Historical Wargaming

Ever have a project that seemed like a good idea at the time?  I built a unit of 20 Beastmen for Imperial Guard using the lower half of the WFB Ungor with the Cadian torso & arms.  Now that I look back on the unit – I must have been crazy.  For those of you who don’t play Fantasy Battle, Ungors come 6 to a box with 8 Gors.  Meaning I’d have to buy 3 boxes (and steal 2 more bodies from somewhere) in order to just get the beastman parts, the Cadian parts would take 2 more boxes.

But they are pretty sweet looking!

is a dead Space Wolf.

No need to go into the vile details, but I have no love of the Space Wolves.  Here’s hoping for a good nerfing in their new codex.

The terrain piece is Armor Cast based on plastic card with a few Mordheim bits.

GWpertinet is holding a old school 40K mini “contest”, looking for the oldest, painted GW figure in people’s collection.  This kicked off a trip to Stuff of Legends to see what I had in my collection.  I started playing in 1997, but most of my old school minis have been picked up second hand.  My oldest figures come from the Eldar command unit from the March 1988 catalog – including the harpist, Champion and both standard bearers.  I even have the back packs for the standards – I always figured they belonged to the harpist, not the meta gunner!

However – the contest calls for painted figure.  Once again, I was surprised to find the Space Marine Commander ranks with the oldest and dates to the 1991 catalog.  The figure was painted in 1998 or 1999 and was probably amongst the first 50 figures I painted.  Good to see I’ve learned something in the past 10 years – like how to high light and to always under coat metal with black.

Speaking of history.  In my collection, I found 3 beaky marines with 1987 stamped on the tab.  In only 4 years GW managed to jump from the bent over, scrawny proto Space Marine to the commander pictured above.  While the over all style has change a bit over the years, this commander shares more similarities with Marines of 2009 than 1987.  I don’t know if that’s a sign of a strong design or stagnation…..

The alien has arrived & its hungry.  Prepare to be infested!

5th edition 40K brings strict line of sight to the terrain rules.  The solution is area terrain with defined places for all objects.  A 1/4 MDF board is drilled with sockets for 60mm and 40mm wooden disks.  Look for this terrain system at the upcoming Adepticon convention.

For these two terrain sets, each disk holds a mini-diorama built from Hirst Arts blocks, PVC pipe, a plastic Easter egg and lots of Terrain Putty (light tan) & Apoxie Sculpt (light gray) epoxy putty.  In addition to standard sand flocking, the MDF board is also coated with a mix of play sand applied wet & saturated with white glue.  The ridges represent underground tentacle growth from the infestation, hopefully the effect will be more noticeable once painted.

The 5th ed 40K rules put a new spin on terrain building.  LOS now strictly governs what a model can see.  Area terrain, the abstract fuzzy space of trees or ruins on a platter, is gone.  The solution adopted by Adepticon is to place all terrain objects on 3 inch disks with matching sockets in a MDF base.  The Hirst Arts Pipe molds, along with the Sci Fi molds, provide an excellent resource to build all the required objects.

Pumping station made from 5/8 Pipe mold, 3/8 Pipe Mold, Station Builder, Star Ship Wall mold and the Star Ship Deck mold.

From the Warp is sponsoring a best base contest.   Getting motivated was a bit of a problem until I needed a proof of concept test for a pot topper.

What’s a pot topper?  It is a 6 inch disk of static grass used with silk flower arrangements that can also be cannibalized for miniature ground cover.   Look for pot toppers at Michaels Arts and Crafts - mine cost $1.99.  Opening the topper took a sharp scissors and a bit of patience.  The static grass sheet is stiff and full of texture.  When cut apart, the clumps are between 4 & 6 mm tall.  At this point, I’m not certain if they are any improvement over loose static grass, but I see great potential for the grass on larger projects such as terrain.   In any case, the clumps are a much cheaper alternative to Silfor.

The rest of the base is made from more conventional materials:  a bit of bark for the stone & field grass for the tall plant spikes.  Painting is a simple combination of dry brush and wash.  The whole project took about 2 nights of puttering around time in front of the TV.

From The Warp blogger round table asks:

You have just been put in charge of Warhammer 40k for GW.
They would like to know what you think the company should do with the start of the new year.

What are the Top 3 things you would change about Warhammer 40k?
1.  Eliminate the paper codex and move rules and modeling to the web.

Paper is much too expensive and not part of GW’s core production line. Retain a small, pamphlet sized codex to sell with figures in the brick and mortar stores, but move the full gloss hobby photos to the White Dwarf. Use the web to deliver a full 100 page fluff, rule and hobby codex. Every customer in the GW demographic will have web access. Roll out the codex section by section & pull customers into the web site continuously with new content.

2.  The 18 month game:  themed micro-games built around a 4 sprue kit with an 18 month shelf life.

The specialist games model was great in that it allowed gamers to take a break from the core GW products without leaving the company.  The periodic release of new games also allowed GW to take break from the constant churn of the same old product (more Space Marines anyone?).  The failing of the model was the great breath of models released for each game.  The big rush for each game occurred in the first two months - sculpting, casting and releasing a 6th warband/fleet/gang one year after the initial release is and was a waste of resources.

Instead, each game will have 4 themed sprues for 28mm figures.  All kits will be available in the first month of release.  Rule sets will be published in mini-rule book fashion in that months White Dwarf with the remaining background published to the web.  First release:  Insurrection - Storm Troopers vs Chaos cultists vs Gene stealer cult vs Witch Hunters.

3.  Maintain plastic superiority by releasing the highest quality, highest detailed tank and vehicle kits.

GW is no longer the only 28mm plastics manufacture.  Technology has advanced to the point where even small companies can create plastic miniature kits.  GW must push the curve and deliver high quality plastics to stay ahead of competators.  The Predator or Leman Russ are excellent canidates for next generation kits.

I’m not here to sway your vote, but that won’t stop my oldest from telling you who should be President.

Add one more casting material to the list:  drywall!  The paper/plaster hybrid seems a natural combo for first sketching out the design, then carving with basic tools.  Check out the results at Xedrodome where the Xedric uses this method to create large scale chaos stars for a scratch built chaos titan.  Follow his most recent work on the rest of his Noise Marine army on Dakka Dakka.

Photo credit xedric

The new demon armies provide gamers the opportunity to play one set of models for both 40K and WFB.  The lava bases project is for a friend of mine who wanted a complete set of bases for an upcoming chaos army project.  All that’s needed is either a pinning or magnet system to flip an army from one system to the other.

The bases are green stuff/procreate over plastic bases.  Texture is applied with a concrete rock, then lava channels are added with a wire hook tool and a standard sculpting tool.  Hardest part of the whole project was mixing up all the green stuff - the bases used up a 30 inch roll of GS.  I spent more time mixing than sculpting.   FYI - don’t let your green stuff lay around too long.  The roll I used was stored in the freezer for 6 years, causing the yellow portion to develop a skin that mixed poorly with the blue portion.

The bike/cavalry bases are designed to go from square to round.  The square cav base slots into the open space on the round bike base.

40K collection

25mm round - resin bases

WFB collection

25mm square

Spectre Hobbies was good enough to provide a Master Class Scenery & Basing Kit for review here at Chicago Terrain Factory. The package includes 4 seasons of turf & static grass, long strand field grass, snow cover, assorted cork, wood chips, white glue, water effect, sand, Texture Paste - White, Mineral Texture Gel and a few supporting items such as bases and stir sticks. The kit retails for $21.99 and is a quick and affordable way to stock up a modeling collection.

Plus

My favorite components of the basing kit are the two jars of paste.  The Texture Paste is a creamy white material which applies sort of like shaving cream.  Mineral Texture Gel contains sand and does a fine job of adding grit to the base of a model.  Use either to cover slota base holes or to provide dry brush ready texture.  The Mineral Gel dries solid, but retains an elastic property - I found this the hard way when trying to cut holes for field grass.  Once my jars run dry, I’ll be looking to restock from Spectre.

Weighing in at .2 oz, the bags of turf and static grass are more than enough for an army sized basing project. When finishing my Pirate project, I based 19 figures using both turf & flock and barely put a dent in the amount supplied.  The color range is similar to ground covers sold by Woodland Scenics, adding the stronger colors sold by Noch would be a nice upgrade to this kit.

Push

I’m not sold 100% on cork as a rock substitute - it always seems to look a bit “corky”, but look at the example base to decide for yourself.  Rather than supplying three types of cork, the kit might better supply single sheets with instructions to rip into rocks.  I used one of the flat sheets on the base above and quickly began to generate my own cork rocks.

The one part water effect provides a high gloss finish to an already textured surface (see Texture Paste above).  I’d rather have seen a 2 part kit included that is able to create a 3D water effect.

Minus

The field grass packages are much too small - creating 4 plugs for the pirate bases used up half of supplied grass.

The wood chips for use as slate are much too big.  Of the two pieces, the smallest covers a 30mm base and the largest is better used on a CD sized base.

Full Disclosure:  Spectre and CTF have an on going business relationship.  This review is not compensated and not part of that relationship.

Concept pieces for a new line of lava bases. A friend of mine is building a new demon army and is looking for a set of custom bases to highlight the force. His design calls for solid rock over glowing lava cracks - sort of like the thumb nail to the left. After creating a pair of bases matching the design, I threw together two other ideas just to see what else I could come up with.

The first two bases are made using Apoxie Sculpt. The material is inexpensive, but continues to display deficiencies when sculpting fine detail. The lava channels in base #1 are shallow due to the loss of flexibility in the epoxie after about 10 minutes of working time. Surface texture is from a piece of concrete. Base #2 is all “cold lava” with no channels for hot lava. Texture is from a bit of resin rubble.

Base #3 is made with Procreate. This epoxie has none of the rubberyness of green stuff and takes detail very well. The same concrete rock is used to apply the texture, but this time the detail is much more complete and deeper. Base #4 is a complete departure from the design request. This base uses floor tile to create free floating flagstone in a pool of lava made from basing paste.

Spectre Hobbies is now stocking gaming products cast by Chicago Terrain Factory.  The initial release includes:

• 40mm Urban Bases
• 25mm Urban Bases
• 25mm Rune Bases
• Fallen Banner objective marker
• Alien Pod Mouth terrain piece

Look for the Chicago Terrain Factory products in the Bases category.

Bell of Lost Souls posted the latest round of 40K 5th edition rule rumors.  For the most part, I don’t get worked up about changes to 40K rules- I’ve only played 2-3 times in the past two years.  But this one really burns me:

Line of Sight:
There are no height levels, all terrain is true LOS (even jungles and woods). They will need to be modeled appropriately if they are to block LOS.

Now even the terrain is made obsolete by a new rule set!  As the person who frequently brings the terrain, I now need to bring and build taller terrain if I want to make sure LOS is blocked equally for all units.  Short trees need to be replaced by tall trees.  Short, fragmented ruins need to be replace by larger, more complete buildings.  If you’ve followed this blog at all, you know that most of my terrain pieces are cast in plaster.  Bigger terrain will mean heavier boxes, more sore backs and even worse fuel economy getting to events (OK, that last one is a bit of a stretch).

In related news - stay tuned for a new Warhammer Ancients army - those Chinese from 500 BC are not changing any time soon.

Baegor the One Horned painted for the Adepticon Masterclass auction.

The figure is cleanly sculpted and cast with an attached rocky base.  Detail on the model is crisp and easy to identify for painting.  Cast in two pieces, the left wing is separate and requires assembly. 

Assembling the wing joint was a bit of a chore.  The figure comes with a small peg and hole as an attachment point.  Not trusting the peg to hold the metal pieces together, I used (an over-sized) pin vise bit to drill a pin hole.  The bit was much to large for the wing & ripped through the outer skin of the model.  (Ever pin a Daemonette or anything by Rackham?  It was sort of like that.)  Plan B was to fill the hole with super glue and stuffed a ball of green stuff into the void.  GS does a marvelous job of taking super glue and bonding metal parts together over large gaps. 

Paint plan is white primer with GW brown ink base coat.  Body is GW Dark Flesh blended to highlight with Vallejo Flat Red.  Wings are GW bleachbone with GW brown ink wash.  Details in light grey and bleachbone.  Metals in bright silver and gold with brown ink wash.