MODELLING AND PAINTING: Orks

With the end of my Blood Angels army painting in sight I've begun to think more and more about painting my Ork army.

I plan to paint 1500 points by August 2010 and I want to use my existing models as my core. In fact I may even be able to complete the whole army without buying a single extra model. Of course it will probably be pants on the tabletop but hey, even I can't complain about getting a whole army on the battlefield for no additional expense!

The army will be built around Ghazghkull as I already own his model. Naturally he will be accompanied by a horde of Boyz on foot. This is for three reasons; first I already own the models, second it's fluffy and third they work well with Ghaz's special rules. I own a mix of slugga boyz, shoota boyz and 'ard boyz.

I have three Mega armoured Nobz who will act as Ghaz's personal body guard.

I plan to have a second HQ choice of the Warboss from the Black Reach set. He will take to the battlefield with 6 Nobz also from Black Reach, with one free with White Dwarf. I think I have a Painboy model kicking around somewhere so I may add him to this unit.

The three Deff Koptas round out the selections from Black Reach. My second Fast Attack slot will be filled by a unit of Stormboyz I have had kicking around for an age. I believe I have eight of them.

Heavy Support will come in the shape of three Killa Kans which I'll have to dredge out of my bits box.

That should make quite a formidable horde on the tabletop. The tactics would be to advance the boyz behind the Killa Kanz and maybe the 'ard boyz for a turn or two then get Ghaz to unleash his souped up Waaagh so everyone achieves combat. The Deff Koptas and Stormboyz have the speed to act as mobile reserves plugging whatever gaps appear. Ghaz and the Warboss with their retinues would be tasked with taking down the toughest parts of the enemy army.

If I was to buy models to add to the army they would be Trukks and Battlewaggons because mechanised is the way to go in 5th edition, and Kommandos, Gretchin and Warbikes just because I like the models. I'd also like to add a Stompa right at the end for Apocalypse games.

None of those are essential by any means, though, so I may go all the way through 2010 without buying a new model as I did in 2009!

NEW MODEL FUND: Plans and schemes

I still haven't gotten around to selling anything on eBay as I have been trying to finish off my Blood Angels army ahead of Planetstrike. In my last NMF update I mentioned I had won £150 and would put this toward Planetstrike purchases.

Well, the book was released last weekend and I bought it, along with the limited edition mines, bombs and booby traps. The Skyshield landing pad was also released but that will keep; I'll buy it along with the larger boxed sets of bastions and defence lines later on.

So out of the £150 kitty I have spent £26.75 and have£123.25 left.

Since my last NMF post GW have also announced that there will be a further Battlescape scenery piece with a ruined Rhino buried into some craters, surrounded by shredded trees. It looks great and I'd like to pick once of those up too.

With that in mind, here's what else I plan to purchase:

• Imperial strongpoint £53.85
• Skyshield landing pad £23.50
• Blastscape craters £11.75
• Battlescape £14.70
  

Even with the addition of the Battlescape piece I would still have around £20 spare for more scenery. I will read through the Planetstrike book thoroughly and then decide if I want to buy extra pieces themed around some of the strategems.

I've been looking at my finances in a more general sense recently and they don't make for great reading. Despite my economy drives over the past eighteen months or so my situation is still a little precarious.

Because gaming is a luxury and not a necessity it will be one of my first activities to feel the pinch. I really need to buckle down and sell some of my stockpile of models in the coming months to make a dent in my debts.

It also means I may have to sell some models I had previously planned on keeping. Prime candidates are the Catachans I recently stripped. I found I had more of the models than I had thought, many of them metal, and they may bring some much needed cash in. If things get really desperate I may have to sell a painted army too, but that will be a last resort.

Of course any money I make will still go into the NMF but as I have made a resolution not to buy any models this year the fund is largely notional at the moment. Once my finances are back in order I plan to cash in the fund and buy big!

PAINTING: This n that

I haven't got nearly as much painting done as I had hoped, partly due to bad planning and partly because I'm not in the mood. I have a day off work and painting is meant to be fun and relaxing so when it feels like an effort I don't want to push myself.

Even so, I have painted something.

First up are the armour plates for the Hurricane Bolters. The iconography is my usual Snakebite Leather, Desert Yellow, Bleached Bone combo with a wash of Gryphonne Sepia and then some Skull White highlights. I still need to paint the recesses and then touch up the red. I'll probably paint the top and bottom bits in a metallic colour too.


I also spent some time on the gunner.

I wish I'd painted him in separate bits because I had a devil of a job getting in to all the nooks and crannies. I highlighted the red up from Blood Red through Blazing Orange to Fiery Orange. To set the gunner apart from the vehicle I highlighted him again with Skull White mixed into the Fiery Orange.

As I wanted to make progress with my Blood Angels but I wasn't feeling creative I decided to undercoat my Lemartes model and paint his base. It was a quick job but still needed doing.

While I was painting his base my mind turned to the other Blood Angels character models I have. I've put them to one side because they are already painted, albeit to a comparatively low standard. Nevertheless they were still usable in games so I thought I was better off concentrating on my unpainted models first. Their bases were painted green rather than the brown my new Blood Angels are based with now, so I thought I'd bring them up to date.

So, I didn't finish my Land Raider but at least I have something to show for the day.

PAINTING: Uh oh

Well, I haven't had a good start.

I quickly discovered that I didn't have enough Mechrite Red to cover the Crusader. Oops!

All of my previous Blood Angels vehicles have been sprayed with Blood Red spray but this is long discontinued and my stash has now been exhausted. My Crusader would be the first real vehicle to be painted with paint. I'm a little concerned about how it will fit with my existing models - I guess I'll find out soon (but not quite as soon as I thought!).

With the main hull of the tank out of commission I turned to the extra bits and pieces. I had already assembled the Hurricane Bolters, which was a tough task given that I'm working with the old metal model. I sprayed them black and then drybrushed Boltgun Metal over the top. I drybrushed Mithril Silver over that and then washed them with Badab Black. This morning I tidied up the black casings and highlighted them with Codex Grey.

Fortunately I had already painted some of the hatches and plates with Mechrite Red before it ran out. That means I should be able to complete them today. I added another layer of Blood Red then washed them with Baal Red previously so this morning I reapplied the Blood Red. My next task will be to highlight them.


Okay, here we go again...

PAINTING: On a crusade

I haven't blogged about painting my Blood Angels for a while. That's about to change as I have a day off work and I'm settling in for a monster painting session. My rather lofty aim is to completely finish my Land Raider Crusader. Yeah, right.

Anyhoo, I'll be coming back every few hours to chart my progress, hopefully with photographs.

NEWS AND RUMOURS: The Khorne Identity

I don't have anything to report on regarding 40k given that Planetstrike was launched at the weekend, so I guess it'll be a week or two until the next batch of rumours surface. I bought the Planetstrike expansion on Saturday and read most of it on Sunday. I'll finish it off shortly and then start making my nefarious plans. Bwa ha ha!

Ahem.

I have heard a few things about Black Library books, though.

I'm most excited about Blood Pact by Dan Abnett. The good news is that after some delay he has finished writing the book. According to his blog it is a more character driven, espionage type novel than Only in Death and he has jokingly subtitled it The Khorne Identity. The book is expected to be ready by late September for Games Day UK.

Dan also talks at length about his forthcoming Space Wolf book Prospero Burns which is a tie in with Graham McNeill's A Thousand Sons. I'll simply quote him here rather than paraphrase his words:

So, now, as the temperature pushes into the thirties, the cats are flaked out like discarded draught-excluders wishing their fur coats were un-zippable, and Roddick and Federer fight it out to the bitter end, I’m girding my loins for the next big project. Yes, folks, it’s Prospero Burns (Mongomery’s less-well known brother).

Stop me if you’ve heard this, but, originally, I was going to tackle the Thousand Sons side of the deal, and Graham was going to handle the Space Wolves. The reason for this - and I really do understand that the following revelation is such a heretical statement that Eisenhorn might have to come and shoot me through the lungs - is that I don’t really like Space Wolves.

All right. Stop yelling. Stop it. Stop. I KNOW, okay? I know. Let me explain. I think the Space Wolves are great. They are a great, vivid, visceral element of 40K, great to play, great to collect. But for use in fiction they are, to me, too on the nose. They too obviously resemble the source of their inspiration. Think of it this way: I could write a novel about a chapter of space marines, who originated on a tough, unforgiving world of high plains and grassy savannahs. The chief way of life was as drovers, driving the million-animal herds of gigantic, and often very dangerous, grox across continents. This work bred men who were tough, weather-beaten and wily, relentless, dogmatic, reflective, but mercurially fast. They evolved quick wits and cunning, and quick reflexes, but they could also sit in the saddle for days, biding their time. They were almost empathically connected to their loyal steeds. They knew how to chase, hunt, defend the herd, bring down a big bull. And the very toughest and most promising of these drovers were selected by the mysterious warriors, who lived in their isolated fort on the isolated mountain, to be inducted into their ancient order of space marines.

Sounds pretty reasonable, doesn’t it? Sounds like a decent basis for a chapter, right?

Now what if I said the chapter was called the Six Shooters? And that their armour design included chaps, a bandana and a ten gallon hat? Oh, and spurs? And they were famous for their trademark ‘two-bolt-gun’ holsters?

You see what I mean?

The inspiration is fine. The Thousand Sons are Aztecs. The Blood Angels are goth vampires. The Imperial Fists are Romans. The White Scars are a mongol horde. The Iron Hands are robots. The Ultramarines (and, hell yeah, the Iron Snakes) are Greeks. The fact is that all of them have taken the point of inspiration and run with it. They’ve put the background idea through some kind of creative filter to make it both richer and less obvious. But the Space Wolves are exactly what they appear to be, with no filter and no remove, which makes them giant fun on the gaming table, and a giant pain in the arse in a novel.

So anyway... I finally suggested to Graham that I should take the Space Wolves, because it would force me to find a way into them. I’ve already seen the work he’s doing on the Sons, and, oh my god, it’s mouth-watering. His book, which will be called A Thousands Sons (one of those instances where the legion name is so good, you don’t need to invent a better book title), is going to be packed with great ideas. We’re knocking stuff back and forth, and a momentum is building. For my part, I’m filling my workspace with all things Norse and Viking, and Icelandic and barbarian. You wouldn’t believe the sources I’m going to. I want the Space Wolves to be ABSOLUTELY the Space Wolves all of you out there love, AND YET something you’re not expecting; something that’s gone through a filter; something that makes you all go “Christ in a longboat! I have never thought of them like that!”

Another snippet of news from the Black Library is that Steve Parker has handed in the first draft of his Crimson Fists book Rynn's World. According to the Black Library the book will be released in February 2010.

I also spotted some advance orders in the painting and modelling tools section of the Games Workshop website. They are the water pot, which looks like it has spaces to hold brushes upright in the water, and a mixing palette. I'm not sure I'm sold on either of these items but at least they come cheap at £2.95 each.

That's all for now - I'm off to pick a planet to invade!

GENERAL: Outstanding

You can read my final blog post regarding the 2005 Gauntlet tournament here. It's a round up of the final results and my thoughts on the day. Good stuff.

That brings my battle reports coverage of all my tournament games to a close and the only outstanding games left are for one campaign. I'm not sure exactly when I'll get round to them as I'll be concentrating on getting my Blood Angels painted for the next week or two but I'd love to get them out of the way.

With Planetstrike looming too I'm going to be a busy boy...