I've got a freind who has recently decided to get into 40k, he's a master of the car boot bargain hunt and has managed to pick up two thousand points worth of marines for about sixty quid. Which is pretty impressive.

He wanted a gentle introduction to the game so we played a small battle on my kitchen table last night. He wanted to play the marines from Assault on Black Reach so in order to help him learn his army I played exactly the same list.

Playing the same list on both sides was a good way to learn a new army as both sides were equally matched and we were both thinking and talking about tactics to use. We played the mission with an objective each as I thought that was the best introductory game.

A dreadnought with multi melta, five terminators, five marines with sergeant, flamer and captain and five marines with a missile launcher.

Not surprisingly it was a draw, but what was more important was that he left enthused about the game, so there's a good chance I'll have myself a regular opponent who lives nearby. Now I'll just have to make sure that I don't use my Thousand Sons for a while, as they break most of the marine rules about rapid fire weapons, are fearless and are also experts at killing marines and I don't want him to lose hope before he's properly hooked.

I could manage about 400 points of harmless guard, maybe more if I proxy in some tanks. I can also do some ancient eldar. But for the next game I think I'll try and do a thousand point marine list that mirrors his again. He got hooked into playing by the Predator tanks in Dawn of War, so maybe a couple of those.

Here's hoping I can lure him in deeper and play my more dangerous army once he's properly hooked.

Dipped Havocs Part 1

So, now I've got my photo's working a little more clearly I can show what I'm working on at the moment.

Chaos Havocs. A squad of nine (Tzeentch's sacred number) with Icon, champion with power weapon and four heavy bolters. This squad has done me proud every game I've played with them. They provide solid anti infantry fire and a reasonable counter assault unit when things get up close and personal.

They were assembled from a mixture of space marine dev squad parts, old chaos marine plastics and thousand sons bits. I stuck them together and primed them with Army Painter Navy Blue Primer. I'm pretty converted to coloured primers, it makes life a lot easier but I'm not totally sure about the Army Painter ones, they seem to go on a little thick. Maybe I'm putting it on wrong, I'll have to see.

Here they are in all their primed glory. I've made a start on them, fixing the bits the primer missed with enchanted blue and then three or four coats of slightly thinned red gore on the tabards.

Taking Pictures part 1

So, I decided to take some photos of my figures to put up and show people. Turns out that taking detailed pictures of one inch high people is actually quite tricky. Who knew?
After some internet research and serious reading of camera manuals I figured out where to make a start.

First job, I need some more light, and I needed it to be diffused. Hmmm...




After some work with cardboard, greaseproof paper and gaffa tape I came up with this set up.





You can also see my youngest being helpful whilst I set this whole thing up and took the pictures. This wasn't a tricky thing to make, the main problem I'm going to have with it is storing it as the sheets of greaseproof paper are pretty fragile. I'll just have to keep it out of the way on top cupboards for now until I think of a better place.





The rhino came out a lot better than the pictures of the berserkers, not sure why, probably because it's bigger and took more light.

There's a lot more that I need to sort out, I could really do with a tripod. I'll need a bigger backdrop card as I struggled and, in one case failed, to frame the picture within it. I will need to figure out how to do F stop stuff and colour balancing, I've got all the information I need, I just haven't explored it yet. After I have conquered those hurdles the last stop will be loading the pictures into GIMP to play with the colours and some cropping there first before posting. I think it would also help if I had daylight bulbs in my three lights. Well, lots to be getting on with then.

Obligatory Workstation pictures.

I always find it interesting to see people's workstations. I'm not quite sure why, but I often find how people work as interesting as what they are working on.

In the possibly mistaken assumption that other people find the same things interesting as me, here are some pictures of my workplace. This particular model is know in the trade as a Kitchen Table.



















This is a particularly fine example of one, it used to be a school desk and I spent a long time chiselling off the old chewing gum and sanding away the institutional green paint and many years worth of graffiti.

My partner and I have to take turns using it in the evenings as she does a lot of quilting and sewing on it and we can't both fit on the table at the same time.

These pictures were taken last night as I managed to overcome inertia and get started on painting my chaos havocs.

It all has to start somewhere

I'm a keen but frustrated modeller, painter and gamer. I don't get as many games as I'd like and having once had a fully equipped workshop of my own to work in, I find it kind of tricky to get motivated to work on the kitchen table once my family is abed.

My days are taken up looking after my two kids and trying to impose some sort of order on my house. After everyone has gone to bed I'll either be working on my figures, my rpgs or simulating pixilated violence.

I started playing Warhammer in the dim and distant past of Rogue Trader, in which we gleefully played armies of ratlings on hover boards and discovered that ramming with tanks was alot more dangerous than shooting people with lascannons.
I then moved onto fantasy battles (the one with loads of plastic goblins and elves) and my undead were completely monstrous in that. I tried to play clever and sneaky wood elves with that edition but never won a single battle, so I gave up on them.

A few years later I decided to get back into 40k again and did my research to find an army that combined the traits of least played and lowest model count (least money and painting). And I discovered the Thousand Sons. These have worked out pretty well for me, although with the change in edition I had to cut all the power fists off my sorcerers and replace them with hand weapons again. Which was a shame.

In the new year I decided to deviate from my loyalty to Tzeentch and bought a set of Forge World berserkers. Painting and modelling these took alot of work and research and I'm not totally pleased with the results, but they are the best thing I've painted so they'll do for now.

Hopefully this blog will motivate me to get going and finish some of my many projects and get started on newer bigger ones. And possibly I may have found a few tricks and tips that others might find useful.