The Aspect Portal

The Sable Swords - Part 1

2009-10-09T20:54:00.000+01:00

The shower of blood indicated that brother Solos' frag missle had hit home into the ork lines, the sound of bolters chattering and the nearby and howls of pain from beyond the cover showed that Squad Sepelus was on form. "FOR THE EMPEROR!" Bellowed brother Seargent Sepelus issuing a charge. Seargent Sepelus, freshly promoted after his display of combat prowess on many past missions had taken over a squad of marines, barley out of their carapace armour admittedly but space marines none the less and this was his first mission as their seargent.

The planet Bane had been under orkish attack for centuries, having the perfect climate for growing the blood thirsty Squigs that butchered anything not in full amour, and with the potential for becoming a mighty squggoth many stories high and bristling with teeth. The Guardsmen had, up until this point, been able to keep the ork hordes at bay but with a renewed attack support was needed, the Sable Swords answered the plea for help whilst re-equiping at Feragone a nearby forge world, and had entered the fray with a shower of drop pods containing almost a third of the chapters number.

Chainswords ripped through the un-armoured orks, as ferocious as they were, they were no match for the emperor's finest.
Space marines. 8ft tall genetically modified super soldiers, created for the single purpose of destroying the imperium's enemies, equipped with power armour, and guns that shot fist sized holes into a space marines enemies.

The seldom call of the orks retreat sounded, as single minded and blood thirsty as they were a canny warboss knows when his boyz are beat.
As the smoke cleared from the bolters fired at the retreating enemies the true amount of destruction became apparent...

Okay, first this was written really quickly (honestly), it's more of a test piece than anything else and I would love to hear your feedback about, good? bad? Why the hell are you doing this it's rubbish? I don't care what it is I want to hear it

Peter (Not Peder as I keep getting from a rather irritating Greek person I keep bumping into)

Combat patrol duty

2009-09-28T17:45:00.002+01:00

I don't know about you but I find theres an army of a particular type of that army that you'd just want to have a small little display force, Ron's post on bikers (using the Hawk Lord colour scheme) reminded me of how I'd love to have a tiny force of such a chapter. Another one is the sable swords (a chapter which has very little (if any) fluff written about them and I hope to be using them in an upcoming blog series)

Those of you who haven't head of combat patrol (only a few of you I should think) it is a mini - version of 40K based on games two 400pt armies, the only force requirment is a single troop choice although there are a few restrictions on vehicles (no amour value over 33 (worked out by adding all sides togethor) E.g. a land raider is 42, whilst a Rhino is 33) no models with more than 2 wounds and also no ordanance weapons, it makes fitting a game in much easier if your strapped for time and fair for what your able to field. Even if you have plenty of time a combat patroll makes for a game were your in no rush to throw dice or flick through rules at the speed of a flip book.

If you want the full rules for combat patrol you can get them here

Feed Demon review

2009-09-26T22:49:00.000+01:00

Sorry about the lack of activity but with job searching, a housemate moving out and a whole lot of other completely un-related to war hammering I have barley had the chance to keep up with internet activity so first on the list FeedDemon review!

FeedDemon is a RRS feed program that keeps track of all updates that you've subscribed to (Including the 'Follow' option on blogs) in an easy way to manage and great way of seeing who's updated and how many times since you last read it.

This is what is looks like when you load it up, the latest 10 posts up there and other general stuff, on the left is your taskbar lets have a closer look
This sidebar shows every single blog you're following and in brackets the number of times it has updated since you last read it. When you click on the blog you get this pannel
by clicking on the little arrow it extends the full story in the program (although BOLS have rigged it so you need to visit the site to read the whole story) which you can do by clicking the title, which it can then act as a mini browser looking like this:
Pros: Lets you keep up to date and lessens the chance of missing a post and is easy to use

Cons: The problem of no comments will be increased as there is no option without entering the browser mode, and it occasionally skips a blog when updating

Try it out, see if you like it but make sure you comment! It frustrates blog owners when they don't get appreciation or praise from their fellow blogmates make sure you do it!

Gamer over, please reset

2009-08-05T17:39:00.000+01:00

I've been thinking about my hobby, my lack of disposabal income and the state of my supplies. And I think I may have to actually restart my hobby apart from my models I need new brushes, I have very little paint, my painting board is a mess, my hobby knife is terrible. So when I start getting a decent amount of income again (well any income, worked in a clothing store sale for a week that's it (how much fun was that!)) I'm gonna buy a whole new set of well... everything but there are a few extra things that I want to buy that I think will be useful and you may do to:

A fan - I think this may be useful not only to help normal paint dry (because that's as exciting as well... watching paint dry) but also when shading, I haven't tried this theroy but when washing you could use the fan as directional lighting blowing the wash out of the recesses facing the fan (the light source)

A kettle - What? you say, well I'm a sucker for a cup of tea and being able to get a drink without having to get out of my seat and interupting my painting will be a great help, and hot water is crucial when washing you're brushes (although you don't want it acually boiling, that seems a bit thrawt with danger)

Decent speakers - earphones get on my nerves when trying to paint

Some other things, that I'll put up eventually

Peter

(this is weird I don't post for ages and then suddenly I post three in a row scheduled on different days :D )

Space Vikings

2009-08-04T20:00:00.000+01:00

We've all heard the new Space Wolf rumours, and one of the main things (well not really but still) is the fact that the Wolves are losing the Leman Russ tank, so what? ... Well I'll tell you, Leman Russ was the Space Wolves Primach, and as such the old (well current) codex allows you to take it. But now in the new codex they are taking it away? Surely they should get all the ones available to the guard plus a unique one, kept to the Chapter by their Primach.

The Saga's sound cool though (hopefully drawing on Norse Mythology again) giving each character a unique back story? But what would do you think they would have? Surviving long in the wild through a harsh winter +1 T or more drastic like An celebrated war hero that beat down a horde of orks single handeldy Reroll hits and wounds that sort of thing.

What would you like to see with the new Sagas? What abilities and what story to go behind them?

What's in it for me? Part TaP

2009-08-03T22:51:00.002+01:00

This is a follow on from Ron's post about someone asking what 'was in it' for them by joining the From the Warp blogger group

What? There was never anything 'in it' for me, it was just a place to record my... ramblings about my hobby and hoping to share them with the world (if even a very select few) the From the Warp group was a place where I could maybe get that little more coverage, someone just browsing the list might click on mine (if only by accident) they might like it they might not, but those who do will add to those select people reading my blog. The the main point is to build a community about the hobby we love, it's a big internet out there and one little blog on it's own is not going to get much notice but a group of 300+ will not only build a great archieve for hobby recources but also a great community of friends!

I don't see what is to get other than that?

Peter

Nevermind then...

2009-07-20T00:35:00.002+01:00

No entries for the contest then... I don't blame you I didn't do mine either :P oh well

On the other hand though! I have actually been doing some painting, OMG! i know! first time in months and I've painted 5 marines and started my test elf. Pictures coming... um... eventually!

Now I'm going to get back to my hot chocolate and lord of the rings, the first one is still my favourite :D

Tweet! Tweet!

2009-07-12T19:33:00.004+01:00

I had a couple of people follow me on twitter on my personal account but I've decided to make a warhammer one to go along with it so follow Peter_hammer for any small updates about my hobby. And can I reccomend tweet deck to anyone using twitter, it's a program that refreshed you're twitter in near-realtime to prevent the constant refreshing of using the website, (it also does facebook status updates.)

FIRE!...D!

2009-07-12T00:48:00.002+01:00

Yay, what an exciting week, I feel you can gather what happened (hence the title) that means I have plenty of spare time... wait no that's no it... I have plenty of money... um... no! Well the first one yes, and with my unemployment (hopefully temporarliy) I plan on getting (at least) some hobby done, I've cleared my desk of all it's clutter... and it's suddenly 5 to one in the morning (what? there was a lot of stuff).

Here's hoping I'll be able to jump on the work wagon again soon... but not too soon

Seismic what?!

2009-07-02T22:19:00.002+01:00

Just a quickie, I was wandering who the bloody hell thought that looked like a bloody hammer! It's a Dread combat weapon with really stubby fingers, go convert yourself one that looks something like a hammer, you know shaft, head, any of this getting through to you GW? I give up!

Competition time!

2009-06-20T15:33:00.002+01:00

Woot! So I'm announcing my first every competition! now the prize is nothing big, as most of you know I'm very poor, so what's up for grabs here is a custom banner for your (or one of your favourtie) blogs featuring you're favourite model, GW or otherwise (and yes it will be better than mine... hopefully)

But what is the competition? about you ask, well the Idea is to come up with a special character for a space marine chapter that doesn't already have one (Like the Sabol swords, Fire lords that type of thing) and write rules, fluff and set a points limit for you're character.

The deadline to get you're entires in is the 10th July and then voting will last a fortnight. The voting is not based on having the most overpowered character within reason, it is to make one with a great backround and rules to back it up and is of a reasnable point cost. This is NOT a popularity contest so I will keep all entries annoymous until the results are realased so no posting ideas on you're blog.

I will enter in this ( I'm not gonna be biased towards myself, with the amount of great hobbyists out there I'd be happy with one vote).

There is also an extra prize (well it is the same prize just another way of getting it) for converting and painting the best model to represent you're special character (note this part is not madatory) any previous models may be used as long as they fit the wargear ect.

So let your imagination run riot and come up with the best character you can think of!

Peter

On a side note, like many I am looking forward to seeing the new Transformers movie, now I won't be seeing it on the release day but the day after, me and a huge bunch of people I know have booked out our entire local cinema (it's only a one screen old style thing but it's awsome!) and because now that it is a private function... DRINKS ALL AROUND! Anyone else looking forward to seeing it?

Raven Angels or Blood Guard?

2009-06-14T19:34:00.003+01:00

I was thinking about my Raven Guard the other night and was wondering how I was going to make the force as mobile as I think a raven guard force should be, easy! Use the Blood Angels codex, with Assualt marines as troops choices andVeteran assualt marines as elites (I think could be fast attack) and it means I can even have a Jet pack mounted command squad (which would be cool). I had decided quite recently to remove Shrike from my list (I felt his bonus wouldn't be used that much and I can't use him in the Blood Angels codex anyway!) It also means that my Blood Raven Land Raider and Co. will fit in even better as they are a Chapter founded off the Blood Angels!... I think...And on the Eldar side of things I've decided to abandom Jawaballs' (or is it Jawaballs's?) advice on my army list as I feel that using all the back hand tactics against a weekly opponent (AKA Josh and his Necrons) will soon get predictable and let's be honest, it's not a very honest way to play anyway, so I'm going to go back to my Original idea although I'm considering including an Avatar (Ignoring armour cancels 'I'll be back'... wait that's the Terminator I meant 'We'll be back') and let's face it that rules a paint in the Ass or if I wanted to be really British arse (I keep getting 'You have a great British accent' over Xbox live is...is this a good thing?)Also I've been doing quite a lot of drawing recently (this isn't mine I just searched up 'British sterotypical comics' and it seemed to work) If anyone wants me to draw them anything on flash just let me know, a problem I have with drawing is that I never get inspiration to start me off, now If you excuse me I'm going to walk the Dog, whose currently malting like Vinegar (oh ha ha! that was a cracker! :P )

Gamer Munch, OM NOM NOM!

2009-06-06T20:34:00.002+01:00

I got hungry after reading a post at Mik's Minis so I thought I would do a post on gamer munch, so here goes!

Painting: When painting you want to avoid foods/drink with sugar/caffine it will make you shakey and more likely to make a mistake (My painting is generally at this level before any of this) so avoid: Tea/coffee (unless decaffinated which I think taste weird), fruit, sweets (ahh man), chocolate (damn it!) and achohol makes you sloppy aswell (like that's gonna stop me! I loves me Cider...hic!)

Gaming: Beer and pretzels anyone? this is very relaxed and there is only one type of food to avoid... sticky stuff, when playing someone it's horrible to end up with sticky dice, like handling warm toffee bleh! M&Ms (or similar) are awsome as you can use them for wound counters, now if that's not motivation to kill an enemy character what is!?

Now if you excuse me I'm going to raid my stash (well... what's left of it...)

Peter

Poll closed!

2009-05-28T21:08:00.003+01:00

Well it has been for quite a while actually... and you guys want me to do guard... I thought you liked me :P So my list is going to be Guard, Orks and then Chaos Space Marines, I'm doing Chaos afterwards because! Alvin wanted me to :P I have done A LOT of work on the marine codex yesterday but there's still plenty to do (Heavy support... sigh...lots of weapon options...)

Peter

I'M BACK BABY!

2009-05-25T23:25:00.002+01:00

Finally after literally over a month my blogger has started working... unfotunatley not by it's self and I spent a long car journey to ipswitch today sorting it out (thank you Iphone internet connection) So I'm back and!... have a lot of catching up to do.

On the hobby side of things, I haven't bought any eldar yet (the funds are coming along... slowly economic crisis and all that) and I haven't actually painted or assembled a thing (well I put togethor and primered a Glade Guard but that doesn't really count) but I have some big plans for a certain primered scout squad tommorow (yes I'm sticking with the ultramarines until I can get the hang of highlighting black amour).

So I'm glad to be back and be reading up on you soon... hopefully

Peter

Dag Nabbit!

2009-05-23T11:55:00.001+01:00

My blogger has packed up and I've had to post (hopefully) this by e-mail. What's happening is that when I try and get onto blogger it comes up with the *this page cannot be displayed* as if I had lost my internet connection. And it is only blogger the few on wordpress work fine, this is mainly why I haven't been updating The Forlorn Forest because I have a complete lack of editing the site having not set up an e-mail for it

Can anyone give me any pointers? If so just leave them as comments and they'll be sent to my inbox.

Thanks
Peter - Who is missing all his favourite blogs... and also hope this works...

That was half quick!

2009-05-02T18:22:00.002+01:00

The Forlorn Forest is open again after buying some stuff earlier :D that was much faster than I intended but It won't be open here again for a long time as my Hobby fund is working at about £40 a month so in about a month and a halves time I should order some stuff, which will take about a week more to get here so end of July, maybe, assuming I don't spend any of it on anything else.

Signing out... again

Shall I sound that retreat sir?

2009-04-30T20:29:00.002+01:00

Let's make this quick, I am going to give up blogging. Not permanently, but giving it up non the less ths thing is, at the minute I just don't have the time of the funds for the hobby and my eldar are still a long distance into the future, so until then, I will not have anything to do with 'The Aspect Portal' nor 'The Forlorn Forest' I just feel that I'm not currently able to distribute much to the commuinty and it all feels like a big waste of time... so I'll see you in a few months when I actually have something intresting to contribute...

Sigining out.
Peter

Battle report: Cont.

2009-04-24T23:48:00.002+01:00

Only turn 3, I'm tired but I want to do something bloggy... that sounds like you need a plunger to sort out... nevermind.

Turn 3&4 sorta combiined: A hell of a lot happened and I can't remember whish turn is which :P, first of all, all of the Ultra marine rhinos unleashed their blue passangers. Ths inquititorial units (names unknown... to me) wrecked havoc on most of my troops leaving only the trusty exsorsist (survived 4 penerating hits) and a sephrahim squad with the cannoness (so if they're female cannon's do they still shoot balls :P ) Next my hitchhiking space marines managed to kill all but the Inquisitor and his retinue (?) on the inquisitor side, but they took a terrible 3 casualities from lasguns :P (the fact they took about 25 more from various other sources is irrelivant). The exorcist continued on it's roll as it blew up a guard unit coming in from reserve... I think it was a special weapons team (there were only six members and they all died) and another got cut to bits by my sephrahims and the razorback picked off a commisar who ended up by himself.

"Get back to battle you insole AHHHHGGGGGG!" - The last words of Commisar Rip Coffins'

'And more stuff got 'marined' and then we realised... there was nothing left on their side of the table by the end of turn 5 :P So i did finish it :D'

Next up is Ultramarines & Tyranids VS Eldar & Tau (Tau-riffic!) ... which are unpainted (Tau-lorable) and some of which aren't assembled (Tau-ribble).

Goodbye... I'm off to buy some Tau-culm powder and a new set of Tau-ls :D

Peter...possibly

Vallejo and more shinanigans!

2009-04-18T19:46:00.005+01:00

Did I spell it right?

I'm thinking about turning over to Vallejo paints instead of GW, they're cheaper (for the amount of paint in each bottle) but I've never used a 'dropper' bottle before, I'd like to know how other users of Vallejo think of the product and If they'd reccomend it over the GW stuff, please.

and as promised here's another shinanigan (I love that word) that shows you can follow yourself
Also check out my new blog about my future project, wood elves over at The Forlorn Forest

Shinanigans! - Ninja's do exsist

2009-04-18T03:02:00.004+01:00

and they advertise on Gmail!
(click for bigger picture, and you can see all my links, some of my e-mail and how much spam I have :D )

More random shinanigans coming soon!

Also sorry about no posting about the battle report yesterday but It's been hectic!
And a mini-update kinda thing, is that I'm going to attempts (when I have the money) to make my Seer council using high elf silver helms (or other eld cavalry) to give them a unique look!

Battle report: Double Reversal phase 1

2009-04-15T23:34:00.001+01:00

Right, if you remember a post about playing doubles games, but using your partners army instead of your own, well we did our first game of our 1250 (per player) mini-tournament hoping to have 1 game a month for 6 months.

For my first game It was me and my Ultramarines allied with Joe and his sisters of battle, so I was using the sisters and Joe my ultramarines, Our opponents were Adam with his Imperial guard and James with his witch hunters, so It's an Imperial free for all but not really cause we're on teams!
Sorry about the lack of pictures, I did have them but with my recent laptop problems I lost them all, so I'll try and keep this short as not to bore you too much.

Turn 1: We got the first turn and they're going first, they hit a unit of sisters with a basalisk but didn't kill a single one! And they took out my best painted rhino, so i swapped it for my undercoated one :P but thats all the shooting that came from them.
Joe ran my Rhinos up the table and formed a rather nice conga line to protect the razor back with my command squad in, and I moved, and ran up with most of the sisters with nothing in range and I took out an entire heavy weapons team with an exorsist(?) (it looks like it has an organ mounted on the back) Joe took out the only Leman russ that Adam had bought with him with the lascannon on the razorback (peeping over the tops of the rhinos) and killed a pretty decent 7 guard in the explosion, nice.

Turn 2: starts off with a volley of lascannons and melta weapons aimed at the rhino in the front of 'the conga line' and penetrated it 13 times and glanced 5 times and after all that they managed to immobilise it although the crew where so shaken it must have felt like they were at sea :P A few sister casualities were taken but nothing major. At the beginning of our turn I remembered about my assasin who I had infilitrated into some woods and picked off one of his inqusitors retinue (I think) We killed off his IG command squad with a lucky plasma cannon shot and killed another heavy weapons squad with the exorsist(?) this thing was on a roll! My beloved unit of Devs *fully magnatised for easy weapon swaps* took out a total of 25 guardsmen with 4 plasma cannon shots (and a junior officer) One of the guardsmen squads involved in the hits failed a morale test and their seargent was promptly executed... leaving a unit of 3 guardsmen and a commisar...OOO threatining!

Turn 3 & 4 coming tommorow... i'm too lazy too write it now and I just finished watching Skellig, which I remember reading in school years ago...*reminise*

FROM THE WHAT?

2009-04-14T13:17:00.003+01:00

As some of you know I'm reading the Soul Drinkers omnibus (and trying not to give any spoilers) the chapter ends up being based in a huge space hulk, and with the release of space hulk on the horizon I think it'd be nice to hear what you picture you space hulks being and how you'd like to go about making one?

My idea of a space hulk is kind of when you screw up a paper ball but instead of using paper, you use a tonne of space craft and intead of crushing then you send them into the warp were they all get fused to one another... and then infested with genestealers, which seems to be a reccouring theme. I think it'd be great fun to make a space hulk using different boards to represent different levels of the hulk using stairs to get you're terminators between levels.

Put you're thoughs as comments

Which reminds me, If you haven't already read eriochrome's post about commenting I want you to go and read it here. and I've commented on every post I've read since so far... It's just those word verification things really get on my nerves!

Progress!

2009-04-13T18:12:00.002+01:00

or lack of it. I've not touched a single model in the past month! I have started the Space Marine battle deck today and I've put all the names and pictures in and... that's it. No stats, no special rules, and with 37 to do it's going to take a while

For the space marines I'm going to do a seperate deck for the special characters (as I'm going to do the phoenix lords for the eldar) and a note on the decks, you do not have to print all of the cards, just the ones you need, be nice to the planet. Also does anyone have a decent picture of honour guard they can send me?

Eldar Battle Deck - Complete!

2009-04-07T18:18:00.004+01:00

Yes! The first one is done! now I'm far too lazy to proof read this one so I'm relying on you guys to point out any mistakes, so send me an email at peter.simpkins@googlemail.com or post a comment.

So here's you're link: Eldar Battle Deck

Let me know what you think, and after (if) you use them, let me know any improvments, critisms or just general stuff... let me know!

And who voted for the eldar! it was supposed to be a not-so-witty pun! change it... prefebly to orks

Yeah... go on then... pick the hordes

2009-04-06T12:02:00.003+01:00

Seems the votes are going the way of da orks and the imperial guard, which are both horde armies with a hellofva lot of units. Each. So that mean whichever one I won't be doing now I'll probably have to do after the one that get's voted for... did that make sense?

Ahh! just read the IG summary sheet again 53 different units! might wanna stock up on printer paper for this one... and the ork one... 31... damn well i suppose the eldar was 27 or so, so the orks aren't too bad

Keep voting

FOR THE HORDE!

Update: now the votes for the 'nid is going up... apparently hordes for the win :S

Busy, busy, busy!

2009-04-04T23:46:00.003+01:00

Whoo! 60th post!
So today whilst catching up on all my recorded TV (I'm blaming sky+ for sitting on my ass all day) I've put togethor most of the eldar deck, the only things that are left are the Harelquins, Rangers and all the fast attack units!

Like I said I'm going to do the space marines next but I'm going to open up the vote for the one after that, giving you a fortnight to vote.

peace out...?

Peter

New Header

2009-04-03T23:06:00.005+01:00

If your reading this post you probably noticed the picture of the banshee behind the title, it wasn't my picture but I edited it to make it work for my title heres the original image:
took a quite a bit of editing then getting the right size was a pain but not too bad for half an hours work.

I'm wandering whether to continue with the battle decks, but as suggested take away the point costs making them play aids, and there needed for eldar with two different powers for every type of aspect warrior :S. What do you reckon? Yes? No?

Update: I've decided to go ahead with the decks, and I've already created 5 more for the eldar deck... bed now at 01:10 :S

Cloaks of Silence

2009-04-02T23:51:00.002+01:00

I keep getting hit by inspiration that would be awsome, but non-do-able but this one is, especially as it can be done easily after the models are complete, so... yay!

The plan is to give my entire force green cloaks (greenstuff silly not actually green) i think it'd look awsome on the jetbike riders with the billowing cloaks behind them and heres hoping a hood can hide the horrible jetbikers heads.

Any thoughts on this on greenstuff guides to making cloaks, both would be appreciated

Preview Eldar - Battle Deck

2009-04-01T20:37:00.004+01:00

Here's a quick insight into what the cards will look like.
Front

Back

I will attempt to add a bit of 'backround' artwork kind of thing in the future and this is the only one I've done, I'm not sure why i started with the banshees but hey...

Any suggestion, comments or abuse... wait scratch that last one, you know where to put 'em!

Battle Deck Army Builder!

2009-03-31T22:15:00.002+01:00

yeah! what a cool name! and i thought of it... right so what I'm thinking of doing is making card sets for each race in 40K with both the point values (ect) and the special rules so you don't have to keep filicking between pages in your codex to find out stats, rules ect. they'd also be good in battle aids.
So I'm gonna start with eldar (because that's what I'm gonna be using) then marines and then I'll let yah vote *assuming this all goes to plan* so look forward to the first ones being posted at some point in the next few days/weeks/months/years/when hell freezes over/never

Peter out

Just a quickie

2009-03-27T23:43:00.002Z

Got my laptop back today and yet again it's been wiped *sigh* I'd done a load of work restoring my laptop from when it got wiped a few weeks back and now I have to start agian... but! i got my base coats down on my scouts and it'll do for tommorow I suppose, I'll put a battle report up tommorow hopefully, no piccies though.

Already 100 pages into the soul drinkers omnibus, and thanks to those who suggested some more, I'll buy them after the start of my eldar which my starting off shopping list is: 1 jetbike and bitz to make a farseer, 6 man jetbike squad, 10 dire avengers and a wave serpent, which should be enough to deal with for the time being, and I need my codex...

Bookkeeping

2009-03-26T21:44:00.002Z

Edit: I realised Drax did a post named likewise after this... immediatley afterwards

I picked up The Souleaters Omnibus. From the 36pages I've read (I read really fast when I get down to it, i'll probably have this 676pg (might be 767pg) monster (three books in one minde) done in a few weeks time hee hee hee...

Just wandering if anyone has read it already and what they thought of it and if they can reccomend any other 40K-ish books that I should read

Phairwell Phi and hobby update

2009-03-20T21:44:00.003Z

Managing to yet again shang-hi a computer, but this time it's a laptop, I've stolen it off a friend who's gonna be out of town so hopefully... he won't be back soon.

A little dissapointed to hear that Phil from 40K radio has left! He'd been missing the past few shows but has finally announced he's no longer going to be a co-host on the show, hopefully he'll pop up every now and again, but phairwell phil.

On the xbox front if you look at my gamercard (if it's working properly) you'll see that I've bought Peggle, as lovley and fluffy as it is playing with unicorns and pumpkins ect. as you're character, behind this though it's a really great game, which I'm addicted to, I'm trying to stick to the arcade games for a while to keep my xbox gaming cost down so that I have plenty of monies for my eldar :)

My scouts are partly assembled and are undercoated but I'm still stuck on how to paint black, maybe I should re-read Ron's guide.

I've taken my first ever commission!... well I say commision, I've taken on a devilfish of my rouge miniature ruin-er at my gaming club, I thought I would be a decent practice for the sleek lines of the eldar vehicles, also I don't want him to ruin it, so he's given me six quid to buy some vomit brown, bronzed flesh (thank you second hand stall that is my local gameshop) something else and also an undercoated SM biker (at least he can undercoat stuff). I've put down the basecoat and started highlighting and then I got bored (did it to add to my ultramarine bike squad BTW)

Anyway the devilfish's assembled and undercoated and I've put down the scortched brown in the recesses of the thing, and I started to paint on the vomit brown but I had to start again as the paint was lumpy (wtf?) so I mixed it up a little... with the end of the pencil and then I prompley fell asleep... serves me right for always painting at gone 11 0' clock :P I woke up in the morning with a lovley layer of goo over my vomit brown, luckily I managed to headbutt my desk to wake myself up in time for work this morining :)

Out of it.

2009-03-19T21:39:00.003Z

Right guys, my laptop has completly died, like dead died, it's broken. I've managed to shang-hi a computer to put this post up, but I will be inactive and unable to visit your blogs regularly, if anyof you find something I should really have a look at in my absence (I haven't checked blogs since last friday) than e-mail the links to me @ peter.simpkins@googlemail.com it'd be much appreciated. And I should be able to ckeck me e-mail every other day or so.

I got my white dwarf yesterday (If your only in it for the 40K I wouldn't bother with it, there's two shadowsword data sheets (which i think are up on the net) and then a painting masterclass for the Stompa (which is supposed to be as custom and orky as you can make it anway so pointless aswell really) and unfortunatly... I might have to get War of the Ring, becuase it just looks great :) I never really was a fan of the skirmish based old one, (the whole might, will, fate thing got a bit much for my puny brain, but as far as I'm aware this one only uses might) but large scale battles with (relativley) cheap models spells a big yes!

Although I'd wish GW'd stop doing the OTT battle reports, it doesn't give an accurate feel for what the game plays as. And the last few (SM and Ork ones) have had multiple battle reports (3 and 4 respectivly) that have all been rubbish, and almost as much briefing and debriefing as one of the reports lasts, anyway I digress, It looks like a sound game system.
Below is a bit more 'in-depth' of what is wrong with my laptop.

So you know the screen that pops up if your laptop freezes and gives you the option to go into safe mode, well whatever option you chose it just loops back to that screen and every now and again you see the dreadded 'blue screen' flash up for a split second. So my laptop has been sent off (I love extended cover, it ends next month aswell :D ) and I hope to get it back before easter.

See you round!

Rookie error!

2009-03-07T18:20:00.000Z

Well today a lot of things happened
#1 I went into town and bought a unit of scouts to be my test ravenguard minis from my local gaming store... I mean stall (serious 'green angle cards and games' in Kettering (northanptonshire) look it up in the back of the WD :P ) I'll post my progress... I mean failings as they come, if the ruddy camera doesn't start playing up (I finally passed my feel no pain on my thumb for you who wanted to know :D)

#2 I download the new army rooster thing from Pit of the Oni, great thing by the way and thanks for sorting out that bug

and #3 my ruddy laptop's been wiped! My friend came round with DoW2 and a no-cd crack on his memory stick... (I left him to it I had to go get some supplies... pizza and yeah... today's gaming day) the crack didn't work and I've lost everything! Luckily I have most of the important stuff backed up, work, music, pictures ect. but I've needed to re-install Windows XP, firefox, ,word all that kinda software and on the warhammer side I've lost all of my army lists and stuff... which is so annoying, I had one up for 1000, 1500, 1750 and 2000 point lists for my Raven Guard, Eldar, and Dark elves... which are now all gone so I only have the 1500 ones i posted up on here :S sigh... I need a mac, everyone's too lazy to make viruses for them :P

Eldar 1500 army list

2009-03-05T21:54:00.002Z

I know, I know it's later than I said, but you don't know where I live so HA!

HQ

Farseer 55pts - 188pts
Singing spear 3pts
Runes of Warding 15pts
Runes of Witnessing 10pts
Spirit Stones 20pts
Eldar Jetbikes 30pts
Doom 25pts
Fortune 30pts

Seer Council - 210pts
5 Warlocks 125pts
Destructor x 5 50pts
Singing Spear x 5 15pts
Eldar Jetbikes 20pts

Troops

Guardian Jetbike Squad - 196pts
8 members 176pts
shuriken cannons x 220pts

Guardian Jetbike Squad - 196pts
8 members 176pts
shuriken cannons x 220pts

Dire Avengers - 337pts
10 members 120pts
Exarch 12pts
Two Avenger Catalpults 5pts
Bladestorm 15pts
Defend 15pts
Wave Serpent 90pts
Twin-linked Scatter Lasers 25pts
Shuriken cannon 10pts
Star engines 15pts
Spirit Stones 10pts

Elite

Howling Banshees - 372pts
10 members 160pts
Exarch 12pts
Executioner 10pts
War shout 5pts
Acrobatic 5pts
Wave Serpent 90pts
Twin-linked Scatter Lasers 25pts
Shuriken cannon 10pts
Start engines 15pts
Spirit Stones 10pts

1500pts exactly... I think

This is a list that Jawa... wait no Fritz (yes I foolishly sent it to Jawaballs first, way to go me!) becuase I stole Ron's Idea *insert evil laugh here*

As you can see everything is either on a jetbike or in a wave serpent making this a nasty fast moving thingy... BUT! it's not Saim-Hann, they are going to be a dark blue colour (enchanted blue is gonna be the highlight) with silver for emblem things. My anti-tank stuff is mainly gonna be the singing spears and scatter lasers in rear amour 4 S6 shots can eat up most vehicles, but the Land Raiders are gonna have to be left to the Seer council.

I was trying to build this as an anti-necron list (but it didn't really plan out, but my brother plays orks, it'll be good against them) as my friend Josh who I play (and win (every single time) every thursday, is about to start collecting his Necrons along with my eldar, I might get some updates on his progress (He's bought, assembled and undercoated his necron lord w/ staff and rez orb, which is more than me really I've only painted a Farseer which I'm not going to use anymore) but I'm feeling lazy and I've been playing Halo Wars... alot

"If you want to hook up with me over Xbox Live my gamertag is 'Wolfhound PSK' but my mike is broken (It plays up a lot and makes my voice sound about three tones higher, I've listened to myslef on it and I sound like 13 or something :P ) and I've sworn an oath to myself that I'm saving all me gaming money to start my Eldar, also I play mostly with my Nephew and his friends (I know beating kids isn't such a big deal... It's only when they beat me it is :( "

Back from the depths

2009-02-22T20:00:00.003Z

It seems the Blood Ravens won, making it a late win over the hawk lords, I'm relieved to a degree as I have no experience painting purple and one of the centerpieces (my redeemer) being painted in that colour, I didn't want to ruin it, and I quite like the Blood ravens (thanks to Dawn of War)

Which reminds me: If you haven't already watched this, THQ hired a team to convert, well construct a Rhino, they say life size but no-way would they fit 12 8' marines in there, it would have been awsome if they had mounted a high caliber gun on it and blown some stuff up, to represent a storm bolter :P

I've had a look around for a few tutorials, there's a video series on youtube that I'm about to have a look at but if anyone can recommend a guide on how to paint them, then all input would be appreciated.

"Tread softly, and carry a big gun."

Epic fail...

2009-02-21T13:11:00.004Z

(This isn't a made up story and I have the wound to prove it :S i wish it was though...)

So after reading that there was going to be a painting corps challange, i got sraight to work deassembaling a tac marine that i had glued the bolter on funny and he needed re-making anyway, unfotunatley I had a bit of an accident, I managed to cut my thumb on my craft knife (this is still my huge chunky one i haven't got a new x-acto yet) and yes it really, really hurts (It's slowing down my typing at the minute I'm having to touch type without my thumb :(, and i can't operate my Ipod with my right hand)it's put a stop to all of my hobby work (this is deep :S ) and so there will be an even bigger lack of hobby updates (even though t he cameras sorted now)

If you don't understand how bad a cut this is i took one look at it and fainted (Failed my feel no pain roll), landed on an ork painboy (Irony!) I was roused a few minutes later, as my labradour had come into the room to investigate and licked my face into conciousness, good girl :S

Just remember kids, sharp things hurt! ouch!
this is generally what my craftknife looks like (except it's red)

1500pts Raven Guard List

2009-02-18T17:23:00.003Z

Shadow Captain Kayvaan Shrike - 195pts

Troops

Tactical Squad 90pts - 225pts

+5 members 80pts

Meltagun 5pts

Missle launcher Free

Melta bombs 5pts

Drop pod 35pts

Locator Beacon 10pts

Tactical Squad 90pts - 240pts

+5 members 80pts

Meltagun 5pts

Missle launcher Free

Rhino 35pts

Storm bolter 10pts

Extra Amour 15pts

Scout Squads 75pts - 150pts

+5 members 65pts

Sniper Rifles Free

Heavy Bolter 10pts

Elites

Dreadnought 105pts - 165pts

Assualt cannon 10pts

Extra amour 15pts

Drop pod 35pts

Fast Attack

Assualt Squad 100pts - 240pts

+5 members 90pts

Flamers x 2 20pts

Power fist 25pts

Melta bombs 5pts

Scout Bike Squad 70pts - 200pts

+7 members 140pts

Astartes grenade launcher x 3 30pts

Attack Bike Squad (?there's only one?) - 50pts

Attack bike 40pts

Multi-melta 10pts

That's 1500pts exactly, I hope... anyway, the tac squad in the drop pod will be launched first turn and then I'll deep strike my Assualy marines w/ shrike and dreadnought, My scouts can sit on an objective and pick off any units (heres hoping they're infantry) heading their way.

The attack bike will go tank hunting, if he's not shot on the first turn which is likley...

The second tac squad will move up in the rhino (may put one combat squad in there w/ melta gun to go hunting and put the other on an objective) and to tank shock people off objectives and claim them for my own evil purposes... MUHAHAHAHA!

And the scout bike squad will be my anti-anything-they-can-shoot-at, and with a 12" scout move (can this be a turbo-boost does anyone know) they'll be in range now.

Obviously no Land Raider Redeemer in this list and no vets, although I'm thinking of re-writing that list and not taking the vets, they're very expensive and not that durable, might just put a tac squad in there, I dunno. If I do though the tac squad will be under the voted colour scheme :D keep voting!

Achievment unlocked: Double double - 25g

2009-02-17T16:25:00.005Z

Again, name the refrence for internet points!

Down to buisness, so... alot of people play teams, and here is an idea to try out that plays out as a fun an interesting game.

Draw out your army lists and gather you're models BUT! you'll be playing your teamates army! I tried this with my friend nicks Imperial Guard (I've never played these before) and he played my ultramarines. Not only was this a great battle (our oppnent Adam had n
o idea how to play nids :P ) it gives you a great insight into how their army works, what they're best at and what you as his teamate need to do to draw on these advantages, giving you an edge playing normal double games.

Go and try it, we had great fun in this game and we've even planned a double reverse tournatment where you are teamed up randomly and then swap your armies (who knows which army your going to end up with?) We're planning this to start early next month and we're going to have 5 rounds (1 a week for the whole month) I'll keep you updated on how it goes.

Also for you guys who loved the nightlords here is another picture of them in action!
Also if you're wandering about the irregular post time. I have a week off! happy face :)

Achievment unlocked: Variety is the spice of death - 30G

2009-02-15T16:49:00.006Z

Alright internet points for guessing the title reference.

I was re-reading the tale of 4 gamers yesterday (I'm kinda annoyed it finished that was the first bit I'd read every month) I was thinking about matt's chaos space marines and how he did all of them red corsairs except one unit. Which he really went to town one unit nightlords (he went absoloutley nuts at these they look brilliant)

So what I'm planning on doing is Painting up my LR and my vanguard a different chapter colour, becuase Raven Guard never use heavy vehicles and the vanguard would have jump packs. So I've picked out a few chapters I'd like to try painting these up as, but I want YOU to vote on them (see poll)

Here are pictures of what the different colour schemes on the chapters are:

Sons of Orar(They look cool, and I only need to buy two colours):

Hawk Lords (they look cool and fit the bird theme, but I don't own a purple at the minute (although I need one):
The Fire Lords (fit because the redeemer has FIRE! Need to buy yellow and red):
The Blood Ravens (I know this is a blood angels chapter but I like them (and they fit in with the raven theme, Only need to buy 2 colours)
These are the four chapters that I like and feel I'll be able to do an above avarge paint job on them. SO GET VOTING

Modelling oppurtunities, grab 'em, there fun

2009-02-08T19:00:00.000Z

I was looking round for some raven guard stuff (Ok i was looking on a guide to how to paint the symbol... and i found one here) I was thinking about the modelling I could do with my ravenguard, marines can get quite boring without anything to make them unique so I thought about it and here's what I've come up with so far:

Floaty bases: I'm gonna model Shrike, My librarian and my assualt marines to be in flight, using a piece of wire attatched to the base to make them look like their mid jump, I might also add some greenstuff/cotton wool/ amourcast effects, smoke/flames coming out the jump packs.

Drop lift or grind pod?: Some of you may know I play gears of war 2, so I thought i'd be a fun task to scratch build a grind lift (does the same thing as a drop pod but from ground level to underground, not flying to ground level) It'd be good if I need an additional drop pod for friendly games and it let's me go nuts with plasticard, double win :D

Raveguard/Ravenwing: Yes... I'm scheming

That's all I've though of at the minute but hey! I'll probably think of some more!

Yet again any suggestions you know where to put 'em

Istaur Eldar - 2000pts

2009-02-05T15:05:00.000Z

If any of you are wandering why I always do my lists to 2000 it's that it's a nice number that isn't too restricting and it's always nice to have a few more models to throw about aswell. And also happy double post day! (Only becuase I'm trapped in the house by snow)

Farseer - 55 - 148pts
Singing Spear - 3
Runes of Warding - 15
Runes of Witnessing - 10
Spirit Stones - 20
Doom - 25
Guide - 20

Farseer - 55 - 178pts
Singing Spear - 3
Runes of Warding - 15
Runes of Witnessing - 10
Spirit Stones - 20
Doom - 25
Fortune - 30
Mind War - 20

10 Dire Avengers - 120 - 177pts
Exarch - 12
Power Weapon and Shimmer Shield - 15
Defend - 15
Bladestorm - 15

10 Dire Avengers - 120 - 177pts
Exarch - 12
Power Weapon and Shimmer Shield - 15
Defend - 15
Bladestorm - 15

5 Rangers - 95pts

5 Rangers - 95pts

10 Howling Banshees - 160 - 375pts
Exarch - 12
Executioner - 10
War Shout - 5
Acrobatic - 5
-Wave Serpent - 90
Twin-Linked Bright Lances - 45
Spirit Stones - 10
Vectored Engines - 20

10 Howling Banshees - 160 - 375pts
Exarch - 12
Executioner - 10
War Shout - 5
Acrobatic - 5
-Wave Serpent - 90
Twin-Linked Bright Lances - 45
Spirit Stones - 10
Vectored Engines - 20

5 Dark Reapers - 175 - 207pts
Exarch - 12
Eldar Missle Launcher - 10
Fast Shot - 20

5 Dark Reapers - 175 - 207pts
Exarch - 12
Eldar Missle Launcher - 10
Fast Shot - 20

That adds to 1998 points... I think

I plan on putting the farseer with Guide with my reaper squads, dooming units and guiding the reapers to some mega re-rolls of death! and the other one with the banshees dooming and either mind waring enemy HQ units, nasty monstrous creatures or fortuning the unit to get those re-rolls on my saves (just a quick one does that effect the Farseer aswell does anyone know?) and use their singing spears to take out any enemy vehicles

The Rangers will sit on Objectives in cover, or the closest cover nearby and then run to the objective on the last turn, if their not all dead.

The dire avengers will be moving up to provide support for the banshees (who will be miles ahead in the wave serpents) and to sit on objectives... I'm still undecided whether to take the shimmer shield & Power weapon or the Dire Sword & Shuriken pistol (I pronounce it Sh-re-ken)

The dark reapers will provide some long ranged support (I hope to put these in buildings where they can get a decent LoS) and combined with doom (when they get close enough) I'm hoping that the onslaught will take said unit out, the missle launchers are there to provide some horde killing/light vehicle killing.

The Howling Banshees will zoom in, in the wave serpents going straight to the enemy, aiming for the heavy amoured troops (the doom re-rolls should help with the low strength) the wave serpents jobs are to take out vehicles with the bright lances and thin out any light amoured troops with the twin-linked shuriken catapults.

I know on the GW site they did an 'all plastic but the HQ unit army' well this one is almost entirley metal (except the Avengers) i really hate undercoating metal as you always end up with little bits of metal showing, and with a dark colour scheme like mine (although it does have a lot of silver in it) i don't want it to be ruined by that, I might have to try some Gesso or whatever the stuff is called, Or any tips on undercoating metal models? Also I'm gonna go for a winter theme in this army aswell although I'll probably try these bases: using the rocks for huge peices of broken ice. Again any thoughts on the list you know where to put 'em

Stuck by inspiration... literally

2009-02-05T11:25:00.000Z

I was busy thinking about my Raven Guard force when I was literally hit by inspiration, I was thinking up a theme, you know what i mean is the force gonna be set in a desert, a ruined city or whatever. Well whilst outside cleaning up after the dog, a stupid amount of snow fell off the tree on top of my head, after having thawed out, which took about a week... okay it took about 5 minutes after being inside again but hey!

I now know I want to theme my Raven guard on a frozen wasteland things, not the snow effect type thing, i hate that stuff, the proper frozen ice, model a scout to be falling over type of ice. I've found that it's easy to turn a wasteland into a frozen one... just paint it blue :P

I'm thinking of turning these bases (que picture) from back 2 base-ix (brilliant site) Into frozen plain, things for my ravenguard, Ok... that is all and stuff... Also I have the day off work today becuase there is literally a ft of snow outside... I'm stuck here with a tonne of orks... and no-one can hear me scream :S

Edit: Don't forget Back 2 Base-ix also stock plasticard, flock, modeling sand (i think they call it ballast) nuts, bolts and washers. And they have both round and square bases, check them out, at only $6.10 for 10 25mm bases it's good value aswell... I think (not sure with my £ to $ but i think it's about £4 or something)

2000pts Raven Guard list

2009-02-01T10:37:00.000Z

This list is a lot less fluffy (even with the special character) and is probably a much more 'usable' list so here goes

HQ

Shadow Captain Kayvaan Shrike - 195pts

Space Marine Librarian - 100pts - 180pts
Epistolary - 50pts
Jump Pack - 25pts
Force Dome - Free
Might Of The Ancients - Free

Troops

Scout Squad - 75pts - 180pts
+5 Models - 65pts
Heavy Bolter (With Hellfire Shells) - 10pts
Camo cloaks - 30pts
Sniper Rifles - Free

Scout Squad - 75 - 140pts
+5 Models - 65pts
Bolters - Free

Tactical Squad - 90pts - 245pts
+5 Models - 80pts
Powerfist - 25pts
Meltagun - 5pts
Multi-Melta - Free
Drop Pod - 35pts
Locator Beacon - 10pts

Elites

Vanguard Veteran Squad -125pts - 325pts (not right, removed the flamers ect from assualt squads and used the points here but I didn't bother changing them)
+5 Members - 100pts
Relic Blade - 15pts
Edit: (used to be 3) Power Fist x 2 - 50pts
Edit: (used to be 4 power weapons) Lightning x 3 - 45pts
Edit: (wasn't here before) Thunder Hammer - 30pts
Melta Bombs - 5pts

Fast Attack

Assault Squad - 100pts - 245pts
+5 Members
Powerfist - 25pts
Melta-Bombs - 5pts

Assault Squad - 100pts - 245pts
+5 Members
Powerfist - 25pts
Melta-Bombs - 5pts

Heavy Support

Whirlwind - 85pts

Landraider Redeemer
Multi-Melta - 10pts
Extra Amour - 15pts

So taking some advice from the other post, yes the Vanguard Veteran Squad will be mounted up in the landraider.

You'll notice I didn't give my assault squad any additional ranged weapons, that is becuase I plan on taking full advantage of Captain Shrike's chapter tactics (Which lets you change Combat Tactics speacial rule for the Fleet speacial rule).

The Whirlwind is there to take out any campers (Pathfinders in cover, Gretchin on objectives, massed orks/nids/guard)

What I plan on doing is dropping the drop pod at a vunerable point in my opponent's battle line, then (thanks to the locator beacon) I will deep strike my two assault squads with Shrike and the Librarian (I'm not sure whether to put these both in one unit or one in each (as abviously shrike doesn't benifit the force dome due to his Iron Halo) (obviously this won't work well on DoW set up I might just send my Librarian in and he can catch up with the deep striking units)

With my Librarian I will use the Force dome (5+ invunrable save) to keep my assualt troopers alive and Might of the acients to add some additional vehicle, and high toughness killing power to the units (strength 6 + 2D6 amour pen)

With the scouts to sit on objectives (the sniper one as near to my deployment zone as possible) I'll try if i can to capture another objective with the tac squad but I don't expect them to survive more than the first two turns, but with three fast moving units (Assualt squads, Land raider) and the ability to fleet) I should be able to contest most if not all of my opponents objectives

There's my plan and list, got any addvice or critisms you know where to put it (in the comments not the other place :P )

1750 point White scar/Raven guard force

2009-01-24T21:08:00.000Z

This is a fluffy army thing (that's tournament worthy... I hope) and yes I do plan to make this. The army is based on the story 'The Hunt for Voldorius' which is a battle were the white scars' kor'sarro Khan and and captain Shrike of the raven guard join forces to kill the daemon prince Volodris and bring back his head

Captain Shrike - 195pts

Kor'sarro Khan - 160 - 205pts
Moondrakken -45

Scout squad - 75 - 90pts
Camo cloaks - 15
Sniper rifles - free

Scout squad - 75 - 90pts
Camo cloaks - 15
Sniper rifles - free

Scout squad - 75 - 150pts
+5 members - 65
Heavy bolter - 10
Bolters - Free

# Scout squad - 75 - 90pts
Melta bombs - 5
Combi-melta - 10
Combat blades - free

Land speeder storm - 50 - 85pts
Assualt cannon - 35
Dedicated transport for scout squad marked #

Assualt squad - 100 - 240pts
+5 members - 90
flamer - 10
plasma pistol -15
power fist - 25

Bike squad - 90 - 320pts
+5 members - 125
powerfist - 25
melta bombs -5
melta gun - 10
plasma gun - 15
attack bike - 40
multi melta - 10

Land raider redeemer - 240 - 275pts
extra amour - 15
multi melta - 10
Storm bolter - 10

The Khan will be attached to the bike squad, Shrike to the Assault squad. I will infiltrate the 2 sniper scout units (into cover)the 10 man will sit on the nearest objective to my deployment zone. I will outflank the land speeder storm to take out any 'camping' units (AKA Gretchin, pathfinders)and annoying artillery pieces using the combi-melta and the melta bombs. The redeemer will rumble up with the bikes and I will probably deep strike the assault squad.

If I increase it to 2000 it will be an assault unit of termies and possibly add chronus to the land raider. If i increase it anymore I'll make the bike squad an honor guard squad and the assault marines vanguard. and increase the sniper squads and/or put in another storm w/ scouts.

Any suggestions to make it better or tactics to use, make a comment!

15 things to do before you... fall asleep :P

2009-01-20T22:05:00.000Z

Here are a few quick things to speed up your hobby, but not necessarily 15 of them which takes me to one I thought of after I started

0) Try setting targets for you're self, complete a unit by the end of the week or something...

1) DON'T take over a blogging group when the original leader quits :P

2) paint the top of your paint lids the colour that's inside, instead of searching through your colours for ages (finding more pots of chaos black than you thought you had and realised you shouldn'tve bought some more (does this sound like I'm talking from experience?)

3) Have a clean work area, have a seperet desk just for your hobby (if you're lucky enough to have room... you can't work at a desk covered with college work or... work work, you need you're own little hobby... cacoon

4) Don't read every blog post that comes up otherwise your 5 minute touch up job can take two hours (I'm also experienced in this area)

5) Always have only one model out on the go (unless batch undercoating) painting up 20 ork boyz can seem really daunting but take them one by one and you feel you're getting somewhere)

6) Reward you're self for getting things done, see a cool mini you'd love to paint but have no other use for buy it when you complete an especially hard character, an army or something else (beating a friend you've had a stupidly long losing streak against (experience again, I bought the nobz (there awsome!) for example 3 ork boyz = 1 cookie :D -Which reminds me not owning the ork codex, can someone tell me the difference between a Choppa and a big choppa?

7) Stay on hobby, the number of times I've almost forgotten warhammer exsists then you feel really hard to get motavated, listen to some hobby related podcasts (I listen to: 40K radio, Worlds end radio, podhammer (not for the little'uns)and The D6 generation) try fantasy battles or even LotR

8) Don't cut down on you're hobby time to run you're blog, it's not that important! unless it's really important...

9) Think of some more stuff before starting you're blog posts and don't do it late at night (AKA i might add to this post tommorrow)

Ye Gods!!!

2009-01-05T18:50:00.000Z

In a somewhat suicidal fashion I've agreed to take over the blogger group, now this may not be permanent and I want to find people to help me along with it, I think the sheer volume of work Ron had to do was what help push (edit: originally said punch :P ) him over the edge

If you want to lend a hand than please send emails to peter.simpkins@googlemail.com or post a comment and I'll get back to you

This blog will still be active as the From the Warp will be based on the community and I do not feel it is mine to do what I like with

Also, I've already gogt started on my new years resolution and I am painting up the Black reach dwarves (miners are done and I am doing the thunderes, now!)

Back into the Warp

2009-01-04T11:17:00.000Z

Many of you are very sorry to hear that Ron over at from the warp has decided to close up shop and I'm sure a lot of us will miss him... I know I will, I never found out how he paints white :P

With the leader of the FtW blogger group gone (hmm... do we need a new name aswell?) that means we need to pick a new leader. Not me. But I do think we should spread the load like: one person doing the round table stuff, one person organizing the monthly comps, one person organizing the mailing and one just to keep everything in line, I think it was the amount of work Ron had to do for it that made him go... or something (I'm just guessing here)

I don't know how we're going to run the election maybe we could do a Poll or something, people put themselves up as candidates (please note that Barak Obama may not enter) and then we can vote... I'll organize this bit if you like.

So what do yah think to the idea?

New years Hobby resoloution

2008-12-29T15:27:00.000Z

So over at Plastic Legions he's written a top ten new years resolution so I thought I'd do they same (and I'm gonna add platic legions to my Bog roll)

10 - finish painting the contents of Battle for Skull Pass, I've had it for ages and only painted one of the gobbo units

9 - Make some terrain, I'm desperately short and I only really have enough for a 3' by 3' board and when i creep into the dark world of apocalypse, I'm gonna need some more

8 - Finish painting the orks in Assault on Black Reach and increase it to 1500-1750 point strong

7 - Start a mini force of Grey knights to combine with my ultramarines (about 500 points)

6 - Start my Dark Elves force to about 1000 points

5 - Buy and read the Gaunts Ghost novels

4 - Start my White scar and Ravenguard combo force thing about 750 points of each white scars and Raven guard

3 - Learn to paint to a higher standard

2 - Keep my warhammer desk tidy so i can just pick up and paint

1 - Get my eldar up to 1750 - 2000 points and paint them to a high standard Jawaballs may be getting some money from me :S

0 - GET MORE HOBBY MONEY AND FAST!

Maybe you should try a top ten too, it's daunting how much money your going to spend in the next year :S

Istaur

2008-12-28T22:49:00.000Z

Thanks Matt_ARCHANGELS for linking me to THIS website which is a English to Eldar (by someone who has far too much time on their hands) so the name Istaur means silence and that is going to be the name of my Eldar force. Although I may go with IstaurWe which means Silent singing... let's give the Imperial Guard pub band a run for their money

I've decided to buy the two units of avengers and a wave serpent but not from GW but from Wayland Games (absolutely brilliant site, not sure what the postage is like to the US but UK peeps should shop here)

I still went to GW today as I was going to buy the Codex, which they were completly out of stock! So i bought some paints, brushes, battlefield accesories kit, a dice cube and a decent tape measure.

um... bye!

HELP!!! and a bit

2008-12-27T19:48:00.000Z

So... I hope everyone had a great christmas, i know i did it wasn't a very warhammery one I got the space marine codex but thats all but i do have just under £70 that means one thing ELDAR ARE EN ROUTE!!!

The only problem is that with the army i want to take it doesn't include any guardians (or the war walker) because I was gonna start out by buying the Battleforce (5 avengers, wave serpent, 10 guardians and a war walker) but I'm wandering whether i should just buy a wave serpent and two units of avengers as it's about £6 more but i get stuff I'm actually going to use only problem is I need to make up my mind by tomorrow as I'm going into Chalmsford to visit one of my friends (god his wife teases me about playing with 'toy soldiers' so at some point I'm gonna go into town and GW (I very rarley get to go to one as the nearest one to me is 2 hours away) where I'm going to buy it (I'd rather pay that bit extra and get them tommorow (it's not that much more counting P&P ect.) so, Battle force or not?

Also a little update: I completed Gears of war 2 :), but I have failed on my farseer rather epicly (should have made a test modle first (the damn thing is gonna need stripping) so I'm sorry to say Ron that there's about an 80% chance that I will not actually be finished for the contest date... I can hardly get this thing painted let alone do a base... I'm sorry.

So a hand would be appreciated on deciding and any craftworld name suggestions are still open

Eventurally!!! and a bit

2008-12-19T17:02:00.000Z

right so eventually my farseer arrived today along with a little suprise...
for some reason they had included a dwarf engineer in my order, free of charge aswell, i don't play dwarves nor plan to but whose gonna turn down free warhammer? not me anyway

I got the farseer that i wanted aswell out of the randomized bunch (singing spear with the rock on hand :P ) so i can convert the runes using that hand.

I'd say I'm desperately wanting the undercoat to dry but I'm not... I'm playing gears (2 :P ) with one of my mates :D

Post eldar depression

2008-12-18T17:06:00.000Z

So with my farseer still somewhere in the post (hence the name of the post) I thought I might start writing a bit of fluff for my eldar force... then i though nah! but i couldn't find anything better to do so here it is. I started off my 'Commands from the webway' book. It was only a few brief notes and I still forgot some of it as I woke up in the morning fully clothed with a pencil in my hand in an arm chair... I can't say that's ever happened before without any drinking involved, anyway here's a bit of background (I'm not gonna interrupt this with my normally abundant ellipses and brackets :P ) And don't yell at me for not having a name yet, eldar names are a bit obscure so it's hard to think of one (I'll edit it in this post when I think of one) Also I'm thinking of a few custom rules to put into affect being my own unique... thing.

Craftworld _______ was one of the first craftworlds that took to the skies, it was involved in a great conflict with the forces of chaos. A chaos sorcerer banished the world to the warp and there it stayed for many years fighting the forces of Chaos, the warriors of became ruthless killers, having seen many terrors in the grips of chaos. After returning into the known universe when a violent warpstorm in the Kuarava system bought the craftworld back from the warp when the warpstorm came into contact with an ancient webway gate. ________ have forever since been silent warriors for the terrors they witnessed very nearly drove them into insanity and they made a vow to never speak of it again, the ________'s warriors instead communicate through telepathy each with an adept knowledge of psychic powers. Through their intense fighting with chaos each warrior has become fearless in the face of terror and have shown legendary efficiency at combat the reaper launchers of the skull faced dark reapers and the legendary power weapons of the howling banshees, who have reproduced their physical cries of mourning for a psychic barrage of noise. The craftworld has gone down in legend as the defenders from the tide of chaos.

Here's a few custom rules i think I'll see if I can put into affect.

-Being in the warp so long many of the members of craftworld _______ have been slain except the best warriors, to represent this no guardian units may be take (this includes pilots)

-Dire avengers may pilot vehicles (adding the point difference between a guardian and an avenger (this will increase the ballistics skill of the vehicle)

-Being very adept psykers therefore every unit with LoS to a farseer or warlock may use his/her leadership, vehicle LoS for this can only be drawn from firing points or cockpits (heh heh sorry couldn't stop myself) jetbikes are included in this as they are concentrating on driving their vehicles so cannot turn to look, farseers in transports cannot be used (except for any squad inside with him/her)

-To balance the rule above if no farseers are left alive every single unit suffers a -1 Ld modifier as the farseer boost the psyhcic abilities of those nearby so there would be a lack of communication between squads.

- ______'s warriors are resistant to all vocal based effects (cry of war or something like that (other howling banshees come to mind))

-Spirit stones MUST be taken on Farseers

-At least one Farseer must be included in the force

-At least one farseer must have the 'Doom' Phsychic power

-At least one unit of both Howling banshees and Dark reapers must be taken to represent the legendary aspect warriors of the craftworld.

-When mind war succsefully kills a model you must yell 'MIND CRUSH' for no good reason

-Warlocks may take two warlock powers at an additional 15Pts per model (eg. conceal and emboldment (which would probably be quite a good combo))

-Autraches may not be taken as ________ are psyker elites

Any suggestions on changing the custom rules, suggesting a name, or any additional rules you might include (or any you'd remove entirely)

THE END

Updates and uvver stuff

2008-12-16T21:43:00.000Z

I've finished painting the nobs and did a few touch ups on my warboss (i only notice these things when i look at them on a picture) I'm about 1/8 done of my orks (doing them all together so not one is actually finished) I've also completed one deffcopter, but I have broken off at least one propeller ON EVERY SINGLE ONE!!!

The Royal Mail is on holiday already it seems my farseer was dispatched over a week ago now (first class) and I really want to (and need to for the challange) get started, I also bought some razor wire to use to make the runes

Firefox is mucking me around not saving my: blogger, Youtube, disqus, googlemail, kongregate and facebook are all messing me around not saving the log ins when i close my browser or turn off my computer.

Christmas is just round the corner , I've bought presents for my friends but being in a family of six (and a labradour) I'm broke and still need to buy them presents...
I put the monster of a chrismas tree off (had to trim about a foot off so it could stand up properly inside) it now looks very pretty :) (are guys allowed to say that?)

CURSES!!! my network at work has changed and it incorparates a lot stricter filters so I can't look at all your blog posts as much as i'd like (Only on my breaks (I swear)) this also means I'll have even less updates on my blog, but the holidays are just around the corner and I hope to get a lot of Hobby stuff done (we clost compeletley over christmas and newyear I think my holiday is this firday until... the seventh of january... I think) and with the holidays just round the corner (especially you drax with your school holidays :P ) i hope to see a lot of activity on the blogs as I'm out of black library stuff to read... and i can't sleep if i don't read... seriously... not a wink

Also I think I'm high for no good reason :D

Bye bye :P

2008-12-10T22:36:00.000Z

You know the saying... or you might not... no bus's for hours and then they all come at once, yes 3 posts (well this is number 4) in 2 days and why not :P

Just a heads up for tomorrow I'm gonna post a guide on easy ruin bases that were made... easily...

If anyone has any feedback about my orks (after investigating the pictures i found a great many imperfections on my warboss :P oh well) i know three of them are only primed and I do know that mr. eagle eye (seriously someone posted that as a comment as if i hadn't noticed (I deleted it afterward :P ))

WIP: AoBR orks

2008-12-10T18:31:00.000Z

So I painted up the black reach marines ages ago but i thought i'd finally get onto the orks. I do like orks as they are a change to my normally favoured 'shooty' armies and I'm considering making these up to a real ork army after my eldar. I'm not really using a clan as such i just want a horde unit with a few units of elites really (mostly nobz hiding behind the large boyz units) but I probably won't get round to doing that until this time next year but who cares!

Here's just a few pictures of the Warboss and his nobz (Heh heh heh It's so funny discussing tactics with nobz with ork players :P ) the nob unit is about half finnished and the warboss needs to have a few things done like his gun barrels drilled out but nothing too major. I would have waited until i had finished them all but i wanted to test out my new (and poorly made photo box which will work better once i work out how to turn the flash off)

Free-handing

2008-12-10T16:03:00.000Z

So I've been surfing looking up on tips on free-handing ect. after seeing Jawaball's amazing Banner (the videos are on youtube) so I thought I'd brush up (no pun intended...okay maybe a little) so here's what i've learnt:

-Always rince the brush throroughly after each colour, especially went painting tiny details, use warm water and brush soap (if you don't have any get some it's brilliant stuff and can rescue the brushes with huge globs of dried on paint) make sure you dry it well afterwards as you don't want the next colour to run

-Use tiny amounts of paint, as small as you can really

-Free handing is not really based on you're painting skill it's more your drawing skill, if needbe use one of those pens (can't be any other help i don't have one yet myself) and mark out a rough design

-Never drink or eat any food stuffs containing caffine or a large amount of sugar before free-handing (or whilsts) as these will make your hands shake making it all but impossible to paint accuratley

-Practice drawing, a good idea is to actually draw the design you want to paint first as you'll be used to the design

-Paint everyday (not neciserily free handing), even if it's litrelly only for 5 minutes as this will make your painting much more... good

-Speaking of lines draw basic shapes with a paint brush (use a colour you use very little of or have a lot of) because most designs are just made up of basic shapes and the detail is added in later.

-If you are trying something really hard make sure you leave the previous colour to dry COMPLETLY before applying the next as you can just use a wet paper towel or something to wipe it off quickly so you don't spoil your design

-You want you're really ambitiously painted HQ units to look great, so practice it on things like seargens, vehicles so you get a better feel for free-handing

In the end it's mostly down to you're drawing skill (epic fail for me) and practice makes perfect... although nobodys perfect... so whats the point in practicing? Okay ignore that practice does make you better.

Hope some of these have been useful and if not... damn

P.S. (my initials which is kinda weird) I've just started listening to 40K radio and Worlds end radio. two warhammer based podcasts, I've also downloaded an episode of Podhammer which is an entirely fantasy based one but i'm yet to listen to it. I think you should at least have a listen of one or two, i like to listen to this stuff when painting rank-and-file minis which can get very tiring after a while.

-

I'm sorry...

2008-12-09T18:13:00.000Z

Right so a lot of you may have noticed... or maybe not. But i haven't put a post up for over a fortnight (i think) It has partially been life but the main reason is, I bought an Xbox 360 off a friend on an absolute whim and so i've been having fun with that.

The only hobby stuff I've done is paint up a 15 warriors of Minis Tirith (5 spear, 5 sword, 5 bow) a flag bearer and Boromir. I don't play the game, i used to but at the time (it was many years ago now) i found the might/will/fate rules hard and frustrating and hard to play (although i like how heros just pwnd in it)

I thought I'd just add a quick tutorial for painting ruins (not just my easy ones) it's not in great detail or anything just... well it works!

1: Prime the ruin (be careful if it is carboard as if you use too much the cardboard with warp) a spray or textured paint is prefrable

2: Use a relitivley dark grey (i don't have a white dwarf at hand for the colour thing or recall them from memory) and base coat the ruin, don't be too through leave some of the primer visable

3: Use a lighter grey and drybrush the entire model and highlight any detail you may or may not have

4: using the same method the heavy metal team used to paint wood on the Chaos lord shield (if there's any on the model)

5. Base it as you like, modelling sand, flock ect.

I know it's breif and sorry about the lack of pictures but if you really have no clue i hope it's been some help.

An a lighter note, i've just ordered my farseer that i'm entering in the basing competition (yeah, yeah i haven't started yet) hopefully that'll be here on saturday so i can have a good look at it on the sunday (christmas offically starts on saturday the trees looking rather sad lying on the patio outside, Jetta (my labradour) is very intigued by it and she'll go and look at it every time she goes out to do her... buisness here's a picture of her...

I know this was a bit of a random scrambled togethor post but hey!

For your gaming pleasure

2008-11-24T19:45:00.000Z

Here are a few tips to increase your gaming pleasure I use most of these :P

Wound markers - don't use dice, use MMs, skittles, smarties, fruit pastels. Hero takes a wound oh well get a sweet
-You could also do this for every model now don't you regret your not Orks or IG

The winner is! - put a reward up for the winner it doesn't need to be anything big, some spare wound markers for instance :P or free drinks later in da pub

Imiagination - Make up your own super monsters (que rending pony) and make your opponent put an entire army against it, do it like a Zelda boss of something where you need to do destroy different parts of it before it explodes into a large amount of molten plastic and you collect the heart container from... wait forget that last bit

Vary it - always playing against the same army try swapping, it can be good fun... or not...

Turn to the dark side - I hate it when the game ends on turn 5 with an epic clash lined up for the following turn (this works best with objective levels) just keep playing even after the winner is decided the last parts of the game are normally the most fun, play to the end!

FtW group: Basing challange - Hit by inpiration...ouch!

2008-11-23T20:24:00.000Z

I have had an idea (que lightbulb) using wire I'm going to make runes out of the wire and suspend them in midair in-front of my farseer. So i want to pose/convert my farseer to make it look like s/he is writing them with some physic power (or something like that) I'm yet to work out how to suspend it (i might just use thinner wire or just not paint it)

Good idea or not?

Army quick tips

2008-11-23T16:30:00.000Z

Space marines:
With: Space marines have access to a lot of special characters use them,
Against: Plasma and power weapons are you're friends

Orks:
With: Don't bother shooting with da boyz just run
Against: Template weapons and Hi strength, low AP with lot's of shots, cause a moral tests, Use there own units for cover saves (they get in the way of each-other a lot)

Eldar:
With: Farseers rule autraches are rubbish in comparison, Use small-ish (5) jetbike squads to capture/contest objectives on the last turn, Use guardians to look after you're own objective and use the Support platform to you're advanage and DOOOOOOOM!!! (Muhahahah!)
Against: Decent AP, low-ish strenght weapons. Prioritise you're targets, especially howling banshees in transports

Imperial guard:
With: Use as many blast weapons as possible, blast weapons don't miss!
Against: Stay out of 12" wherever possible, Use weapons with a range that beats lasguns. Use weapons with as many shots as possible

Chaos:
With: Chaos heroes own... really they do
Against: Plasma again, lot's of power weapons (Howling banshees ect.)

Tau:
With: Detach the gun drones from vehicles, use pinning weapons to keep the enemy at arm's length, use kroot to pester the enemy, don't be careless with battlesuits they're not all that tough
Against: Stay out of 12" until assualting, use fast moving troops (assualt marines) to tie up the units and then move the rank-and-file units in

Necrons:
With: don't forget you're re-assemble rolls, they're better than you think
Against: Use melta weapons to pop monoliths *pop* (fire drangons in a bright-lance armed falcon)

Sorry I don't have any experience with or against Sisters, W hunters, D hunters or D eldar

Hope some of this has been useful to some of you... probably not but... maybe
post a comment for anything you think I should add

Happy birthday! TO ME!!

2008-11-22T22:56:00.000Z

Right it's my birthday on the 24th so I'm gonna treat myself to a new X-acto knife me-thinks after my old one got forgotten in a GW whilst on holiday :)

FtW group: Basing challange

2008-11-21T17:55:00.000Z

Right so you know i am going to start an eldar army so i've decided the model i'm going to enter into the competition:
An eldar farseer

I'm going to mount it on a 40mm base instead of a 25mm
1: so i can add a bit more detail to it
2: it makes the model stand out more which is what you want on a HQ choice (I do it with all my HQs)

I'm yet to decide on a color scheme properly but i feel it will be quite dark with silver and a rich deep red cloak (Edit: I had originally posted clock :P ) I'm still not entirely sure but i want to theme my army around the nights sky so it will be nice to pick out bits of detail with silver on black.
That's the plan anyway... I will post my failures... i mean progress as i go along (although I may not get the model for a while i can start the base (i have a lot of spare 40mm bases from cavalry model in LOTR (Don't ask (here's another bracket :P ))))

Any thoughts?

Top tip: Priming

2008-11-21T17:47:00.000Z

While a lot of people swear by priming with chaos black (well black) It's actually a much better idea to prime white. If you stop and think about it you can put dark colors on to white perfectly but you can't put light colors onto black. It usually ends up becoming streaky and you have to do several layers to get it looking good and especially painting on white as the painting corps did a tutorial on painting white over black you have to gradually layer it up (I'm not slagging off the tutorial or anything for bit of detail like terminator markings it looks even better than just white) whilst it's easy painting it onto a lighter (well lightest) color.

So really unless your model is actually black (I also recommend putting purity seal or something equivalent over black to make it look... better) try priming it white

Transfers project

2008-11-18T19:15:00.000Z

Two words... EPIC FAIL! after testing this method it's terrible, you need to have a really steady hand to cut out the transfer and the if doesn't really work painting around it.
What a waste of time...

Transfers

2008-11-18T18:30:00.000Z

In conjunction to my monday rant about how much i hate transfers i thought i might try something a bit different. It involves collecting pictures of Transfers.

1~ find the appropriate transfer sheet photo on the website ( i have a few already yet to be uploaded)

2~ print the sheet

3~ cut out the transfer you want

4~ paint the area you want to apply the transfer the color you want the transfer to be...that was a mouthful

5~ using blue tack or something similar place the transfer where you want it

6~ paint the area surrounding the transfer (that was previously painted the color of the transfer)

7~ remove the blue-tacked transfer and you should (if done accurately) be left with your transfer, you can then paint any additional detail on... now!

I know this is rather vague i shall add photos when I can

Monday rant: Transfers

2008-11-17T17:54:00.000Z

Right i hope to make this a weekly thing. It's a Monday (auto bad-mood) so i thought I'd have a random rant about something and then listen to the responses i get.

Transfers.
How i hate them. It's the only easy/practical way to put on chapter markings, company markings est. and GW couldn't really have done a worse job of them.

1. There is very little 'space' between each of the transfers so even if you do avoid cutting the next one along you have very little room to hold the cut-out by and usually end up dropping them.

2. Wonky, there is absolute no-way of getting them straight, you could spend ages trying and it's not gonna happen. You can try moving it with your finger but it'll normally stick to your finger or rip speaking of ripping...

3. They rip so easily some of them, sometimes even before they're off the paper stuff (which sticks to the desk or whatever you leave it on whilst applying the transfer) i spent ages putting the large ultramarine transfer on my black reach dread only to have it rip after trying ages to get it straight. Also I wish they would include a spare of every one. If you ruin one for a squad of say, marines and then you either have to paint it on your self or buy a new transfer sheet.

I hope this has given you something to get angry about... wait that didn't sound right...

So what are your thoughts on transfers?

FtW group: My most reliable unit

2008-11-15T19:30:00.001Z

Following the round table discussion on the units we never leave home without I thought I'd share some war stories about my devastators and their uncanny scatter rolls:

There is a friend at my club who plays blood angles and he has a 'super unit' of assault marines in one round of fire i managed to reduce the unit to a smoldering ash, apart from the captain who was saved by his storm shield but he failed his morale test and promptly left the battle.

I magnetize most of my special weapons troops (2 per tactial squad ect.) so that i can mix and match my weapons depending on which army i'm against (multi meltas aren't all that great against an ork horde) so recently i was playing an amoured company so i equiped missles, meltas that kinda thing, i managed to pop both of their land raiders and a rhino (which exploded badly damaging the marines hiding behind it (and in it))

But my best shot ever was when I was playing against Imperial guard (it was someone from my club and we were doing a bit of hobby shopping (the lovley new land raider for me)) in a GW and my plasma cannon shot scattered badly from the heavy weapon crews i was aiming for but landed on their command squad instead! I caused enough damage to force the unit to make a morale test... which they failed (douple six ouch) and the commisar stept up and executed his own commander! That was one of the few occasions i won against adam's Imperial guard and what an ironic way to take victory.

The Inner Hero

2008-11-15T00:32:00.000Z

Congratulations over at The Inner Geek for the new pregnancy and well done for for getting through you're ordeal with the kidney stone.

Easy Ruins

2008-11-13T18:23:00.000Z

Big Post Alert!

Okay first things first. This is not a tutorial to make amazing pieces of scenery with the most expensive materials you can find this is a really quick, easy and cheap way to make a ruin and all you will need is:
Scissors or a crafting knife
A reasonable amount of thick cardboard
A small amount of thin cardboard
Some old sprues
Glue
Clippers
A Pen

Step one:
Easy cut out a square or rectangle out of the thicker cardboard

Step 2:
Mark a jagged line through the middle connecting two opposite corners and cut them out

Step 3: Cut out a small piece of thin card to look a bit like old wood (Or use thick to make a ruined piece of floor) and glue these three pieces together

Step 4: Place the whole thing on a sheet of cardboard and draw round is smoothly leaving room around the edges then cut this out and stick the ruin to it

Step 5: Using more of the thin card cut out small rectangles (To represent brickwork) and stick these however you like onto the ruin

Step 6: Using a pair of clippers cleave up a couple of old sprues and stick it to the base around the ruin

Step 7: Using a pen you can add bullet holes by stabbing the cardboard.

Finished! (apart from the lack of paint) you can add any extra details in that you want (corpses, banners ect.)

Some badly painted marines (WIP) defend themselves in a ruin

Oh and here's one I made earlier :P

You can also make smaller bits of terrain using sprue bits

Hope this has been useful. I may post a painting guide for it as well... don't hold your breath though.

Master plan 2.0

2008-11-09T18:45:00.000Z

I've been reading up a bit on the Ulthwé fluff and it turns out they don't include many aspect warriors (Spare Dire Avengers) which isn't ideal if you want to base your army around dark reapers and banshees. So, I think I may invent my own craftworld (That Phoenix Lord Arsurmen retrieved from the midst of a warpstorm) and so I have a focus to write some fluff on (and i get to make my own colour scheme which I also just did with a tactial squad) so first things first... any suggestions of names anyone? (keeping in mind the banshees and reapers)
Edit: here's the runes (I actually think their elvish but what the difference really) I tried inserting it into the post but it was too big (the actual size not the file size)

Your opinions

2008-11-08T18:42:00.001Z

Do you like the picture of the aspect portal there or shall i revert it?
Edit: Right I've decided to not include it (here's a picture if you missed the brief time it was up(Pssst it's an aspect portal from Dawn of War) If anyone can come up with something better to put there or to use as my avatar please post a suggestion

Disqus

2008-11-08T15:01:00.000Z

So... I'm trying to get Disqus to work so this is really just a test...
but i also have a question:
When you put in a user name it asks you to begin and end with a number but no-one has any numbers on the comments posted does it ignore these numbers or what?
Edit: just found it (seriously is it just me or is their website so slow)

2008-11-06T03:28:00.000Z

Run disscussion

2008-11-04T17:30:00.000Z

Right a lot of people were very annoyed or very pleased about the new 'run' rule in 5ed
Whilst close combat armies (Orks, Tyranids) have had a great bonus able to potentially cover twice as much ground as they used to.
But the more shooty armies (Tau, Imperial Guard) have had a huge blow losing out on an extra turn or two of shooting and in close combat (Tau especially) they get massacred.

The annoyance has got to a lot of people to the degree that they'll get a couple of throw away units (Heck I've even seen tactical squads all geared up with chain swords and bolt guns) to go and intercept them on the way... although this doesn't work either as you can't shoot at the enemy whilst there in combat so I wanted to start a little debate about countering the run or using it to your advantage (Post ideas as comments)

A Dishonest request

2008-11-02T15:54:00.001Z

Right, so a lot of you who go into GW have seen the 40K scenery (The imperial sector stuff) if anyone has bought any could you please take a picture of the sprues (with something there for scale) so that i might attempt to remake it without having to buy the expensive plastic kit. I will make printable templates if i am succsessful for readers to download and make their own.

FtW group: Scenario Pack

2008-11-02T15:06:00.000Z

Right so if you look on ++FROM THE WARP ++ (seriously whats with the +s?) you'll know that this months 'challenge' for the FtW blogger group is to create your own scenario to go into a community scenario pack... thing...
Well i sped ahead with mine doing literally as soon as I got it (5 minute challenges come on Ron!) I won't reveal what it's about but it's done... hooray!

Master Plan

2008-11-01T19:59:00.000Z

Right some of you may be wandering why my blog is called 'The Aspect Portal' some of you may recognize this from Dawn of War (the Eldar building that produces infantry units) This is because I'm going to start a new army (Eldar wow! what a great guess) from the craftworld Ulthwé. I have chosen this as i love the color scheme and I hope to base my army mainly around howling banshees and dark reapers (which fit into the color scheme well) I've been wanting to do this for a while now and haven't got round to it, I hope to start around January/February (Christmas is too expensive) and will write guides on how i paint them; battle reports on how i play them and will be making some very eldar scenery (some of which will be adapted from dawn of war buildings) so sit tight until then. (If you too are looking to start a new eldar army then this web page (actually this site has all the old GW articals on it some of which have been lost since the new one has been introduced) is great for choosing a craftworld)

Spray gun

2008-10-31T20:00:00.000Z

Right i think that the citadel Spray gun is a great idea (except having to buy propellant every now and again) but the silly thing is they've made another of their own product useless, of course I'm talking about the spray paints, Now that you can use any color really makes them totally pointless way to go shoot your selves in the foot.

Halloween Fluff (I do write my own fluff :) )

2008-10-30T23:01:00.000Z

The wary Tactical squad Arthas of the Ultramarines second company trod as silently through the dense forest of the Tyranid infested planted Forsfarus VI. The trees blocked out what little light the three moons and stars provided. They made a short halt to rest their weary legs. They had been patrolling the perimeter of their forward command base on the planet and had constant guard patrols as the defenses were being built.

There had been no sight of the supposed Tyranid hordes that resided on the small planet of the Forsfarus system. The lieutenant sat on a dead tree trunk and put his bolt pistol down beside him. The other nine members of the squad did similar things the heavy bolter armed member almost collapsing under the wait of his heavy weapon as he sank to the soft forest floor. The entire squad was exhausted and without meaning to one by one the members fell into an uncomfortable sleep.

Lieutenant Horst woke with a start and looked around hurriedly "how could we let our guard down?" he asked himself out loud and he roused the other members of the squad. As they got to their feet unseen to them a pair of glowing eyes peered at them out of the gloom and it stalked away back into the shadows. "We should head back to the base, we're too weary to be any good for anything." Said Horst

The squad had just started walking when they heard a sharp snap from a few feet behind them. "what was that?" said one of the bolter armed marines as if he expected someone to know.
"I don't know, and i don't like it" Said Horst "Stay alert brothers there are many dark surprises lurking in this forest." No sooner has they started again they heard a sharp shriek from the darkness they each bought their weapons to bear and formed a rough circle of defense. Another shriek louder now and they heard many feet running stealthily through the darkness.

Suddenly a large Tyranid jumped out of the trees and ran at the Ultramarines it's teeth bared. Although caught by surprise the marines dispatched it with a few bolter rounds. Suddenly the were swarms of them erupting from the shadows the marines opened fire the flames of the flamethrower lit up the dark forest roasting the insects and setting the nearby trees alight. Three of the squad were slayed by the ferocity of the creatures charge Lieutenant Horst dispatching them with ruthless efficiency with his boltgun and chain sword, his great experience put to good use.

As quickly as it had begun the creatures disappeared back into the shadows. "This is punishment for our own ignorance," said Horst "Brave lives lost to alien scum!" he spat and pushing his pistol back into it's holster. "Come!" we need to get back to the base quickly. They set off at a paced run after one the squad members dropping his heavy bolter in favor of a plain bolter.

They had been running five minutes when out of no-where a huge scythed claw sliced through nearby trees and threw all five of the marines to the ground. The huge Carnifex roared and tore through some more nearby trees to take a look at it's prey. The huge insect roared and thrust one of it's claws into one of the marines. The rest of the squad scrambled to their feet and opened fire with their bolters ripping holes in the creatures protective exoskeleton. It screamed and dispatched another two of the marines with a swing which crushed them against a tree. Horst threw a grenade at the creature the shrapnel ripping through it. The creature roared in agony and fell dead on top of another marine. Horst heaved the creatures heavy corpse off his comrade and helped him to his feet. "Run!" he yelled as more Tyranids sprang out of the gloom after them. Horst and his final comrade sprinted as fast as their power amour would allow through the forest. They found the entrance to the compound using the last of their energy they ran but just in front of the gates another Carnifex sprang out roaring it's challange "FOR THE EMPEROR!" Horst yelled and swung his chain sword at the creatures leg cleaving it in two. The monster roared in return and slashed at the him narrowly missing him but hitting his comrade in the chest, he was thrown back into the oncoming horde and was ripped to pieces by the vicious beasts. Horst ducked under the Carnifex and made a last ditch attempt to make the compound.

He made it to the gate and it swung open revealing Brother Mortis the expeditions dreadnought the honored chapter warrior opened fire with both his assualt cannon and heavy flamer carving through the countless ranks of the tryanids lines. Horst scrambled through the gates and they swung closed behind him. The Tyranids beat on the gate but he was safe and he collapsed to the floor exhausted phisically and mentally with the loss of his brave battle brothers.

40K Yes, thats how much it costs

2008-10-30T17:59:00.000Z

All warhammer enthusiasts have always had trouble with the sky high prices of the mini's paints and books. I have that trouble all the time...(I don't even have a proper army case i just use those small plastic boxes you get when you order a Chinese takeaway) so in the coming days/weeks/months? there will be tutorials making scenery out of rubbish (pizza boxes, tin cans...um...pizza boxes) to keep the cost of your war gaming down but there is little you can do to remedy the fact that the minis cost THE EARTH!

Sure you can look on ebay but that's only opportunity buying you can find you wave serpent for a fiver but most the time the stuff isn't much cheaper. I normally buy my minis (I'd just like you to know that I'm doing this off my own back and haven't had any contact with the sellers) from Wayland Games it has about 40% off everything! just a hand to keep the cost of your hobby down

Saint Sicarius

2008-10-30T15:55:00.000Z

Right at my local gaming club my friend Andrew has a big mega demon with all the upgrades and stuff (It's really just a purple Balrog model) and he was running (flying) around owning all of my Ultramarines when he finally got to my command squad. My command squad was normal enough but as my Commander i had Sicarius.

As you should know if you own the new space marine codex or have read the recent white dwarf then you will know that Sicarius can trade his close combat attack for a single coup de grace attack that causes instant death regardless of his opponents toughness (Now you can see where this is going)

His demon charged into combat with me now they both had the same initiative so we rolled off- it was a draw we rolled again - a draw (this was getting frustrating) we finally had a result the demon went first he rolled his demon weapon roll (+ 2D6 attack) and scored a double six so he made his 17 odd attacks with a grand total of 14 wounds so i made my invulnerable saves (or amour saves i can't rightly remember which one demon weapons prevent) I ended up with one wound left knowing i couldn't win anyway i made my coup de grace attack. 4 that's a hit, 6 that's a wound. He made his invulnerable save (2+) this was really tense moment in the game although i knew i couldn't win he still had most of his army comparatively unscathed. He rolled the dice and it fell off the table and landed on a six he swore (as you would it not counting on the floor) he rolled it again and it landed on a 1!

"The daemon roared as it fell to the floor mutilated by the great Sicarius' tempest blade. The daemon's corpse bubbled away out of existence. The battle scarred ultramarines yelled in triumph and charged their hated foes to their death but their glory would not soon be forgotten."

The beginning

2008-10-30T15:47:00.000Z

Right this blog is about table top game 40K
the contents of this blog will be modeling, painting and making scenery and other stuff... 40K related