Shoot the big ones! – 31st January 2010

After flicking through my new copy of the Tyranid Codex, I can safely say I’m a very happy chap.

I’ve always been a fan of the most alien of all the 40K factions. Their background paints them as a truly terrifying opponent and the new Codex hammers this home harder than any of the previous books.

Swarms have got more lethal, with Hormagaunts able to go toe to claw with many armies best assault troops. The Games Workshop Hive Mind has honed the evolution of several new, truly excellent creatures too! The Venomthrope’s cover save gives your swarm a dangerous survivability, while still allowing them to rampage across the board. The new Trygon and Mawloc super beasts are just plain awesome on both the model and rules fronts, giving the Nids an excellent fire magnet that can do some real damage if left un-checked.

One of my personal favourites from the new stuff are the Gargoyles. I really like the idea of a massed, flying swarm and although they existed under the old rules, the figures were no where near as cool or cost effective as they are now. I can predict some winged death coming soon to a table near me!

More Eldar sighted – 17th January 2010

I've been allowing my army list creation habit to wonder unchecked again this week. This time it resulted in an Eldar force based around some of the Aspects Warrior types that I haven’t used since the 5th edition Warhammer 40,000 rulebook came out.

Both Swooping Hawks and Warp Spiders rate highly with me based on their background fluff. I really like the idea of the Eldar force being used as a scalpel, performing surgical strikes and then escaping before the enemy bring their guns to bear.

The main problem I have is that I don’t use my Eldar army on a regular basis, so when I do, I tend to stick with the units I know. This usually results in a squad of Striking Scorpions, some Fire Dragons and a Wraithlord, backed up by some Dire Avengers and transports.

I was watching Prison Break while scribbling and being near the end of season 1 it got quite exciting, so I haven’t finished the list yet but so far it's looking speedy! There is little doubt in my mind that I’ll take a beating the first couple of times I play, but it should be good fun and it’s always cool having a go with something new!

Paint it black – 10th January 2010

It’s day 2 of my boards and time for some paint! The Works has been an invaluable shop for my hoppy interests so far. I’ve picked up huge bottles of good quality PVA glue, loads of big tubes of paint, from the staple black and white needed to mix up my grey to some other cool colours like Burnt Umber! As nice as it would be to pour 50 pots of Adeptus Battle Grey onto my boards, the cost would probably make them most expensive slices of former tree on the planet.

On a childish level it’s quite good fun squeezing the paint out the tubes and mixing your own colours too. For a while there I was Tony Heart… with Marneus Calgar as Morph.

I gave my boards a nice even coat of black first thing this morning and it was pretty much dry by 10:00am, so I could make a start on my first coat of grey. I’ve had 2 tubs of leftovers hanging around for a while, 1 with watered down Charandon Granite in and another of watered down Shadow Grey and this seemed like the ideal opportunity to use them up.

I added a bit more water to both mixes so I’d have enough to spread it thinly over both boards and set to work dabbing, sloshing and swishing it about. I used a big 2” paint brush and did my best to make sure as few obvious brush strokes as possible were left showing.

I finished it off by using a mix of acrylics as close to Adeptus Battlegrey as I could muster. This combined with a dry brush of Astronomican Grey would tie them in perfectly to the bases I’d mounted my buildings on and give the board a more cohesive look.

I’m going to paint some patches of Burnt Umber (a slightly more reddish version of Charandon Granite) onto my city boards to represent areas of dirt. I’ll then flock these with a mix of normal green flock and some of the burnt grass stuff I picked up on a recent trip to Games Workshop. I’ll carry this theme on with some flock on my ruined buildings bases, craters and army bases. I’m hoping that by adding a bit of greenery to my city board it won’t detract too much from the urban look, while at the same time allowing all my terrain and figures to be used on my grassy Realm of Battle Boards without looking out of place.

Shades of grey – 9th January 2010

My recent building painting sessions inspired me to crack on with my urban boards today.

I stuck the Doom DVD on (something I hadn’t seen for ages and could half watch while working) and made a start by covering the whole 6x4’ surface in a coat of PVA glue mixed with a bit of water. I then randomly (as randomly as something can be done deliberately) sprinkled sand and very small flakes of slate all over the boards, the idea being to give a rough surface which will catch some of the paint when I dry brush it.

Next up I gave the board another coat of PVA to help keep all my scattered rubble well stuck down. This is a ‘hind sight’ tactic that I wish I’d used when basing my buildings last month. By putting a layer of PVA glue on top of the stuff you’ve stuck down it makes it a lot tougher and far less of the sand escapes when you’re painting it.

Painting my ruins – 2nd January 2010

With each of my buildings glued to their bases and suitably attired with sand and slate it was time to break the paints out. Although a few of my buildings were already painted, I decided it would be best just to push the reset button and undercoat them all black.

I’ve chosen the same grey colour scheme that I’d previously used on my 2 Sanctum Imperialis ruins. This is a Chaos Black undercoat, followed by progressively lighter dry brushes working through Adeptus Battlegrey, Shadow Grey and finally Astronomican Grey. This gives the buildings a dusty, worn stone look and isn’t too dark, which was important to me as I’d like them to work on both my urban board and flocked Realm of Battle Board.