Taking flight.

        Most of my post so far have been on scenery. My thoughts on how to hide a guardsman in a copse of trees or ruined buildings.Tonight, my thoughts turn to the skies. Or at least 6 inches off the table top. Today the new Death From the Skies compendium came out. As a long time player of speeders, skimmer tanks, and jet bikes, I am used to weaving in and out of terrain at about 2 inches off the table. For these, trees & low buildings or ruins are your friend. A Vyper can easily dash from behind a hill to the safety of ruins and never be seen. It's actually easier than trying to do the same with ground bikes, tanks or infantry. The mobility of skimmers makes them invaluable for hiding and moving secretly.

     But today, I'm looking higher. Should I be making terrain high enough to hide a squadron of Vendetta? The question really is, are we trying to create high flying aerial dogfights or strafing runs through the streets of Los Angeles. I already own and have building of 9 inches or higher. But as a tournament organiser or group host, are you obligated to provide a hiding place for a Storm Raven. I don't think so. It would be nice for 1 or 2 that might obscure, but for the ground part of the game to flow you can't have a table full of spires and multiple story ruins.  Squads would be climbing out of one building into the third story of another. There are just not enough turns in a game for that.
         But, for all the jets and drop ships in the 41st millenium, I am really surprised that the only warrriors to not employ aerial combat are also the dogs afraid to teleport, too. I hope the best for them.
   
    

Supernatural Intervention

      This week , I was watching the last week's episode of Supernatural. God bless the DVR. One of the characters states "Abbadon was a demon knight of Hell. All of the demon knights were killed by the Dark Angels." Sounds like some serious foreshadowing to me.

     That got me thinking of the direction of my painting that has been less than what I want it to be. When I first decided to start a blog, I was setting a 2 week painting goal. 1 squad and 1 vehicle painted start to finish in 2 weeks. This is the perfect goal for me at that time. Well, since my 2 year old decided that he doesn't need to sleep anymore. My painting has dropped off, but the blog has picked up. Despite that, I am going to restart my efforts and  I want to concentrate on my Dark Angels collection. I call it a collection more than just an army due to my level of involvement.


Ancient warrior or new addition?

I own more models than I would field in any normal fight. Anyway, I'm not here to brag. Not at all. There are plenty of people with far more models than I. And my wife would certainly not be happy if I told her I have more  little men than most gamers. My intentions were to build a battle company, with plenty of Deathwing and Ravenwing add-ons to go with it. This way I would have anything I want to play with.    
    I decided to go for a long term goal for my painting. This week I will be posting my list on the   The Independent Characters podcast forum. This will include the remainder of  my Dark Angels battle company. Included in this list will be 2 Tactical squads, Devastator squad, and veterans for the chapter. I am going to add only 2 characters, just to keep with the force organization chart. And for theme, and the fact I should really paint it, the Fortress of Redemption.

   This will be giving me a long term goal of November. Which should work well for me as long as my boy decides to start sleeping again. 1850 points should be attainable. Of course, I will be putting updates here as well. Talk to you next week.

Building Rome: Part II

      Alright, I am back this week for an update on our city fighting terrain project. We have 5 buildings structurally assembled and based. The final vision is to cover a complete 4 foot by 6 foot table with a tile system. Every tile will have some kind of feature on it. From buildings to a  park piece, and the roads to finish the table off, we should have everything we will need for a believable cityscape in the grim future. The geography of this near desolate city has been bombarded by years of warfare and strife.

 This Imperial habitat is one of the many recruitment points for the Space marines. Many buildings are dedicated to the chapters of the emperor's sky warriors. The mausoleum is going to have a sarcophagus with the interned body and a honor guard of marble. Also, a statue. Tiles of debris & streets will complete this tabletop.

   So, far the footprint of this projec  is         aproximately 21" x 36' So we are almost 1/2 half way through, yet we have only really started. There is still all the priming, painting, basing, and sealing. So completeing Rome is going to be a little longer than a day. Hopefully, it won't take as long as completing the whole empire... But don't worry. I will keep you inform.
   Also,on a side note, I painted my Aegis Defense Line. But, I neglected to take a picture. I guess I have content for next week. Talk to you all then.
     

 

Trains to terrain

      I decided to take my boys to a model train show this morning. Though this has very little to do with war gaming or painting, it has a lot to do with modeling and scenery. It really got me thinking about the small details of scenery that are usually missed.

      First thing I noticed was scenic & structure alignment. Most things in nature occur in lines. Not necessarily straight lines, are in lines, none the less. I'm not just saying 1 tree after another after another. More of a starting & stopping  point along the landscape. Think of a river, tree line or rock formations. Buildings, as well, are in columns or rows and they are usually dependent on the topography they are located in. Nobody builds structures at 37.4 degrees of angle different from the one next to it. Unless, of course, they are building on a cul-de-sac. Most wars are not fought in suburbia, U.S.A. This display, of course, was set up for visual aesthetic, but still represented these lines. City structures are easy to place on a table. They are all parallel or perpendicular to other buildings around them. If you are doing wilderness terrain, tree outcrops and rocks should follow the lay of the land.

      The next thing I took note of was the details. The grass, gravel, and brush are the little details that make the big difference. There is, typically a line between terrain types. The most notable on the train display was where the grass met the gravel for the tracks. They put a line of lichen to show where the grass is trying to retake that ground. this is one little detail that needs to be added to all my outdoorsy terrain pieces. I just need to make sure not to overload the area and be able to place a miniature. Buildings, for city fighting, should have debris or dirt and garbage laying up against it. I'm sure no one was out sweeping the walks just before your troops walked into town. This part is all about building your terrain pieces.

     The last thing in all this was the cool factor. They had clouds, thunder & lightning effects, planes and hot air balloons. None of these would I set up on a battlefield, especially the cloud effects. But that would be pretty cool effect and reminder for night fighting or using the Storm Lord's special ability. Planes would be cool and pretty easy here. I could just loop fishing line through the drop ceiling and attach the plane to the line. That would certainly give a more cinematic feel to the table .

    In the end, my boys loved the trains and i got some great terrain ideas. So, I am off to make my little world a better place. Thanks for stopping by.

Building Hive Rome in a day..... not quite

It fits nicely in the Cities of Death box.
 

        My project today started simply enough. We want to build some ruined city  buildings. So we got together, and got out our building materials. In which, just so happens to be from  Pegasus Hobbies. My friend got about 7 various Gothic city & ruin sets. The two of us started brainstorming. There is just no way we can make the buildings on the box.  I just want to add here, these kits are very nice and easy to assemble. My cousin draws up the plans for the fist building. Meanwhile, I am cleaning & assembling the pieces together for this large building. The foot print of this structure is 15" x 12". at least it will be when we get to cut the base. A three story tall line of sight blocker.
     



Administorium

Mausoleum

        Next, we decide to work separately, I start on a Space Marine hero Mausoleum. He starts on a administorium complex. The mausoleum has the same footprint as the first building, 15"x 12". And is going to sport a crypt and statue honor guard. The other building is smaller at 12" x 9".


    At this point we need to add embellishments. The ones in the kits are highly detailed and appropriate for a Gothic style world. Of course we will be adding some of our own details in to them as well. I believe, after these 3 monster buildings, we still have 3 unopened boxes and a large box of leftover sprues.

    The future is not nearly so grim for this battlefield. We will be priming & base coating  them next time we model. We are also going to build "totem/ badge" pieces of terrain. My cousin's main force is the Space Wolves. My primary Imperial army are the Dark Angels. So we are going to build wolf  & lion statues and add heads, or trophies, to them for major wins against our opponents. Also a space marine, possibly chaos marine, tomb.

   OK, hope you enjoy this little bit of battlefield buildup. I will keep you informed of progress in this & other endeavors going on here. Thanks.


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.