Blood & Blades

Colossals... Uh Wa?!?!?

2012-02-06T06:00:00.001-05:00

Well so big news out of Templecon this past weekend, this summer Colossals will be released for Warmachine. Now for those of your who love the Warmachine back story like I do, no these are not old Colossals from the past that have been refurbished and put back into service, these are new Colossals that have secretly been in productions by nations all over the Iron Kingdoms for years (in planning since Superiority supposedly). For the uninitiated (Why aren't you?!?) Colossals will be the equivalent to around Stompa or Knight Titan power levels for 40K.

So far we have only seen actual pictures of the Cygnar and Khador Colossals, both which look awesome. There will be 6 Warmachine Colossals, one for each faction and even one for Mercs (though no one can firmly say which merc group it will work for, probably all, but I think it is for Magnus's Agenda and I have read both Rulic and Pirates other places).

(Hey James, you wanted a sweet model to paint. I'd say Cygnar just jumped to the top of the list, if I didn't have epic amounts Khador to paint and a Magnus's Agenda Merc list waiting in the wings, it would for me.)

CAD pics of the Retributions Colossal, the first Retribution war engine that I have liked the look of really.

And for all you HORDES nuts that are suddenly feeling left out, a sneak peak for a Troll Colossal sized monster that will be coming later this year.

And last but not least, the release video:

Wow, BIG (very big) things happening with PP in 2012.

Bah Bah Stormraven!

2012-02-01T06:00:00.003-05:00

Hey Guys, Huron here again. Well last month for a joint motivational thread on a forum I post on regularly, The Painted Dragon, I decided to paint a Blood Angels Stormraven that I had sitting around. I started working on it and found it to be a total nightmare. The kit must have been warped as nothing went together right. I ended up having to glue this bad boy shut and then still head to spend several days filling gaps in the body and fixing cracks and damage cause by all the excess glue I had to use to get it to say together. Thank god for Liquid Green Stuff.

Well after a bit of work I finally got this bad boy ready for prime and paint.

One of the things I decided to do differently was modify the turret and leave the engine exhaust off the top of the mini. Originally I had wanted to use a FW Razorback turret but instead opted to go with the modified turret you see here because of time and cost.

After priming the mini up and spending a bit of time with my airbrush I had the beginnings of what I think will be a nice looking model. Here is a Work In Progress shot of what the model looked like after airbrushing and some basecoating with P3 Coal Black was complete.

Still lots to do after this stage. Tune in on Friday 2/3 for pics of the finished model and base.

40k Hopefuls, #2

2012-01-30T06:00:00.001-05:00

Hey guys, Huron here again. Time to let you in on what the above minis is for in my second 40K Hopefuls of 2012 post. Last November I posted a couple of WIP preview shots of this guy with a slightly different base, a Mk5 marine, and a finecast jump pack chaplain with a FW Pre-Heresy jump pack. Well those were the first models of what I thought at the time was going to be pre-heresy Dark Angels army. Well things ebbed an flowed and while I ended up ditching the Dark Angels idea, trying and failing to paint a squad as Hersey World Eaters, I still continue to gather up minis for this army a bit at a time. To be honest I already had quite a size able cache of FW bits that I have been buying from both Forge World as well as an UK bits site called bitsandkits.co.uk. Bits and Kits is a cool because form time to time they stocks up on FW bits and you can bits order individual pieces. Not the most cost effective way of doing things but if all you want is Lugft Huron's body, an Astral claw shoulder pad, or a single FW Hersey style Missile Launcher, the price is pretty nice.

So now that I am talking about what 40k armies I want to work on this year, I though I'd share with you what I have built so far. Here is a pic of the full army at this time.

More pics below.

So yes that is a unit of Vanguard paint in Pre-Hersey World Eaters colors chilling in the middle of the army. I painted these guys (and a standard bearer) last November to get myself motivated to work on the project. Well they had the exact opposite effect for me, breaking down my confidence as painter and making me swear off 28mm minis for the rest of 2011. I have always wanted a Pre-Hersey World Eaters army however painting white on that scale proved to be to much for me. The approaches I tried utterly failed and the final products were banished to a box of minis on the bottom shelf with the hope they would never see light of day on this blog. Well I am going to share them with you, only because I have decided to strip them. They are next up on my list of minis to get a dunk (been focusing on Warmachine models recently, though the standard bearer has already been soaking for over a day now as a test) so I guess it is okay to show them off now.

Here they are, in all their horror:

Not my best work.

So here are pics of the rest of the army as it stands. To give you some insight as you are looking at the pics I have added a title and list of parts used, yes I an a nut! So for the above Vangaurd unit, the parts used are: Grey Knight Power Armor Helmets (plastic), Pastic Arms, 2 GK Falchions for Power Swords, FW Bolt Pistols, FW Power Fist, FW Mk5 Chests, FW Mk5 Assault Legs, FW Mk5 Studded Shoulder Pads, FW Mk2 Shoulder Pads, and FW Mk2 Jump Packs.

Chapter Master: FW Lugft Huron Body, FW Lugft Huron Claw Arm, Plastic Chaos Terminator Lord Arm and Cape, FW Games Day Boarding Assault Captain Storm Shield, FW Astral Claws Terminator Shoulder Pad, Blood Angels Plastic Bare Head with Bionic Eye (from Sanguinary Guard Sprue), Dragon Forge Designs Resin Broken Concrete base with added Rubble (the whole army will use these eventually).

Jetbike Squad: Chapter House Jetbikes (including legs and arms), FW Mk5 Chests, FW Mk5 Heads, FW Mk5 Shoulder Pads (both smooth and Studded), FW Mk5 Back Packs, and 2 FW Hersey Meltaguns

Tactical Squad 1: FW Mk 5 Hersey Marine Bitz (9 Heads, Chests, Legs, Shoulder Pad Sets, and Back Packs; 7 Sets of FW Mk5 Arms) 2 Sets of Plastic arms, one carrying a bolter, one set for Sergeant, 1 FW Mk3 Marine minus Back Pack, Maximini Resin Back Pack, FW Hersey Lascannon, FW Hersey Meltagun, 8 FW Umbra Ferrox Pattern Bolters

Tactical Squad 2: 10 FW Mk5 Torsos and Shoulder Pad Sets; 9 FW Mk5 Back Packs; 10 sets of plastic Marine Legs; 9 FW Raven Guard Veteran Mk6 Heads; 1 Mk4 Plastic Head; Mix of Plastic and Resin Arms; FW Hersey Missile Launcher, FW Hersey Heavy Weapon Back Pack, FW Hersey Meltagun, 8 FW Umbra Ferrox Pattern Bolters.

Terminators (both Squads): 10 Grey Knight Plastic Terminator Heads, 9 Assault on Black Reach Plastic Terminator Bodies, 9 Plastic Terminator Chests, 7 Sets of Plastic Thunder Hammer and Storm Shield Arms, 3 Sets of Plastic Lightning Claw Arms, Resin Maximini Terminator Shoulder pads (2 kinds, 10 of each), FW Tyberos the Red Wake Body.

So what remains unbuilt/ to buy? Well I have a custom Honor Guard in bits waiting to be assembled that uses the chest pieces from Severin Loth's guard and their axes, some BA heads, GK legs, and Maximini Back Packs. I have the first 2 models of a Command Squad wearing Mk3 armor too. I also have a Contemptor Dread or two sitting around (but need the correct arms and to figure out how I want to magnetize them). I am also going to need at least 2 of the FW Heresy Rhinos, a FW Heresy Predator or 2, and at least one Proteus Landraider (can't decide between armored or unarmored versions). I also want to do a Mk3 Devastator Squad with 4 missile launchers and I need to expand my jetbike squad to at least 6 model and an Attack Bike of some sort.

I also want to do some Landspeeders. Though I have several of the 2nd Edition metal ones kicking around, they are very small, here is to hoping FW or Chapter House do one that allows for a Cyclone Missile Launcher option. Oh... and I have a Severin Loth Librarian and a couple of Chaplains with various armaments for the army too.

40K Hopefuls, #1

2012-01-20T06:00:00.001-05:00

Hey guys, Huron here. Well we are starting to get close to the end of the first month of 2012 and it is time for me to get to work on figuring our which 40k army will be my promised 2K army in 2012 from my new years goals post. I have lots of armies to chose from here: perhaps one of the several marine armies I have mentioned previously; Orks in a variety of styles; or how about the Forge World Renegade IG I have sitting around primed or partially painted. Another choice could be Nurgle Chaos Daemons, I have 1200pts painted already plus another 1k+ sitting ready to paint. All I'd need to buy is 5 more plague bearers and Epidemius to complete the army.

To help me decide, I am going to spend the next week sharing with you several of my choices and then putting a poll together to see what you guys think. No guarantee that I will play along, but it should help me decide. My choice for today is:

DEATH GUARD

Those of you that have known me for a good while know that I have an unhealth love of all things Nurgle and the Death Guard sit up there with the Dark Angels as one of the many things I love about the Warhammer 40K background. Since second edition, when I first started playing (been collecting since Rogue Trader) I have owned 3 Death Guard armies. Here is a pic of all that is left of my first Death Guard army, an army I played during the end of 2nd, beginning of 3rd edition of 40K.

Pretty terrible I know, and yes that is flocking on both the base and the model. I wish I had pics of this army still as it was full of crazy conversions, daemonic details, and flock used as moss to cover many of the models and tanks. One of the greatest conversions was a leman russ tank transformed into a predator with a huge daemonic mouth on the front (which happened to be the back of the Leman Russ) or the Landraider with the caged Greater Daemon of Tzeentch reaching out a bared window from inside. This army was a jumping off point and gave me the confidence to try some of the more aggressive conversion I would do down the line. But we are not hear to talk about past armies, we are here to talk about future ones (Don't worry, some day soon I will dig around in my modeling bins and share stories of some of the great armies of my past).

One of the bad habits I have developed over a life time of gaming, is the inability to go to a swap meet, get rid of a bunch of minis I have sitting around, and not come home with a equal amount of new minis too (a disease I am sure many are familiar with). Whenever I come across 1st and 2nd edition 40K Chaos minis, especially Death Guard ones, I always try to get them. This has led to me squirreling away a good many metal Khorne Beserkers, Guitar carrying Noise Marines, static posed Thousand Sons, and cool looking Death Guard models over the years. Some I have sold or painted up to add to my existing Red Corsairs Chaos Army, but for the most part I have been saving the best minis I come across for a rainy day and/or something special.

Rumor has it, that a Chaos Cult Codex is due out sometime by the end of 2012, which has me thinking it might be time to get to work on a new Death Guard army. This army would use only Rogue Trader era and 2nd edition metal Death Guard Marines. Couple that with several of the great Forge World releases of the 2nd half of 2011, including resin versions of some of the original vehicles from back in the good ole days and this army could be something really special. Let me show you some pics of what I would be working with:

The above is of a few of the 2nd edition metal minis I have been able to grab over the years. These minis would need to be stripped, many would need arms and back packs (I have some sweet Forge World resin Mk2 arms, Heresy era Meltaguns, and some old style plastic backpacks sitting around I have bitzed from various sources).

The above two pics are of some Rogue Trader era Death Guard minis that I manage to be in the right place at the right time to grab up. There guys would form the core of my units with possibly the more mutated Death Guard in the second pic representing Chosen or Possessed Death Guard marines.

Now the Cons to this project. The Biggest challenge I would have is that I still need to flesh it out some more. I'd need to add Forge World Vehicles, some Terminators (I have some 2nd Ed metal Chaos Terminators sitting around but they would need a lot of restoration work before they would be ready to even be primed for paint), and I'd need to track down a Rogue Trader era dreadnought or two if I really wanted to do the army right. Unfortunately, finding an old school Chaos Dread that someone is willing to part with that is in good shape has been a big challenge so far and I would need to find a model or two I could use as an HQ choice. No matter what I decide on, there is a good shot that at least a squad or two of this army will see paint in 2012, if for no other reason as my painter ADD is strong and the models are just so cool!

pIrusk Alt, Final

2012-01-18T06:00:00.007-05:00

Hey guys, Huron here. Well pIrusk is all finished though I might go in with some weathering powder in the future and hit up his base, boots, and the bottom edge of the camo green coat.

Next up are the Great Bears of the Gallowswood.

More to come!

pIrusk Alt, WIP

2012-01-16T06:00:00.003-05:00

Hey guys, here are some pics of the model I have spent most of 2012 so far working on, pIrusk (plain Irusk, or v1 Irusk). This model is an alt sculpt that was release back when the Mk2 Khador Army Book was released. I have one of the original pIrusk models that I painted way back in the day but I have recently been trying to focus on playing more Warmachine and nothing helps me do this then painting up some new minis to use. Also one of my personal New Years resolutions is to play more Mk2 games with a wider variety of models and getting pIrusk painted up is a step in helping to achieve that.

I have a good bit more work to do on the mini, but here is where I am right now.

Why is it that every time I post pics of my minis I get de-motivated to paint more? Maybe it is because the camera is unkind and I see all the mistakes I've made? Sigh, either way I have more work then I thought I did to get this model finished.

More soon to come.

First Minis of 2012

2012-01-13T06:00:00.077-05:00

Alright, so time to post the first minis of the new year. Today I have some Sanguinary Guard for you, still WIP, but first the story of their inspiration. Back in early December, as I mention in my last post, I played in and won a 40k tournament at my local shop. The funny thing is I decided to play in the tournament on a whim the morning of the tournament and threw together an all foot Blood Angels army (well all foot except 1 landspeeder, 3 bikes, and a Drop Pod) from the mostly painted BA minis I have kicking around with a few Painted Flesh Tearer minis I won at a BFS charity Tournament back in late 2010 thrown in. The tournament was a 3 round escalating format with Round 1 played at 1250pts, Round 2 played at 1500pts, and round 3 played at 1750pts. Players were required to make a 1750pt list and then take whole unit out of it to build their 1500pt and 1250pt lists.

So you had to have a painted army (I try to play this way anyways), and since none of my BA vehicles are close to done and most of the troops are in the 50% done range I had to use what I could pass off as "painted". This boiled down to a Librarian, an unit of Sanguinary Guard that was painted up to look like Flesh Tearers (I suspect meant to be used as Vanguard Vets), 2 full squads of Tactical Marines, 2 minimum sized Devastator squads, 3 Sanguinary Priests, a minimum sized jump pack assault squad, 4 bikes, a landspeeder, and 5 Death Company in a drop pod.

As it happens, I have never field a Sanguinary Guard unit before but decide to take them to fill out the points which would have normally been spend on a Blood Raven most likely. The Sanguinary Guard (supported by a Sanguinary Priest with Jump Pack and Power Weapon) as it happens won me the whole tournament, or so it seemed to me. They killed a large majority of all 3 of my opponents armies (1 marine and 2 Tau) and were the MVP of all 3 games. So long story short after the tournament ended I decided I need to paint myself up a proper unit of Sanguinary Guard. After a few minor tweaks to some Sanguinary Guard minis that I had assembled as BA Honor Guard originally I was off and painting. But then the holidays hit and my progress slowed.

Here is where the squad is now:

Before I took this photo I though I was rounding in on having this squad completed, forever now it looks like I have a bunch more work ahead of me than I thought. Also these guys have taken a bit of a back seat to some Warmachine minis I have been working on the last several days. Relatively soon though I am sure I will be picking them back up and getting them finished. One of the big hurtles will be figuring out how to base them as it will effect how the rest of the army gets based as I begin trying to finish units to reach my goal of finishing painting a 2k army (most likely BAs) this year.

More soon to come.

2011 recap, 2012 Goals

2012-01-12T08:53:00.002-05:00

Hey guys, 2011 has gone and we are now firmly in 2012. 2011 was a pretty bad year for me health wise and this in turn effected my hobby greatly. For starters, I only posted a grand total of 21 blog posts over all of 2011 which is way below half of any previous year. Last year saw me return to 3 games I had played previous but I had been on hiatus with for a while (Malifaux, Warhammer Fantasy, and Warmachine) and expand my interests in a fairly new game for me (Flames of War). Of these 4 games I quick lost interest in both Malifaux and Warhammer Fantasy, and ended up abandoning Malifaux all together selling all my models except 1 painted Crew (Victorias) and a few random models here and there.

For Warmachine I spent the beginning of the year running a few tournaments, a league or two, and playing a few game here and there but quickly lost interest by spring. My interest was rekindled and I managed to paint up several new Khador models for the Nova Open at the end of August and play in one of the tournaments there (one of only 4 tournaments I played in all year). November and December say my interest in Warmachine rekindled slowly as James (from 4 Ones) and a few other of my locals started painting and playing Warmachine/Hordes again.

Flames of War is the only game that has seen constant play, painting, and general growth for me this year. My small single LW Soviet army has expanded in to multiple Soviet, German, and Finish armies for a variety of time periods throughout this year and of the 4 tournaments I played in, in 2011, 2 where for Flames of War. I also manage to paint up a 1750pt German LW army consisting mostly of infantry that I never got around to sharing on this blog and a good amount of Soviet minis too including 21 T34/85s.

Finally 2011 saw me start and fail to finish 3 new 40k armies, as well as fail to finish any exist armies that I already own. The new armies were Nova Marines, Grey Knights (Death Watch), and a currently undecided on Pre-Heresy Marine army (though I did poorly paint a Vanguard Vet and Army Standard Bearer for the World Eaters which again I have not shared here yet). However to end the year on a good note, I did manage to win a 40K tournament at my local store in the beginning of December with my Blood Angels. My BAs while not finished had enough play ably painted models to allow me to field a mostly foot list.

Thankfully 2011 has ended and I can focus on new goals for 2012. Here is what I want to achieve in 2012:

1. Finish painting at least one 40K Army to 2000pt and play at least 10 games with it over the year. With version 6 just around the corner it would be good to have some freshly finished minis to try it out with.

2. Paint 100pts worth of Warmachine/Hordes minis and play at least 20 games of it over the year. I'm already 2 games in.

3. Paint 2000pts of Flames of War minis and play at least 20 games of it over the year.

4. Play in at least 4 tournaments over the course of the year.

5. Participate in at least 2 Paint Competitions locally or online over the course of the year.

6. Paint up and play at least 1 game with (if able) at least 4 special projects over the course of the year. Special projects could be be a crew, team, etc for a skirmish game (I have Infinity, Malifaux, Mercs, etc minis waiting on paint); Minis for a new game I am looking at (Dust Warfare when it is released for example); Minis from a Board Game (Super Dungeon Explorer); or minis I just want to paint up (I have some Perry Brothers Civil War minis I have wanted to paint up for a while for example).

7. Reduce the size of my collection, by selling or giving away model and minis that I never used or in some cases even looked at in 2011 and by also reducing the pool of future or back burner projects I have kicking around.

8. Post at least 52 New Blog posts with hobby related content in them.

Well those are my goals for 2012, lets see what I can accomplish this year.

Upgrade Now Complete!

2012-01-03T07:57:00.000-05:00

Well looks like I am all done upgrading the site, only took all night. New Banner, new look, even a new Avatar. Now where to begin? Hmm...

Under Construction

2012-01-03T00:24:00.000-05:00

Hey guys Huron here again. I know I have been absent of late, between health issues, being laid off in October, and serious hit to the fail in my painting skills in November hobby has taken sort of a back seat to real life in the second half of 2011. I have still been building, priming, and slapping some paint around but have had nothing finished or that I was happy enough with to share. Well 2012 is here and time to get myself out of the rut and get some things painted and some outstanding project completed.

Please excuse the mess while I revamp and reorganize in preparation for a new year of Blogging.

And so it begins...

2011-10-03T11:45:00.000-04:00

New month, new projects, awesome models...

This is barely going to scratch the surface... More to come.

Rust Tutorial

2011-09-29T10:16:00.001-04:00

Greetings all. So I put together a little tutorial on how I do rust for a forum I frequent regularly, The Painted Dragon and thought I should post it here as well. Enjoy!
______________________
Okay, about time I got that rust tutorial posted. I may come back in the future and redo this tutorial as a video, but for now this will work.

What you will need:
1. A model with areas you want to rust (in this case an Ork boy)
2. Red/Brown and Orange/Red paint (in this case P3 Bloodstone and Khador Red Highlight, but GW Darkflesh and Blazing Orange or similar will work fine)
3. Matte or Glaze Medium (Note, if using Glaze Medium you will need to have some matte varnish as it ends up shinny)
4. The pot of the last color applied before rust added (in this case Boltgun Metal) and a Drybrush

PREPARATION:

Here is our Ork boy ready to be rusted.

He was primed Black then Dry Brushed with a heavy coat of GW Tin Bitz followed by another heavy coat of Boltgun Metal. Then the flesh was picked out in P3 Gnarls Green (GW Ork Hide Shade would work too), Cloth with GW Chaos Black, and Leather with P3 Battlefield Brown (Mid earthy Brown).

Now we need to mix our Rust wash. Mix equal parts (as shown below) P3 Bloodstone, P3 Khador Red Highlight, and Matte Medium (I use the P3 Matte Medium, but it is widely available from Vallejo, Golden Fluid Acrylic, etc).

Now add in several drops of water, I usually go 1:1 Paint Mix to Water. Now you have your rust wash.

STEP 1
Wash your rust wash onto the areas you want to rush. If you are just going for a light rush patina to your metals do this sparingly, if you want lots of pooled rush all over the weapon/armor/track slap it on like you would a normal wash, allowing it to pool in recesses like so.

Let the wash dry completely before proceeding. If the rust effect is so thin/not strong enough you can repeat the wash as many times as needed. Washing with several slight variance to the color mix (more or less of each color) can look very nice with multiple light washes to build up the effect.

STEP 2
After the wash dries completely it should look something like this:

Now take out your trusty dry brush and begin to lightly dry brush the rust surfaces with the color. Make sure to stick to edges and for things like bladed weapons dry brush for the sharpened edge out. Your model will end up look something like this.

STEP 3
Okay time to clean up any over spill wash with original base colors for cloth, flesh, and leather and then get to Highlighting. Since Rusting a mini is a messy step that requires random washes and dry brushing I suggest to do it early in your paint steps to insure not ruining any of your previous detail or highlight work.

Your final model post clean up should look something like this.

And here are a few other models I have used this technique on.

Until next time.

Warmachine Update! Getting There...

2011-08-25T04:44:00.002-04:00

Hey guys, I thought I should continue the flurry of activity on my blog this week by posting some updated pics of the Khador Models I posted last Friday. Tonight the Nova Open begins, well for me it is really just going to be a few hours of dropping in to say hello to old friends and seeing if I can't sneak onto the 11th Companies live broadcast... Shouldn't be too hard. Tomorrow (after I work a half day) the real festivities begin for me, as I head to the hotel for the rest of the weekend to play a variety of games. My big tournament this year is going to be the Softcore Warmachine/Hordes tournament on Saturday. Two 50pt armies clashing in a single hour long game with timed 7 minute turns, should be crazy!

So on to the pics I guess. Above is a pic of Warcaster Harkovich after basecoating and washes to help shade and tie all the colors on the model together (Check back tomorrow for part 1 of a tutorial on how I am approaching painting my new Khador army).

Harkovich (still WIP but after a bit of work)

Black Ivan (Harkovich's personal warjack)

Destroyer Warjack

Decimator Warjack

Man-O-War Drakhun

Well that is it for now. More as I have it.

WIP Purifiers

2011-08-24T06:00:00.001-04:00

And the final shot of this weeks army paint fail is of 5 Purifiers. The actual army had 25 of them in the army and was lead by Castillian Crowe. I have a really cool conversion for Crowe that uses a mix of FW and Plastic Parts from a number of different kits. Sorry can't show him to you just yet as he is being entered in a painting contest on a forum that I frequent regularly, The Painted Dragon.

Funny thing about this pic of Purifiers is that it is the only unit in the whole army that has Paired Falchions in it (except the Terminators that has 1 guy with them). The rest is a mix of Psycannons, Halberds, and Daemon Hammers.

Purifiers

Okay, until next time.

WIP Ordo Xenos Inquistor

2011-08-23T06:00:00.002-04:00

Hey guys, Huron here any with as pic of some more models from my unfinished Deathwatch (Grey Knight army) that I was planning to take to Nova.

Ordo Xenos Inquisitor & Servo Skulls

More tomorrow.

WIP Dreadknight

2011-08-22T06:00:00.017-04:00

Hey guys Huron here with the first of my WIP models that would have been in my Nova 40K Tournament army if I was still going to play. The Dreadknight below was going to be the center piece to my army and my entry into the best converted model contests at the Nova. Still a bit more too do, some GS work and I still have to mod the hydrolic arms and add them onto the model. Maybe next year.

Front

Side

Finished Leg Details (Legs are done)

Close up on upper body Mod

More stuff tomorrow.

New Destiny

2011-08-19T06:00:00.008-04:00

Hey guys, by the time the post publishes I will have dropped out of the Nova Open 40K tournament. I know I know. I have been discussing it with many of you for a while now and I really hate to do it... But I have been having some pretty rough health problems lately (though hopefully I'm on the mend finally) and was not able to complete my intended army in time. For those looking to get in some 40k with me over the weekend, I will have my Griffons with me just in case.

My intended 40k army was a Grey Knight army done up as Ordo Xenos Deathwatch Marines. I have had a lot of problems getting them painted up to a level I am happy with and have had to go back to the drawing board several times with the paint scheme. Combine that with almost 6 weeks of me being unable to paint in the last 3 months and It is no wonder I have not been able to get the army finished in time. I promise to post some pics of them as soon as I have some in what I hope is the final scheme. Also check back here new week for some WIP pics of some of the cool stuff that would have been in my army for Nova if I had been able to get it done.

Well with that said, I need something else to do at the Nova as I will still be there Thursday and Friday evenings (I have to work both days unfortunately, been missing more work then I'd care to recently and not enough time left to take them off), and then all weekend (I will be staying at the hotel Friday and Saturday nights). I have so far purchased a General Admittance Pass, a Malifaux Pass (which I won't be using as I don't really play Malifaux anymore), and a 40K Pass (which I now won't be using). So I decide to pick up the relatively cheap ($20) Warmachine Pass for the weekend of events and play Warmachine instead. Below are some pics of just a few of the minis I hope to have ready for the Softcore Tournament on Saturday and if I place well the Championship on Sunday. Wish me luck.

Warcaster Harkovich

Black Ivan (Harkovich's Personal Character Destroyer Heavy Warjack)

Destroyer Heavy Warjack

Decimator Heavy Warjack

Torch (Character Decimator Heavy Warjack)

Man-O-War Drakhum (Think Steam Powered Terminator Mounted on a Horse in Steam Power Armor)

I also have some additional things like an unit of Winter Guard, a Man-O-War Kovnik, and a few other things, time permitting, that I want to get painted up too before the softcore tournament. I have painted version of them already, but they are several years old now.

More to come as I have it.

A bit of magic...

2011-07-11T18:56:00.000-04:00

Hey guys, Huron here, I know it has been a while. So today I wanted to discuss something a bit different. This could be the start of something even. You see, besides being the dedicated gamer geek that I am, I also spend a good amount of my time doing non-gaming things, perusing Netflix, Hulu, and a few other online video places for new and interesting things to spend my time on. My recent divergence has been an Anime called Eyeshield 21, that and Starcraft 2, which I just started playing for the first time recently, but more on that another time. Today I want to talk about about the Dresden Files.

My first experience with the Dresden Files was the short lived (only 13 Episodes) TV Series whose poster is pictured above. If you haven't check it out yet and you like magic, mystery, and the paranormal I would recommend you check it out. It is a bit light, and soap opera-ie and definitely not the best show ever but it is fun and a decent series that I wish there had been more of. I found the series on Neflix over a year ago and have watched it all the way through a few times now. Good Stuff.

However the tail does not end there. As it turns out the Dresden Files is a book series. A really good book series, with around 12 novels (the latest one coming out this week) and several short stories published. The authors name is Jim Butcher. If you like to read, like a good mystery, a bit (read lots) of magic, the supernatural, and pretty any other kind of plot element in modern fiction today (except robots, no robots so far, but I'm only through book 2) you will find it in a Harry Blackthorn Copperfield Dresden novel. Or the Dresden Files for short.

I have to thank a good friend of mine, James from the blog 4 Ones for scoffing at me when I said the TV series was good while at his place recently, and insisting I take the first two novels home with me that night. Course I left them at his place instead accidentally, but as luck would have it I end it back at his place on Friday night and the first two novels end up coming home with me for the weekend. So I started reading the first one Saturday night and was done by Sunday afternoon. Today I felt a bit sick and stayed home from work. To pass the time I picked up book two and in just 7 short hours devoured all 401 pages of it. I'm half tempted to call James up and see if I can drop by to grab the next few books tonight.

Are the books like the show? Sort of, but better, much better. You get more of what Harry is thinking, more of his motivations, and more things happen that just couldn't work on a TV show and would have trouble taking place in the movies. You might be able to do it on TV, but it would take a whole 26 episode season just to tell one story, and not every episode would be as good as all the others. Lots of setup in a Dresden Files novel, lots of characters to meet and for you to get and understanding of before Jim Butcher flips that understanding on its head.

However there are things I miss about the show that aren't in the novel, or only sort of there. One of the big characters from the show was called Bob, he is a the ghost a powerful warlock who has been dead for 10,000 year who was cursed to be linked for eternity to his skull and serve whoever possesses it. In the TV series he is cool and witty and Harry's closest friend, teacher, confidant, and sometime conscience. In the book he is just an air elemental bound to a skull that Harry keeps in his lab in the basement of the building he lives in who is basically a talking almanac of sorcerous knowledge, and not even kind of a main stream character in the series, at least not yet. Also there are little differences to Harry's background, his training, and details to some of the characters that are different then the show. Just little things that bug me, as my first experience with the Dresden Files was the show and not the books and I have already formed images in my head about several of the main characters, and many of those details aren't the same between book and TV show. But what can you do?

Long story short, read the books and check out the TV series. You just might thank me for it. Also if any of you have any experience with the Dresden Files, the books or the series I'd love to hear your thoughts, so don't be afraid to share.

Small Update

2011-06-30T11:23:00.000-04:00

Hey guys quick up date, the Terminators are about done.

More pics as I have them.

Updates

2011-06-29T13:07:00.003-04:00

Hey guys Huron here. I figure it is about time for an update. I am currently taking part in hobby challenges on 2 separate forums which has me busy busy. Thankfully I have been able to merge the 2 challenges and work on one army. I am taking part in a Grey Knight monthly challenge on The Painted Dragon and the 10 month New Army Hobby Challenge on the Independent Characters Podcast Forum. For both I am building and painting a Grey Knight army as an Ordo Xenos Death Watch army.

On the Painted Dragon me and 3 other members have agreed to assemble and paint a unit and all paint them in the same month. It is good way to spend a bit more time on a unit and focus on one unit at a time. Last month was a squad of 5 Terminators and this month is a 5 man Strike Squad. Last month I didn't get my Terminators done so I have been working on both the Terminator and Strike Squad. Well I'm less then 2 days from July 1st and I'm rounding in on finishing both squads. Here is where I am.
Strike Squad:

Terminators:

So the strike squad is pretty much right there still. Tonight I will be jumping in and see how far I can go with them. The only thing I have done with them is start the chest eagles and wash the silver arms with Black Wash. The terminators are much farther along. The faces are just about done, they have eyes painted in details have been highlight, the small shields have had the white Inquisitorial I added to them, etc. Pretty much all I have to do is finish the purity seals, gems/lens, and the glow on the swords. Then I have to do the bases which I have primed. I am using Dragon Forge Design's Concrete Rubble bases.

Now, too add to the madness of getting these two units painted, I committed to building a large portion of the infantry for this army for the Independent Characters New Army Hobby Challenge. So the reason I am so far behind on getting these guys finished is I built 36 kit bashed space marines this month. I built a Crowe proxy model (which might get redone next month), 25 Purifiers, and a 10 man Strike Squad (of which the 5 Strike models for this month come from). Here are some pics:

Crowe:

Strike Squad:

Purifiers:

Okay guys, so I will let you know how the painting goes and as the project advances I will post more pics. Next month has me diving into a pretty aggressive Dread Knight Conversion which I need to paint too. I also need to continue the building madness with a 10 man Interceptor squads and I have to finish painting the other 5 guys in the strike squad. Besides 40K, I have also painted 600pts of LW Germans for Flames of War, around 1250pts of MW Africa core German army and some new Outcast Malifaux stuff I've had sitting around that I need to post up here. More pics to come.

He he he...

2011-06-03T07:00:00.001-04:00

God to I love being in on the ground floor when something that is going to change everything shows up. Seeing XMEN: First Class tonight at 12:01am on a whim was probably the best idea I have had in a while:

Wow, just wow. I was blown away. Iron Man (which I loved), Batman Begins (which could be my favorite comic movie of all time), eat your heart out. XMEN:First Class sets the new standard for comic movies. Sure as no comic movie is perfect exactly there were flaws. Young Mystique was hit or miss and I think the flying Troll (Banshee) was definitely a big miss. But for the most part they got it right. Remember that first time you saw X2 and wolverine actually stabs the guys invading the house, hacking and slashing his way through them. Yeah the whole movie was full of moments like that. Another thing, the movie was chalk full of cameos, some expected some out of left field. And what a villain does Kevin Bacon make.

If you were planning to see this movie great, enjoy! If you were on the fence about seeing this movie... go see it. If you weren't going to go see it but now plan too, awesome! If you weren't planning to see it and still aren't... What is wrong with you?

2011-05-08T11:55:00.002-04:00

Hey guys how is it going? Been a while I know. I have been working on this as I can but haven't really finished anything recently so haven't had all that much to share. Also work has been hectic of late and the rest of my time has been going towards other things. However I been playing some Malifaux and 40K lately, and finally found my camera's battery charger, so I may have some new battle reports heading your way soon.

However today I would like to thank Black Matt from Black Matt's Black Legion Blog. He nominated me for the, STYLISH BLOGGER AWARD! Thanks Matt, I was starting to wonder if I was starting to feel left out seeing these all over the place recently.

Here are the rules:
-- Thank and link back to the person giving you the award (see above)
-- Share seven things about yourself
-- Select 10-15 blogs who you think deserve this award
-- Contact these bloggers and let them know about the award

Ok, seven things
1) I am 6 feet, 8 and 15/16th inches tall but tell everyone I am 6 feet, 9 inches tall because it is easier and a rounder number.

2) My life long dream is to make movies that are seen in theatres around the world. I want to produce, write, design, direct, and edit them. I want to tell stories that move others. Movies that play with the imagination and touch the heart, movies with message and character and that people remember. I am starting to think this will never happen.

3) My first miniatures wargame was 40k. I started collecting 40k back in 1989 but didn't actually start playing 40k until 1994.

4) I am a very stubborn person, stubborn to a fault you might say; it is a trait I get from my father. Sometimes I will stubbornly hold on to something I have said and hold my ground even when I know I am in the wrong.

5) I am a procrastinator. I almost always wait to the last moment to get anything done and rush to finish never quite doing my best work. I think there are two reasons I do this. First, I crave pressure and only feel I do my best work when pressure is high. Second, the thrill of the adrenaline rush and the fact I do not know how to succeed and feel good about it any other way.

6) I am a realist who desperately wants to be a dreamer. Sometimes I intentionally make the wrong choice because it helps me chase a dream that I know in my heart of hearts will never come true. Why I do this I do not know. Only that I would rather have lived a life full of bad choices while chasing a dream that I never reached instead of never having dreamed at all.

7) In general I see my life as a bunch of failures, missed opportunities, and missteps. However if I were not the failure I am today none of the things that are important to me would be in my life. How is that for karma.

Wow, I went a bit more serious there then some, though I am one of those people who if I am in for an inch I'm in for a mile.

Okay, so the blogs I am nominating are blogs that inspire me regularly. I have broken them down into two groups, one for those bloggers I know personally and one for those I'd like to meet some day. Then I have included an honorable mention list who are all guys whose blogs inspire me greatly, but who have already been awarded this honor.

Those I know:
Truddenia
Warpstone Pile
4-Ones
The Dead Tau Project
Mongoose Blog
White Rabbit's Legendary Blog
Aaron Dembski-Bowden
Khepri's Eternal Legion

Those I'd Like to Meet
The Painting Corps
Kantor Base

Runners Up (Past Winners)
Black Matt's Black Legion Blog - Duh!
Mik's Minis
Ten Inch Template
Corbania Prime
Dei Greci

Thanks again Matt for Nominating me. See you guys next time.

Nova-ing Marines!

2011-04-11T15:19:00.001-04:00

Hey guys Huron here, checking in. So it has been a while since my last post, sorry about that. Been busy with life, watching all the new anime on Netflix, and playing Rift. However just over a week ago I got a new compressor for my airbrush (I will be doing a post about both in the future) and have been airbrushing up a storm thanks to some tips I've gotten from a few friends, from grey_death over on The Painting Corps, and from watching videos put out by WGConsortium on youtube.

If you do not follow The Painting Corps... well why don't you? The Painting Corps has lots of tips and tricks for getting your stuff done and lots of beautiful looking models for you to drool over too. Also if you are interested in Airbrushing, definitely check out WGConsortiums Airbrushing for Beginners vids and all his Space Wolf painting vids, very informative on ways to add airbrushing to your hobby.

A whole new era of painting is coming your way from me, thanks to adding an airbrush to the tools at my disposal. New Howling Griffon Vehicles and Marines, progress on my Blood Angels, pics of my top secret Nova Open 40K tournament army (which I think I have finally settled on), and a Badab War boarding actions themed Nova Marine army the chapter badge of which is above (need to get some decals made).

Okay, so lets talk Nova Marines. This is the current project I am working hardest on (though I am also focusing on a BA Stormraven right now too). I just ordered the bases for the army from Dragon Forge Designs. They are the new Omega Prime space ship decking bases and should look nice on all my models. My chief opponent with this army is going to be "C" from Truddenia. He has been posting pics of his Executioners for a while now. If you haven't checked out his blog yet you should, as in addition to Executioners models, "C" posts great Black Library novel reviews and lots of pics of all his other projects and armies.

Additionally Big Bad Garou from 4-Ones has decided to join us and is currently working on a Carcadons army for general play that minus vehicles he can use as a boarding action force. I am also hoping to invite grey_death from The Painting Corps and Ryan from On the Painting Table to join us too as I have been trying to get some games in with both these guys for a while (though they do live in Maryland so... though so does "C") and both of them have beautifully painted Badab War armies. Ryan has Red Scorpions and grey_death has Sons of Medusa. If either of you two read this post please add a comment and let me know if you would be interested in playing some games. For Badab War boarding action games, we are shooting for 1500pt armies and of course the Special Characters and model rules from the FW books are all legal. The idea is to use the boarding action rules found in IA9 and 10. If you haven't had a chance to play them yet, they are a blast. If you want to play more or less points I'd be up for that too... but depending on size may need to switch to Howling Griffons or one of my other 40K armies.

Sorry no pics for now, soon though (I need to find that battery charger). See you next time and sorry that I sort of started rambling there at the end, I have a Migraine...

Not at Adepticon... So...

2011-04-01T13:13:00.000-04:00

Hey guys, whats up. So I didn't make it to Adepticon this year, which stinks. However that does mean I will the first to be able to post about some new things coming from Forge World. Lets start with the pic below:

What do you get when you mix a wraithlord with a soulstone from a Warlock? The new Eldar Wraithseer. One of the coolest models to come out of FW recently (and there have been lots of cool ones, like the Phantom Titan).

Next up is the conversion kit for the new Eldar Troop choice, the Eldar Cosair.

While I am not a fan of the wings... the heads, arms, the replacement for the Shurken Catapult, and the back packs the wings are attacked to are all pretty cool. If I get these which is possible, I'd probably go a different way and remove the wings, replacing them with small anti-grav engines of some kind.

Last we have the first of what I am guessing is going to be a line of expansions to the GW Realm of Battle boards. This 2X2 foot board runs in at 60 pounds (around 100 dollars US) and looks pretty cool. However since I don't have a Realm of Battle game board, I probably won't get one.

Well that is it for today folks. I'd like the say I will be back soon and hopefully I will... unless Rift eats away more of my soul and free time.

Oh and here are some links to more pics of the above and a new Red Scorpions Decal sheet.

http://www.forgeworld.co.uk/Events/Corsairs.html

http://www.forgeworld.co.uk/Events/Decals.html

http://www.forgeworld.co.uk/Events/Strongpoint.html

http://www.forgeworld.co.uk/Events/Wraithseer.html

Old Stuff Day - How Many Points is too Many Points?

2011-03-02T11:09:00.001-05:00

Hey guys, thanks for checking in on this day of days... Old Stuff Day! So all sorts of bloggers across the community are getting together today to share some of their old and not as loved posts today. I thought I would share post 30 of Blood & Blades, from way back in September 2009. The post is called "How Many Points is too Many Points?" and feature's my friend Chris and I throwing down in an epic scale game of planet strike. As you go through is some of the shots there will be little pin pricks of blue on the green table... those of full 10 man squads of Marines, that is the scale we are playing at.

What the article is really about though is planning your games, and figuring out what you can reasonably play in the time you have. So I hope you enjoy my contribution to Old Stuff Day, next time back to another review of 15mm plastic tanks and soldiers.

Hey guys, welcome to post 30 of Blood and Blades. Today I am going to share with you photos of a mega battle I played in yesterday and talk about was the title suggests, when should you say stop and quit adding more and more points to one of your games. First off lets start with a pic of the insanity.

This photo was taken just after I had finished deployment at the bottom of turn 2. As you can see the board is littered with all sort of models and combats and firefights are raging everywhere. This brings me to part one of figuring out how many points to play. In my experience, a person can handle roughly 3 to 4,000pts of models effectively and still play in a reasonable amount of time. To be honest, neither of us know exactly how many points were on each side, but Chris was using 3 Battle Companies and 2 Reserve Companies (1 Tactical one Assault) plus a good number of supporting vehicles and Dreadnoughts. I was using components of my Blood Angels, Bloodwing, Howling Griffons, Renegade IG, Chaos Space Marines, Chaos Daemons, and Ork armies. By our estimates is that the game was close to a 30K vs 25K plus planet strike defenses. Pretty cool is you ask me.

To get back on topic, this is a pic of what the table looked like after Chris finished his deployment on turn 1, which took more then 2 hours I might add. The important thing to note here is how much time do you have to play the game. When Chris and I were setting up we thought we had all the time in the world, and took it very easy and talked and did not really focus on deploying. This made turn 1 take 4 hours to play. Chris finished deploying at 4pm and turn 1 was over at 8pm. Obviously we let the shear scale of the game get away from us and did not budget our time well.

Now if that is what you want, to just throw all your models on the board and see what there is to see, cool, do it. That is what this game very quickly became as we realized we were not going to get to finish the game as midnight got closer and closer and Chris's wife began to text more and more frequently. So lets go over what you should plan for.

Plan ahead, figure out how much time to want to spend playing and pick a point size based on that. A 2K game should take about 2 hours, with each additional 1000pts adding on in my estimate an additional 1 hour of play time. So a 3K game should last 3 hours, a 5K game 5 hours, etc. Also note that the you can divide the game size by the number of players and apply my 1K to 1 hour formula. Just for every 4-5 players and 4-5K of stuff add +1 hour. So 5 players per side playing 20K should take (20/5=4) 4 hours +1 hour for the number of players and +1 hour for the size of the game which is roughly a 6 hour game.
Budget your time, keeping an eye on the clock and setting time limits for turns or phases of turns can get games moving faster. In big Apocalypse games, with many many players per side I suggest 30 minute turns. This forces players to do what is important and not let the game get bogged down by finishing every little thing. Often times in mega games, the important thing to do is the stuff that will have battle sweeping effects and leave those 200 lasguns firing at 5 tactical marines alone.
Stick to your plan, every plan is going to change once things get going, but expect that. That said, you should still try to stay on plan as much as possible, if you just throw it out then you are guaranteed not to finish your game.
Play for Fun, not to win. Often times players do not understand what these big games are about. They will take the nastiest, meanest, craziest army the can come up with and end up not having fun because the are worried about winning the whole time. Big games are meant to be a fun time where you and your opponent can pull out your armies and show off those models you do not get to use that often in regular games. For example Chris had 28 tactical squads in our games, 28. 3, 4 yeah that is all you usually see in a normal game of 40K, but 28 on the table all at once, and an additional 12 or so assault squads is a sight to see. Remember, you and your opponent want to have fun, use some stuff you haven't used, and just fill up the table with stuff. If you keep that in mind you will have a great game.
Rules are not as important in big games as they are in smaller ones. Do not nitpick as much as you would in a normal game. Cool things can and will happen in big games, let them even if to do so isn't quite in the rules, the game will be more memorable that way.

Well that is it for this post, please enjoy the following pics and please go here for even more photos of the game:

The Guild Got Gutted (or GGG)

2011-02-28T13:17:00.002-05:00

Hey guys, Huron here again with a post event report. So this weekend saw me and 7 others of my regular crew from Huzzah Hobbies, my local LGS head a hour north to play in a 35ss Malifaux Tournament in Waynesboro, PA.

There were 8 of us and 4 of them. I chose to play Guild and use the Henchman Lucius as my master. My Crew consisted of :

Lucius (Henchman)
Drill Sergeant Totem (3ss)
2 Guild Guard Captains (7ss each, Rare 2)
3 Guild Guard (4ss each)
Ryle (8ss)

Some of you may notice that my full crew comes out to 37ss in a 35ss tournament. Well one of the nice things that separates Henchman from Masters is that the Henchman's starting Cache of stones is added to the starting soul stone pool which you take them as a Master, allowing you to actually spend more ss then the game would normally allow.

The general tactic of this crew is the advance towards the enemy, stop 8-10 inches away from them, and start blasting the enemy at ranged with all sorts of bonus flipped attack and damage ranged attack flips. Then when the enemy gets tired of getting shot up and engages you beat them down with Crit Striking melee love. Fun. Or at least that is what it looks like on paper. In actuality you either do lots of damage to your enemy killing them outright or not enough (usually not enough) and are forced to engage them on their terms which is all bad.

Game 1
My first game put me up against a Kurai Ressurrectionist list. Now Kurai and her whole crew are spirits for the most part, or can take on the ability of spirits. Spirits can move through terrain, don't block line of sight, and halve all non-magical damage they take. Since my crew tends to either to really high damage or 1 or 2 points of damage at a time, that pretty much nullifies my low damage and severely reduces my high damage. Add in a LOS blocking terrain piece in the middle of the table which Kurai never moved out from behind, and Jack Daw running around on the table and that was it for me. LOSS 3vp - 0vp

Game 2
My second game was against a Pandora Neverborn Player who had also taken Jack Daw. In an average game I would have had a decent shot against her, but we played on a board that had a special effect of every model only has a LOS of 3" unless it had the Hunter special rule, then that models LOS was 6". Long story short, no shooting for the Guild, which crippled me; Jack Daw moved over to my objective and put up an aura every turn then stopped me from cheating fate or using soul stones within 6" of him... and Since my LOS was 3", yeah... you get the picture; and Ryle got nerfed by Pandora so I ended up running Lucius into combat to see what he could do, getting him killed, and then forfeiting the game. LOSS 8vp - 0vp

Game 3
My third game was against a happy go lucky guy playing Rasputina the ice witch Arcanist Master. Our game was pretty fun, us going back and for joking, make noise as our models moved and did actions and having a fun game. Then last turn was called. I was sitting at 6vp and he had 4. I finished activating my last model with him having 2 more to go. He looked at me and said "What do I need to do to win and have you get Zero?" We looked at it and then he proceed to do what he need to have me get another zero.
LOSS 4vp - 0vp

So at the end of the day I ended up with zero total points, coming in dead last of 12 players. Thankfully the guys I went with ended up taking 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place and everyone else placed in the upper end of the spectrum.

Additionally, before the tournament started me and 3 other of the guys I went with placed a side bet which had the loser, me, buying the first round after the tournament. The tournament was set so that you could not use the same schemes in any of your games. So the bet was to come out at the end of the event with the most schemes completed, but you had to choose and lock in your schemes that you were going to use each game before the first game began. Bill managed to get 6 of his over the 3 games, with John and Chris both getting more then half of theirs. (nice job guys)

What does this mean for me... Do I work on my game, buy more models, paint more stuff, and go for not having to buy the beer next time? Or do I call it quits, hang up the Hat, and ebay my crews and move onto greener pastures (They don't exist!). Well for now at least, I have already paid money to play in 2 tournament for Malifaux, one at Adepticon (Sunday 35ss Scrap) in April and one at the Nova Open (Friday 30ss Scrap) in August so I will at least be continuing my growing love/hate relationship with Malifaux until then. Will I continue after that? Only time will tell.

Thanks for letting me ramble, see you next time.

Plastic Soldiers

2011-02-22T06:00:00.017-05:00

Hey guys, Huron here again with an update. Yeah I know, I have been gone a while, I have no good excuse. I have been busy though, but I have not finish that much. Instead I have been doing my usual thing of starting and getting involved with lots of projects. I will be sharing some of them over the course of this week. Also what do you think of my new avatar? It will be showing up all over my profiles across the web this week.

So today I am going to share something not that new for me, but oh so new for the 15mm gaming experience... Plastic Models!

Two companies out there have made great strides in bring plastic models to the 15mm hobby. Zvezda Models and The Plastic Soldier Company are both leading the pack, and luckily for me are both starting with Russians, my chosen army for Flames of War.

Today I am going to talk about the Plastic Soldier Company's models, as my Zvezda tanks have not arrived yet (Wednesday hopefully!). So far there are 2 plastic kits out in the 1/100 or 15mm scale made by Plastic Soldier, a Russian Infantry in Summer Uniforms box and a T34 box. The beginning of next month sees German models starting to be released with more options for Russians and Brits stuff coming this Spring and US kits out by the end of the Summer. An exciting time.

So lets start with the T34 Tank Sprue.

As you can see, it has all the parts for one tank with both a T34/76 and a T34/85 turret allowing you to swap and mix and match as need, which is very nice. And now some detail close ups.

Great sprue, lots of detail, and a good amount of stowage too. The Stowage should allow me to add some to the Zvezda tanks I will be getting soon, which are all identical. So next up I have some pics comparing a built Plastic Soldier T34 to a T34 from Battlefront (Flames of War). The only draw back to the plastic T34s is that they are a bit smaller, but I am working on a base that should add some height to these minis making them fit very nicely with the other Battlefront vehicles I have.

Pretty cool looking, but definitely smaller then the Battlefront one, about 1mm in every dimension. I have lots of ideas about how to use these, they are cheap enough so that if I mod a few of them and mess them up it won't matter that much. One of my first attempts is going to be mod up some SU-85s. Lastly, the plastic tanks allow you to add some cool details that the Battlefront ones won't allow. In this case I have glued a magnet inside the body of the tank so that I can magnetize some Tankodesniki on the back, as so.

So that is it, a great kit with lots of flexibility and potential that is also fairly cost effective. Stay tuned as later this week I will be talking about the Russian Infantry plastics. Here is a sneak peak.

Also to come painted version of these tanks as I am about half way done with my first 10. See you next time.

Streets paved in hope, Terror at every turn, Malifaux!

2011-01-14T06:00:00.007-05:00

Hey guys, Huron here, back in action for my fourth post this week. While I am sure I will not be able to keep up this pace, you can at least count on more regular post from me again. Today's post finds me jumping back into the exciting world of Malifaux. Last October I stopped playing Malifaux as I had found that I was beginning to feel overwhelmed by several factors.

First, book 2 had just been released and the new models were beginning to trickle out and rear their nasty heads on battlefields all across the world. These new models, I felt were much stronger then what I had in my existing collection and the new ways the crews (armies or factions in Malifaux) just played with a stronger and more complex amount of synergy. Only a few new crews had been releases, and none of the new models needed to put the book 1 crews on
an even footing had yet been released, or so that is how I felt. Additionally Malifaux is a game made by gamers, for gamers so while fun, it has lots of little rules inconsistencies that are debated over in the Malifaux rules forum regularly.

One nice thing about Wyrd Miniatures, the company that makes Malifaux is that they are not afraid to go in and fix problems with the rules and change things for the better. This is however a double edged sword, as it means there is a large amount of Errata and Faq a player has to keep up with and rulings can sometimes be changed several times as new situations arise. Causing a player to need to keep up almost daily sometimes to know how to correctly play with some models. I just got overloaded and could not keep up anymore. Malifaux was taking up to much of my energy to play, I'd stopped having fun, so I just stopped playing the game for a while.

So what has changed? Well for starters their is a new mini rulebook on the horizon that promises to be a cheap way to get all the rules for the game in one place, with simplified and tweaked versions of the rules that will make needing to carry around a 19 page Errata and FAQ document no longer necessary. Secondly, Wyrd is releasing new v2 versions of some of the cards that were unclear or who have had significant changes made to how abilities on them work, for free through the mail or in PDF versions available to the public. And finally Bill, my co-host of Gamers Lounge, Wyrd Henchman (think Outrider, Commando, or Pressganger), and all around Malifaux-nut got me a new crew for Christmas from book 2 that I am just about done painting up.

My new crew is for the Guild Faction, the Law in Malifaux. Until recently I have been playing Resurrectionists, the Necromantic faction is Malifaux... though I also have a crew of Mercenaries as well. The crew I was given was Lucius's Crew. Lucius is the right hand man of the Governor of Malifaux, the leader of the Guild and somewhat Dictator of Malifaux. Lucius is the one that "gets things done" for the governor. He leads a crew of special forces operatives and Guild Guardsmen that is at the beck and call of the Governor. Game wise, Lucius is one of a new type of model introduced in Book 2 to Malifaux, a Henchman. Henchman are models with the use soul stone ability that can be purchased by masters to help support their crews or be taken as a sudo-master in their own right. So for 10 soul stones (yes that is a lot) Lucius and be taken as a minion in another masters crew or you can have him form a crew of his own and purchase minion models to work under him instead.

I have only played a few games with Lucius and his crew so far but I like what I see. The box came with Lucius, a Guild Guard Captain, a Guild Guard, the Lawyer, and Ryle. To this I have added 2 more Guild Guards and an Austringer. One of the nice things about this crew is how well it all works together. Once of the current tactics that is popular in Malifaux is called the Alpha Strike (big in 40K right now too). Alpha Striking is when through abilities of your crew you activate most or all of your models right at the beginning of your turn, overwhelming a few of your opponents models and severely injuring or killing them before they get to activate this turn.

The Guild Guard Models have several abilities that allow you to activated multiple models at once, usually only other guild guard but the Captain has companion Master that allows him to activate Lucius and the Austringer has an ability called deliver orders that allows him to have any model with in 24" activate next (assuming it has not already activated this turn) immediately after the Austringer finishes his activation. This allows me to activate pretty much my entire crew in a 35 Soul Stone game on my first activation if I wanted too. This tactic can be devastating when in range of the enemy.

While I am still new to the game again and remembering all the little details Malifaux is at least fun again, for now. I won't know if this going to be the case all the time, but for now I'm okay with that.

Hopefully I will be able to get my Guild Crew painted and finished soon, so I can starting working on other projects. Stay tuned for more new posts next week...

Jumping into a new game, the Russian way!

2011-01-13T06:00:00.011-05:00

Hey guys, Huron here, back again with a new game to share about, Flames of War. Late last year I embarked into the exciting world of Flames of War for the first time, playing in a Late War escalation league. I had looked at Flames of War a few times and even had been posed to buy in once or twice but had always decided to do other things instead. However the owner of the new LGS I have been playing at for the last 4-5 months, Huzzah Hobbies, plays FOW and he was determined to get a group playing at his shop. To be honest it took little effort on his part to get the group that had moved to playing there from the local GW store interested, as we were all burned out on GW and looking for something else to try. So off we went, building new 15mm armies and playing Late War games.

I am an idiot! I really am, for some reason I thought it was a good idea to buy some models first, before every playing a game, watching a game, or reading a rulebook. I looked at some of my friends models, looked on the web a bit at armies, knew that I wanted to play Russians as that is the army I had almost gotten into several times before, and that I wanted to play Cossack Cavalry. Hmmm, Cavalry in at WW2 tank and infantry game, sure why not, I said. But what I found was a debacle.

First off, the Cossack Cav, while still made by battlefront (FOW) was a special order item only. That meant I had to order some to see what they looked like up close and that they were probably going to be a bit more expensive. Second there are lots of companies out there that make WW2 15mm (1/100 Scale) miniatures but I had to have the official stuff (coming from a GW/PP mentality which thankfully I have grown out of now). Third, there was not an official Late War Cossack Cav list in any of the current Late War books. There were some Mid War lists with cav but no one was playing Mid War at the time so Late War was my only option. However one of the guys at the shop managed to find a Late War PDF list on the FOW website so I was in business. I ordered enough Cavalry to get started and expand up to 1000pt games, or so I thought, purchasing 5 platoons worth and also picked up some Anti-Aircraft Trucks and some infantry to rep my Cav if they wanted to dismount.

After a bit of waiting the models showed up and I got to assembling them. Having never assembled FOW stands before I assumed the Cav went on the same way as the infantry, facing the wide edge of the base (WRONG!!). About 2 weeks into playing games (I had the little rulebook which I had skimmed, but still had not bought the big rulebook and read the rules) I learned that my horses were on their bases wrong so I had to pop them off and face them the right way. Sigh, at least I had not painted them up yet.

Something interesting to note about Flames of War, it is a fun game but is in no way intuitive. Especially if you have played lots of other miniatures games before learning the rules. Examples. Models in terrain can see out 6". Reading that I though okay, models can see through 6" or less of terrain, so you can be 6" or less in terrain and see out to shot at model in the open across the board, like in 40K or Warmachine (3" for PP Games). NO! this is not what this means. Model in Terrain like forests or Crop fields have their range reduced to 6" unless on the edge of the terrain. In addition models wanting to shoot at them must be within 6" of them as well. So you have to be pretty darn close to shoot models in concealing terrain.

Another lesson learned is that when models charge the enemy in assault, the enemy gets to shoot them as they charge in, and shoot them a lot. If 5 hits are scored (10 for Russians) the charge fails and the unit becomes what is called pinned and must take a motivational test to act normal at the beginning of their next turn. What does this mean for Cav. Well cav is more expensive then infantry, is on bases that are twice as large as regular infantry, and have much smaller unit sizes then most other units (at least in the Russian army). I quickly found that Cav charging large groups of infantry head on was just dumb and meant disaster for me. As this was what I planned to do when I bought the army, I had to rethink things.

Another draw back I quickly discovered was that Cavalry could not assault tanks, or rather they could but were unable, by the rules, to hurt them in anyway. This meant as points increased my Cavalry army was becoming less and less effective as players started taking more tank formations in their armies. But Cavalry does has some advantages. One is that no matter what type of terrain they are in, they always move 10 inches and can never bog down or be slowed down like Tanks, Trucks, and Infantry. Secondly a small unit of 1 platoon (Russians Armies field multiple companies of models formed of several Platoons; everyone else fields Armies or multiple platoons formed of several squads) with command can move rapidly, hide fairly well, and threaten enemy objectives/contest your objectives very cheaply forcing your opponent to usually commit significantly more expensive resources into cornering and killing them, freeing the rest of your army up to do other things.

Long story short, I did pretty poor in the campaign but learned a lot about Flames of War during my first escalation league. I learned what type of unit to use, whether Tank, Infantry, or Cavalry in various situations. How Infantry is good at digging in and holding an objective while tanks and vehicles go capture enemy objectives. How it can be good to have small fast moving units that can get to an area quickly, dismount or disembark, dig in, and hold an area till the rest of your army can get there, and how some of the Russian special rules work and interact with the army in different situations.

My painted army as it stands now, about 1200pts. I have a good deal more but paint progress is coming slow. I am waiting for some models to come in the mail. I still need to number these and do a bit more weathering with some powders, want to add some more models before I get into that though.

Now I am on to a 1500pt Late War Eastern Front Campaign pitting me and 2 other Russian Teammates vs 3 German players for some linked, story driven fun. I am playing a Tankovy Company this time around, with a mix of T34s, T34/85s, ISU-122s, and some other supporting elements. There have been pics throughout this post of my army as it exists now. I will be posting more models in the future and some battle reports as I continue to expand my collection and begin expanding into Early and Mid War armies too. Stay tuned.

Back in Black!

2011-01-12T06:00:00.001-05:00

Hey guys Huron here again, just an announcement today. I am have gone back to the Black and have become an official Privateer Press Ganger again. The first event I am going to be running will be at Huzzah Hobbies in Ashburn, VA on Sunday January 23rd. Keep reading for all the details.

Huzzah Hobbies presents:

25PT GUTS & GEARS

WARMACHINE & HORDES TOURNAMENT

Details:

When: 1pm, Sunday, January 23, 2011
Cost: $5.00
Points: 25pts using Guts & Gears rules found below
Maximum Players: 8
Where:

Huzzah Hobbies
44927 George Washington Blvd
Suite 135
Ashburn, VA 20147
www.huzzahhobbies.com

How do I sign up? Call 703-466-0460 and ask to have your name added to the list.

What is Guts & Gears?
Guts & Gears is a 25pt Tournament format for Warmachine and Hordes. Armies are comprised of 1 Warcaster (Warmachine) or 1 Warlock (Hordes) and any number of additional Warjacks (Warmachine) or Warbeasts (Hordes) following normal Field Allowance (FA) limits from a chosen faction. In addition each player is allowed to take either: A) One Unit available to their chosen faction; B) One Solo available to their chosen faction.

Players may not take Mercenary or Minion models unless they are using either a Mercenary or Minion Warcaster or Warlock to lead their army. Players who have chosen to include a unit may include any applicable Unit or Weapon attachments allowed.

If you have any questions please contact me by PM or at: jpowell37@gmail.com

Thanks for reading. I'll be back tomorrow with another new post, this time about the game that has me quaking in the trenches and wanting more... Flames of War!

Returning to a Warhammer Fantasy.

2011-01-11T06:00:00.001-05:00

None of the models are complete in any of the photos, all are WIP

Hey guys, Huron back again. Well today I want to talk about Warhammer Fantasy Battles. I recently returned to playing the game with the help of an escalation league being run in my local LGS Huzzah Hobbies. We started a couple of weeks ago at 500pts, then every two weeks the points are increased by 250pts capping out at 2,500pts. In addition players do not have to follow the standard army restrictions of 1 character and 3 non-character units until 1000pts and for the first 6 2 week tiers we will be progressing through the six new WFB missions in order with games after that being rolled for randomly.

I have chosen to play my Warriors of Chaos army and flesh out the infantry portion of the army and add in some new cavalry elements that I have had but that still need to be painted over time. Last week was the second week of 1000pts games and we played the third mission, Battle for the Pass. In this mission players play length wise and long table edges count as impassible terrain. Fleeing unit can still leave by the long edges but pursuing units and reinforcements may not enter or leave the table along them.

Sounded like a fun mission to me and for the most part is was, but more on how I did later.

My list at 1000pts looked like this:

Chaos Sorcerer Level 1 - Mark of Nurgle - 105pts
(15) Chaos Warriors - Mark of Khorne, Shields, Full Command - 300pts
(15) Chaos Warriors - Shields, Halberds, Full Command - 285pts
(5) Chaos Knights - Full Command - 250pts
(12) Marauders - Great Weapons - 60pts

I did okay with this list, going 1-1 in my games over the last two weeks. My first game was against a Skaven army that consisted of 3 characters, two units (one with a warpfire thrower team) and a Hellpit Abomination. This was not a list I was expecting. A Level 3 Grey Seer, a Lv2 Warplock Engineer, and Battle Standard Bearer. Add to that a unit of 45-50 Slaves and a 20+ unit of clan rats and a Hellpit Abomination and it was going to be a rough game. My one level 1 couldn't keep up in the magic area, though I did end up putting 2 of the 3 wounds to kill the grey seer on him with Magnificent Bubbos, the level 1 nurgle spell that ignores armor saves and does an auto wound vs whatever model I choose if they are within 24" and I get the spell off.

As far as where I am going with this list, I am not sure. For 1250pts starting this week I am adding in a Battle Standard Bearer of my own, changing the Chaos Knights unit into a Unit of Dragon Ogres with Great Weapons and adding some more Marauders. We will see how the additions and changes work out.

Well that is it for now, stay tune for more WFB Escalation progress and more updates on other games.

Well it is a start...

2010-12-15T17:34:00.004-05:00

Hey guys, Huron here again, man has it been a while. I have to admit that taking it easy has some advantages (though once you see my list of what I have been up to, you will question if I have been taking it easy), no deadlines, no models I have to have painted, no worries about not having X hobby thing painted, etc.

I has allowed me to find the time to play more and different games, which has lead me to rediscover board games and non-collectible card games and things of that nature. With December coming to a close however, I think it is about time to get back on the horse, set some goals, come up with a plan, and get to work. For one, there is a new 40K tournament season starting just around the corner. I said last year that my Griffons were under powered in the current meta in my area by the end of last season so I was going to do a new army for this season.

Additionally, I have put back on the black in the last few weeks and stepped up at my local LGS Huzzah Hobbies as a Pressganger again. That means catching up on what I have missed over the last 2 years and probably painting up some new demo sets and a new 35-50pt army to use.

Bah, there is to much to write down in paragraph form, so in comes a good old list.

What I have been up/Going to be up to in early 2011.

Started Flames of War - Late War Russians
Started Uncharted Seas - Shroud Mages
Started Dystopian Wars - Japanese
Started playing/Purchased Dominion (Deck Building Card Game)
Started playing/Purchased Resident Evil's new Deck Building Card Game
Purchased Invasion from Outer Space Board Game (From Flying From Productions)
Started playing/Purchased Wings of War base game and 2 planes
Dabbling with getting back into Monpoc
Reactivated myself as a Pressganger for Privateer Press and started organizing a new League and Tournament for Warmachine/Hordes
Stopped playing Malifaux, we will see if I get back in, in Jan 2011.
I am in week 3 of a Warhammer Fantasy Escalation League that will be running through February
Played some Apoc recently, has me thinking about getting my Blood Angels finished so I have a new army to play with short term
In the conceptual and testing build phase for a Steam-Punk Ork 40k army I am thinking about build to use at the Nova Open next August. Was 100% sold on the idea until I figured out what it would cost to create 3 Ork Battlewagon Steam Trains, now rethinking possibly or doing some revising.
Scatter Brained and starting new projects or wanting to finish old projects or something else every other day it seems.

Well that is my list of what I have been up to. I have articles coming in the near future, probably after I get my work area cleared up and find my camera again. But never fear I shall return, looking for me in 2011 if not before.

2010-11-09T12:01:00.002-05:00

Hey guys, Huron here again. Sorry I haven't been around that much. Between work, club gaming stuff, tournaments, trips, etc and now being sick I have not had the time to really do that much hobby. I have some projects waiting in the wings that as soon as I get back to them I'll have lots to talk about them. Flames of War, Malifaux, Fire Storm Armada, and Uncharted Seas are the games I have been playing lately.

Add in 40K Killzone and a bit of Exillis and that rounds out what I have been up to. Expect updates on all of it soon, just as soon as I get rid of this cold.

Back and planning another!

2010-10-25T11:27:00.004-04:00

Hey guys, Huron here, back from Warstore Weekend. I had a good time and will have all the coverage for you tomorrow but today I wanted to talk about another Con close to my heart, Adepticon! Registration has opened and if you are planning to go in 2011 I will be seeing you there. I still have to figure out how I am getting there (though I will likely drive) I will be headed out Thursday and will be headed home the Monday after. Here is what my weekend looks like.

Thursday:

Traveling to the show. Then once I get there meeting up with the TEW (the Eternal Warrior, previously DLT) guys, the Independent Characters guys, and who ever else wants to go and get Adeptiparty-con 2 started off right.

Friday:

9:30 - 11:30: Hobby Seminar - Airbrushing for Figurines with Mathieu Fontaine - I am really looking forward to this seminar and using my airbrush for more then just base coats is definitely something I need to learn to do and do more to help speed up - improve my painting.

12:00 - 5:00: Warhammer 40K: Killzone - Never heard of Killzone? Where have you been hiding? Under a rock? Killzone is a fan made skirmish expansion to Warhammer 40,000 first created by Big Jim from Galaxy in Flames, and then developed and worked on by the Killzone committee and is currently in Beta Testing. I am looking forward to this event and have been helping to test the Killzone rules recently in anticipation.

Saturday:

Nada! That is right, currently I have no plans for Saturday. I may join in on something eventually, but I wanted to leave Saturday open as I know Bill and I will be Podcasting at some point, and there will be lots of other things to do a the con besides playing in registered games. For example a certain some one owes me a challenge game with her Chaos Marines... She knows who she is! ;) And the one thing I didn't do last year was play that many pickup games against people I didn't know. That is something I want to rectify this year if possible.

Sunday:

8:00 - 4:00: 35ss Malifaux Tournament - Malifaux is really my favorite game at present and I am excited to play in this event. I know that Bill will be playing to, will you?

9:00 - ?: After Con Poker Tournament and Mixer - Last year I had fun at this event and was knocked out early and went to bed, I won't make that mistake again. Bill stayed down stairs and played into the wee hours of the morning talking and having fun. I will definitely be down for some fun games to unwind and have fun after adepticon this year. I will also probably bring some board games with me for those of us that get knocked out early and want to hang out still. Settlers of Catan, Dominion, Hex-Hex, and Bang seem like the right sort of games for this.

Well that is my schedule, what is yours. I'd love to know what events people are playing in and who will be in the same events as me (so that trash talking may commence). Also if you have ideas of what I should do with my Saturday Morning/ Early Afternoon let me know.

See you next time.

Another Weekend of Gaming Excitement!

2010-10-22T14:36:00.003-04:00

Hey guys, Huron here. Sorry I do not have anymore coverage for you from BfS. I still have 2 games to go but my monitor at home has died. Well actually I can still turn it on, but everything is very smurfy and blue and not much else. So I will need to pickup a new monitor before I get back to posting my games from BfS.

So now to the meat of things, the Warstore Weekend. Myself and 2 other of my good friends will be getting in my car very early, O-Dark thirty actually, and heading up to the con tomorrow morning and spend the rest of the weekend up at the con. I am looking forward to seeing many of the people I saw recently at BfS and reconnecting with a few people I know who will be there that I have not seen since the last time I was at Gencon back in 2008.

I currently have no definitely plans for what I will be doing, but never fear, a good ole' coverage will be made next week.

So enjoy your weekend and if your are going to be up at Warstore Weekend look for me, I will be the tallest guy in the room, wearing black gamer shirts, talking to my camera. ;)

BfS Day 2, Game 4

2010-10-20T08:05:00.007-04:00

Hey guys, Huron here, back with another Battle report from BfS. Sorry I know I told some people that I would have this out on Monday but I have been having some computer trouble again recently. Sigh, if it is not one thing it is another.

So in this game I get to play against Dan (Nyhil) and his beautiful Vraks Traitor Guard army. Check out the couple of pics that I got of the army.

A really beautiful and inspiring army. I spent more then one of Dan's turns completely distracted staring at his army. Well without further ado, on to the battle report.

Wow that was a fun game. If you want to find out more about Dan's armies, you can check out his blog @ http://teninchtemplate.blogspot.com.

Well that is it for now. Next up, Day 3 and my new Nemesis returns. Then on to a rematch from my 2009 trip up to NY. See you guys next time.

BfS Day 2 - Game 3

2010-10-15T12:47:00.003-04:00

Hey guys, Huron back again with another battle report from my games a the Battle For Salvation tournament held up in White Plains, NY this past weekend. This battle report covers game 3 for me on Saturday, and features my new nemesis, Neil from the 11th company. NN (nemesis Neil) and I played twice over the course the weekend, once on Saturday and once on Sunday. NN was running a very tough Ghazghkull Ork force comprising several squads of Boyz, Mega Armored Nobz, Lootaz, Ghazghkull and a KFF Big Mech, and no less then 4 Battle Wagons. Ouch!

In this game I continued with my tactic of setting up a fire base and putting down a punishing amount of fire power while out flanking with just 2 minimum squads of marines in rhinos. However I deviated a bit and put the Libby and Terminator squad in reserve ready to deep strike in and strike at any damaged battle wagons from the side. I chose 2 of the 4 battle wagons, the 2 mega nob squads, and Ghazghkull as my KPs. He choose the speeders, Razorbacks, and my terminators as his.

The game was hard fought and came down to 2 turns of Ghazghkull, the Big Mech, and a the 3 surviving Mega Nobs in the squad with them running from Khan as Khan and his squad butchered its way through Ork boyz to go after Ghazzy. Finally Khan and his squad caught up to Ghazzy, killed all but one of the Nobz (having slaughter the other squad 2 turns earlier), and doing 2 wounds to Ghazzy. Ghazzy responded by punching Khan 3 times to which Khan failed 2 of his invuls and died. A good close game with a dramatic finish, 5 KPs to 3.

Here is the Video:

Check back on Monday when I cover my game with Dan Oppedisano, the winner of the best painted army at the BfS and a really great guy. The fluff and detail he put into his army really shows. Check out his new blog, http://teninchtemplate.blogspot.com for more details about his army if you can't wait till Monday for all my coverage.

Thank you for reading.

BfS Day 2 - Games 1 and 2

2010-10-14T15:30:00.003-04:00

Hey guys, Huron here. Today I have another battle report for you from my games 1 and 2 of the Battle For Salvation tournament held on the weekend of October 8-10, 2010. I had fun. My first opponent, John, played a Shrike Space Marine list with 2 Assault Squads, Normal Terminators, a Vindicator, and then a few Assault Squads... oh and a squad of sniper scouts. We played a close fought game till the last few rounds when some bad dice on his part rolls turned the game in my favor and I had a solid win, taking VPs, 3 of 4 table quarters, and all 5 KPs.

This ran me into Jeff, a BA player with a tank heavy Alpha Strike list. He won the right to go first and picked a quarter that except for a bit of difficult terrain, but me in a wide open deployment area (we were playing spearhead). Long story short, he zipped up and unloaded, killing, stunning, or shaking everything I had on the table pretty much, leaving me unable to strike back until the end of turn 2. At that point I didn't really have much left and my dice rolls were so bad that nothing was hitting anyways, it was a miracle he didn't destroy me complete and table me. At the end of the game I had a few Marines, Khan, and 2 rhino left hiding in a corner contesting an objective. I had a good game with Jeff and finally got to see what Alpha strike BA can do.

Here is the video:

Ouch, brutal second game. Well that left me squarely 1-1, which set me up for my best game of the day, vs Neil from the 11th company. More on that next time though.

Thank you for reading.

Battle for Salvation - Friday vs Jawaballs

2010-10-13T12:23:00.003-04:00

Hey guys, Huron here. So today I start my coverage of my trip to the 2010 Battle For Salvation tournament held up in White Plains, NY this past weekend. I had a blast. The tournament was using a modified Nova Open Format that adds in Kill Points as a fourth possible win condition (though there were still only Primary, Secondary, and Tertiary mission each round). I ended up going 2-2 and made it to the bronze bracket on the Sunday where I promptly lost to Neil from the 11th company, again...

This first video is of my pre-tournament Celebrity Grudge Match game vs Jawaballs on Friday night. I had fun playing Jawaballs, but in the end he beat me pretty soundly. I reserved everything which was a mistake that I make sometime when using Khan, and was actually the reason I dropped him from my list for the Open so I would not have the option. Losing this game actually helped me quite a bit as it got my head in the right place and me commited to a tactic I would use for the rest of the weekend of minimizing my out flankers to 2 half tactical squads in Rhinos and creating a solid fire base with the rest of the army so that all the unit were better able to support each other and not be overwhelm individually.

More on my strategy in a future post, not on to the part you all want, the battle report. Make sure you watch to the end for some special bonus content with Fritz and Black Matt.

I hope you enjoyed the battle report and see you soon for coverage of my games 1 and 2 at the Battle For Salvation Tournament.

Prep Complete - Battle for Salvation

2010-10-06T16:33:00.004-04:00

Hey boys and girls, Huron back again. Well this weekend is the Battle for Salvation tournament up in White Plains, NY that myself and a few of my locals will be attending. I will be on hand playing a challenge match vs Jawaballs on Friday also, so check back next week for lots of coverage.

Here is the list I will be taking.

2000pts Howling Griffons BfS Tournament Army

HQ
160pts Kar'sarro Khan
140pts Librarian w/ Terminator Armor, Storm Shield; Might of Ancients, Nullzone

TROOPS
195pts (10) Tactical Marines w/ Power Fist, Flamer, Missile Launcher
035pts Dedicated Transport: Rhino

200pts (10) Tactical Marines w/ Powerfist, Meltagun, Multimelta
035pts Dedicated Transport: Rhino

105pts (5) Tactical Marines w/ Power Weapon
075pts Dedicated Transport: Razorback w/ Twin-Lascannon

115pts (5) Tactical Marines w/ Power Fist
075pts Dedicated Transport: Razorback w/ Twin-Lascannon

ELITES
200pts (5) Assault Terminators w/ Thunder Hammers and Storm Shields
275pts Dedicated Transport: Landraider w/ Multimelta, Extra Armor

105pts Dreadnought w/ Multimelta, Dreadnought CCW w/ Storm Bolter

105pts Dreadnought w/ Multimelta, Dreadnought CCW w/ Storm Bolter

FAST ATTACK
090pts Landspeeder w/ Heavy Flamer, Cyclone Missile Launcher

090pts Landspeeder w/ Heavy Flamer, Cyclone Missile Launcher

The army totals out at exactly 2k which is nice. This is going to be the last 40K tournament for this army this year. I am going to be retiring them after BfS and starting to work on something new for next year. I have been working on this army for just over a year now and I am happy with what it has achieve. As for my next army, I am not sure what I will pick just yet. Whether that will be my already 50% done BA Army, Orks, Exodites, or something else, who knows. But more as I make the decision.

See you guys on Sunday for the 101010 Killzone madness.

Can Jawaballs come out and play?

2010-09-23T06:31:00.001-04:00

Hey guys, Huron here with a little update. I will be attending the Battle for Salvation 2010 GT October 8th to the 10th in White Plains, NY. The BfS is a 2000pt tournament that is using a system similar to the Nova Open and you can find out all the difference on the most recent 11th Company Podcast where Bob (the tournament organizer), Neil (11th Company Host), and I break it all down for you.

So on Friday there is going to be a series of grudge matches between internet personalities and while don't think of myself as a super popular internet personality Bob has allowed me to throw down a challenge so here I go:

YOU ARE CHALLENGED!

I am going to make mince meat out of your silly Blood Angels!
You are going to need a new army when I am done destroying yours!

Yeah that's right!
I went there!

You heard it here first folks.

Nova Open Round 1

2010-09-09T07:27:00.003-04:00

Hey guys, sorry it has taken so long, but here is round 1 of my Nova Open coverage. I have been having some technical difficulties again, but I hope they are pasted.

Thanks for watching.

See you next time.

Malifaux, Eater of Souls... and free time.

2010-09-07T11:50:00.003-04:00

Malifaux has been around for a while, I have even mentioned it before. However I have never discussed just how hard it has grabbed and sucked me away from playing other games. Until recently, Warhammer 40,000 was my game of choices. I played 40k several times a week and paint 40k minis and dreamed about new 40K armies. While the dreaming is still there a bit, thanks to my over abundance of GW stuff everywhere in my apartment right now, since Huzzah Hobbies opened back on August 14th (Same day as the Nova Open) Malifaux has been taking up every scrap of my free time.

From assembling and painting models, to thinking about terrain I want to build to actually kicking in and starting to work on some Malifaux has pretty much sucked the life out of the rest of my hobbies. If you had talked to me back in July or early August I would have told you that I'd planned to have my new Lizardman army painted and be hip deep in Warhammer Fantasy right now. I'd be facing all the denizens of the Old World learning to use by cold blooded army. Not so. While I have played some fantasy a few weeks ago, I have gotten n0 painting done on them and have no plans to pick them back up anytime soon.

In contrast, the fall 40K Tournamant scene is ramping up with 4 Tournaments in October - November that I have my eye on. The first is the Battle for Salvation GT in White Plains, NY. I already have my ticket for this bad boy and will be scheduling hotel accommodations when I get paid at the end of this week. I will need an 1850pt army painted and to be ready to go for another Nova Open style tournament in about a month from now. My Griffons while ready really aren't up to snuff in that format and all my other possible armies to chose from all need a lot of work and testing. What does that mean, I will probably take some form of Griffons army, but will probably have to do a good amount of overhauling and painting of new units before the event. But with Malifaux eating up my time, I am going to have to find some balance to get some work done on them.

The other three tournaments are the 40K tournament at the Warstore Weekend which I have agree to go to with some friends of mine (but I have not purchased tickets or made hotel arrangements for), Mechanicon, and the Da Boyz GT up in Rochester, NY. All three of these events will be lots of fun and I hope to make the majority of them, but it is going to take a lot of work to get everything together for them.

And we come back to Malifaux. I have one crew just about done. They are my Outcasts which consist of 10 models right now. Painted I have The Victorias, my duel masters and leaders of my crew and a totem for them, the student of conflict; Taelor, Lady Hammerstrike one of my Melee monsters; and Johan, the Renegade Steamfitter, he is fun to play as he is a jack of all trades. In process I have Bishop, a brawler which is my tank, though he is expensive; 3 Ronin, good jack of all trades models that give the crew some flexibility and the ability to bring back Victorias when they die; and the Convict Gunslinger, a hard hitting bad ass which is a good choice for any crew that could use an extra gun. In the the long run I'd like to add a few more models to this crew, but that is it for the time being.

This weekend I broke out my Resurrectionists and got a few games in with Nicodem, the master of resurrecting the undead. Nicodem is a beast when he has the card, bring all sorts of undead monsters into play using the corpse counters his crew find or create for him (from the bodies of their foes). So far in the 2 games I have played with him, Nicodem has either been card starved and unable to get that many undead out , or card saturated and bring out whatever I want whenever I want.

Waiting in the wings is McMourning, my other Resurrectionist Master which I am assembling now and soon Colette and her Arcanist Showgirls.

So much to do, some many games to play, models to paint, and trips to tournaments to take this fall. I guess it could be worse, I could have no one to play with and nothing to do but go to work each day. But man a guy can get overwhelmed. Thankfully I am not there... yet.

See you next time.

The Plan

2010-08-19T15:09:00.001-04:00

Hey guys, Huron rolling in for another post. Sorry, no video battle reports yet, I know I promised Tuesday but my evenings have been full of recovering from the Nova Open, Malifaux, and Warhammer Fantasy so I have not had time to get the editing I need to do done. That said check back tomorrow as I plan to get some serious editing done this evening.

So I have a plan. Is it a good plan? Is it a plan I will stick to? I am not sure of either but it is a plan none the less.

Finish painting Malifaux Outcasts and 2k of BAs I was working on last week. Build some terrain for Malifaux.
Really 1b, try out the marine list Stelek devised for me in 5-10 games to see how viable they are and how well I can adopt/figure out the suggested tactics. I need to build a Captain on Bike for the army as well.
Finish painting the 2.5k of Lizardmen I have floating around. Also begin building and prepping the models that I need to paint for final 2k Griffons list based on list Stelek proposed that I have now tested.
Paint up Griffons while playing some test games with Blood Angels.
Start working on Malifaux Resurrections/ Other Projects
Profit!

So that is my plan, well maybe not the profit part, but man I sure wish I could figure out how to add that one in for real.

Let me know what you think of my plan, and what the odds are I can stick to it. If the odds are interesting enough I might just put something down on them.

Nova Open is over.

2010-08-16T16:17:00.004-04:00

Hey guys, Huron here again. How is everyone. Well the Nova Open has come and gone, and it has left yours truly with some big dilemmas to figure out. For starters I spent a bunch of money upgrading my computer to better handle the requirements demanded of it to broadcast the Open live on Friday and Sunday. This improvements did not to help at all and we had to use Bill's machine for most of the heavy lifting.

Secondly I played in the tournament on Saturday and in a pickup game on Sunday vs Pat's (from the 11th company podcast) Chaos Daemon army. Man did I get spanked. I only won 1 game all weekend, and just barely at that. Never fear, though as I have video to edit into video battle reports to be posted. Expect the first batch to show up here tomorrow.

So with that said, I am left with a dilemma, as I said before. What should I do with the Griffons? They are my best painted army (waiting to see what kind of paint score I got) and probably the only one that will be of that quality when I move onto playing prep games for the Battle for Salvation Open coming in October which, I will be attending. I have my new BA army, which is in the mid level painting stages right now, still a long way to go with lots of play testing to do (still have not played a game with this army yet) before I come up with a final version of a list I could use. Alternatively I could reach into the depths of my gaming closet and pull out one of many projects hiding in there.

I have an idea... and the models for a hard hitting mech hybrid Chaos Marine army that combines aspects of how Mech Guard is played and the current Dread/Monsterous Creature method that is doing well right now. Alternately I could pull the Orks from the depths and give them a go again. Lots to paint in that army but I think it could be fun to play them. The Eldar Exodite (Jetbike Army) is still a work in progress idea so that is out. As is the Renegade IG as I am pretty poor right now and I would need to rebuy/rebuild up the the armored component of the army. Tau would be do able, but I am worried about the competitiveness of the army and the amount of time the learning curve would take to master.

So what does that leave me. BAs, Chaos Marines, Orks, and doing some sort of retool of the Griffons to make them more effective. Maybe revamp them a bit into a Space Wolf list. I really have to agree with Dash of Pepper's comment on Dakka Dakka in the Nova Open thread where he said Space Wolves are not necessarily the best army out there, but a decent player will have just as good a chance of doing well with them as a great player with another army. Since I am only I feel a decent player, maybe I should bight the bullet and revamp the Griffons into a Space Wolves army. I have the models sitting around I would need, or at least most of them and it would allow me to flex some of my conversion muscles that I haven't used in a while when making some Thunder Wolf Cav for the army (Already have a conversion in mind, more on it later if I decide to go this way).

What do you guys think? Get the BA's done and start playing them and hope I have time to tweak the list by October? Tweak the Griffons and go Space Wolf? Should I dust off Orks and give them another try? Or should I build the Chaos Marine army I have been thinking about and planning out recently?

What do you think I should do?

Nova Open!

2010-08-12T12:29:00.004-04:00

Hey guys Huron here, well this weekend is the Nova Open. My Howling Griffons and I will be there all weekend experiencing this tournament. Also, the Games Lounge will be broadcasting live Friday and Sunday on U-Stream so that all you unlucky people who don't live in the area or can't make it out can participate in the fun. Please keep reading for all the details.

Friday, August 13 at 8:00pm the NOVA Open live broadcast will open up to the internet and we hope to see you in the chat room! Preparations have been underway and we at the Gamers Lounge are excited to be hosting this broadcast from the Friday night gaming activities. We will be interviewing the players in the Whiskey Challenge, getting their insights, and tracking how their games go. Who are these players and what is the Whiskey Challenge you ask?

Andrew Sutton (Stelek, Yes the Truth Hurts) vs. Justin Hilderbrandt (Dash of Pepper, Dakka poster)
John Steele (St. John, Three Plus Save blog; YTTH co-author on occasion) vs. Jeremy Chamblee (Chumbalaya, Blackjack and Hookers blog)
Tim Williamson (The Tau of War blog) vs. Chris Dubuque (Jawaballs, The Blood Angels and Warhammer 40K by Jawaballs Blog)
Daniel Matulich (Danny Internets, Bald and Screaming blog) vs. Brad Townsend (Hulksmash, Dakka poster, Hulksmashstudios)

Then on Sunday, August 15 we will be broadcasting footage of the top table for the NOVA Open finals, the games that are determining who gets the "Vegas Golden Ticket"!

For those who can not participate in person this year, join us in the chatroom and take part in these parts of the events.

http://www.ustream.tv/channel/nova-open-live

Well that is it for now. Check back next week for full coverage of the event including pictures and video and my tails and triumph and woe. Oh, and if you are going to be at the Open please come say hello and introduce yourselves. On Friday and Sunday I will be at the Holiday wearing a Gamers Lounge Shirt and on Saturday I will be wearing an Adepticon Shirt and a Black Privateer Press Ganger over shirt ( ;) ). Oh and I will very likely be the tallest guy in the room.

See you guys later.

#100 OH YEAH! + U-Streaming

2010-08-05T17:55:00.002-04:00

Hey guys Huron here with my 100th Post! Feels... good. Anyways enough of that. I just wanted to remind everyone I will be live on U-Stream tonight from 7 until 9. You can join me by clicking on the $100 dollar bill.

IMPORTANT! The weather out my way is pretty poor right now, a good ole several hour thunder storm. WE could use the rain but it is going to make my commute home difficult. I may be a few minutes late getting online, but never fear I will be U-Streaming tonight. Just wanted to warn you.

Painting with HuronBH @ 7 - U-Stream

2010-08-04T13:11:00.004-04:00

Hey guys Huron here with an announcement. Tomorrow night, 8/5/10 at 7pm Eastern Standard Time, I will be making my U-Stream Debut. I will be broadcasting a tutorial on how I paint my Blood Angels, from Primer to Completion.

The show should run roughly 2 hours and I will cover and demonstrate several painting techniques including Over Brushing, Dry Brushing, Highlighting, and the use of Washes to create nicely painted High Table Top quality miniatures relatively quickly.

This is the first of a new series of regular U-Stream shows I will be starting in October that will cover a variety of topics from painting, to conversion, to terrain building, and gaming.

Also this is a dry run for the U-Stream system that we will be using at the Nova Open on Friday Night/ Sunday Afternoon.

You can join in by clicking HERE!

I hope to see you tomorrow night.

Howling Griffons part 2

2010-07-27T02:50:00.007-04:00

Hey guys, Huron back again. Today I have the second part of a look at my painted Howling Griffons army. To the left you will see a pic of my Landraider, the Big Yellow Bus of Doom, or at least that is what my opponents have named it. This baby delivers blasts of twin-linked Heavy Bolter and Lascannon fire and searing blasts of Multi-Melta fire.

Besides that it also delivers a deadly payload of Assault Terminators and my Librarian. Please enjoy the pics below and let me know what you think.

Landraider Interior

Squad 3

Terminators

Bonus Material - WIP Sternguard

Let me know what you think.

See you next time, Malifaux is a-comin'...

Dipping into the video archive

2010-07-21T13:07:00.004-04:00

Hey guys Huron back again with another trip into the Archive. This time I am going way back... way back... way back... okay not that far back... to Adepticon 2010.

Skrivus, of DLT fame and I through down in a podcast challenge game which unit now has been lost to antiquity. I am happy to dust this game off and share it with all of you for the first time.

Skrivus, is playing his beautifully painted Ultramarines vs my defenders of justice, the Howling Griffons. I always suspected that the Ultramarine were heretics at heart, this game proves it I think.

So sit back and enjoy this battle report from the Archive.

Another loss for the defenders of Justice. But I will have my revenge... oh shall I.

See you guys next time.

Return of the Video Battle Report

2010-07-18T23:06:00.006-04:00

Hey guys, Huron here, how is it going? Well I have a special treat for you today, the return of my Video Battle Reports. It is all thanks to the program pictured on the left, Pinnacle Studio 14 HD.

You may remember that I got a new computer back in May after both of my old machines did in Feb. Well my new machine is 64 bit and runs window 7 and I have been unable to find a free video editing program that would both work on the 64 bit machine and work with the Mpeg 4 videos my camera records. So this weekend I broke down an purchased Pinnacle Studio 14 HD.

I have to admit that I am still learning the ins and outs of the new software, so this video is a bit rough. I promise the quality will improve as time goes on.

So the video I have for you today features Mike Johnson, one of my regular opponents from my previous video series. Mike and I are throwing down in a knock'em, sock'em, 2500pt game for the top spot of the challenge pyramid and if Mike wins, Mike's 4th defense and his becoming the first Pyramid champion. Mike and I fought this game back in May and luckily I still had the footage to share with you. Enjoy.

Well that is it for today, I hope you enjoyed the battle report. I am going to try to dig up some other old footage I have kicking around from battles past (Maybe even some Adepticon footage if I can find the source). See you guys again soon.

A Look at the Griffons

2010-07-17T22:09:00.007-04:00

Well I guess the word is out, while I am not 100% finished with my whole Howling Griffons collection. My 2,000pt army is finished. Here is a sneak peak.

The army has actually been finish for a while. Here is the first batch of close ups.

Squad 1 & Transport

Squad 1's Transport

Interior Detail, all the Rhinos are painted with similar detail.

Squad 4 with Razorback, Khan usually rides with them.

Squad 4's Ride

Librarian with Terminator Armor and Storm Shield. The model next to him is a wound counter.

Well that is it for this time around. I will share the rest of the army as the week progresses.

Over worked.

2010-07-16T15:12:00.003-04:00

Hey guys, Huron here, how is everyone doing? I know it has been a while but work has been pooring it on and I have been lost in the piles or that is how it all feels. However there is hope, I see a light at the end of the tunnel and finally feel like I am moving forward.

Next week I will be back in full swing, with some pics of the first concepts of the bases I am giving away as well as picks of the first completed models from the new Lizardman Warhammer Fantasy army.

Until then.

And we have a winner!

2010-07-04T05:24:00.002-04:00

Hey guy, Huron here. My first give away has come to a close. Custom bases of the players choices will soon be winging their way to the winner along with the molds so they can make lots more. So enough of the banter and on to the winner. The random winner for this contest is:

BrotherYorei

Congratulations BrotherYorei! Please send an email to jay@gamerslounge.coda.net and we will discuss what kind of bases you want to have made.

Thank you everyone that participated in the contest. I will be doing another when I reach 150 followers.

Thank you for reading.

The Prize is Decided!

2010-06-28T22:33:00.003-04:00

And we have a prize. I asked and you responded, custom bases and mold. So what do you need to do now? Well here are the details.

1. Be a follower of my blog, don't worry you don't have to be an existing follower, just click follow on the right -->

2. Respond to this post with a comment saying you want the bases and what your favorite post of the pass is.

And that is it. On Saturday July 3rd at midnight I will roll randomly and pick a winner to be announce here on the blog on July 5th.

Good luck to all.

100 Followers, Time for a give away!

2010-06-21T13:03:00.003-04:00

Hey guys, how is it going? So 100 followers, wow I feel special. To honor this moment I am going to have a give away. However what do you, the fans, think I should give away? Here are your Choices.

1) 40K Ork Stuff
2) Custom bases and mold
3) Fantasy unit box
4) Something else (make suggestion in comments field)

For number 1) 40K Ork Stuff, I find myself with a variety of unbuilt, new in box 40K Ork stuff. I have 2 Killer Kans (Metal), a box of Nobz, and a box of grots that I can give away.

For number 2) Custom Bases and mold, if you have been following my blog for a while you will know that I enjoy making custom bases for my models. I will sculpt a set of either 40k or Fantasy bases for the winner (40k (5) 25mm, (3) 40mm, (1) 60mm, and (3) 25x50mm Bike bases if you want them; Fantasy (5) 20mm, (5) 25mm, (3) 40mm, (1) 50mm) and ship them to the winner with a few sets of bases plus the molds so the winner can make more of them themselves.

For 3) Fantasty Unit Box I will purchase and send to the winner a Fantasy unit box of their choice. Or number 4) Something else, if none of the above appeal to you please select number 4 and leave me a comment with ideas for some you'd like to see given away. This could be anything from a painted model to plaid socks, so give me some ideas.

You will find a poll on the right where you can vote for your choice. I look forward to seeing what people want.

As to how the give away will work, more on that next time.

It is over! Wait... no... what?

2010-06-15T08:30:00.003-04:00

Hey guys, how was your weekend. Well as I mentioned in my last post I moved this past weekend, it took 3 days, lots of friend and family support but I got it done... or did I. I still have two big display cases sitting in pieces downstairs in my car, the glass taunting me. I have a really bad back and so I can only move things a bit at a time and after emptying the contents of a Strawberry/Banana slushie into my driver seat yesterday I decided I didn't want to risk anything, so left the cases in my car. It will probably take 2 or 3 day for me to get all the parts up here, but oh well.

On other news, the podcast I am a cohost of, Gamers Lounge put out episode 9 on Monday. You can find us on iTunes, at Podcast Alley, or directly on the web by following the link above. Check us out and let me know what you think.

Well have a good day everyone, back to your regular scheduled gaming post tomorrow.

Moving is a hard thing to do...

2010-06-08T16:59:00.011-04:00

Hey guys, Huron back again in Digital Land. How has everyone been? I know it has been a while since I posted last but things have been really busy here. Between projects ending and new projects starting at work, then the old projects cropping back up with a vengeance; podcasting on Gamers Lounge (we are up to episode 8 with episode 9 recording on Sunday); and me moving on this coming Saturday I have had zero time to post anything new.

That said, I have been steadily working on getting my Blood Angels painted up. I was supposed to have 1000pts done on May 30th for the Pathfinder 1000, but do to me having to redo the interior of one of the rhinos and deciding I didn't like how the red was looking on the regular Blood Angel models I scraped a lot of what I had done and started over a few days before the deadline, which really put a hamper on me finishing on time. Below you will find very WIP images of what I am working on for the BA's, let me know what you think.

BA Tactical Squad, Part 1

Death Company, Progress

3 Rhino, 1 Death Company, 2 regular. All with magnetized top hatches

Painted interiors of the 2 regular rhinos, DC rhino interior in prior post.

Fully magnetized Baal Predator, door magnetized to add or remove sponsons, weapons option magnetized too (See second pic)

3 Sanquinary Priest, 1 with jump pack, 2 on foot with power weapons.

And finally a converted Librarian using only plastic parts from a number of kits. Yes the top of the axe is the axe head of the Space Hulk Librarian model. Notice the regular back back and wings combo, it is cool that you don't just have to use the jump pack in order to get the wings to work.

So that is it for now. With me moving this weekend and my internet not being installed until Monday the 14th, I suspect it will be at least till then before I post again.

Look out next week for more BA pics, a look at my new place, and plans for my new gaming table.

See you guys later...

New Blood

2010-05-19T12:55:00.006-04:00

Hey guys, Huron here with a quick update. Above are some work in progress pics of the first half of a BA tactical squad I am current working on for the Pathfinder 1000. I have decide that I will be playing 3rd company Blood Angels, so that means White blood drops on the Right shoulder pad (painted but not visible here). I have also decided to make this Squad 3 or 3rd Company, so yellow right knee pads with a red blood drop (base yellow coat seen here).

More to come as I have it.

-jay

Brets for a good cause

2010-05-18T09:51:00.003-04:00

Hey guys, Huron back again. Today I have a few things to show you. First off to the left & below are pics of a Bretonnian general I painted for a friend who won my painting services in an auction to benefit breast cancer. This auction happened down at Game Vault in Fredricksburg, VA last month and went along with a tournament to for the benefit as well. They raise several thousand dollars and had a good time or so I am told as unfortunately I was unable to attend.

So this piece is for Bill, who actually is the individual whose dedication to raising money to fight breast cancer is impressive and he is the inspiration for many in the area to sponsor gaming tournaments and events those ultimate goal is to raise money for Charity.

I have run several charity based tournaments over the years and there are plenty of opportunities out there for other people to get involve and raise money through gaming in their community. It is as simple as doing a search on the internet or looking for donation boxes in your area to find out what charities are active in your area. Then call the charity and find out what they need, whether donations of food, clothes, money, or other needs. Then organize a tournament around those requirements and off you go. You may be surprised how rewarding it can be and how many people will come out to support you. Charity tournaments always bring a wide variety of people out, usually even those that don't normally participate in tournaments.

Back on track

2010-05-14T16:42:00.002-04:00

Okay guys, just a quicky, the site is back on track... well I guess it is good enough for now. Needs some tweaking and a new banner, but I can do that later.

Technical Difficulties

2010-05-14T15:19:00.003-04:00

Hey guys, sorry but I am experiencing some technical difficulties. I was poking around Flickr and accidentally deleted some of the background elements for my blog. Since both of my computers died recently, I have no way of fixing things. Time for a new layout... sigh. The current one was feeling a bit old anyways.

De be Vampires!

2010-05-14T02:57:00.006-04:00

Hey guys, Huron here, how is everything going? Well I thought it was about time to share some of the work I have been doing on my new Blood Angels. Currently I am working on the above WIP Death Company, the Interior of the first Rhino (below), and the first Tactical Squad. I have also been concentrating on Magnetizing everything I can so my Baal has lots of magnets that allow me to switch up parts as I want. The turret and side doors are fully magnetized as will the sponsons when I get around to them.

As you can see from the pic of the Death Company I am doing things a bit differently, namely using the Sanguinary Guard Death Mask heads and some of the Power Weapons/ wrist bolt pistols from the same kit. There are also 2 guys carrying bolters. In the long run I think I am going to split that squad in two, creating a squad of all bolter/pfist wielding DC, and a squad using mostly SG weapon components.

I have 4 more foot DC that need paint and 6 jump pack DC to jump around with Astroth when I eventually get him finished (his axe handle broke in several places and was not easy to pin. I need to do some GS work before finishing painting the model). In contrast the Rhinos interior is coming along nicely, I just need to paint up the bolter and do a bit more highlighting and it will be complete and ready for my to start work on the exterior. My Pathfinder 1000 list has two rhinos in it, a regular one and a Death Company one. I need to get cracking on the other one soon.

And finally we come to an idea I have been struggling with, how to base the BAs. I am a really big fan of the Dragon Forge designs Resin bases but find myself kind of poor right now as I am moving to Ashburn, VA in about a month and I need to save up for the move. That said I have plenty of GS and spare bases laying around so I decided to try to sculpt some of my own, to the right is my first attempt, what do you think? The 4 on the left are just primed while the one on the far right is paint in a concept scheme, what do you guys think? Will the all stone bases work or do you think they need something more? If so what?

Well that is it for now, next time I will try to have a new Battle Report for you, but I need to find a free Video editing program that does Mpg 4 for my 64 bit Windows 7 machine. Once I do that I will have ample video as I already have the source for the first 3 battle reports recorded.

Well until next time...

Iron Man 2, no spoilers

2010-05-07T10:28:00.005-04:00

What can I say, I am a bit of a power armor fanboy so it should be no surprise that I am an Iron Man fan. I collected the comics when I was a kid and I pick up Iron Man graphic novels when ever I come across them now. So no surprise, I love the movies and seeing Don Scheadle taking on the role of Brody and ending up as the bad ass Warmachine as seen to my left, you can only imagine my delight.

Last night I descended on my local movie theater at the 12:01am time slot and watched the second part of what I am sure could only end as a three part trilogy, and probably before we ever get to Avengers. So approaching this movie as part 2 of a 3 part story I can honestly say it was a good movie, much better at least then Matrix: Reloaded or part 2 movies of its like (no one has been able to match Back to the Future 2, and I hope they never do).

It featured all the same bits as Iron Man did, but with a twist as all sequels do, falling a bit into how can we make the first movie again... but different trap. As most sequels go they update existing characters, add new ones, and make the whole thing more flashy. The new characters include Mick Rourke as Whiplash (the new villian), Scarlett Johansson as the undercover shield agent Black Widow?, and Sam Rockwell as Justin Hammer. Rourke does an okay job of filling the shoes to power armored enemy that Jeff Bridges's Obadiah Stane was in the first Iron Man. Scarlett Johansson did what Scarlett Johansson does, dominated every scene she is in and make you forget that there are other actors on the screen, except when facing down Gwyneth Paltrow who out shines her surprisingly in every scene the pair appear in over the course of the movie.

Sam Rockwell does a good job of portraying Justin Hammer, a conceited and jealous rival to Stark's success, who I am sure will be back in Iron Man 3. The real breakouts for me in this movie though were Paltrow's portrayal of Pepper Potts, who moves from a spunky supporting star to full on main stream character in Iron Man 2; and Don Scheadle's Brody, who acted merely as comical relief in the first movie, but ends up as main stream bad ass as Warmachine, the yang to Iron Man's yin, though they completely kill Warmachine's original origins which disappoints me a small amount.

Finally Sam Jackson returns as Nick Fury (still do not like him in this role) and the Avenger plot thickens. He plays his bad ass (read I am Sam Jackson playing Sam Jackson that he always plays) self. Look for nods to many of the Avenger characters through out the movie, they are there to see. Last but not least, remember, stay til after the end credits, just stay till the lights come up, stay...

Good movie, suffered from the middle movie syndrome some, but still a fun film and one I would recommend to the Marvel fanboy and action fan alike.

NEW, New, new!

2010-05-05T11:43:00.006-04:00

Hey guys Huron back again. Today I am going to be talking about all sorts of new things. For starters Episode 6 of Gamers Lounge has hit the shelves and is ready for download on the Gamers Lounge Blog, itunes, or over on Podcast Alley. If any of you figure out how to use Podcast Alley please tell me, that site confuses the heck out of me! Additionally Check out the new Gamers Lounge Logo on the left designed by Trevor (Thanks man!). This Logo is just the first of many updates to the Blog and Podcast we are going to be making as we begin final tweaks to the branding and add some new fun things like Gamers Lounge T-shirts and more. Lots of fun stuff planned there.

Yup, if you guessed I was going to be talking about Death Company you guessed right (Pic taken from Deviant Art - by Cabal_Art without permission). My Blood Angels got underway this week as I started paint Astorath, 5 Death Company, and 2 rhinos including one for the death company. Besides Astorath, the other stuff is all in my Pathfinder 1000 paint contest list that I need to get finished before 5/30. The full list is below.

PATHFINDER 1000 - 1K Blood Angel Army

- Librarian
- Chaplain
- (5) Assault Marines + Rhino
- (5) Death Company + Rhino
- (10) Tactical Marines
- Baal Predator
- Baal Predator

In addition to that to fill out my 1500pt list I added:

- (10) Assault Squad
- (4) Additional Death Company
- Sanguinary Priests
- Death Company Dreadnought + DP

And finally we get to one of my new favorite loves... well actual a new version of an old love... Halo Reach. On Monday the Beta test went live for all those luck souls (like me) that have an X-Box 360 and Halo: ODST (I am so glad I bought it!). I finally got the 1.15g file downloaded this morning and jumped into the game around 7AM. At 9:30AM when I stopped to head to work I have played around 15 games and already reached the first two achievements and gained ranked status (Reach will have month long seasons where players compete for rankings by gaining points as they play games, we are in the preseason now).

Needless to say my time for at least this week is going to be eaten up by Reach gaming, but not before I play Mike Johnson @ 2,500pts tonight to decide whether or not he can defend his position 1 more time and become the first top ranked player to have 4 defenses on top of the Pyramid. It should be an exciting game and I will be recording a Battle Report for all to enjoy and will have it posted this weekend.

Well folks, that is it for now, have a good rest of the week!

They like me, they really like me!

2010-04-22T17:06:00.004-04:00

Hey guys, how is it going, it has been a while. Well between crazy work hours, still no computer at home, and just some good old fashion gamer burnout (though I played several games anyways) I am finally back from a 2 week hiatus of posting, did you miss me?

So lets talk news! First up is that Gamers Lounge released episode 5 this past weekend. Bill and I spent a good amount of time talking about everything going on with us, whether or not there should be any comp questions associated with a players sports score, and in blog talk we discuss a new trend in blogging, guest authors. Also we announce our first contest! Please follow the link above and check it out or if you would prefer we are on itunes for your downloading pleasure.

Secondly, GW announced this week that 8th Edition Warhammer Fantasy Battles is coming this summer. I must admit I am much more excited about this release then I thought I would be. As some of you know, especially those that have been following my blog since the beginning or just gone back and read the early stuff, I have a Warriors of Chaos army that I want to play but I just do not like how the current game plays. I really enjoyed playing WFB in the past, namely during 6th ed and really hope that 8th will fix some of balance issues between the rules and the army books. Currently I think the rules are probably just fine but the army books are either too powerful or have to many of their own special rules that don't play well with the 7th ed rules. This makes me worry however that 8th ed will fix the current imbalances of the army books but change to much of the current solid 7th ed rules and require a 9th Ed 4 or 5 years down the road. Either way, I am excited to start playing with some square bases again (at least till I get fustrated and stop again). I've dusted off my unpainted minis and have begun figuring out how I want to paint them up.

In more news, I have jumped head first into my cohost Bill's Pathfinder 1000 painting contest. The Pathfinder 1000 in a 1K painting contest were competitiors have 8 weeks to paint their designated 1K of models base on a predefined set of criteria. I choose to do my new BAs for this contest and have gotten started on some Death Company and the interior of 2 Rhinos. Hopefully I will get this computer issue figured out soon and will be able to post some pics for all you lovely people to look at. My list to paint looks something like this:

Librarian
Chaplain
5 DC in Rhino
5 Assault Marines in Rhino
10 Tactical Marines
2 Baal Predators

Every models is a mix of bitz from the DC, Sang P, and pre existing marine boxes; even the Librarian and Chaplain and are 100% Plastic except for a few metal BA Blood drop shoulder pads. Pics as I have them.

Well I suppose that is it for now, see you all next time...

Gamers Lounge Episode 4 & the BA Bug

2010-04-06T10:36:00.004-04:00

Hey guys, Huron here, back in action. Well after a special Gamers Lounge Adepticon interview episode which was released last week, Gamers Lounge has returned this week with Episode 4. In this episode Mike Brandt, the host of the Nova Open, Virginia's only GT Qualifier tournament happening in August joins us to talk about his experiences at Adepticon and to share with us some of his exciting plans for the Nova Open. You guys definitely want to check out this episode.

In other news, I have caught the BA bug. That's right, I have done what I said I wouldn't do and started a Blood Angels army. Currently it is pretty small though I am sure it will expand quickly. I will be returning to my painting roots for this one and will be painting the whole army using mostly P3 instead of the GW paints I have been using on the Griffons. I will still probably end up using the GW Metallics and Washes but the rest of the minis will be painting using only P3. I hope to rediscover my style and get back to my two brush blending roots with this army. We will see how it goes.

However fear not, the Howling Griffons will not be forgotten. They are currently my primary 40K army and will stay that way for the immediate future. I also have plans for adding a few things to the army before I call it complete. So as soon as I get a computer back up and running expect some photos and videos about the Griffons to pop up. I want to expand the army by completing a few Apoc formation starting with a Line Breaker Squadron.

See you guys next time.

Back from Chicago!

2010-03-30T13:03:00.005-04:00

Hey guys, Huron here, back from Adepticon. Man did I have a blast. I played 4 good games of Warmachine on Friday, and a pickup game of 40K with Dave from Dice Like Thunder. I also got to meet Aaron Dempski-Bowden and hang with him and his fiance Katie for a significant part of the convention.

Saturday saw the GL, DLT, and the Warbanner crews decending on Lou Mitchell's Diner on the old route 66 in Chicago. The food was very good and I suggest dropping in and having a bite if you are every in the windy city. After that everyone headed back to Adepticon and got going with their different schedules.

Bill and I Podcasted with a variety of individuals for several hours Saturday afternoon and then I played two teaching games back to back of Fire Storm Armada and 40K with Phil of the Warbanner and Erin, Chris of DLT fame's girlfriend, respectively. From there we headed over to the DLT Saturday night Adepticon party at the Hooters across from the GW Chicago Bunker. I had a blast talking 40K, meeting new people, and sharing stories form the con so far.

Sunday saw me sleeping a bit late, taking a painting class and getting some of my models critiqued by Chris Borer, multi Golden Daemon winner and world class painter. He pointed out a lot of little things that I hadn't even thought about and shared some tips on how to better achieve some of the techniques I was applying. All and all I learned a lot and have a lot of new things to try and prefect.

Then I spent the rest of the day hang with the same crew from Saturday, playing another teaching gaming of 40K, did some talking with Aaron and Katie, and generally had a good time.

Adepticon was one of the most fun conventions I have attended, and I hardly played in any of the events. Next year I think I want to work towards getting an army together and actually signing up for the 40K championships on Sunday, but I am definitely going to leave time open for all the fun stuff that happens outside the scheduled events.

I hope that everyone that attended got home safely and has as good a time as I did. I will see you all next year!

Adepticon or Bust

2010-03-24T12:24:00.003-04:00

In a few less then 24 hour I will be hoping in a car and taking a ride that at the end will lead me to Adepticon. This is going to be my first Adepticon, however I am no stranger to multiple day convention. I have made the pilgrimage 3 times now to the holy mecca of gameness that is Gencon. If you have never been to Gencon then you are missing out. But enough distraction.

Adepticon, what I am told is a prince compared to Gencon as king, a 3 day event encompassing the pinnacle of GW gaming (though this year there is a whole lot more then just GW to do). My Griffons, are nearing the completion mark, the vehicles were clear coated this morning. All that is left is to do the final tweaks on 30 odd troops, weather them, and seal them as well (no small task) and I will be finished.

As all of us, the faithful few that will make the trek to this weekends battles and debauchery make your final preparations, let me say this.

"To each of you I wish a safe and speedious journey. With podcasts and music and good discussion to melt away the hours upon the blacktop. My Skorne stand ready to defend me on the fields come Friday. My Howling Griffons, commanders marshaling their troops and preparing for the battles to come. As ork Mechs fuel and load missiles and bombs upon my tiny AA Ork fighters and my chaos fleet musters for FSA proxy I do shout to the outer rafters..."

"WHO WANTS SOME!"

4 Days to Adepticon!

2010-03-22T11:49:00.006-04:00

Hey guys Huron here again, how is everyone doing? So day marks the release of Episode 3 of Gamers Lounge, the hobby podcast I am a co-host of. This time around we had a special guest joining us, Dan ie Max the Dog from Dice Like Thunder. He had a bit a of news to share with us, that thanks to our talk about blogs and Bills blog in particular, Dan has join us all in the world of blogging. Please go check out his blog, Max the Dog Media and sign up to follow him, I'm sure there will be great stuff coming from his blog for years to come.

S0 beside episode 3 being released, I have something big going on I have not been discussing with all of you, I am going to Adepticon which kicks opens its doors in just 4 days.

Man am I excited. I did not get to go to Gencon last year, and with the Nova Open and Games Day falling back to back in August already, there was no way I was going to be able to make it to Gencon again this year. So when Bill expressed an interest in going to Adepticon I jumped at the chance to to go along and get my fill of massive multi-day con for this year.

Here is a break down of where you will be able to find me:.

Thursday - On the road. Bill and I are taking the 10.5 hour drive and turning it into a 12 -13 hour drive so that we get stop and get some good food along the way. Thursday night we expect to get in and crash, however there is some talk of doing some drunken painting with the DLT and The Warbanner crew which could be tons of fun.

Friday - Friday sees me stepping up and pulling the Skorne from the case and throughing down at the 50pt caster kill Warmachine/Hordes tournament. This will be my first big tournament in Mark 2 and the first time I will have played using the recently released Final Skorne pdf, so it has me worried but it should be good time. If you find yourself in the Privateer Press Hall come look me up. I will be the tallest guy in the room wearing a Black Press Ganging shirt that is actually playing in the event. Also I should have on a Name Tag that will be hard to miss, with all the logos of things I am assoicated with on it.

Friday Night - I am not sure what Friday night has in store for me. I expect Alcohol and podcast crashing will fit in there somewhere.

Saturday Morning - Saturday morning Bill and I will be leading a sizable expedition of Podcasters and gamers to Lou Mitchells for Breakfast about 9:30 - 10. If you live in the Chicago area and want to come hang out, we'd love to have you.

Saturday Day/Evening - Saturday is my free day. It will be a day of pick up games, podcasting, and some 40K challenge matches. Come find me, I should be either in the minatures hall or down at the bunker getting my 40K, Malifaux, or FSA on (though I may be helping demo some Areonautica Imperialis as well). I will be wearing my Red IFL bowling Shirt and will probably have another custom name badge on.

Saturday Night - Around 10 DLT is having its yearly get together at Hooters from 10am to 1pm. 3 hours of wings, beer, and gaming talk while hooters girls walk around and bring us more drinks... sound like a good time to me!

Sunday Morning - I have a painting class from 10-12 about how to kicking my painting skills up to a compitition level.

Sunday Day - More free time for me. While I plan to spend sometime checking out the 40K championships, the Privateer Press Championships, and taking some photos and some video, if you want a game, I will be looking for one.

Sunday Evening - Poker. This year is the first post-Adepticon Poker tournament. I'm looking forward to getting my Texas-hold'em on Sunday night

Monday - Heading home. Bill and I will be driving back Monday, tried but happy hopefully!

Well that is it. If you are going to be at Adepticon, please come say hello, I am hard to miss. If you are not... Well why aren't you?

Until next time...

Using the Old to Inspire the New

2010-03-16T14:08:00.008-04:00

Hey guys, Huron here again. Sorry about yesterday. Things got a bit nasty and I didn't mean for it to get so out of hand. So as you all know (or if this is the first time reading my blog in a while or ever) I have been beating my head against a wall trying to figure out what to do when the new Blood Angels book comes out. I have talked about playing Jump Pack heavy, playing Death Company heavy, and have resisted the urge and criticized the fluffiness of going Predator heavy.

After all of this what do I know? I want to play a decent, mid level list with a good strong theme and which has some flexibility to include a variety of the things I really like from the new codex, and not necessarily all at once.

These include things like the new Sanguinary Priest elite characters, the new Death Company and Death Company Dreadnought, the Librarian Dreadnought, and the Sanguinary Guard. I also think a 5 man Assault squad in a razorback is about one of the coolest choices around.

What I don't want to do is play a lopsided gimmick list that has a variety of cool elements but only 25 models and no real interlacing theme, which is all to possible. Step in the Howling Griffons.

For the last 5 months now I have dedicated myself to finding a regular space marine army that works, is tactically flexible, and which is effective against a variety of armies. Khan and the boys have done well by me and it is only the changing environment and a sudden realization that if I played something other then Eldar, Tyranids, Imperial Guard, or a Space Marine chapter of some kind, that my list would not hold up like I wanted it too and so I grudgingly changed up the list. However perhaps I can take that Khan list (which you can find here) and tweak it for Blood Angels. Maybe it might work better and solve all these problems I have been bashing my head over.

First I needed to find a leader to replace Khan, one with some interesting nitch special rules and that both aided the army and helps to enrich the theme. All the Blood Angels special character are pretty expensive, but the regular non-special ones are just a bit too generic.

Sanguinor, Mephiston, and DC Tycho are right out. They are not independent characters and can not join and support my squads like I want my leader to be able to do. Dante and Astoroth are both cool, but over 200pts each and Dante's fluff has him leading a jump pack army and Astoroth a DC one and my army is probably not going to specialize in either of those so they are out too. That leaves just two characters, non-DC Tycho and Seth, Chapter Master of the Flesh Tearers. I decided pretty early on I didn't want to do a Flesh Tearers list, so that just left Tycho.

Tycho is a pretty cool character, but he has suffered in previous books from being very under powered. Not anymore. Now he has Rites of Battle, a masterly crafted Combi-Meltagun which can shoot different ammo types like the Sternguard, and a gauntlet that hits like a Monstrous Creature (at str 4), rolls 2D6 for Armor Penetration, and has digital lasers... oh and he has preferred enemy vs Orks. Cool. Lots of not that unbalanced special rules, some cool fluff, and a Leader for my army.

1850pts Blood Angels 3rd Company Army

HQ - Tycho
EL - Librarian Dreadnought
EL - (5) Assault Terminators w/ 4 Thunder Hammer/Storm Shield, 1 Tw-Lightning Claw
EL - Dedicated Transport: Landraider w/ Extra Armor, Multimelta
El - Sanguinary Priest w/ Terminator Armor, Power Weapon
TR - 10 Tactical Marines w/ Power Weapon, Flamer, Lascannon + Rhino
TR - 10 Tactical Marines w/ Power Weapon, Flamer, Lascannon + Rhino
TR - 5 Assault Marines w/ Power Fist & Inferno Pistol, Meltagun + Razorback w/ H-flamer
TR - 5 Assault Marines w/ Power Fist & Inferno Pistol, Meltagun + Razorback w/ H-flamer
FA - Landspeeder Typhoon w/ Cyclone Missile Launcher, H-flamer

Now you'll notice, no DC or DC Dread, both things I wanted to include. Well one thing I realized way back and I needed to remind myself of in this list is that marines play best when you take a static core of basic Marines, character, and support (in this case 2 Tactical, 2 Assault Squads, Tycho, the Librarian Dreadnought, and the Typhoon) and then one or two big things and switch them in and out. That means I can take out the Sanguinary Priest, Terminators, and Landraider and replace them with a Chaplain, 9 Death Company in a Rhino, and a Death Company Dreadnought in a Drop Pod (for around the same cost) and still have a good solid army that will play well. This chunk, about 580pts worth of the army, gives me some breathing room and flexible variety when playing with the army.

This, if nothing else gives me a starting point so I can tweak things from here.

Embracing the DC, Black is Back

2010-03-15T14:05:00.003-04:00

Hey guys, Huron here again. 2 posts in one day, crazy I know. Well I have been thinking over the Blood Angels and trying to decided what I want to use when the new book comes out. I am an old school BA fan and have run the army a few different times over the years and one of my favorite aspects has always been the Death Company. Add in some fantastic new plastic DC models and it is easy to want to use them.

So one of my favorite things in the new book is the DC Dreadnought. While it takes up a Troops choices and since it is a vehicle does not score, this monsters is just nasty. The DC read is a front armor 12, WS 5 Furioso that is immune to crew stunned and crew shaken rolls. Additionally you can upgrade the Blood Fist (Dreadnought Close Combat Weapons) with Blood Claws (extra cool Lightning Claws). Blood Claws are really nice as they allow you to attack again everytime you wound an enemy models, which with WS 5, Str 6 Lightning Claws is going to have very frequently.

So here is a Death Company themed 1850pts list. I included Astorath the Grim as he removes the 0-1 maximum from Death Company squads changes the Blood Frenzy rule effect BA squads on a 1-3 instead of just on a roll of a 1. I also got a Sanguinary Priest and a Dreadnought Librarian into the army which if you read my Blog last week you know I'm excited about.

Back in Black, 1850pt Blood Angels Themed Army

HQ - Astorath the Grim
HQ - (5) Honor Guard w/ Chapter Banner, Powerfist
EL - Librarian Dreadnought + Drop Pod
EL - Sanguinary Priest w/ Power Weapon
TR - (5) Death Company w/ Thunder Hammer, Power Weapon, Meltapistol + Drop Pod
TR - (5) Death Company w/ Thunder Hammer, Power Weapon, Meltapistol + Drop Pod
TR - DC Dreadnought w/ Heavy Flamer + Drop Pod
TR - DC Dreadnought w/ Heavy Flamer + Drop Pod
TR - (10) Tactical Squad w/ Powerfist, Flamer, Lascannon
TR - (10) Tactical Squad w/ Powerfist, Flamer, Lascannon

One of the first things to notice is no regular transports except 5 Drop Pods, so I am not taking advantage of the BA fast vehicles. I could replace the DCs Drop Pods with rhinos or razorbacks but would probably need to drop the Sang Priest to do so. Second, no FA Baal Preds or HS Predators or Vindicators. Most players are going to tell you, start with 5-6 Predators and go from there. While I agree this is a strong choice, how is it fluffy or thematic? What is you theme when you have 5-6 Predators in your army that are stripped down and maximized for being low point costs, expendable, and have maximum fire power? I can't figure it out, at least not a good strong theme that isn't so thin that it is trasparent, so I will be avoiding them till I come up with something.

Let me know what you think.

Danger, Will Robinson! Danger! Danger!

2010-03-15T11:13:00.002-04:00

Hey guys, Huron here again. So I have some good and some bad news.

Good news: My home computer is working again, allowing me to post and respond from home again.

Bad news: My home computer while working, is not working well. I have been having problem getting it to recognize the MPG 4 files my camera takes so I am not able to edit and compile them into videos to share, so still no SVDM footage or any other battle reports for now.

Sigh, I am really getting sick of this, and if I wasn't going to Adepticon in 2 weeks I probably would have gone out and gotten a cheap internet capable machine with enough ram to process some video too. I still may end up doing this in April.

Stay tuned this week however as I continue to talk about Blood Angels and my ideas on how to field them. Goatboy over at Bell of Lost Souls posted an interesting list along the lines of where I'd like to go in the long run. I suggest checking it out.

See you guys next time.

On Wings of Fire

2010-03-12T13:58:00.003-05:00

Hey guys Huron here. Well to continue the topic that has been running this week, creating a strongly themed Blood Angels army list using the new codex. I have to admit, its been tough and I have had a few near break downs as I keep steering to the nasty and not the thematic.

Well I have something for you. It is not a final list, but a starting point I think. I was not able to get the Librarian Furioso Dreadnought into the list or the Terminator Assault squad led by Sanguinary Priest that I have been talking about. I have already started gathering bitz for both so either way I am going to end up with one of each eventually. But to follow along with the "Wings of Fire" jump pack themed army I mentioned in my last post I present to you:

On Wings of Fire, a 1850pt Blood Angels Army

HQ - Reclusiarch w/ jump pack
Free HQ - Honor Guard w/ jump packs, 2 meltaguns
HQ - Librarian w/ jump pack
Free HQ - Honor Guard w/ jump packs, 2 meltaguns

TR - (8) Assault Marines w/ jump packs, Power Weapon + Melta Pistol, flamer
TR - (8) Assault Marines w/ jump packs, Power Weapon + Melta Pistol, flamer
TR - (5) Assault Marines w/ Power Fist + Melta Pistol, meltagun
TR Transport - Razorback w/ Heavy Flamer, Extra Armor
TR - (5) Assault Marines w/ Power Fist + Melta Pistol, meltagun
TR Transport - Razorback w/ Heavy Flamer, Extra Armor

HS - Predator w/ Autocannon, Lascannon Sponsons, Extra Armor
HS - Predator w/ Autocannon, Lascannon Sponsons, Extra Armor
HS - Predator w/ Autocannon, Lascannon Sponsons, Extra Armor

The 2 HQ choices join the 2 jump pack Assault Squads. Each Assault Squad is followed by an Honor Guard Squad, which comes with a free Sanguiary Priest. Everything else is fast and can get where you need it quickly and is setup to taken down armor or troops. The list is a bit Spammie which I am not a fan of, but it is just a starting list.

What do you think?

Theme vs Power, plus the Nova Open

2010-03-11T11:14:00.009-05:00

Hey guys, Huron here again, still thinking about and playing around with the new Blood Angels army list. Yesterday I went a bit nuts thinking of combos and talking out strategies with MVB from Whiskey & 40K and then mashing them around in my head. You should definitely check out MVB's blog, he is one of the stronger tournament players in my area and is known for his strong, flexible, hard hitting lists.

On a side note, he is part of the crew running the Nova Open, a 128 players GT Qualifier (64 40k and 64 Fantasy slots) happening in Chantilly,VA on Aug 14th and if you are a local or don't mind a bit of travel I think you should check this out as it is looking like it is going to be a big hit and will probably become an annual event. Checkout the Nova Open website by clicking here for all the details and to register for the event. I was the first person to sign up for the 40K tournament, which is going to be played at 2,000pts, so you are at least guaranteed one easy win.

But lets get back to the main purpose of this post, the new Blood Angels codex. As any one who has looked at the codex will have gleaned pretty quickly, you can field and an extremely large amount of armor or dreadnoughts in the new BA book. With all the Rhinos chassis vehicles being fast, and Baal Predators being seperate from regular predators and a fast attack choice. Players can easily field 5-6 Predator or 3 Baals and 2-3 Vindicators for maybe a 3rd of the lists points. Put that much fire power in, all on fast, front armor 13 tank chassis seems like a no brainor. With a core of nastiness like that you could take whatever else you wanted and do well. Or, for those that love walkers, it is possible to take as many as 11 walkers in a standard lists, provided you also take at least 25 Death company. And that doesn't mean 11 standard shootie dreads, but 3 shootie dreads which can all be upgraded to venerables, 5 Weapon Skill 5 assaulty Death Company Furiosos, and 3 Furiosos which can all be upgrade to Librarians if you choose. Not bad, Not bad at all.

However, where does theme come into all of this. The new BA book has some nasty combos and I for see spam heavy armies that decimate a variety of lists on the battlefield but which will be comprised of a Hodge Podge of nice looking and possibly nicely painted models but which will have little to no contextual theme through out the whole of the army. This leads to my dilemma.

Is having a strong theme more important than having a tweaked, powerful army. Here is a case in point; Assault Terminators vs Death Company. 5 Thunder Hammer and Storm Shield Terminator come in at just over 200pts. Same for a 10 man squad of Death Company with a few weapon upgrades. Both squads are strong on their own but need an additional character and a transport to be truly powerful. Terminators need a Sanguinary Priest that gives them Furious Charge and Feel No Pain, two abilities the DC already have. Then either a Landraider of some type or a Storm Raven to get them where they need to go. All this comes in around a whopping 500pts or more.

Death Company on the other hand either need a Chaplain or a Reclusiarch (a 3 wound HQ chaplain) which allows them to reroll both attack and damage rolls on the charge and a transport of their own as well. This again ends up in the 500+ points level. Both choices are solid and characterful, and make great center piece units (especially if you add on a couple of DC Dreads to the Death Company Unit), but upon fiddling with some lists I have found that there is no way to include both in a BA army.

Another example is assault squads. There is a very nice build that costs around 150pts for a 5 man assault squad that allows you to deal with tanks. One nice feature of the BA assault squad is that instead of being able to switch their jump packs for a rhino for free, they now can switch them for any vehicle in the list at a discounted price. So players now have the option to add some fire power with their assaults squads transport, and in the current tournament Meta, taking small units in transports with lots of meltas is better then big units outside them. However BAs have a special rule called Descent of Angels which allows models arriving from deep strike to only scatter 1D6 instead of two and I believe either reroll the dice to come in or the scatter die (it has been a few days since I looked at the rule last).

How cool would it be to see five or six squads of Blood Angels deep striking in on "Wings of Fire" (I am coining the name for this sort of themed list) lead by several character with jump packs. Tactically this is a bad plan. With MEQ armies and Inquisitors with Mystics hiding everywhere this army is going to have a rough time of it, but man... it does strike the imagination.

And that is where the Theme of your army comes in. Do you go for power or do you go for imagery and a strong linked theme to your list? If you listened to the first Gamers Lounge podcast you will know my thinking on running a power list as a theme (Theme needs to tie the models in the army together and relate to the 40k fluff in some way to be really solid in my opinion, my Howling Griffons for example have a theme of everything being name after the Arthurian Legends. It is an okay theme... but not a strong one).

This is where I am right now, trying to decide which choice to make and attempting to find a way to balance a little bit of both in an 1850 to 2,000pt list. What should I do?

BA Silliness, Working on a list...

2010-03-10T14:07:00.003-05:00

Hey guys, Huron here again. Another day without computer access a home, sigh. But instead of sitting ideally on my hands I have been doing a number of things, including playing around with army list ideas for a new Blood Angels army (Thanks Ron for the pic). If you check out my earliest posts on this here Blog-a-ma-thing you'll notice I used to have a BA army I was working on. Actually Blood Angels (and some Khorne Warriors I was painting) were the inspiration for the name Blood and Blades, but I digress.

So I have been fooling around with list ideas, as I know many have, and I thought I would share a rather silly one I came up with (I don't know, it could be not that silly, just seems it as it starts with 2 models on the table).

HQ - Reclusiarch (3 wound Chaplain) w/ Pfist (and Power Weapon)
EL - Sanguinary Priest w/ Terminator Armor (comes with Power Weapon)
EL - (5) Terminators w/ 4 Thunder Hammer/ Storm Shields, 1 Twin Lightning Claw
TR - (10) Death Company w/ Thunder Hammer, Power Weapon (Do not score)
TR - DC Dreadnought w/ Heavy Flamer, Blood Claws
TR - DC Dreadnought w/ Heavy Flamer, Blood Claws
TR - (5) Assault Marines w/ Power Weapon, Meltabombs, & Melta-Pistol, Meltagun
TR - (5) Assault Marines w/ Power Weapon, Meltabombs, & Melta-Pistol, Meltagun
HS - Stormraven
HS - Stormraven

All this comes out to 2K on the nose.

Okay, so Reclusiarch, (10) Death Company, and DC Dread in one Stormraven; Sanguinary Priest, (5) Terminators, and DC Dread in other Raven. The 2 Assault Squads Deep Strike or are held in reserves. (Alternately you could switch the jump packs out for Drop Pods for free)

Turn 1, Stormravens move fast, use machine spirit to fire Assault Cannon (or Twin-Lascannon if you upgraded it for free) at things that can hurt the Ravens.

Turn 2, move 6, Disembark everything, unleash hell with the Ravens (4 Str 8 AP 1 Krak Missiles, 3 HB shots, 4 AC shorts).

Assault squads drop in, hopefully hit or scatter only 1D6 thanks to Decent of Angels special rule and Melta high armor threats.

Clean up whatever is left with what disembarked from the Storm Ravens.
- 43 Furious Charge Attacks from DC+Reclusiarch that reroll to hit and to wound.
- 20 Furious Charge Attacks from Terminators+Sang Priest, all at Strength 9 or Init 5.
- Dreads Flame/melta then head into combat with Blood Claws (Lightning Claws that are Str 6 (thanks to being on a dread), WS 5, that let it attack again for every wound rolled), with Furious Charge if within 6" of the Sang Priest.

Oh and did I mention it all has Feel No Pain?

Yeah, that is what I call ugly.

Rethinking the Howling Griffons

2010-03-08T17:53:00.003-05:00

Hey guys, Huron here again. Well with my computers down and no way for me to post tidbits and battle reports from the St. Valentines Day Massacre and any of the other stuff I have been doing, I thought I would discuss something that has been weighing heavily on me lately.

Here is the current list I have been running for my Howling Griffons at 1850pts.

Kar'sarro Khan
Librarian w/ Terminator Armor, Storm Shield
(10) Tactical Squad w/ Pfist, Flamer, Missile Launcher
(10) Tactical Squad w/ Pweapon, Flamer, Missile Launcher
(10) Tactical Squad w/ Pfist, Melta, Multimelta
(5) Tactical Squad w/ Pfist & Combi-Melta
(3) Rhinos w/ Extra Armor & Razorback Extra Armor for above squads
(5) Assault Terminators with Thunder Hammer/ Storm Shields
Landraider Transport (for Termies) w/ Multimelta
(2) Landspeeder Typhoons w/ Missile Launchers and Heavy flamers (squadron)

While this list works great vs Tyranids and Eldar (without Eldrad), I have been having some trouble with it vs Orks, other marine armies, and pretty much everything else. So while this list is all nice and tweaked, I think I have gone to far and it no longer has the punch it needs. So far I have come up with a few alternate lists, with this one being the best so far in my opinion.

Librarian w/ Terminator Armor, Stormshield
(10) Tactical w/ Pfist, Flamer, Lascannon
(10) Tactical w/ Pfist, Flamer, Lascannon
(2) Razorbacks (for above squads) with Twin-Lascannon
(5) Scouts w/ Powerfist + Landspeeder Storm w/ Heavy Flamer
(5) Scouts w/ Powerfist + Landspeeder Storm w/ Heavy Flamer
Landspeeder Typhoon w/ Missiles and Heavy Flamer
(5) Assault Terminators w/ Thunder Hammer & Stormshields
Landraider Transport (for Termies) w/ Multimelta
(2) Vindicators w/ Extra Armor, Storm Bolters

That is 1850pts on the nose. The main thing I did was cut down my HQ choices to 1 (saving myself 160pts) and switched out 2 tactical squads with transports with cheaper scouts squads in storms. Then I dropped one Typhoon, upgraded the 2 remaining Tactical Squads and added in the punch of 2 Vindicators. While I am not sure how this list will play, I do think it is worth breaking out the models and trying it out. I have everything I need except for 1 Landspeeder Storm.

Please comment and let me know your thoughts. I am really struggling with making the above changes and just not sure if I am right or wrong about some of the choices I have made. I'd love to know what your thoughts.

Gamers Lounge - Episode 2

2010-03-08T10:49:00.004-05:00

Hey guys Huron here again. Today sees the release of Episode 2 of Gamers Lounge, the bi-monthly hobby podcast I am one of the hosts of. Nix and I talk about a variety of topics including the New Battle Missions book and our adventures with it so far, Sportmanship in tournaments and whether or not it is important, and how to get the most out of the tools available to you when blogging.

I also have an updated on my computer situation. The problems with my laptop were fixed over the weekend only to have new ones crop up on Sunday, so I am still without computer access at home. I hope to have this problem fixed in the next few days, but it could be till next weekend before I can publish anything again.

More as I have it.

Technical Difficulties...

2010-03-02T13:22:00.004-05:00

Hey guys, just wanted to post this real quick. I have been having some trouble with my home computers (yes both of them) and have not been able to access the web or even Windows on either since Friday. That said all the juicy St. Valentines Day Massacre details I have for you have been delayed till after I get things up and running, as I have no way to edit video or even download the pics I took.

Things should be back to normal soon. Thank you for understanding.

Tournament Report

2010-02-25T10:31:00.004-05:00

Hey guys, your friendly neighborhood Spiderma... Huron here. Today I have what I promised to post yesterday (Sorry, had some trouble with youtube), the full tournament report for the 2,000pt Inner Circle High Stakes Tournament and Pancake Jamboree that was held in Glen Burnie, MD on 2/21. I know the tournament has a weird sounding name but it was a lot of fun and had a very interesting format I look forward to taking part in again. Besides the prizes at the end of the event, per the usual, each game had a $10 Gift Certificate riding on it. Win Get $10, tie split the money, lose and you are out of luck. The important thing here is that it gives you something to fight for even if you have already lost your first two games and have no shot at a prize. Pretty cool if you ask me.

That said, I was disappointed that this event followed the trend surfacing now and did not include Sportsmanship or Comp scores in anyway. Also their was a prize for painting, but it was completely separate and did not effect the overall winner in anyway. I think tournaments that are run in this style really hurt the hobby, as it promotes just beating face and not competitive, fun game play with nicely built and painted armies. The army that won the whole thing had a good decent paint job at least.

Okay so here are Games 1 - 3 with the tournament results included at the end of Game 3.

Game 1

Game 2

Game 3 & Results

While as I mentions I didn't like the fact that sports and comp got dropped, and painting didn't matter for overall, I will say I had a good time and will be playing in some of the future Inner Circle events. They have a GT Qualifier coming up in July which I will be participating in most likely, as it is nice and local to me.

Since I am talking about GT Qualifiers I should mention that this weekend sees me heading to my first GT Qualifier event, the St. Valentines Day Massacre Tournament up in Media, PA. This is one of the Big 2 events I have been tweaking my Howling Griffons for and I am excited. Everything comes down to whether or not I can get the army finished in time or not. I am almost their, but it is going to be a long night tonight most likely.

Wish me luck, I will post more info on the army and hopefully some finished photos of it tomorrow.

Until next time.

And a new Era begins...

2010-02-23T08:58:00.005-05:00

Hey guys, how is it going? Today you are in luck, you get to join in on the new Era. Yup that's right, the world is all shiny and new, and you get to be a part of it. I am happy to announce a project that both Nix over at The Dead Tau Project and I have been working on for several weeks now, Gamers Lounge. Gamers Lounge is a hobby podcast focused on miniatures gaming and all the elements associated with it.

The first episode has been recorded and is up on the Gamers Lounge site ready for you to have a listen. If you would prefer you can instead find us on itunes and very soon at podcast alley as well. I am very happy with the first episode, in which we discuss Theme vs Comp and Sportsmanship. In addition, as we are both bloggers we talk about blogging and some of the great blogs we enjoy.

So come join in the fun of this brave new Era and have a seat and join us in the Gamers Lounge.

Oh and I will have News and Battle reports from the Inner Circle tournament I attended on Saturday for you tomorrow as well as a sneak peak at what I am taking to the St. Valentines Day Massacre in PA this coming weekend.

I need a good Exterminator...

2010-02-15T10:06:00.002-05:00

Hey guys, Huron here, as promised I have a new battle report for you featuring the new Tyranids played by a new opponent, David Johnson. David it the younger brother of my regular opponent and chaos nemesis Mike. This army features no less then 5 of the new big bugs, 3 Trygon Primes and 2 Tervigons, plus and upgraded Hive tyrant and 2 units of 2 of the new you can't hide from me tryant guard. Enjoy!

Wow that was a close game and I learned a new tactic with Khan. Hit and Running out of combat allowed me to contest the objective on his side, I will have to remember that one.

Until next time.

Nose to the Grind Stone

2010-02-12T13:16:00.003-05:00

Happy Friday!

Hey guys, Huron here, how is it going? After a week of snow and extra time off you'd think I would have lots to share but my blog has been quite this week. I am truly sorry about that but I've had my nose to the grind stone working on getting my Griffons done by Feb. 20th for a tournament near me. Then I will be spending the next week tweaking some paint schemes and maybe painting a command squad for the St. Valentines Day Massacre 40K tournament the weekend of Feb 27th - 28th up in PA. It is a GW GT Qualifier tournament and my first of several that I plan on attending.

So today I leave you with 3 things:

A promise to post a new Battle report come Monday the 15th featuring the new Tyranids played by a new opponent vs my Howling Griffons (and what an awesome game it was).
Pictures of the Griffons and their snazy display board on Thursday the 18th.
This hillarious pic of the emperor and the baby primarchs that a friend on a forum I read posted, he got it from: here

Have a good Weekend!

HAPPY FRIDAY... with Snow!

2010-02-05T11:23:00.003-05:00

Hey guys, Happy Friday. Well for all you North Easterners (is Virginia really North East?) you and I share something in common today, snow, snow, snow. While it might not have started for you yet good chances are by sometime tomorrow you will be sharing in the down poor. Weather forecasters are calling for 18" to 2 Feet in my area between now and Saturday night. Well I was supposed to be at a 40K tournament this weekend, guess I am going to be painting instead (look for the fruits of my labors Sat or Sun.).

So today I have a treat for you. Another battle report with my good friend Nix from Dead Tau Project. Both or us are using our most tweaked version of our 1850pt tournament lists yet. Oh, and there is a surprise ending.

Check it out!

This just in, the most addicting Flash Game ever!

2010-02-03T18:42:00.002-05:00

Hey guys, here you are, the most addicting flash game ever.

How many Halo Spartans can a Space Marine kill?

X shoots, Z activates your Chainsword. Swing away!

If you can get it to start, try right clicking on it and changing "Loop" to "Play", that has worked for me.

The New Tyranids, Battle Report

2010-02-02T06:01:00.001-05:00

Hey guys, Huron here. Well I have a short Battle Report for you today featuring my Howling Griffons facing off vs the new Tyranids. This isn't the best report I have ever posted (I forgot to record turn 1 for example) but should give you a feel for the tweaks I have made to my basic list to face the new bugs and to play, as fritz says, in the future. More on that next week.

I really think the new bugs and the rumors for the new BA Codex really shed the light on GWs plan for the future of 40K. Until recently I was a whole sale believer in rampent codex creep, however I am starting to see a trend of tougher, more dynamic codex that allow those "Wow" moments that happens sometimes in 40K to happen more frequently. You know, that turn that the lone guardsmen faces down a whole unit of Dark Eldar Wyches, kills one, and then manages to run them down when they break.

I think GW is pushing the power of the books to amp up our games and you know what, I have started to really become a fan of that. Sure it means meaner, nastier armies. But wait 2 years, everyone will have a new book or most of us will, and every game with end with a story to tell.

Oh yeah, sorry I got distracted, here is the battle:

Hope you enjoyed it. Catch you next time.

A look at my Howling Griffons

2010-02-01T11:33:00.004-05:00

Hey guys, how is it going? Today I have a special treat for you. In a very Black Matt from "Black Matt's Black Legion Blog" style post, I have an overview of my entire Howling Griffons army and where I am in painting all of it. You have seen me talk about painting them in my tutorials and you have seen them on the table, but I do not think I have ever really shown you close ups, at least not recently. So please enjoy the break down.

In the future I will be sharing more on specific army builds and tactics, but I thought I would start by introducing the whole army to you.

Let me know what you think. See you all next time.

Tuesday Tut... Battle Report?

2010-01-26T14:14:00.003-05:00

Hey guys, Huron here again. I know, I missed last week, I am a lazy git, but I have an excuse. As my last post said I was sick all week 2 weeks ago. Well tests are in and there is a whole mess of little things wrong but its official, I have Diabetes. The good news is it only is type 2, which is treatable and in the long run I may be able to cure it through diet and exercise. Bad news, I need to start medication to regulate it amongst other things and I can no longer eat all the delicious sugary goodies I love so dear.

But enough with the depressing stuff. I recorded a Tutorial for today but upon viewing the finished product I was unhappy with some of the camera angels and so need to reshoot. So instead of a tutorial today please except this humble battle report instead.

Battle Report 8 features my Howling Griffons pitted against one of my Arch Nemesis Mike's Chaos Marines. This is a Challenge Pyramid game and if Mike wins he gets his second defense. If I win I knock him from the top and take his place. Good stuff.

Enjoy the battle.

GAH! Another defeat. I just don't know what do you against those wily Plague Marines. While yes I could change my army up completely and use something different to pound some face, then it really wouldn't be my army anymore would it?

See you guys next time.

Happy Friday!

2010-01-15T14:33:00.002-05:00

Hey guys, just a quick heads up. There will not be an update post today. I have been under the weather this week and do not have anything ready to share with you. Never fear, I will be back next week with more 40k and maybe even some Warmachine goodness.

Thank you for understanding.

Tutorial Tuesday

2010-01-12T06:03:00.003-05:00

Hey guys, Huron here with a new Tutorial Tuesday. Today I have part 3 of how to paint Howling Griffons for you. Enjoy.

Thanks for watching.

It's Official!

2010-01-10T03:18:00.003-05:00

It's Official, Blood Angels in April and I am excited. New Plastic and Metal models. That could be a lot of things. One thing is for sure they are going to hit hard, drop pod in, and be able to field more Dreadnoughts then most. But then again, they always have been able to. Time to finish the Griffons because come April I'll be painting Blood Angels, or maybe one of their successors. Okay, back to painting...

Happy Friday!

2010-01-08T05:00:00.003-05:00

Hey guys Huron here, Happy Friday. Well as promised Fridays in 2010 bring you a variety of possibilities. Today I have a new battle report for you featuring Nix of the Dead Tau Project. Nix and I have been playing a lot lately and I am sure you can expect our games to only escalate now that he has pledged to play a lot more games in 2010 and up is expertise with the Eldar, a task he has already accomplished 10 fold in the last few months, I shutter to think of his effectiveness with them this time next year.

Enough talk, on to the game:

There you have it, a close game verse the Eldar, I suspect soon Bill with be changing the name of his army to the Dead Howling Griffon Project as his skill level keeps getting higher.

Well guys, let me know what you thought about the game and I will see you again on Tuesday for Tutorial Tuesday with How to Paint Howling Griffons part 3.

Tutorial Tues... Thursday

2010-01-07T16:28:00.004-05:00

Hey guys, Huron here, I know I said I was going to publish a tutorial every Tuesday well that is my plan, though this week it did not work out that way. So here is the first Tutorial Tues... Thursday post to my Blog enjoy.

Part 2 of How to Paint Howling Griffons:

Let me know if you have any questions.

First Battles of 2010, now in HD

2010-01-04T03:34:00.006-05:00

Hey guys, Huron here. I hope you all had a fun and safe New Years celebration. I had a good time but have to admit I was quite hung over on the 1st which is weird as I quit drinking early. I blame the Absinthe. Anyways, January 2nd saw me playing in the first of many tournaments I will be participating in over the next several months, the Iron Fist League 4th Quarter/End of the year 40k tournament which was originally supposed to happen back on the 19th but was snowed out.

I have to say, though I only managed to tie all 3 games, I had a blast (though I could have used less Eldrad in 2 of my 3 games, sigh). The Griffons preformed fairly well and though I am convinced my basic tactics are solid I still think the army needs some tweaking. Fritz's recent Youtube post about thinking and playing in the future has really got me thinking so expect some new things from me in the near future relating to that.

But on to the coverage. Below you will find 4 Youtube videos. The first 3 are some intro coverage and Battle Reports for games 1, 2, and 3, for me. The 4th video is the tournament results and some after tournaments thoughts I recorded this morning. Check it out and let me know what you think.

So after recording the aftermath while I was uploading things I went around and checked out some other blogs and youtube posts. As I said before, Fritz's Youtube post about playing in the future really got me thinking and I expect it will cause me to change the armament of my tactical units some what. Right now I am looking at making them a bit more versital and may very well be mixing in some flamers in the near future, but more on that in a future post.

For now, you have my first Tuesday Tutorials in 2010 to look forward to tomorrow. I will be posting part 2 of my How to Paint Howling Griffons series, which like the rest of my videos have gone HD. I will be discussing the inital steps in painting the yellows and depending on how long the video is, as I still have to edit the raw footage, painting the base coats of the red and applying the first wash.

See you guys tomorrow.

Looking out at 2010

2009-12-31T10:38:00.005-05:00

Hey guys Huron here, just a few more hours left till 2010. Personally I am stuck here at work, well at least for 2 more hours so I thought I would take a small break a share with you my hobby goals for 2010.

First off I plan to finish up the Howling Griffons army that has been seen in the recent battle reports and tutorials I have posted. Now saying I am going to finish them up is I guess a bit of an understatement. My plan for the army looks like this:

Space Marine Battle Company - Including Transports
1st Company Detachment - 25 - 30 Terminators, 10 Sternguard, 10 Vanguard
Variety of Characters - My own modified versions of several special characters; Khan, Pedro, Lysander, Shrike, Tigerious, and maybe some others. Plus a Power Armored and Terminator Armored Librarian, and Power armored Chaplain on Foot, on Bike, and with Jump Pack along with a Terminator armored one as well.
A mix of Heavy Support and Fast Attack vehicles and Bikes
Then for Apocalypse an Armored spearhead featuring 5 Landraiders (1 Standard, 1 Crusader, 1 Redeemer, 1 Promethius (FW), and One Terminus Ultra), a Line Breaker Squadron (3 Vindicators), An Ancients formation (Master of the Forge and 4+ Dreadnoughts of any pattern), and probably a super heavy of some sort

I am good way along on the Battle company, I just need 2 More Tactical Squads, 2 Devastator Squads, their Transports, and a Razorback for the Command Squad. I am about half way done collecting the 1st Company Detachment as I currently have 13 Terminators, 6 Sternguard, and 5 Vanguard in my collection. Character wise I have and have converted up pretty much all the characters listed except Lysander, Shrike, and Tigerious. I need another Predator or two and some Landspeeders and I have the Bike/Vehicle support of the Griffons locked down and for the Apoc stuff mentioned I just need 2 more Raiders (Redeemer and Promethius), one more dreadnought, and the super heavy choice I mentioned. Not sure what it is going to be yet.

Having all of that and having it all painted are different things altogether though so I am going to be focusing on getting it all painted, starting with what I need for my tournament list and going from their.

Once the Griffons are done I plan to put some work into a number of different projects I have on the back burner. While I will not commit to getting any of these projects finished in 2010 realistically I need/will probably put some work into all of them or sell them off over the course of the year. They are:

40K Orks - I have around 3K or orks in various stages, mostly assembled and unprimed
Chaos Warriors - Likely to be my next project, want to get an army painted up and ready to play if I ever get the urge again. I have around 3K or assembled and primed models for this army
40K Chaos - An old standby for me, I would like to revisit and tweak this army for 5th edition sometime in the future.
40K Nurgle Daemons - I painted 1000pts of these guys over the summer of 2009 and really only need to pick up Epideimus, 1 Great Unclean One (to use as a Daemon Prince), and a box of Plague Bearers up for and I will have a full army. I even have 3 FW Blight Drones sitting around unassembled I can add in as well
Renegade IG - I have the Infantry component and a few of the tanks I would need to start a FW Renegade IG army based on the new Guard book. Really what I need a few more vehicles and to rearm a few models and this army would be ready to be painted and played
Eldar Exodites - This is a new army that I am in just the beginning stages of building. They are a long way off from being playable but I've always wanted and Exodite army and with some of the current Dark Elf, Lizardmen, and Eldar plastic models I think it is very doable so expect to see more work on these guys this year as time allows.
Blood Angels - If the rumors end up being true I expect to jump full bore into a Blood Angels army too.

Yeah I know lots of projects. Kind of overwhelming isn't it.

There is one thing besides the Howling Griffons I am going to pledge to do. I want to replace my existing Home/Travel Terrian with a GW Battle Board and some new nicer painted terrain. Whether this means GW stuff or scratch built stuff I do not know yet but I want to up my the quality of the terrain I play on when outside of a GW store.

Well that is it for now, see you all in 2010!