzi, sitting in a tree...

So... the latest "We have everything on sale" came from Malestrom Games. This time with some sort of explanation. Let's read that and then discuss...

Here at Maelstrom Games we have decided to clear as much of our hard-earned stock as we possibly can over the next few days - and therefore generate some much-needed cashflow - in order to ensure we can fulfil the orders that you, our valued customers, have placed over the last few weeks. To that end, we have decided - in consultation with our trading partners - to sell our remaining stock of [list of manufacturers]. All other ranges' stock will now be sold at 40% off UK RRP - we hold good stocks of Gamezone Miniatures, Dark Age, Cool Mini or Not and Scibor Miniatures, and there's a fair bit of Privateer Press and Malifaux left too. As well as that, from this moment onwards we have decided to stop any customer from placing orders for items that are not in stock, simply so that we can clear the orders that have already been placed. 

We have not made this decision lightly, and please note that we have absolutely no issues with any of the above manufacturers or suppliers; we are simply trying to sell off stock in order to clear older orders and ease any worries our customers may have regarding the speculation that is currently rife on the internet. As well as that, we believe that our retailing model must now change to selling products that are in stock at the time of purchase, and as such that will continue to be in place in the future, once our orders are cleared and our stock is sold. 

I would ask all of our customers to remain as patient as they can with Maelstrom Games and, indeed, our staff, for we will use the money generated by the sale of our stock to ensure all of your orders are fulfilled in their entirety as quickly as possible. We remain committed to servicing our customers first and foremost and will continue to do so in the future. 

Now... this I guess is all good unless you have an interest in economics and can see a Ponzi-scheme for what it is. As I read it it says: "We have no money so we cannot fulfill orders placed earlier. Please spend more so we can fulfill orders already placed" And then? 40% discount doesn't really give much profit in order to re-stock your [new] warehouse?

So, what happened Maelstrom? I can only guess. This newest information sounds a lot like the "speculation" that Maelstrom had lost their credit from distributors were true. So in order to fulfill orders placed a couple of weeks ago they actually have to buy it instead of request it on credit from their distributor. Clearly not an indication of a healthy and thriving business.

Couple that with Paypal not being a payment option anymore(!) and my advice is to abandon ship before it sails away with your money. -.-

I really hope all this is a giant misunderstanding. I really really do.

Finished Dakkajet! In 720° vision!

If Games Workshop can do spinning product images, so can I! It's a bit of a hassle, but the effect is kinda nice. :) Click the image to pop-up a PX40K copyrighted 720° view of the Dakka-Jet!

The inspiration for the colour-scheme came from the venerable Stuka. This particular camo with yellow wingtips was used on the eastern front I believe. But only on the undersides, and that would detract from the effect on the tabletop.

I tried to follow the "official" RLM colour codes with the Vallejo Air Colors I had. The only snag was the yellow which had to be airbrushed light and building up from a darkened Yellow Ochre up to the lemon yellow. It took some time, but in the end it turned out really well. Super vibrant. I like! :)

The "splinter" camouflage was done with some simple masking. I put down some Tamiya masking tape on my cutting mat and then cut some angular shapes that I placed over the grey basecoat and then sprayed it green. :)

Some basic weathering and post-shading with oils, add some pigments to that and voila! A Dakka-Jet!

Check out the work in progress posts via this link.

Introduction to Airbrushing with Ken Schlotfeld

This is an awesome video produced by Wargames Consortium that covers almost everything you need to know about airbrushes and compressors if you are just starting out or are looking into buying a setup to start airbrushing your minis.

It's a long watch, but well worth it. 

If you get yourself a Harder & Steenbeck (popular here in the Europe apparently) you cannot backflush it the same way as with Iwata & Badger. Instead, unscrew the nozzle protector a little and it will backflush. 

PSA: Maelstrom Games going bust?

It seems like Maelstrom Games is going under. The thread on Dakka has been going on for quite some time now without any representing MG chiming in. A lot of people have been posting there to tell about orders taking forever to ship, or in many cases, so long that they have requested a refund.


Rumours say that they have a huge debt and are moving stock & current assets to other companies in order to be able to fold the company in debt. Which means that if you order from Maelstrom Games (if this all turns out to be true) your money will be in limbo.

Of course, forums are what they are, and I can understand if you as a business really don't care about all that's written on them. But if you look at their website there sure isn't much in stock. It's actually hard finding anything that's in stock at the moment. Further reinforcing the rumour that they're out of money. Even though they supposedly are moving warehouses and such (and has been for a while now...) it seems like a -really-bad- business decision to let 90% of your website show items as "Out of Stock".

I suggest you subscribe to the forum thread to watch for further development. Hopefully this is just a rumour that's gotten a bit inflated. Hopefully. 

WIP "One Last Dance?"

When watching the Miniature Mentor video with Jennifer Haley she mentioned that one of her favorite sculptors was Werner Klocke. Not knowing who he was I checked him out and found that he is the creator of the game Freebooters Fate and a bunch of wonderful miniatures for Reaper. So I got myself some. :)

This girl has been sitting primed and ready in my cabinet for a year now. So I guess it was about time to get her some life.

Very WIP, NMM is still wonky. Had a totally different idea about the light source when I started painting.

I plan to mount her on a pretty simple base with a ballroom floor or something. The idea of Death asking for the last dance makes me smile. :)

If you have any other ideas, please let me know. The ballroom floor base feels kinda like a cop-out in some ways, but I'm stuck at that idea at the moment.

Wayland Games, new site

A day late, but anyways, Wayland Games has a new site. Or rather a new design on their existing framework. Finally you can find stuff on there without having to do searches that either turn up 1000 results or nothing.

From the thread on Dakka Dakka it's said that there will be a new stock level system incorporated as well. Supposedly more live than this one (there is of course always a delay no matter how "live" your stock tracking is, perhaps something for a later post) and said to be implemented on Monday.

... standing by!

After much hassle with the postal office my copy of Star Wars: X-Wing finally arrived! I can't wait for the weekend to come around so I can play it. All day, all night. 

WIPBOSS #2

Even more paint on the warboss. I'm getting to the frustration-stage now where there is only the undecided parts left to paint.

I was originally trying to go for a NMM on the metal parts. But the more I think of NMM the more I think it's kinda stupid on a figure made for play. Static display models are another thing.

WIP Ork Warboss

After the defeat in Uppsala I've had to re-build my list a little. Which meant that I couldn't afford a mega armoured warboss running around. So I had to get one of the good old AOBR warbosses.

First one I've put under the brush. It's a pretty relaxing figure to paint. The blends look a lot better IRL, camera flash really kills all your careful blending. -.-

Shut up and take my money!!!

There just isn't much more to say... I will need to buy the book(s) just because of the fluff.

Battlereport, Orks vs. Marines

Magnus – Ancient warmachine and destroyer of green tides and generally annoying!!! :)

So... I went with my orks to Uppsala to play my first game with 6th ed. rules. (Army list here)

Lifter went with his Space Marines and a list compromised of a Dreadnought, two Vindicators, a Captain attached to one 5 man Assault Squad, a bunch of vanilla Terminators, and two Tactical Squads with Heavy Bolter equipped Razorbacks. And of course, since it's sixth edition, a Storm Guppy!

We did some rolling for warlord traits and stuff. I got "Move Through Cover" which was kinda nice. The mission ended up being "Big Guns Never Tire", which was even nicer since it made my Kanz and Kannons scoring. Deployment wasn't as nice though... deploying from the short ends would make sure I was boned without even really trying. Of course I didnt really know or care about that, I was just happy to play some 40K! :)

I ended up deploying and going first. So I went with a rather straightforward deployment. Aiming to play just like I played in 5th and see what would burn me now in 6th.

Ork deployment

The left flank was left more or less exposed since I hoped Lifter would deploy to meet all my Orks head-on. I could later exploit that and move my reserved Boss + Nobs and the Dakka-Jet on that flank and hopefully chew up some side-/rear-armour.

IoM deployment

Of course, Lifter didn't play along! Those Vindicators went on each side of a building and he presented me with a rather solid gun-line blob. I still hadn't grasped what Vindicators did to unprotected little orks and thought that my KFF would keep them safe...

Turn one was as usual. I moved, I ran. No shooting from the orks. The kannons, my only long range guns, was too far away from any units (another negative effect of the deployment). Lifter moved his Vindicators and most of the other stuff into position and then let loose the blast templates from hell onto my orks.

The Kannons got blasted to bits and with some heroic action from the runtherd actually managed to stay on the table. The Kanz got blasted to bits (one went down directly, the other two lost a gun and some hull points). And I lost a handful of orks. Still nothing too unexpected. The large blasts made me hesitate though. I desperately needed some cover if I wanted to run those 24" to get into close combat with the marines...

Round two was over pretty fast for me, I moved, I ran and managed to shoot the only remaining Grotzooka on the Vindicator & Razorback on my right flank. Destroying a Storm Bolter on the Vindicator and shaking the Razorback. Of course, my Dakka-Jet and the Boss and his retinue stayed off the table. Busy doing whatever they were busy doing...

The hardy Space Marines with their long range stuff didn't really leave any dice untouched. My sluggas got shot up. My small mob of Shootas got shot up. Of course, my Kanz got shot at as well.

TLOS in action!

Turn three started with me realizing that I was kinda smoked. Those Vindicators would just back up and shoot at me without the Orks really being able to do anything to close the gap and use the Klawz on them... shucks!

The Boss and Jet came onto the table though! So I raced up the Trukk 13 inches on the left and zoomed the Dakka-Jet in position to shoot at Magnus, the much feared Dreadnought. I failed to score a single glancing hit on the Dread and gave the turn over to Lifter...

Tuffgit admiring the view from the top of the ruin.

Lifters flying thing came on and he then proceeded to turn my Orks into small pieces of foul smelling fungi... It's all a blur for me. In short he skillfully killed Nobz, Boyz and Kanz like there was no tomorrow. It really didn't help that Lifter rolled direct hits on all scatter rolls. The only miss was when he rolled for his Terminators deepstriking in on my backfield. Dropping one of them slightly over the table edge ended up with a mishap! After a roll on the mishap table they didn't end up eaten by demons, just delayed for one turn.

 Yet another direct hit on the scatter dice! FML! 

Turn four was... lackluster. I shot at his Guppy with the Jet. Only managing to lock it in zooming-speed (not that bad for a flyer). What was left of my Orks shot at his marines, managing to kill one! (It's the small victories that count!!!) The Trukk with my last hope at turning the game went forward another 12".

Lifter, probably sensing that victory was sure in his grasp, deepstriked his Terminators close to my remaining gretchin crew. Making sure that they wouldn't survive to claim my backfield objective. Overkill? Perhaps. Bullying? Yes! :)

These grots are so screwed!

They got shot up real bad. Not a single grot was spared the wrath of the Emperor!

One of the Tactical squads went into a forest and two of them got eaten by it. So... my opponent was better at killing his Marines than my Orks was. -.-

My Sluggas got killed to the man by the right side Vindicator and the Razorbacks. The orks in the middle went down with only the Nob and two Boyz standing when the smoke cleared. My huge mob of Orkz got charged by the Dread that promptly killed my Nob and a bunch of the orks. Before a single swing of a Klaw! I then proceeded to try and disengage via the "Our guns are useless!"-rule. Which of course ended up with the Dreadnought sweeping them into oblivion. Curse the low initiative of orks!

My Big Mek got sniped due to an error in moving on my part. Out of coherency he is a pretty juicy and easy target. :)

During turn 2 it still didnt look that bad...

One of the Tactical Squads paired up with the Storm Guppy and exploded my Trukk. No casualties, but now my Boss and his Nobz were kinda stranded in no-mans-land on the left flank. Since my boss was Slow & Purposeful due to his mega-armour the mob turned into a green blob of Fat & Useless.

On turn five I gave Lifter my hand and thanked him for a good game. My Nobz would perhaps be able to reach one objective if the game went to turn 7. Which still would mean a loss since Lifter would control at least two of the three remaining objectives. So GG's was exchanged and I congratulated Lifter for finally beating me... ;)

+++ 

A lot of learning occured on my part. Shooting in 6th is pretty brutal. Especially for Orks with no real armour saves to write home about. The KFF didn't seem so nerfed even though it went from a 4+ cover save to 5+. But it seems tempting to ditch the green tide and go for a list that's more oriented around Battlewagons.

On regular deployments (long edges) it might be more like 5th in the way that my orks will be able to close with the enemy. But there will always be the possibility of rolling "wonky" deployments that hurts me if I dont have a proper delivery mechanism.

The kannons didn't really have time to do anything. I will have to try them out a little more before I pass judgement on them. No matter what I still need more long range guns, so I guess it's time to dust off the Lootas.

Even though I got shafted bad 6th felt more streamlined and fun compared to 5th. There are some changes I perhaps don't agree with. But I guess that has more to do with the fact that I cannot run my orks in the way I'm used to.

Flyers are fun. Really fun. And not that game changing as some seem to make them out to be. Of course, a 6 flyer Necron-list might change my views on that. ;)

Now I'm off to shop some Battlewagons...

... or am I?