Aspiring Champion

Aspiring Champion
Originally uploaded by Xadhoom.

A few minutes work with red and gold paint does wonders. Can't wait to get him finished and getting started on his squad!

The lighting is really bad in my apartment, so I had to photoshop him into the correct shade of red (not orange!).

First lick of paint

Chaos Space Marines
Originally uploaded by Xadhoom.

After the disaster with the faulty spray paint, I've put off doing any further work on my Chaos Space Marines for too long. This week, I started painting the first unit of my new army, a 10-man unit of regular Chaos Space Marines.

They will be painted in the colors of the Red Corsairs from the latest Codex.

Success!

Chaos Space Marines in green goo

All nice and smooth again

After the Chaos Space Marines got ruined by a new can of spray paint last month, I've been focusing on painting a unit of Thousand Sons, sprayed years ago.

A few days ago, I visited my buddy Andreas, and put the Marines in a box filled with a concentrated soap called Simple Green. We left them in the liquid for three days. Yesterday, we took them out of the box and tried scrubbing with an old toothbrush.

Lo and behold, the grainy undercoat came right off! Fantastic!! The best part is that Simple Green is bio-degradable, non-toxic and can be used over and over! If only they sold the stuff in our country...

Match of the day: Dark Elf vs Khemri

Today, I'm playing my first game with my new Blood Bowl team, the Brides of Khaine. I am playing against my friend Bjørn, and his Khemri team Kommunistpartiet.

I don't have much in the way of skills nor re-rolls, so I will have to depend on my superior mobility (higher movement and agility) to win this match. We played a test match (at 1200k gp) a few weeks ago, which ended 2-2 after some lucky breaks for me. Those Tomb Guards are tough cookies, especially when they get hold of the ball!

Update: I lost the game 0-1. Only two re-rolls and no re-roll skills assured that important moves went wrong for me. Kudos to Bjørn for playing very well in the match, and scoring with a Skeleton!

Disaster!

I tried the new Army Painter primer today. Sprayed the Khorne Berzerkers and Chaos Space Marines in a semi-lit room. After I was finished I discovered a thin layer of black dust that came right off when I gently rubbed the miniature. I am trying a water soak at the moment, and will scrub them in a few hours I think. Hopefully the grainy layer will come off, but if not...

Update:
Crap. I found a one week old warning at www.thearmypainter.com, stating that other painters have experienced the same thing. My error was apparently using the Army Painter spray in the same way as the normal GW spray. Short, controlled bursts is apparently not the way to do it, as this ruins the miniature. I have mailed the guys at The Army Painter and am currently awaiting a reply. If they don't have any smart solutions I will simply have to remove the paint altogether. A pain, but less of a pain than buying and assembling new miniatures.

Well, it's my own fault for not testing on a single model first...

Second Update:
I got an answer from The Army Painter, unfortunately without any good tips. I will try to remove the paint from these plastic miniatures next monday. Results will be posted here...

New project: Chaos Space Marines

I got a text message from my buddy Aslak this summer:
Do you want to do a few painting sessions with me this fall? Want to try 40k (Tau).

Huzzah! We talked about it and decided to try a tale of two gamers, building our forces in manageable chunks. This is his first 40k army, only having played Warhammer Fantasy so far.

The seven steps to glory

1. One unit of Troops
2. 400 points and at least two Troops
3. 500 points and at least one HQ unit
4. 750 points
   
5. 1000 points
6. 1250 points
7. 1500 points and done

The master plan
My seven step program should keep things interesting and manageable for both of us. The game after step 1 should be pretty one-sided, but at step 2 and 3 things will start to get interesting.

1. 10 Chaos Space Marines with champion, icon, plasma rifle and lascannon, mounted in a Rhino transport
2. 10 Lesser Daemons
3. Chaos Lord (have to take a lot of his gear away to fit him into 500 points)
4. I need some anti-tank at this stage, so I'll take 2 Obliterators and 5 Raptors with Meltaguns
5. 4 Terminators won't bring me to 1000 points, but using the Chaos Lord at full power will
6. 8 Khorne Berzerkers with Skull Champion in a Rhino
7. 9 Thousand Sons in a Rhino

That's it. 1499 points of Chaos Space Marines. The army has a very high model count (for CSM), in all 52 models. This is balanced fairly neatly with the fact that I lack anti-tank weaponry, have no heavy vehicles at all, and no blast or template weapons. A fun army that I am looking forward to painting and playing with.

Back to 40k for 5th edition

Aaand I'm back.

The 5th edition of Warhammer 40k is out, and MAN what a blast it is! I played my first game yesterday at GW Oslo, a 1000 point game with the following list:

• Necron Lord with Chronometron and Time Shifter
• 10 Necron Warriors
• 10 Necron Warriors
• 5 Necron Destroyers
• 1 Tomb Spyder
• 3 Necron Heavy Destroyers

I was up against Erik and his Eldar. His list was something like

• Farseer with Spirit Stones, Singing Spear, Doom and Guide
• 6 Fire Dragons with Exarch
• 5 Pathfinders
• 10 Guardians with Starcannon and Warlock with Conceal
• 6 Warp Spiders with Exarch
• Falcon with Scatter Laser, Holofield and Spirit Stones
• Wraithlord with Bright Lance

We were playing the "Seize Ground" mission and rolled four Loot Counters. The deployment type was "Dawn of War", in which only two troops and a HQ unit deploys at the start of the battle. The rest enters the game from each player's table edges in turn 1.

Highlights of the game

• Me making all my "We'll be back" rolls the first two turns of the game
• The Wraithlord falling to mere Gauss Flayer damage (He's normally impervious to mere S4 shots)
• The Necron Warriors sprinting up the field in one turn, and sprinting back the next as the small unit of Warp Spiders appeared. The Necron Warriors got slaughtered by the Warp Spider Exarch the turn after.
• The revelation for both players, when we found out that Troops are scoring to the last man!
• The Eldar attempt to kill the Necron Lord in the final stages of the game, almost succeeding, but the Lord lived thanks to his 4+ invulnerable save. No Orb no problem!

All in all, the 5th edition looks to be a keeper. I had a lot of fun in this first game, and it was very useful for learning some of the new stuff in the rulebook. It will doubtless be some rule changes we overlooked, but who cares as long as we both had a good time.