MASSIVE weekly prize from "Heroes of Armageddon" for week 11

This weeks prizes from "Heroes of Armageddon" are MASSIVE!  No less than SEVEN wicked prizes are up for grabs courtesy of Battleroad Games & Hobbies.  These are some seriously TOP NOTCH prizes you could win with as little as a $5 donation.

sword brethren box

As long as you aren't living under a rock I'm sure you've seen all the WIP posts going up around the blog-o-sphere.  These armies are going to be NEXT LEVEL.  If that alone wasn't worth contributing - the extra chances at all these prizes certainly is.

furioso dreadnought *2

As per usual I have donated $20 more to the cause.  I was seriously tempted to up it this week due to the awesome prizes, but...

stompa *2

The whole point of this $20 a week thing is to show how easy it is to make a meaningful contribution to a great cause like this.  If I can do this every week the project is ongoing how hard could it be to do it once, or even just once a month.

shadowsword *2

Be sure to check out Battleroad Games.  I have been investigating all the companies that have been donating towards the project just simply because those are the kind of companies I want to support.

Please keep contributing to this great cause!

buy my buddies stuff

My friend Mike of bronze place astronomi-con toronto 2011 fame is selling off a bunch of stuff.

Landspeeder Storm + magnetized riders (TFP entry #3)

While gearing up for Astronomi-con, I needed a couple more bolter scouts to save some cash I magnetized the landspeeder storm riders. I was hoping to get a second missile launcher armed squad but ended up without enough points for the list, but I had already built him. Took some monumental effort to paint another Novamarine so soon after painting huge batches of them, but just for TFP I made it happen so I could enter this squad to the competition.

storm & riders on bases

storm left side with assault & army badge decals

storm right side

I dunno if it was the best plan but I thought of the missile launcher armed scout hiding behind a little tree - it goes pretty well with the crawling scout below.

missile launcher - close up

Also for the guy who was hanging off the side, since I magnetized his hand, I took a melta bomb and magnetized the bottom - he could now easily be a sergeant.  Aka the dancing scout.

jumping down - close up

Here are the two seated scouts.  One I put on a stump and the other on a pile of logs.  Everyone loves the guy sitting on the logs.

bolters - chillin'

So that's a total of four scouts, 3 bolters and a missile launcher.  I put some extra effort into the base for the storm since I picked up some water effects.  It actually turned out pretty well, though I'm not sure if it was adding wash or paint to the mix or the dryness of the house but it cracked a lot as it dried.

scouts on their ride, with the magnetized bases and bits

again, from the right side

I ended up fixing this sergeant up.  Being armed with a combi-weapon and a chainsword was pretty silly so I just gave him a bolt pistol in his other hand.  I think he would definitely make a useful sergeant for this squad.  But he was painted before the competition started, same the the crawling scout I just wanted you guys to see them.

older models updated

These are the two guys I used to bulk out the squad (since I didn't use the missile launcher at all) so I would ask you to base the judgement of the squad on these guys even though I think the other two are cooler.  I was originally going to build one more bolter armed guy with a cloak and then the storm riders could count as either with or without since theirs are rolled up - but I think I will probably just go back and add cloaks to these guys when I can stand to paint more Novamarines.

simple bolter guys

Hope you guys enjoyed this - they were definitely fun to model and paint.

more Novamarine terminators (aka Entry #2 to TFP "Squad" competition)

Here is my second entry to The Fallen Princes "Squad" theme painting competition. I was very lucky that the theme this time around was squads just as I was having to paint up a bunch of guys for Astronomi-con (see final touches, recap, bonus pics) so the whole time getting ready for the tournament I knew I was going to need to post some more pics and more in depth for the TFP comp.

terminator squad 2

This now gives me a total of 11 tactical terminators for my Novamarines (hoping to add one more to get an assault cannon in there) I have assault terminators too but ended up dropping them from the tournament list.

showing off the power sword

Cyclone Missile Launchers are definitely the best heavy weapon terminators can carry right now IMO, so I wanted my 10 man squad to have two.  I added the IG Sentinel bit to one of my older terminators but this one was built with it to begin with.

Cyclone Missile Launcher close up (IG Sentinel bit)

The other key figure was the sergeant.  I was just using AoBR terminators, so to bump the squad up to 10 I had to beg an extra power fist from my buddy Mike (he placed 3rd at Astro btw).  As you all know I love magnets I decided to magnetize the arm so he could still wield a power sword and be two separate units.

power sword - right side

Before the tournament, I didn't have time to paint the power sword arm.  I just focused on getting them ready as needed, so all I painted was the power fist.  It's incredible I could even bother to paint more blue & bone, but for the squad competition I needed a sergeant and one arm didn't seem like too much effort.

power fist - sorry for crappy pic

I was debating how I was going to paint the power sword for a while until I found this two part tutorial on Dark Future Games (simple & effective power weapons - part 1 / part 2).  The only change I made was I used a different colour as the base - it's a P3 paint called coal black which has some blue tone to it.  I really like the way this sword came out.

power sword - left side

It's kinda funny how every power weapon across all my armies are painted differently. Anyways this is my entry, there is still a month left so you have time to enter yourself! I still have one more unit from my Novamarines who I will be entering and then we'll see whether I get anything else painted by then.  You can check out my first entry here.

Week 10 of "Heroes of Armageddon" weekly prize drawings

This week there is something a bit special up for grabs from "Heroes of Armageddon". As mentioned in the weekly prize post it's a surprise! First thing that came to mind when I saw the below graphic John used was Family Guy so I've included a pic and quote below.

Now I have hidden a hint in this post, as well as donating my usual $20 which means I have now hit $200 total donation to date! I will leave you with the immortal words of Peter Griffon.

A boat's a boat, but the mystery box could be anything... it could even be a boat!

Please contribute to this great cause!

NOBODY expects (to win) the Spanish Inquisition!!

Well aren't I lucky! My name was pulled as a weekly prize winner from the "Heroes of Armageddon" project.

Go check it out and donate today!  Not only do you get a chance to win one of four awesome - but you could win weekly prizes as well - all in the name of a great cause, Doctors without Borders.



Definitely excited about these - they might end up being a birthday gift for dear old dad.

I'm honoUred!

I'm in a bit of shock, I've never expected to make the "SCWH Honor Roll" as frankly the stuff I've seen on there is generally much nicer than what I tend to be satisfied with for my own figs.

So imagine my surprise when checking out Honor Roll #17 to spot a post by Mik which happens to be the prize from my second GWpertinent contest! I've recently compiled a bunch of the photos that Mik posted in my second "painted for others & by others" article, so swing over and check those out.

A big thanks to Rob from A Few Minis for the kudos!

Astronomi-con: bonus pics

A quick little bonus post - a couple of my buddies from the group who went to astro tried to take pics of everyone's armies.  I have a couple pics of mine and pics of most of our groups to show off

novamarines - taken by jon

Here's Mikes salamander army, particularly impressed with his display board, goes very well with the resin bases he used.  He got a lot more detail onto his army than I did.  He ended up placing 3rd overall.

mike

Here's Jons pre-heresy emperors children. Jon ended up winning best army, and was second for both best individual model (the ironclad dreadnought) and judge's painting score.

jon

This is Claudios space wolves army.  He went in with perfect comp and ended up winning best sportsman too!

claudio

This is Lorand's imperial fist army - we joked it would look better in black & white - LOL!

lorand

A bit of a messier picture of my Novamarines, you can see my cool custom army counters I made.

novamarines - taken by mike

Unfortunately missing pics of Joey's marines (yes we have a lot of marine players) and Darrins "pinnacle of the hobby" imperial guard. Enjoy!

Third month of weekly prizes from "Heroes of Armageddon" starts now

Wow time is really flying - into the third month of "Heroes of Armageddon" already!  If you haven't seen this week's prize post yet - here are some details.  Victoria of Victoria Miniatures (vickis minis? ;-) )has kindly donated three prizes to the charity project to raffle away this week.  Some special kilted legs, some halfling cowboys and my favourite - the spanish inquisition (all that's missing is the comfy chair!)

kilted highland guard legs ( 18 metal leg sets, most standing with some kneeling)

As usual I have donated $20 to the cause.  I've almost hit $200 now, over the past nine weeks.  All at a quite minimal donation of $20 a week.  In the next paragraph I have some examples of how you could save up $20 to donate, where you could win any of these great weekly prizes or even possibly one of the grand prizes of an entire painted army.

halfling cowboy 1

halfling cowboy 2

2 packs of smokes = $20
2 drinks at the club = $20
2 lunches @ non-fast food restaurant = $20
3 beers at the bar > $20
3 fancy coffees from starbucks > $20
3 meals @ fast food = $20

spanish inquisition ( 3 figure metal Monty Python tribute set with accessories)

Please contribute to this great cause!

Astronomi-con: Recap

I went into this tournament with a nearly entirely infantry scoring army.  MANY of the missions looked to be weighed heavily in my favour either due to scoring or the fact I had Gate of Infinity on my Librarian.  Unfortunately for me, I only got to play 2 such missions (my two wins) which was a bit surprising but such is the way the cookie crumbles.

Shane was definitely my most fun opponent. We spent the whole game laughing, he was carefree and just looking for a fun game. His quote about his army "I'm going for table or tie" - it was a very direct BA army with Dante+Sang Guard, Lemartes+DC & DC Dread in Storm Rave, DC Dread in Lucius Pattern Drop Pod. It was a crate pick up mission, my drop pod scatter stranded my terminators from using GoI with the locator beacon and I didn't roll a scatter "hit" all game.  Still I made too many mistakes trying to catch up in number of crates and ended up with none.

Game 1 vs Shane (Blood Angels) Loss

Patrick had a pretty cool desert theme Tau army.  Nothing too shocking in his list - 2x 6 FW in devilfish, 10FW, 6x PF in devilfish, 3x 3 Suits, 2 Broadsides and a Piranha. He played very conservatively and I think that was his undoing.  His pathfinder devilfish immobilised itself in a building during it's scout move and I think it scared him a bit. It was a "clear buildings" mission where scoring units were particularly valuable (yay!) so I just focused on destroying his fire warriors and clearing buildings.  He had a chance to tie late but I blew up his devilfish and panicked his remaining FW squad.

Game 2 vs Patrick (Tau) Win

Mark's army had custom made mycetic spores from foam cups & expanding foam as well as a starship troopers toy to represent some FW gargantuan creature.  The toy wasn't too bad but I thought the spores weren't so hot. We played a crazy mission with a sandstorm where everywhere was difficult terrain and to shoot over 12" you needed 6's to hit.  I thought I had eeked out a draw but mistakenly thought only his genestealers were troops but warriors are as well. If the game had ended on turn 5 I would have actually won.

Game 3 vs Mark (Tyranids) Loss

This was probably my least favourite game.  Chris was running a Space Wolf list but his marines were only partially painted and mostly as black termplars. His army was also a bit on what I'd term the "beardy" side, running 5 multi-melta long fangs in a drop pod with Grimnar was not quite what this tournament was supposed to be about. He was a good sport and fair, he managed to steal the initiative but to be honest with his squad of 6 combi-plasma wolf guard in a drop pod I dunno if the result would have been much different. This was another "crate" pick up mission, which if it had ended on turn 5 would have been a draw because he wasn't paying enough attention to what turn it was but it went to turn 7 and ended a total massacre.

Game 4 vs Chris (Space Wolves) Loss

A fun game vs. a fun opponent.  Derek brought a Armoured Company IG list that unfortunately was just sprayed green. I made a huge mistake thinking that you needed scoring units to claim table quarters (some missions were) but this one wasn't so I wasted a couple turns focusing on the wrong units.
In the end he had last turn and was able to contest the quarters I was trying to hold and held two of his own. 
I enjoyed the game immensely though.

Game 5 vs Derek (Imperial Guard) Loss

Paul was only the 3rd army that was fully painted.  He was doing a DIY BA successor, but to be honest I think he might have done better running them as Vanilla Marines. He had a couple tacticals, a min dev squad, a squadron of landspeeders and some termies.  The city board we played on was the nicest table I got to play on all weekend, so that was a treat. It was an objective based mission, which suited my all scoring army well (yay!) and in the end I destroyed his two tactical squads and contested the objective his assault marines were on and held three myself.

Game 6 vs Paul (Blood Angels) Win

Overall I had a really great time and the "hobby/comp" aspect of the tournament I really liked.  I meant the armies were a little more flavourful than 3x unit A, 3x unit B, etc. The one really dissapointing thing was I felt my army was the nicest out of all my opponents - and having only scored 15/30 for painting it kinda sucked not to play a bunch of nicely painted armies.

Our group did quite well overall, with my friend Mike coming in 3rd overall, Jon picking up Best Army for his pre-heresy Emperor's Children and a surprise win of Best Sportsman for Claudio who wasn't expecting it - but whose Space Wolf army was commended by the organizers for being the best "balanced" list they saw all tournament.

I even ended up winning a raffle prize - won myself a free rhino.  Woot!

painted for others and by others, part deux

I don't often schedule posts but since I have been focusing on my Novamarines up to now with getting prepared for astronomi-con (see pt 1, pt 2 & pt 3) and it will probably be a few days before I can get a post up about my first 40k tournament I thought this will give you something to read.

nb. Well that's the second time that blogger has failed to post when I've "scheduled" - anybody got any tips or  does it just not work??

Well I enjoyed posting up the pics in my previous "for others and by others" post. I especially like getting nice pics of the minis I painted in "staged" or game situations.  First up I have some pics of the dark angels captain model I painted for Mik @ Mik's Minis as the prize from the second GWpertinent contest.

common basing theme = win!

I'm pretty happy that his basing scheme has helped to make the paint job look better. These are some pics from Miks game using the SuperSystem rules, which looked like a hoot btw!

epic battle begins!

tracto gets slammed by an escape pod!

Next up I have a pic from Mike over at Constantly Risking Obscurity - a fellow I have been following for quite some time.  Ever since his submission to a painting contest called "Take Cover" with this incredible entry. I love the burnt piece of wall and battle damage.  In this instance I was fortunate enough to NOT win a contest he held on his blog to receive a painted model - and by his great generosity received an offer to paint a mini for me regardless of the contest. How awesome is THAT?

early stages of what promises to be an awesome addition to my collection

I have been slowly collecting the spare harlequin here and there whenever I can get them pretty cheap.  My plan is to have a different person paint up each one, and use them as a brat gang in my games of Necromunda  - using Anthony Cases rules.  You can check out the first harlequin I had painted (by Dave from mini painting 4 free) in my post here.

Finally - Mik recently showed me some love for the dark angels captain model, and he took some nice close up pics.  I think they are nicer than the pics I originally took (and he looks better based) so I thought I would post them up too.  The pics definitely help me to think of what I could improve.

power sword details

I went with the same power sword as on my space sharks champion. I think I should have blended out from the white instead of into it. Lesson 1.

full frontal :-O

As for the armour and details, I wanted to use a single wash (devlan mud) over everything to really unify the piece.  I feel I did go a little heavy on the wash, next time I do something over the whole piece, I am going to thin down the wash. Lesson 2.

knee pad & shoulder pad details

The knee pad was re-painted after the wash to get the company colours exactly right. The wash really dulled down the (probably too subtle) red highlights on his shoulder pad and headdress. Greater contrast highlights work better with the unifying wash (as seen with the green details).  Lesson 3.

cloak

This one is the maybe.  I wanted his cloak to be very green to ensure he still fit with the rest of the dark angels - however it is just a big flat area, possibly a decal (artistically - perhaps half the chapter symbol) might have really made this pop. Lesson 4? What do you think?

Novamarines bonus post - update to Index Astartes: Novamarines

Well I am going all out.  I have taken my previous IA: Novamarines and updated it with graphics and details from IA9: The Badab War (what fits with my previous fluff)

I am duly impressed.  Check it out here. Hopefully it earns me some kudos at Astro tomorrow.

Wish me luck!

Novamarines bonus post - Entry to TFP "Squad" theme competition

Well aren't you folks lucky!  I decided that while I have everything out I would snap some pics for an entry to Silar's second competition over at The Fallen Princes. The theme is squad and you can include a transport if you wish.  This works out perfectly for me as I had a ton of painting to do for the upcoming Astronomi-con tournament!

combat squad (sgt: combi-melta/power fist, special: meltagun)

The tactical squad is pretty simple.  It's a second AoBR squad I picked up cheap, but I have built a couple replacements mainly to get some more high strength (melta/power fist) into the squad so the sergeant and special weapons marine are not monopose pieces.

combat squad (heavy: missile launcher)

Here's the transport portion of the entry.  This drop pod was dead easy to finish, all I did was spray it black with the doors open and drybrush the hell out of it.  I picked out the storm bolter inside with black to match all the rest of the weapons.  Then I quartered each door using painters tape to keep it neat and put a Novamarines chapter decal where I had to cut off the previous chapter symbol.  Total maybe about 2 hours (possibly less)

drop pod - doors closed

It's not very imposing when the doors are blown - could end up being a benefit.

drop pod - doors open

Due to the amount of stuff I had to paint for astro - I will likely have two more entries to the competition from my Novamarines alone.  Next up will be a small squad of scouts and then a squad of terminators (I will need to magnetize & paint up a sergeant power sword arm and it might not happen before the tournament - but the competition doesn't end until July 24th so you have PLENTY of time to get your own entry submitted!