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Friday, July 31, 2015

Khorne Painting Commences

I know there isn't much here, but I've started working on my Khorne minis for Age of Sigmar.  This is just the base coat and initial wash layer.


More to come!

Thursday, July 30, 2015

Still Alive

I know I didn't post anything yesterday, but I haven't forgotten about this blog.  I've been hard at work reorganizing my hobby room.  Hopefully, very soon I can unveil Hobby Room 2.0!

Stay tuned for details.

Monday, July 27, 2015

IKEA TROFAST Toy Storage System

It was brought to my attention that no amount of adult furniture is going to help me organize my hobby stuff.  I was told in no uncertain terms that I needed to look into children's toy storage furniture.

So, being a person who like putting things together, I naturally went down to my local IKEA.  And by local, I mean it's an 1.5 hour round trip.  I found a great system called the TROFAST system and spent all weekend buying, transporting and assembling four pieces.  I'm really happy how it all turned out and for the price of less the 300 USD!

Here is the system...

http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/categories/departments/childrens_ikea/series/19027/

Here is what it looks like in my hobby room...



I should have gotten some orange tubs.  I could totally make this look like a 1980's graphic equalizer.

Friday, July 24, 2015

Khorne Skullreapers!!!

I don't have much time to post, but I did decide what to work on next...  Khorne Skullreapers.  I'm pretty happy with how they turned out.  I decided to go with the helmeted Khornate heads to make it super obvious that these guys go along with the Khorne Bloodbound dudes from the core set.



I also picked up the $74 rule book that was released last week.  I haven't had a chance to look through it yet, but I'm convinced it's going to be a good read.  It's got a TON of fun looking missions, or Battle Plans as they're being called for Age of Sigmar.

I might end up playing one or two of them tomorrow.  My buddy is coming down, and our intention is to have an Age of Sigmar evening.

Wednesday, July 22, 2015

Valspar Spray Paint Review

I'm putting something a little different up today.  It's a quick review of a new type of spray paint I bought.  I decided that I wanted to base coat some marines in a dark blue color to prep for some basic Ultramarines for a friend.

I went to Lowe's (a chain hardware store in the US) and picked up a can of Valspar brand paint.  This one, in fact...


It's Valspar Premium Finish.  They had a ton of colors.  This one is sort of like The Fang, but more blue.  It's a probably more suited to Crimson Fists, but this was a test.  The thing was only $5.  I grabbed a random Rhino that had a crap paint job and spent like 60 seconds tops priming it...


I'm very satisfied with the results.  It doesn't obscure details at all and went on nice and smooth.  I'd recommend it without hesitation.  I'm definitely going to be using these spray cans in the future to prime other models with a colored base coat.

I also tried out the black background in my lightbox.  I'm pretty happy with the results.  Here are another couple of photos to show you how it works.



Monday, July 20, 2015

Age of Sigmar Hobby Stuff

I did a metric ton of hobby work this weekend.  I assembled all the models in the Age of Sigmar boxed set plus a box of Bloodletters and added nice cork and sand bases.  I then primed the lot Sunday Afternoon.

This is everything I have no ready to paint for Age of Sigmar.

ORDER
1x Lord-Celestant on Dracoth
1x Lord-Relictor
3x Retributors
10x Liberators
3x Prosecutors

CHAOS
1x Mighty Lord of Khorne
1x Bloodsecrator
1x Bloodstoker
1x Khorgorath
5x Blood Warriors
20x Bloodreavers
10x Bloodletters

This is my little sanding setup.  I super glued thin cork and then used white PVA glue and my trusty chinese food container of sand to finish the models off.


This is the Chaos half of things.  You'll note the pile of nickels.  What are those for?


Some of the models are super light weight and tend to fall over.  The Bloodletters are a good example.  I glue a nickel to the bottom of each model and they end up nice and stable.  It also gives them a little extra heft and tricks the mind into thinking they're metal once they're all painted up.  I know that's silly, but it makes me happy.  I've also had people comment on the heft before.  I think people still attribute quality to heaver items...  which is crazy.  Random side note...  most manufacturers add blocks of metal inside products that do nothing more than increase the cost and weight.  It makes consumers think they're higher quality than they really are.


This is my priming station.  I bought a spinning lazy susan thing at IKEA.  I spin it around as I prime things.  It makes life easier.  This is out on my porch.  A nice breeze makes things dry quicker than they would elsewhere.


And here's everything finished.  Well, the priming is finished anyways.  Now I have 57 more models to paint.  The plan is to finish at least one or two Khorne models before Friday.  I have a game scheduled for Friday with my buddy.  I'm currently thinking that I'm going to be bringing the Khorne side of things as I'll have more models available at this point.


I'm debating on what to add next to the Chaos side of things.  I think it would be to my advantage to go with a War Machine of some sort.  If I go Chaos, I can either take a Hellcannon, which is a ghetto old model, or a Skull Cannon of Khorne.  The Skull Cannon is the better option, I think.  Alternately, I could just go Skaven for the backfield shooting.  The Warp Lightning Cannons seem pretty cool.  The Plagueclaw Catapults also seem pretty cool.

Friday, July 17, 2015

Chaos it is

I've officially decided to go with a Chaos Grand Alliance army.  For me, that means primarily Warriors of Chaos and Skaven.  I'll be using the models from the new Age of Sigmar box as well as from an Island of Blood box I'm 99% sure is still at my local hobby shop.  For $99 I'll get quite a few good Skaven models.

I'm excited.

I'll post tomorrow after heading to the shop.  I might go during lunch.

I love it when a plan comes together.


Wednesday, July 15, 2015

Khorne Add-Ons

I have an Age of Sigmar box coming in the next couple of days.  My wife has told me that if I paint up the Stormcast Eternals that she'll learn to play.  That means I'll probably end up playing the Khorne side of things.  I really like the models, but I'll eventually need to add on to the army.  I went through GW's website and decided that the following units will fit in well.  I'm trying to avoid any of the older aesthetic models.  I'm pretty confident that the below units will not go out of date anytime soon.





Monday, July 13, 2015

Warhammer: Age of Sigmar Order Army Beginnings - Aelf Highborn Heroes

I've played a couple of games of Age of Sigmar at this point and I'm sold.  It's a great game.  The plan is to put together an Order army centered around fast elven cavalry and backed up by a nice dwarf gun line.  I'm also going to have a couple of elven Mages around to help out with shielding and what not.

I rummaged through my crate o' crap and managed to put together the below.  I should have enough bits to make another 3 or 4 Elyrean Reavers.  They'll synergize well with the Prince on Horse.


Apologies for the bad picture.  My lighting is all messed up right now.  I'll hopefully have more assembled shortly and will be able to put together some better pictures.

Friday, July 10, 2015

Warhammer: Age of Sigmar

I don't have much to post today, but I did do a VERY quick paint job on the freebie Sigmarite to see how I like the scheme.  This is about 45 min worth of work.  I'm not particularly happy with the gold coloring, so I think I'll be redoing it in the next week or so...





Wednesday, July 8, 2015

More Age of Sigmar Thoughts

I really, really like this new game system.  However...

I have one major thing holding me back.  I'm extremely hesitant to buy any existing fantasy models OTHER than what comes in the core Age of Sigmar box because I don't think they'll be supported in the long run.  Also, they're generally very repetitive.  I kind of want to put together a Dwarf army, but having a billion of the same Dwarf would get very boring very quickly.

Hence, I'm looking for possible cheap alternatives.  If you have any ideas, please drop me a comment.  I'm considering Mantic, but their quality is just so low.  I'm also considering just doing a counts-as.  I might just proxy Tau Empire units and play using the new system.  Might mean I'd have to convert up the equivalent of Tau Empire "Dwarf Cannons" and things like that.  Might be fun, actually.


Monday, July 6, 2015

Tau Empire KX-139 Ta'unar Supremacy Armour

OMFG...  I need one of these for the Greater Good.

Forgeworld showed this bad boy off during their recent Open Day.  It's marked as a KX-139 Ta'unar Supremacy Armour.  Looks like it's loaded with 3 giant guns of some variety, arm mounted triple ion cannons of some sort and burst cannons/missile pods on the torso.  This thing looks like a beast.  I might have to save up for this guy.

Here are a ton of pics I found from various sources online.  I can't wait to see the rules.














Friday, July 3, 2015

Age of Sigmar First Impressions


I went out this morning and picked up the latest issue of White Dwarf.  It's the one that comes with the full Warhammer: Age of Sigmar rules as well as one Stormcast Eternal faction model...  a Liberator.  I went ahead and assembled the model, using some cork and sand to give him a nice base.  As you can see, these guys are pretty chunky.  They come on 40mm bases and tower over regular Space Marines.  I would anticipate seeing them used as a base for "True Scale" Space Marine conversions over the next few months.

Stormcast Eternal Liberator size comparison to a Space Marine

I also sat down and fully read the rules.  This was surprisingly easy to do as there are only a total of four pages.  I believe the expectation is that the rules will be freely available on Games Workshop's website starting tomorrow.  The rules give you a very general framework that describes the basics of how to set up the table, how to make an army and how to move and attack.  To get the more advanced rules, you'll need the War Scroll for that particular unit.  The White Dwarf has some example War Scrolls that will be in the upcoming Age of Sigmar boxed set released next week.

I'm thinking that this will be something along the lines of Magic: the Gathering.  That is to say, the general rules are very simple.  Once you actually start playing a game though, all the rules you'll need are right in front of you on each unit's War Scroll.

So, the game seems like it's going to be pretty easy to learn.  I already have a few questions, but I'm sure the online community will hammer those out in short order.  The biggest issue I see is that there doesn't seem to be any internal balance mechanism to make two armies have roughly the same power level.  There is an "Instant Death" mechanic if you start with 75% or fewer models than your opponent.  I'm not sure how this will work with 'elite' vs. 'horde' armies.  I guess I'll have to wait and see when the War Scrolls are released tomorrow.

In terms of the models, they're really nice.  My plan is to paint up the above guy this weekend and have a nice couple of photos on Monday.  Here are a couple of additional shots someone took, but are also available in the White Dwarf.  These are the two "Heroes" from the Stormcast Eternals side of the starter set.  The detail is really incredible for snap fit models.



Wednesday, July 1, 2015

More to Come

I hurt foot and had to go to the doctor yesterday.  Apologies for not posting.  Rest assured that I AM working on things and that I'll have more to post in a day or two.  To tide you over, here are a couple more photos from my Tau Empire army.  I think I did a decent job of making the Devilfish look like it's floating.