Standard Bearer + Slaves+ Basing = Hobby Progress!!

Hey everyone, this week has been pretty productive, with my Standard Bearer for my Warrior unit getting some well-earned brush time these last few days.  I’ve tried something a little different with the Tzeentch Icon on the top of the standard, while also including some minor free-hand work on the banner itself.  While the design on the banner is fairly basic, I’m happy with the way it came out and I think it’ll stand out from across the battlefield.  I’m as yet undecided on the icon however, as I’ve used numerous washes in an attempt to give the illusion of a myriad colours rippling across the silvered steel.  It’s a very experimental method for me, one that I’m not 100% sold on as yet.

 As can be seen in the pictures (hopefully), I've layered Blue, Purple and Green washes across the entire icon, allowing each layer to dry fully before adding the next.  Whether this has achieved the look I wanted, I'm not yet sure, however I’d appreciate any thoughts you have on it. 

The free-hand on the banner is a simple combination of the chaos star and a paw print of a wolf.  This combines both the units worship of Chaos with their kinship they have with their totem, the wolves that surround their mountain holds.  It pays to practice drawing the design on paper first, just so you get a handle on the muscle movements required to make the design before you try painting it on the banner.  With a little care and patience, even someone like me can product a passable product.

With the days ticking away until Tricksters Blade, I’m going to attempt to do something a little different with my painting schedule.  Rather than base my level of progress on models that have been painted, I’m going to aim to have a certain number of points worth of models painted with each Plog entry.  Now I’m confident that with a bit of effort, I can product between 100-150 points worth of painted models per month.  Considering I post here about every two weeks, that’s 50-75 points of models per article.  Not a huge ask really.  So far this month I’ve completed 2 captives (which count as Chaos Warriors) and I’ve almost completed my Standard Bearer for the same unit.  Taking the point value of each of these models (including upgrades), I’ve completed about 60 odd points worth of troops.  Not a bad effort really, but it also helps when the models base cost is 15 points J.  When I start painting my Chaos Marauders however, I think we’ll see me begin to struggle (damn you 4 point infantry!!), but that problem is for another time.  

While I’m on the topic of unit completion, I’ve completed the basing for my two units of Chaos Hounds that I run in my army.  While only 30 points a unit, they can be very useful when used to hunt enemy war machines.  They were some of the first models painted for my first Chaos Army, but since then, their bases were still missing snow.  But no longer.  Now my puppies can gleefully scamper across the snow-covered landscape like the rest of my army, crunching the surface of the fallen snow with their no-doubt very chilly paws.

So at the end of this article my stats are as follows:

Number of Days remaining: 79

Number of Units Completed: 3

Points Painted this fortnight: 120 (including the hounds)

See you again next time

Trev

The Blade has been drawn – Tournament in the Roy!!

Hey there everyone, as part of this week’s hobby progress, I’ve begun preparing for the big fantasy tournament that happens each year here in the area – Tricksters Blade.  After the success of last year’s efforts, our local Tournament Guru Mark has announced that Tricksters will be held in mid July. 

With my dropping out of Ides on March, I have decided that this is my chance to redeem myself and get my army back on track.  It’s been a couple of weeks since I seriously picked up a paint brush in anger and it’s about time I did so again.  While minor annoyances such as Warmachine / Hordes, my shiny new Wii (Wii + House of the Dead = Zombie-killing awesomeness) and life in general may get in my way (make me give up valuable painting time to earn a living will you work!?!  Curse you to hell!), distracting me from the true path of Warhammer greatness, I will make it my mission over these next few weeks to once again get back into the ergonomically sound, cushioned painting chair and one again make some headway towards having a fully painted army.  At this point, it’s safe to say that I’m spoiled for choice when it comes to miniatures to paint - I have so many of them that need it.  That said, I feel the best way to get the army ready to go is to build an army list and paint to it.  By doing so, I can focus my energies on getting the units that are necessary for my army to work out of the way, ensuring they are completed (or at least presentable) come the tournament.  Truth be told, considering the state of repair my Warshrine is in (and my total lack of Chosen), I’ll settle for assembled and undercoated. 

However, it’s not all distractions and impending deadlines; I have some progress to report.  Despite my best efforts as procrastination, I’ve been chipping away at my Chaos Warrior standard bearer for the last week or so and have been rewarded with all the major bodily details being completed.  All that remains now is the basing, the banner, and the niggling details such a fur, teeth etc.  Getting this unit completed will be a big boost for me and will work to encourage me to paint more (I’ve been struggling to get the unit done for almost a year now).  Once that unit is completed, I’ll be starting a bit of a painting challenge within my local painting group.  In the next article I’ll expand more on it (namely because I need to decide on the specifics myself), but rest assured it will be a valuable tool in getting my forces completed in time for July. 

Before I close I’ll be keeping a running tally on the progress of the Army for Tricksters Blade, counting down the remaining days and counting up the number of units completed (at least I hope the number of completed units will increase.  God help me if it decreases!).  Completed units must be completely painted, sealed and based (which includes movement base).  At this stage my budding army looks as follows:

Number of Days Remaining:  95

Number of Units Completed: 1

As I quickly scan through the units in my army, I quickly realise that there are an inordinate number of them that are approximately 90% completed, but due to details such as incomplete bases or missing movement trays, they remain unfinished (my Chaos Hounds, Ogres and BSB immediately spring to mind, closely followed by my Marauders). All I can hope is that as time goes on, the number of incomplete units will quickly diminish, joining the lone sorcerer so he doesn’t feel quite so alone. 

Catch you all later.

Trev

Page 5 - A way to bring the pain or a means to be a douche?

As a small departure from my normal updates, I thought I’d take a little time to talk about something that’s been bugging me recently.  As a forewarning, these rants may come up from time to time and will be labelled hence forth as Trev’s Tirades.  Such an article will pretty much contain my frustrated thoughts on a particular aspect of the hobby, whether it is the models that are on sale, the insane pricing of GW or just an experience that’s come up.  So sit back, relax, and get ready to read about what really grinds my gears. 

 Recently a few new faces have appeared at my gaming sessions which, when looked at as a singularity is a good thing.  More people to game with and game against are always a good sthing; however, it has become blatantly apprarant to me that their attitude towards the game seems to coinicde with the general description for “that guy” at tournaments.  Everyone knows who “that guy” is at a tournament.  Here’s the guy who nobody wants to face during the tournament and even when there’s 120 players attending the event, everyone quickly learns who they are – usually by the second round.  They are the guy who whinges and whines about every little ruling, who argue with you until you give in and they get their way.  They are the ones that in a team game, will happily sacrifice their allies faction to ensure that their own is protected from harm (and then rub it in their faces).  He’s the pseudo rules-lawyer and the guy who thinks he knows everything about anything when in actual fact, he knows nothing about a majority of things.  For the sake of clarity, I’ll give you an example:

Currently in our role-playing group, we have a situation where a majority of our players have decided to play pointy-eared girly elves.  Now of those playing elves, a couple of the guys decide they’re going to play pretty seriously and adopt the whole “I’m-an-elf-and-you’re-not-so-you’re-not-worth-my-time” crap to not only the NPC’s that they come across but also the non-elf players too.  At the start, everyone seems to be cool with that.  For a lot of us, we play purely so we can have a bit of fun, we’re not really into the whole ‘roleplaying’ thing (and by ‘roleplaying thing’ I mean, lets put on pointy ears, funny hats and really immerse ourselves in the game itself with voice acting etc).  So when these guys choose that course of action I’m OK with that, because I feel that having different playing styles are important for a group as it provides diversity and increases the fun.  However, when these players decide that this is an excuse to act like a dick and be condescending to everyone else in the group, arguing with the DM about rulings and holding back party loot and other key items/ plans, it gets really old, really quickly.  Eventually such behaviour stops being “I’m in character” and starts being “I’m just using this as an excuse to be a fuck-wit.”

Hey dude, it’s a GAME that people play to have FUN OK!?!?  Just because you are encouraged to play competitively does not give you the right to act like a jack-ass, screwing over everyone else just so you can feel good about playing a pointy-eared girly-man elf in a make-believe world.  Fucking with your team-mates does not make you cool – it makes you a douche and if that’s the way you’re going to play, then do it somewhere else, far away from the rest of us. 

This is Trev and this is my Tirade. 

Catch you all later.