Sunday, December 9, 2012

Tale of Og Gamers (belated) November round up

Just over a week ago the first month of seven as part of the Tale of Og Gamers came to a close. Its been genuinely good to have something which is getting me more focused on having a unique and most importantly painted set of models. Regular updates on www.ogforum.co.uk from others taking part has been inspiring and I've been impressed by the variety of models/paintaing on show as well as the encouragement. Whilst I unfortunately did not meet my target for month 1, I have made quite a bit of progress overall to get me to a fully1750pt World Eaters army by the end of May next year.

My target for month 1 was to paint Kharn the Betrayer and 20 Chaos cultists. Against this target, I have fully painted 8 Cultists. The remaining 12 are in progress, with bases for all completed. I am still to receive my Kharn model from GW, although I think its at the post office ready for me to collect.

I'll show a pic of the completed models, but won't show the WIP as this has already been shown in previous posts:


The status of other models towards my Khorne army is:

- Aegis Defence line part painted;
- Two rhinos part glued, with FW extra armour to be added;
- 10 Berserkers and 3 obliterators glued and waiting to be undercoated;
- Part Painted Hellbrute, Lord and Chosen from the Dark Venegeance set;
- Glued Terminator Chaos Lord from FW

As you can see, I have spent several hours working towards a completed army, yet haven't met my target. I think the moral of this story is to meet targets I have to focus entirely on a given set of models, and not be too scattergun. I've found that difficult given lots of new shiny toys arriving this month and finding lots of inspiration for gluing, but not painting (something I'm sure is down to my fixation with Lego as a child).

Anyways, given that I don't expect to have a lot of free time available for painting over the next 3 weeks, due to Xmas parties and going home for a week to see family), I've decided to set an easier target this month, of the 3 Obliterators (210pts plus marks) and 1 Rhino (40pts with Dirge Caster). I expect to fail this, especially given I'm playing catch up from November.

I do expect to pick up the pace at the beginning of January though, with the 2nd, 3rd and 4th being put aside just for hobbying. I'm still on leave after Xmas, whilst the other half is back at work on the 2nd - a great opportunity to get lots of painting done!

Friday, November 23, 2012

A tale of OG Gamers Blog 3: More Berserkers!

I thought I'd do an update now as this weekend is going to be focusing on gaming and not modelling. Ol has organised some an Og North v Og South gaming day tomorrow, with both WFB and 40k players. I've really been looking forward to this, as it'll be a great chance to have a few beers and catch up with some mates I used to game with during my uni days in York.

I've spent the last couple of days working from home as the office has been closed due to restructuring. This has given me the chance to photo (with the help of some daylight) the Beserkers I have been gluing together this week.

Following some positive feedback from the Og Games forum, I decided to continue with using the parts from the new Raptor kit - whilst getting some decent positioning for each model was a bit of an effort, given the angling of some of the legs, the models have more detail, look more badass and don't look as static as using the standard chaos marines:



In the World Eaters army I'm building, I'm planning to build a second unit of Beserkers. These would have the arms of Marauders from WFB, so would have bare arms with Raptor weapons. This would help differentiate the 2 units, help them blend in with Kharn leading them, and leave the FW shoulder pads free to pimp some Havocs I'll be adding in due course to add a little firepower...

Any thoughts/comments most appreciated, as always!

Sunday, November 18, 2012

A tale of OG Gamers Blog 3: Tester Berserker

Another week, another blog post. This week I gave up the notion of having 250pts painted by the end of the month. Whilst I have made some progress on the Aegis Defence line, I now have to paint the darker and metallic areas. Just painting these black is likely to take quite a while methinks. Still, it'll be worth it when its done, albeit late. There also has been no progress made on the Cultists - I haven't touched these for a few weeks now.

I have however managed to spend the whole of this afternoon working on the army. The majority of this time was spent washing and cleaning resin parts I received from  Forgeworld last Thursday. Today was bright and sunny, even if a little cold - I might not get a free day like this to work with resin in the garden for some time, so didn't want to miss the opportunity.

For the most part, there is little to show. However, I have glued together a test Berzerker:


I hate photographing models when its dark outside!

The model is made up of:

- Head, torso and shoulder pads from the Forgeworld conversion kit;
- Legs, arms and weapons from th new Raptor/Warp Talon kit; and
- Backpack from the standard Chaos Marines kit.

Whilst the FW has the kit built using parts from the standard Chaos Marine kit, I chose to go for the Raptors/Warp talons because the legs have much more detail and the weapons look more badass. The one thing I'm not sure on is the leg positioning - every model using this kit would be the same. It makes them look as though they are jumping/leaping into combat - something I wanted to note as in the new rules Berzerkers are dependent on the Rage, Counter Attack and Furious Charge special rules, so have to do well in the first round of combat before their damage output drops. Any feedback you have on this model is much appreciated...

Monday, November 12, 2012

A tale of OG Gamers Blog 3: Small Footsteps

I skipped a weekly update last Sunday as I didn't have a huge amount to report. There still isn't much to report this week, but I've got some pics of some WiP. Anyways:

a) All the bits I need to build my army for the next few months have arrived. That includes the FW order Ol co-ordinated, some additional bases from Dragonforge and some heavy weapon bits. Very pleased about everything being in place, other than the guy at DragonForge must have ticked the wrong box on the customs form as I'll have to pay £12 import tax when I pick them up from the post office. Expect to see some more conversion/kitbashing work from December onwards...

b) Progress on the modelling/painting front has been slowing down due to real life. I've decided to post a couple of pics showing the progress on my Aegis Defence line:

The obligatory before pic:

Current status:


Not the greatest quality pic, but you get the idea. It has taken a little while to construct. Firstly, I've filed off all of the Aquillas, and have replaced with Khorne symbols, to match the army. I've also added on some spikes with heads on to make them look more Chaos-y. The victims heads on spikes also fitted the siege idea of the wall sections.

There is still much to do with the paint scheme. I'm looking to darken the red a little and paint the trim of the wall sections bronze/brass. Painting red so far has taken a while - I've spray undercoated the sections white, followed by 2 coats of Carroburg Crimson, followed by a thin coat of red gore.

Sunday, October 28, 2012

A tale of OG Gamers Blog 3: First models completed!

The last week has been one of the most hobby heavy I've had in a long time and I've really enjoyed it. After the rain last Sunday, I managed to undercoat and clean up the first batch of resin bases I'd ordedered, along with the 20 cultists I am planning to do as part of this months 'quota'. I spent Wednesday evening trying out paint schemes for the bases. I've also completed the paint of 4 cultists - a whopping 16 points out of my 250pt limit for month one.
On the gaming side, I've managed to also fit in 5 games of 40k - two on the Thursday club night and three in this month's Planet Og day yesterday.

Without further ado, here is the base scheme I settled on:



I tried lots of different greys, but couldn't settle on any, and resorted to a good old scheme I've done before, and should work well with lots of red and bronze/gold power armour.

The colour scheme was quite simple - undercoated black, a base coat of Dheneb Stone, then a wash of Gryphonne Sepia with a final highlight of drybrushed Bleached Bone. The sides of the bases are Khemri Brown.

The skills were painted with Vallejo Bronze, then Old Gold, befoe my old friend Devlan Mud was used to wash.

As mentioned above I've also finished 4 Cultists:

  
I'm particular please how the eight-point stars have come out on each model's right shoulder, and was really simple to do. Just a wash of Baal Red over the flesh.

Anyways, I have a load more cultists to be getting on with! Until next week...

Matt


Sunday, October 21, 2012

A tale of OG Gamers Blog 2: Flavours of Chaos and plans for month 1

It's been almost a week since my last post, and the Tale of OG Gamers has been occupying a lot of my thoughts. I have been deciding upon a theme for my Chaos Marines, and subsequently have been considering what parts and kits I'll use to make a pretty unique army.

Army Flavour

Last week, I wrote a blog outlining my choice of army for the tale of OG Gamers. Not only did this include which God(s) to go for, but also legions.

In the end, the choice for me came down to World Eaters and Death Guard. Whilst I love the background for both, they are characterful and well supported with conversion options and Forgeworld pieces. I've decided though to begin with World Eaters for the following reasons:

1) On and off I've been thinking of doing some sort of World Eaters army since reading Battle for the Abyss several years ago. Whether this would be pre or post Heresy I was unsure, but here is a great chance to make either happen;

2) The Tale of Gamers has a number of Chaos players in. Hardly surprising, given they are a new codex and have a cult following. Whilst there are a range of legions and Gods being chosen, Khorne and the World Eaters were one of the ones not done by another player;

3) Slow moving, hard to kill units in the Death Guard theme seems a bit too similar to my Deathwing Army. World Eaters will require a completely different style of play;

4) Chaos Marines IMO should be getting up in their opponents faces and taking skulls; and finally


5) I get the chance to have Shatner style Chaos tourettes (KKKHHHAAAANNNN!!!!)

Month 1 Target

The month 1 target for my 250pts is:

- Kharn the Betrayer (160pts);
- 20 Chaos Cultists with no toys (90pts)

My 'before' picture for month 1 is:


You may have noticed that Kharn is missing from the picture. I've ordered model to lead the army, but GW have none left in stock. This means I'll have to wait an extra week or two whilst I wait for some more to be cast and sent over. In the mean time I'll concentrate on the cultists. I'm also thinking about an alternative 160pts should it take too long to receive a model. I picked up an Aegis Defence line in Croydon today, so could convert and paint this if necessary. I've also obtain some Khorne and Chaos bits, so this should be a fun kit to convert and offer up to the Blood God as an alternative.

At this point, I'd also like to take the opportunity to big up Dragon Forge Design's bases. I bought some of their 'Lost Empire' bases 18 months ago for some Dark Eldar I was painting up at the time and was really impressed. Decent enough delivery time (2-3 weeks) given they're often made to order and sent from the U.S., good quality castings and designs. The main reason that I was drawn to them however, was the range of quality designs that don't take over the model. Some scenic base companies make some really great looking bases, but they are so big the detail goes well over the base and often makes the model too tall.

I ordered some of their 'Desecrated Lands' bases for the Chaos Dark Vengeance Miniatures I've bought and these arrived during the week. They're suitably chaos-y, looking like the floor of some sort of Dark Temple. Fortunately the skulls fit the theme of a Khorne army. I've decided to go with these for my Tale of Gamers army, and have put in a second order to the building for the majority of my list.

Progress

Anyway, as I write this, despite my best in planning well ahead of time things have not started as smoothly as I'd hoped for this month:

1) It is currently pi$$ing it down with rain outside. I was hoping to get a number of models spray undercoated today ready for some painting on Monday and Tuesday evening this week;

2) The afforementioned wait for Kharn; and

3) On a more minor note, there was a couple of pieces missing from a set of cultists I'd purchased from eBay. Fortunately, the vendor has been really good about this and I should have a replacements by the middle of the week.

Anyways, I'm looking to make weekly updates, so keep your eyes peeled for next weekend's installment!

Matt