Thursday 28 May 2015

Largest miniature to date

Well, some good progress on the Carnifex so far.



I also decided to paint the ripper swarms that I assembled a while ago. So those will properly complete the first Tyranid battleforce box that I purchased.

My goal for the first expansion to the campaign is to increase both armies to 680 points. For the 'nids that is pretty easy - 1 Carnifex.

The Eldar will gain a few more models in their 130 point increase. I am thinking some Dire Avengers and 3 more jet bikes, 2 with Shuriken Cannon. That will bring that squad up to 6 bikes and give them some slightly higher strength guns.

Still on track to play the first game this weekend.

Next week I hope to have posts displaying both complete forces and also a small battle report.

Until then, enjoy the last day of the working week.

Cheers.

Monday 25 May 2015

A bunch of completed Eldar

A few good, really good, days of painting and I have quite a but of progress.

So with the Wraithguard complete;


And the Dark Reapers complete, that means that I have now finished 550 points of Eldar.


Tomorrow I will return to the carnifex assembly that I started a while ago.

With both 550 points of Eldar and Tyranids complete, I can start my small campaign.

Hopefully this coming weekend. But for now, with dreams of completed miniatures dancing in my head, I think that I will take the rest of the afternoon and evening off from all things miniature related.

Cheers.

Thursday 21 May 2015

A good start to a small holiday

With a good day of painting done, the wraithguard are looking pretty good.


Only the gems, silver bits and then heads to go. I did make a small diversion from the Wraithguard to prepare the last 3 models for the small force I am now almost finished.


A trio of Dark Reapers joins the painting line-up. Or at least they will once the few final details of the Wraithguard are completed. Which will hopefully be tomorrow.

So with the last three models now prepared and the previous 5 very close to completion, the end of this is in sight.

Then, hopefully in the next few weeks I can get the first game in with both armies. The potential date for the first game in my small escalation campaign is 31 May, but we will see what happens. I didn't think that I would be painting both forces in my small campaign when it was suggested three years or so ago. But that is not too bad I guess.

Yikes, three years... Guess that is what happens when you are an easily distracted slow painter...

Cheers.

Monday 18 May 2015

A little white wash...

Over the weekend left the Wraithguard in a more proper work in progress state than their first appearance.



Hmm, not much more to say really about the painting, but onwards towards the rest of the week and a few days off later in the week and early next week.

I also managed to submit my wishlist for the Gencon events that I want to go to this year. Although that did involve getting up at quarter to 2 this morning... I pressed the button as soon as it was green to let me register and I was number 2257 in line to have my wishlist processed. This took around an hour to count down until I could see what events I managed to successfully gain access to for Gencon.

Out of 8 events that I had on my wishlist I got into 7 of them. The only one I missed out on was the Angel Giraldez painting tutorial.

So I will be:
  • Attending a highlighting and shading painting tutorial
  • Playing some Ticket to Ride: Europe
  • Attending the Baen Books Fantasy Adventure Awards
  • Seeing if I can help develop Pathfinder
  • Doing yoga for gaming enthusiasts
  • Viewing the ENnies
  • Attending a 3DS streetpass meet up.
And spending a fair amount of money at vendors I am sure. There are a few other things that I might like to attend, but I will see how I go and / or feel like seeing them. Most of them relate to work, which might be interesting, but then again I will be on holidays, so avoiding all references to work as much as I can is probably a good thing.

Catch you next update...

Thursday 14 May 2015

Platform, Magnetise!

With the magnets now arrived from the depths of the internet, I have managed to try them out and not make too much of a hash of my first attempt at magnetising the platform. I read up a bit about how to do this and some of the tips were quite useful. Making a "magnet of truth" by gluing one into a bit of sprue was very helpful in making sure that my polarities were correct.


However I do have to work on my depth of drilling with them as most of the magnets are sitting slightly too high. But for a first go, I am very happy with the results.

I also managed to get the next lot of models assembled. So now to work on the 5 Wraithguard.


Yes, kind of cheating I guess to call bare plastic glued together a work in progress shot, but still.


I have also been reading a little about the current Eldar codex. I was surprised that they are being seen as quite good. Usually when I decide to pick up an army and paint them to use, it is the kiss of death for that race. Ahh, Tzeentch, why do you forever forsake me? But that is a question for another time...

I was speaking to a friend about this and he thinks that there are two codex that will forever be on the upper edge of the pile, which are Space Wolves and Eldar. Being the first two released for 2nd edition, they seem to enjoy a special place in the hearts of GW that other books don't. The other codex seem to wax and wane depending on the minds of the studio, however Space Wolves and Eldar always seem to be up there. Maybe not the "hardest" codex, but always right near the top.

Well, as I said a few posts ago, I am sticking with the current book that I have and not updating so it is pretty moot for me. But these are the sorts of things that I ponder while pushing the paint around on a miniature.

Cheers.

Monday 11 May 2015

My day off...

Was enjoyable and also spent a reasonable amount of time yesterday painting so some good progress was made.

 
The remaining 5 members of the guardian squad and the base of the support platform are now done.

Now to finish the weapons for the platform.

Saturday with my Myth painting was not as successful, but I still moved forward with that. The bone is now done on the last of the small skeletons and the spawn point.

I spent a fair amount of my painting time on these listening to some episodes from Decoder Ring Theatre. Mostly the Jack Justice episodes. I was quite enjoying the pulp detective stories while painting. Although I am only 11 episodes in, the production quality is good and the stories were gripping me. They also have a super hero drama, which I will get to next.


Thursday 7 May 2015

It's progress, Jim,

But not as we know it...

So in the course of 4 days I have managed to get the bone colouring done. Glad that is over with again.

 
Now to finish the rest of the detailing off on these 5. Then onto the support weapon platform.

I was going to magnetise the platform, but the local stores didn't have the right size magnets in. Off to the internet to find them and get some sent to me I guess.

With the release of the new Eldar jetbikes, I also picked up a couple of shuriken cannon to place on my next lot of three chopper jet-bikes. Just need to wait for them to arrive in the post. I will need to do some conversions on the jet-bikes to make them fit as they are not the orginal type that went on them. Which I think is probably for the best. Plastic weapons won't overbalance the models as much as the old metal ones did and I am not the worlds largest supporter of finecast overall. So glad that the new kits came with a few spares that people are selling off. Not really cheap, but much better than purchasing a whole box of the new models.

Which I may well do at some stage in the future. But for now, this is all hypothetical, as I haven't even finished the first 550 points so that my Eldar and Tyranid forces can fight.

Well, I have tomorrow off, so hopefully I will make some good progress on this plan.

Cheers.

Monday 4 May 2015

Slowly, slowly...

I move onwards with painting the Eldar.

A fairly good go for me,over the weekend, as I have completed all of the white. And although the white is the part that takes the most time when painting the models so far, I am now moving onto my least favourite part of them, painting the bone details and weapons.

Only photos of the bodies today, my ability to photograph their catapults was almost non-existent. They all came out quite poorly.


I sadly foresee little progress when next I post, as my copy of Chroma Squad arrived through steam from Kickstarter. I have played a little of it so far, but I am enjoying the TV Show management madness of the game.

Ahh, distractions. You make life so interesting...