Little green men

     I was just sitting here shopping for Christmas presents. The big day is only 2 weeks away. This is the first year I need to build the magic of Christmas for my boys. My oldest son, at 2 years old, is very excited about Santa Claus coming to his house and leaving them presents. Suddenly, I realized I was not really thinking about the big guy in the red suit, but little green men. No! I'm not talking about the elves at the North Pole, hammering wheels on wooden ducks and assembling toy trains. Nor am I speaking of the interplanetary flying saucer pilots. No, I'm talking about the first legion of space marines. Though I bet an Interrogator-chaplains would whip that minute labor force in shape. I bet they would be done with their bicycles & wagons by Valentine's day. And those little suckers wouldn't keep Santa's secret for long....

     Anyway, from all the Internet chatter, the Dark Angels codex will be out very soon. December, January, or February, I'm not sure. My faith in rumors isn't very strong. But I can't help but get a little excited about a new rule set for my favorite chapter of the Asteres. Just today, word of a Storm Talon-esque flyer or plasma cannon toting land speeder was hinted at. Sounds interesting. Plasma predators, Inner Circle and, finally, a Belial model all sound very exciting.  Though, I already made my own Master of the Deathwing twice. I could probably make a third, as long as the model is nice.

     It certainly wasn't the green colored armor that drew me to these Angels of Death. It was the story, The secrecy, The betrayal that brought to paint these green soldiers. I was locked in when I learned that the very people they hunt are members of their very ranks. And only the highest members of the chapter know about the hunt. The normal rank marines have no clues of the history of this chapter. How can you have that big of a secret inside of a fairly firm and steady military force. I don't think the Codex Astares has an insert for  hunting the half of your chapter that went to chaos and not letting any other chapter or the inquisition aware that such an event happened 10,000 years ago. Oh, and on top of that, your home world was mostly destroyed. Good luck.

It ain't easy being green

Try working for this guy.

      If getting the time to paint was easy, all my armies would be finished. Modeling is a time encompassing endeavor, from assembly to clean, priming & finally painting. When most gamers become interested in a table top game, we see these beautifully painted and intricately detailed models. Sometimes, they are professionally painted out of a magazine or on the box of miniatures. Most often they are a force on the table.

       My first experience was in a friend's basement. I had no idea of the rules. I just watched and tried to learn. Four of my friends standing around a table, throwing dice at each other. "I hit 5 times." "Roll your saves." I just sat there waiting for them to die so I could look at these wonderful models. Suddenly, I needed to buy models and collect them all. Even in 1994, that was an impossible feat. Never did I realize that a month later I would be feverishly gluing models on bases just so we could play games. Then we played games..... and we played.........and we played.

         There was one great painter in our group. His looked better than any of ours. Three of us endeavored to paint as well, or better than he did. So I sat at the dinner table with a old butter tub full of water, 3 paint brushes, and a dozen paints. Dry brushing, shading, highlighting were foreign words to us. Luckily, we were mostly playing "Titan Legions." There is only so much paint you can put on those tiny miniatures. But we painted them anyway. It took a long time to take to paint an army. Months went by playing, painting, and working on army lists.
   
      Suddenly, I was engulfed. My life hasn't been the same since.  Not  a day goes by where I don't think about an army concept, or read about a new modeling technique.  The competition and camaraderie sucked me in. All from a handful of what would now be considered an average paint job on a bunch of poorly cast models. But I admired them all the same.

Introductions...

Good Morning.
 I just wanted to introduce myself.  I am an avid table top miniature gamer with not enough free time to play many games. So, I have been surrounding myself with the hobby part of my collection lately.  My armies are Dark Angels and Eldar. And my late 5th edition project was/is Imperial Guard. I also play Orcs & Goblins in fantasy and an ever ongoing Lizardman army. That for some reason, I just can never get an army list that works for me.This is my incentive to start painting more regularly and to further inspire projects in the future. With the 6th edition of Warhammer 40000 on the shelves, everyone is trying to figure out what allied armies work best with my army. I am aspiring to paint all the viable units in my current collection. And, eventually, start adding allied detachments. So, I will be posting  pics as I go. I have never been painting master, nor do I pretend to be. But, I consider them table ready...