Progress Report 1/14/17 - 52 Minis Week 1 & 2.

Here we go! The first of (at least) 52 miniatures I will paint this year as part of my hobby resolutions. As I was gone out of town the past week I'm playing a bit of catch up with getting these posted here to the blog. I'll try to be more timely moving forward. I dug out my light box and set it up so I could get more consistent/better photos of my work. I think it helps!

First up we have this older GW Nurgle Chaos Warrior of some kind (honestly not sure what edition it is from):

I built him on a 20mm base and I wish I had gone with a larger (more AoS appropriate) base but oh well. Since I have no idea what I will use him for I suppose it doesn't really matter what the base size is. I painted him roughly in the scheme I used for my Nurgle Daemons and I am happy with hot he turned out. 

Next up is another Nurgle like mini that looks to be more 40k related:

For this mini I wanted to test out a few color schemes for my Skaven Pestilence force and overall I would say it was successful. I'll likely use this guy on the table in TNT if nothing else as he looks a bit mutant. 

And that's all I have to share this week! Working on a few Dwarves and more Chaos stuff so who knows which will be the first to be completed for the week 3 mini. Only time will tell.

Progress Report - Augulyst mega-update part 1.

Been slacking! Many things have happened since I last updated and I figured I should try and capture as much as possible here for historical reasons if nothing else...

First up I did manage to finish painting my big guys for the 750pt 40k tournament and I managed to play three games without messing up too much! I think I even won a couple games and tied another. Here are a few highlights:

Turns out charging this thing wasn't the best idea. Also I forgot to make attacks from the riders!

My Soul Grinder thinking about leaving a nice pile of phlegm on some IG armor.

Game 1 was vs Imperial Guard with a lot of armor (not shocking). Not the most "friendly" list but the forces of Nurgle remained triumphant and nearly tabled the IG (who forfeit on the second to last turn). In this game I learned the importance of cover saves, barrage weapons, close combat with vehicles, and that my Nurgle Daemon Prince was a nice slice of (moldy) cheese.  

Flies getting ready to be blasted off the table by martians.

Nurglings holding down the objective and hiding from 5+ snap shots!

Daemon Prince deciding how best to get over to the enemy HQ with so much anti-air in play.

Second match of the day was against Skitarii (Adeptus Mechanius). Really fun game though we didn't finish as it was both of our second games at 750 pts and we had to look up a lot of rules. Plus the Skitarii have some pretty cool special rules. I like the look of them. Must resist....

Plaguebearers and Herald thinking about leaving the battlefield after seeing all of the guns.

Fly power take 3? This time let's swarm the Tau assault team and their special character choice!

As you can guess that didn't go so well...

Final game of the day was against the Tau. Plenty of fire support, armor, and GUNS oh my. First few turns saw most of the Daemons blasted off the board before the Tau got aggressive with objectives and fell right into the Daemon Prince trap. NOM NOM he ate them all in about 3 turns. Win?!?

For those who are wondering here is the list I brought to the event:

HQ (300)
Daemon Prince
- Mark of Nurgle
- Daemonic Flight
- Greater Reward

Herald of Nurgle
- Lesser Loci: Virulency
- Psyker (Mastery Level 1)

TROOPS (144)
Plaguebearers x 11
Nurglings x 3

FAST ATTACK (126)
Plague Drones x 3

HEAVY SUPPORT (180)
Soul Grinder
- Mark of Nurgle
- Phlegm Bombardment

Our 1,000 point escalation event was this past weekend but I wasn't able to attend. The only thing I added to get from 750 to 1,000 was a Great Unclean One w/ Greater Reward and Psyker lvl 2. Kept the Daemon Prince as a Heavy Support choice and added a psyker level 1 to him. Filth!? Beyond 1,000 I am thinking more troops, maybe some cultists, and Beasts of Nurgle. 

By the way here is the mini I am using for my Great Unclean One... the glorious Glottkin!

Here is assembled with a start on the basecoats. He comes with his brothers of course but I wanted to have the option of leaving them off so I simply magnetized them and made bases for them to live on when they aren't riding their big brother around.

And I did manage to paint up a few Nurglings and Nurgling bases/objective markers as well. I think I forgot to put their WIP photos up here as I was working on them (I threw in a few WIP of the Daemon Prince too for good measure)!

Playing on a gross "not dick" growth is a favorite past time of all Nurglings... or so they tell me.

Can't beat a little shower from the tentacle pit to get your day going Nurgle style!

And here they are with some paint on them. Still need to seal them and add the final disgusting details.

It's a bird? A spewing mouth? A gut faced goon? Hell whatever it is you don't really want to get into Close Combat with it I can tell you from experience. 

That's it for the 40k side of things! Check back for part 2 where I detail the current state of Blood Bowlness and my plans for Chaos Cup 2016!

Progress Report 6/26/16 - Flying away!

We've got a problem round here... a fly problem!!

Finished these guys up yesterday. Still need to add some goop and a little detail on the bases but otherwise they are ready to fly the friendly Nurgle skies. Really happy with how they turned out. A couple firsts for me here - first time painting a model this big, first time painting something on a flying stand, and first time painting things in pieces before assembling them. 

Speaking of firsts... how about those Plaguebearers I started working on way back in the Spring?

Painted and ready to go! 11 of them anyway. Still have another 9 sitting on my desk in various states of basecoating. But small victories are important too! Had to balance my time on these guys as I really wanted to give them lots of gross detail but also know they will get blasted off the 40k table pretty quick in most games. At least they will look good (gross) while doing so? 

And last but not least we have a bit of basecoating progress on the two bigguns in my 750 list - the Soul Grinder and Daemon Prince. 

Nothing too fancy just getting the color scheme going. I've since made quite a bit more progress on the two of them and I am getting closer to washes and details. Hope to have them done this week. Then I just have a mess of Nurglings to get painted before my first 40k tournament in July. 

Progress Report 6/10/16 - What's in a Daemon?

Played my first game of 40k (of the current edition) last week. Had a good time vs Eldar?! I think I surprised myself with that. It was a learning game/testing out a scenario for the upcoming escalation campaign tournament at 750 points. Here is my current list:

HQ
Daemon Prince
- Daemon of Nurgle
- Greater Daemonic Reward
- Daemonic Flight

Herald of Nurgle
- Lesser Locus of Virulence
- Psyker Level 1

Troops
Nurglings x 3
Plaguebearers of Nurgle x 11

Fast Attack
Plague Drones of Nurgle x 3

Heavy Support
Soul Grinder of Chaos
- Daemon of Nurgle
- Phlegm Bombardment

Total Points: 750 (of 750)

Game started off with a fantastic Warp Storm roll turning the Eldar Warlord (a Farseer I think?) into a Herald of Nurgle who proceeded to dance in front of his former allies before getting shot into many pieces. 

In general there was a lot of shooting nurgle forces into tiny pieces but with the power of the Daemon Prince (who is just downright nasty all around) and some fire support from the Soul Grinder the Nurgle forces managed to sneak out a win... until they gave it up on Turn 8 when another roll on the Warp Storm table had Khorne reaching down and crushing the one remaining troop in the Eldar deployment zone the nearby Plaguebearers and Herald needed to charge and kill for 2 VP.

It was surprisingly fun to play the game! Even though there are a lot of rules I don't know (and frankly don't feel like learning all these damn weapon types) I managed to hold my own and outmaneuver the Eldar while rolling a lot of 5+ saves in the process. 

I think the fantasy model will work well for my Soul Grinder but my Daemon Prince was certainly not the right size. After purchasing the Daemon Prince kit with the intention of heavily nurgle-fying it I picked through my bits box and started slapping some parts together...

I filled in some of the holes with plastermold (kinda like a soft plaster of paris mix I use for bulking out sculpts and filling things) and then wondered what a head might look like on this guy. 

Kinda silly and gross! Perfect for my Nurgle force. With the basic forms in place I started the GS sculpting and detailing on the front. 

And you gotta have some tiny wings for a flying Daemon Prince right? That gaping maw/jetpack won't keep you suspended forever. 

Still going to add more details to the front and finish up the filling and scuplting on the back but so far I am very pleased with how he is turning out. Should be a glorious rotten Warlord for my Nurgle army moving forward. 

Book Review - "Storm of Iron" by Graham McNeill.

I've been slowly amassing and reading a collection of Black Library books over the past year. I thought it would be cool to do a short review of each of these books as I read them. This is my first review - if you have any feedback on the format and content please share it. I can't promise all of my book reviews will be this detailed but I will try my best!

"Storm of Iron" by Graham McNeill

Epic battles. Everyone loves them. The few and the proud against the hordes of evil in a winner takes all battle for ultimate supremacy. These elements provide a good backdrop for human drama and character development, and can be seen in many instances of film, comics, television, and literature throughout the years.

"Storm of Iron" provides a Warhammer 40k take on this same ideal. An impenetrable fortress manned by a hardened force ready to die for their beliefs. To never yield or falter in the face of certain doom and a tragic end at the hands of a bloodcrazed and evil enemy.

But things don't quite go that way, which makes this story stand out as being a bit different from those in the past. The good guys don't win, in fact they serve as unwitting agents of their own destruction throughout the story. A series of bad to worst, the warriors in this tale are constantly forced to make decisions that will inevitably destroy them.

This book is at its best when confronting these choices, and the strained relationships between the principle characters on both sides. The jockeying between the Chaos leaders, all vying for the attention and respect of their master Warsmith, gives a sense of the twisted minds behind the Iron Warriors. The petty squabbling, and secret agenda of the Imperium, leads to many undeserved deaths throughout the ranks of the defenders.

The rest of the book is a series of workman-like tales of battle. A respectable attempt at outlining the vast conflict from both sides, this element of the story invariably fails to rise to the heights of the interesting characters. I often found myself quickly skimming through the same series of soldiers being blasted apart by artillery, lascannons, and bolters just so I could get back to the "important parts". This lends a sense of drudgery and boredom to what could otherwise be an exciting and fast paced story.

Given the scope of the story contained in this one novel, I don't know that it would be possible to avoid these pitfalls and I must give credit to Graham for creating a unique and interesting one off set within the 40k universe.

A good novel to read if you know nothing about 40k and the conflict between the Emperor and the forces of Chaos, but it does take some liberties with the source material which may annoy hardcore 40k fans.

An overall enjoyable read, and am I curious to read more about the characters who survive the bloody conflict outlined in this book.

Verdict: 6.5 out of 10.