New Buildings!

So I decided I needed some more terrain for 40k, because you really can’t have enough.

And I had a heck of a lot of parts left over (and still do) from a big box my wife bought me.

And I had an old fan from a computer. 

This lovely piece is a manufactorum (read factory) designed as a centrepiece for my industrial zone themed scenery.

It’s made  from a combination of GW parts, wire mesh from Homebase and balsa wood from a model shop. And of course the ubiquitous tube (this one metal rather than Pringles). 

I wanted it to be able to be usable in a Necrumunda/Necropolis/Mordheim type situation and so I went for cat walks and stuff. In fact, now it’s made I realise It’s a bit restrictive on putting men inside for larger games.

I built it in two parts so that it can be split into two buildings. These two halves match the same sized footprint as all my other buildings.

The bubbling green liquid is made from all purpose filler.

This baby is the previously seen landing platform I built ages ago and didn’t paint.  As previously mentioned, I built it over the top over an old platform that didn’t see much use. 

I’m not too happy with my slightly rushed paint and I’d like more clutter near the landing platform but I would say it has come out pretty well. I used it in a game of Necropolis the other day and it went very well.

There’s something really special about the way Valkyries look on a landing pad.

The lift tower takes models up and down with all their cargo. 

My friend Joao doesn’t like these pillars as he thinks they look too archaic.

He’s right but it’s too minor a quibble to redo everything and the initial reason for building it was to make useful the platform I was too sentimental to throw away.  

Spotlight On: Pimp & the Gimp Harem

 Meet Pimp and the Gimp Harem!!!

(Titter)

These are some of the nicest models around - really simple but just kind of gloriously cool.

I have a mixture of old metal and new plastic Gretchen. I bought the original metal ones for playing Space Crusade a few years ago but now I enjoy using them in games of 40k.

In fact my good friend Peter will be facing them in no time when we have our apocalyptic next confrontation...

And they have a naughty name!

(Giggle)



Man, I could amuse myself all day with this kind of shenanigans...

Thoughts on a New Kind of Campaign

I thought I would have a bit of a ruminate if you'll bear with me.

My 40k campaign has stalled almost completely while my Fantasy campaign over on Last Chance War is tootling along at a merry pace. and I'm here to wonder why.


For a long time I was busy writing my version of a Forge World campaign book, mainly filled with location descriptions, background on my armies and an epic narrative campaign storyline broadening the scope of the games I played.

For the last year or three though it's been staggering along feeling rather sorry for itself.

Why is that...?

Here are the factors:

1. The friends I am most in contact with about Little Men are extremely not interested in 40k but are really interested in Fantasy. 
2. I find it difficult to be interested in both 40k and Fantasy at the same time.
3. It's a bit of a drag writing up the battle reports (and I'm about eight games behind)
4. My wife will play but would rather play Fantasy.
   
   and perhaps most significantly:
   
5. With my fantasy map campaign I am strangely addicted to completing each campaign turn so that I can move the armies around and see how everyone is doing. In my purely NARRATIVE 40k campaign, there is no particular incentive to play games, and though there are a variety of interesting plotlines going on, I don't HAVE top play any of them.
   
   In the map campaign I HAVE to play several games with each army before I can get my reward (the exciting map movement). 

So is there a way I can add this kind of HAVE TO incentive to the existing campaign?

A year or so ago, My goody buddy Peter and I stumbled onto a really cool way of playing 40k that we did once then didn't quite get going again. This offered a lot of possibilities and could be the beginning of something.

We played three games continuing a linked storyline between two particular opponents. It was narrative based (and thus potentially more interesting than a map-trapped game) and each game built toward the final climactic Apocalypse game that finished off the three.

Here's my new idea:

There are a limited number of conflicts going on on Valorax at the moment. What if I set in place a rule where I had to play a mini three-game campaign involving each conflict on the map before I return to the original one. I can create a campaign turn structure in this way and come up with some kind of reward for the campaign turn's end in terms of a critical moving forward of the plot.

As each trilogy of scenarios will always build to a plot-shattering climax which will move the greater story forward then the story will really start to develop. Also, storylines I've been planning on developing for years (the coming of the Dark Eldar and the Hellspore and the Death Korps of Krieg AND the Adeptus Mechanicus AND the Grey Knights) might actually start getting somewhere.

Let's review the conflicts as they stand right now.

Each of these will need to be moved forward before the end of the 1st new campaign turn, one at a time.

One Game Played So Far

• The Tau stumble upon a stockpiling of arms by the Adeptus Mechanicus
• The Eldar attack the capital, Qualitat (could include Epic games)
• Sisters of Battle assassinate the Planetary Governor but are now trapped in the city of Qualitat
• Orks strike at Mechlock Base 

Completed for this Campaign Turn 

• Chaos Space Marines go for the next Pernicious Gate
• Necrons battle with Valorax and Space Marines in the frozen wastes

Not Started Yet

• Jungle Fighters Versus Tyranids in the woods 
• Escavar Mavericks make guerrilla attacks against Chaos Marines in the ruins of Escavar 
• Aeronautica Valoraxis counterstrike the Eldar fighters over Escavar
• Grey Knights strike at the daemons
• Tyranids and Valorax Guard clash at the firebreak (Epic) 
• The Black Flotilla attack the Valorax fleet in space (Battlefleet Gothic) 
• The Hellspore launch a raid on a human settlement more heavily protected than they thought 
• The Death Korps of Krieg launch their assault on Valorax
•  A Dark Heresy Roleplaying Campaign where an Inquisitor investigates cult activity on Valorax

So next, I'll see which one of these I fancy (maybe Sisters of Battle) and get it going.

I'd love to get somewhere with this campaign because it's potentially much more interesting than the Fantasy one (which is just battle after battle with little plot). The idea of little trilogies building to climaxes is really good and should encourage greater buy in from players.

What I need now, ideally, is to make friends with someone new who's willing to play using my miniatures. This will enable me to maintain the themes and storylines a little bit easier and get more games in than I can manage with Peter and my wife.

The other thing I can do, is that in the Forge World style campaign book I am writing, Each campaign turn full of trilogies becomes a chapter of the book. This will allow me to have themes across each chapter with an overall plotline across all of them depending on the developments in-game.

Spotlight On: A'rrse Bandit & the Bugg'erz

Heh.

Continuing my spotlight on the amusingly named elements of my Ork army, allow me to present A'rrse Bandit and the Bugg'erz.

They are Ork Kommandos that I wanted to make a bit unique well before the most recent models came out from GW.

So I asked what imagery I associated with commandos. My brother, Pod, was really into army as a kid (he's cutting back now so only owns four or five guns). He furnished me with quite a cool picture of commandos in my mind that involved tough sneaky men in black woolly hats. 

A fresh batch of milliput later and Bob is indeed your uncle.

These dudes always get their ass kicked in the game before they do anything interesting but they do look cool so who cares!

This dude's cool. I stole the idea from a White Dwarf but it turned out I had to grind away his lower jaw to fit the knife in.

And finally one of the classic Burna Boyz!

With the addition of a woolly hat he is a cuddly part of the team!

And there you have it!

A'rrse Bandit and the Bugg'erz!

(naughty snigger)

Well... It amuses me.

On the Painting Table: Men of Stone Space Marines!

Allow me to introduce my new Men of Stone Space Marine Tactical Squad.

Using Scibor Spartan shoulder pads, I've spiced them up to give them more of an ornate fantasy feel.

It's hard to get quite the right angle for the photos but I really like the way they look in real life.

I'm also still liking this colour scheme.

On the Painting Table: Scibor Space Marine Librarian

Well isn't this a beautiful miniature:

It's one of the nicest miniatures It has ever been my pleasure to paint And I completed it in a very short time. It's from Scibor's SF range (basically beautiful space marine copies on the whole)

Just one problem:

He's chuffing HUGE!!!!

He is standing on a plinth, but even so... I'm capable of justifying some things but this is pushing it a little.

Having said that; he is a hero level character and is probably closer to the correct scale that space marines ought to be. I plan to write something into my background about the heroes from my chapter being bigger somehow blah blah blah.

It's a bit annoying though. I'm doing the same thing with characters for my Mordheim warband that I bought from Banelords.

Why can't everyone use the same scale!?!?!?

It's just a case of using the same size armature. It's a simple decision that a lot of alternative miniature suppliers aren't making. I know they don't want GW to determine everything but they are the market leader and they are trying to make money off GW marketing. I think they should try a bit harder to match sizes.

I bought a sorceress off eBay last year and she was gigantic!

(Takes some deep breaths)

Okay I've calmed down now. Let's look at some more pictures.

He actually doesn't look that bad when placed in a unit. And he is such a nice model I can overlook his faults. 

I painted him: Adeptus Battlegrey | Black Ink | Adeptus Battlegrey| Codex Grey & Tin Bitz | Dwarf Bronze | Shining Gold. And Boltgun Metal | Black Ink.

The cloak thing was Scorched Brown | Calthan Brown and the red bit was Dark Flesh | Red Gore.

The alternative back vent is a real feature, with various designs on other Scibor miniatures. The other models in the range have to be seen to be believed.

Go and check them out.

On the Painting Table: Men of Stone Terminators!

Well after ordering large shoulder pads from Scibor's SF range rather than small I realised I was going to have to prioritise painting my Terminators after all.

I'm in the middle of a major project to repaint my space marines for my Warhammer Fantasy campaign over on Last Chance War.

I wanted to give them more of a fantasy feel but retain the versatility for both systems. Scibor Shoulder pads seemed a step in the right direction.

They cost £4.50ish for eight shoulder pads. It's a doable price but irritating that they don't come in tens (so you can do multiples of five men - probably an evil ploy on their behalf to make more money.

But they do look lovely!

I used Adeptus Battlegrey | Black Ink | Adeptus Battlegrey| Codex Grey & Tin Bitz | Dwarf Bronze. And Boltgun Metal | Black Ink.

And I'm also liking my new colour scheme. I feel very funny about leaving my crimson colour scheme behind but what's the worst that can happen? 

Worst case scenario I can repaint them again and meanwhile they're doing me fairly proud.

Return of the Men of Stone

Well, I haven't posted a lot lately, which I am sorry for, but I've been very busy over on my Fantasy campaign Last Chance War.

But I thought I would stop by to mention that I'm working on repainting my Crimson Blades to fit in with my Fantasy campaign. If any of you have read the history of the Crimson Blades in the Forces of Valorax section above, you'll know that in their dim and distant past, they were known as the Men of Stone.

This was before they were betrayed and a portion of their forces crash landed and abandoned on a backwater planet.

I can now reveal that the backwater planet was the Old World of Warhammer.

Here's the new colour scheme I'm working on and I'll be posting pictures of the developing army over on Last Chance War.

Though I will be improving on that dodgy eye glow effect that I totally haven't mastered yet...

Like Starship Troopers?

Because a new blog has been born:

Starship Troopers R Us

Spotlight On: Ork Kum Bukkitz

Many years ago, not long after I started to love Little Men I got into Orks. 

At this time I had a good ol' giggle about the fact that one of the units were called Nobz. 

(Smirk) 

Inspired by this frivolity I christened my Ork warband the Shaggin' Dogz. 

... and proceeded to give all the units amusing (to me) names. 

Meet the Kum Bukkitz:

(Shakes head) 

I went to a gaming evening and had a game with this guy, determined to stretch as much humour out of this concept as possible. To this end, as I moved each unit I "happened" to mention their "amusing" name at the same time. 

Boy, was I giggling to myself. 

Unfortunately my opponent didn't giggle. Once. He did the opposite of giggle. 

Giving kinky sex names to wargaming miniatures obviously wasn't his idea of a good time. 

So I stopped mentioning it and concentrated on getting my ass kicked in the game. Perhaps concentrating more on tactics and less on silly names might have been recommended.

  

In other news, how cool is this guy's power claw?! 

When I opened the blister ten years ago I actually thought this was what it was meant to be but if you look closely you'll see that part of the finger holes are actually sprue and wire curve things. 

Though I think my scissors are better. 

I'm playing a game with my friend Peter with my Orks in the near future. It will be interesting to see whether he is amused by my Ork kinky sex names as I am...

Or whether he decides I am plain sick and refuses to ever play with me again.

Spotlight On: Ork War Buggies

Once upon a time I was so poor that I had to bulk up my armies with ingenious proxies purchased at the local car boot sale in order to keep up with my burgeoning passion for army expansion. 

At about the same time, I read a tactics articale abotu Ork Buggies. 

The article talked about maxing out on Ork Buggies. It said they could be used as moveable scenery to protect the Ork Boy advance and they even suggested using them as a wall right across the enemy eployment zone to block ebnemy moving and shooting! 

It was all pretty devious. 

Anyway, inspired by this deviosity, I ran right out to G&Ts and converted up NINE Ork Buggies!

Each was based on a little toy car. I added odd-shaped cardboard squares for Orky armour plates and to block up the windows and strapped on either a big shoota or a rocket launcha. I had a lot of spare weapons from the toy tanks I'd bought to save money on my Imperial Guard.

In fact, to play with, they were quite annoying for a long time as the old vehicle rules meant they were forever getting in each other's way. With the current squadron rules meaning buggies can shoot "through" one another, this is avoided and they're a little bit better.

As with all my Ork vehicles, they are self-powered. Just pull them back and watch them go!

Note: This can annoy one's opponent as they gleefully ram through their miniatures.

The armour was painted Boltgun Metal | Flesh Wash | Boltgun Metal | Chainmail and the gold bits were Dwarf Bronze | Shining Gold.

 

My Ork army is still a bit thin on the ground for men so I often continue to need my Buggies.They aren't as great in the game as I imagine they could be but they do look cool, and hey! What's more important than that??

Spotlight On... Gorgamungus!

Take a look at this!

 

This is Gorgamungus! 

He's a big gorilla that I bought from a sale that Asda were having and converted up to be an Ork Gargantuan Squiggoth. 

He was a major work of patience. I wasn't able to finish him in one go before my motivation ran out. It took me another couple of tries over the months until he was finished. 

 

The original  model came with the plastic harness thing you can see under the howdah and the cannon on top (which actually shoots by the way). I added the howdah, the armour plates, the funnels, the smaller weapons and the rope ladders.

 The howdah was made from (very) thick card with cereal packet squares cut to cover it (painted with Tin Bitz). On the sides of the howdah, gold painted plates were added haphazardly for that Orky look.

I had two goals here: to make it split level, to improve the asthetic design, and to have enough room to place the full complement of Orks on the back.

The banner was made from torn pieces of toilet paper dipped in watered down wood glue. That's Bleached Bone with a brown wash and rehighlighted and a two tone red to match the patchy warpaint on Gorgamungus's face. 

The crew add a nice touch. Both models were ones I'd created for other things and hadn't used. They fit in nicely here so I glued them in. 

The rope ladders were made from string with little wooden rods. I trickled super glue down it then bent it into shapes to get the sense of movement. 

Man! You don't want to know how many times this stuck to the wrong things! I was covered in super glue by the end of it! 

I got the Ork to hold onto the ladder by use a spear arm with the ends cut off. Glued into place and painted the same colour as the other rungs it's hard to see any difference.

 

Heh heh.  I love this little dude. 

 

And here he is with the guys on top. In the game, this guy is amazing! Not only is he really great himself but the guys on top can safely put out a massive amount of firepower while remaining immune to reprisal. 

 

Each model in the unit bears the same warpaint as Gorgamungus himself. 

The Big Shootas were from a bunch of cheap toy tanks I had lying around. Note how the gunners arms are set to hold the guns. I used two arms from the Shoota Boyz sprue that would normally hold a gun for this. They look great there but a bit weird when they dismount. I usually kill them off first. 

 

Here's  good old Spunkmeista, the Nob of the squad. Back in the days I made him I couldn't afford a real Nob so I converted him up from a normal Boy. Notice the guns attached to his waist. There used to be an accompanying model who stood behind him who was the one who actually pulled the triggers. 

You've gotta love Orks!

And I do love Gorgamungus! 

By the way, if anyone can help me identify the source of this monkey I would be very grateful as I'd love to find him on eBay and do a second (or third!) one. 

Comment below if you know! 

A Great Warhammer Truism

Well a good friend of mine said something to me the other day which struck me as a great truism of the game of Warhammer. In fact of any game where dice come into it.

Here's what he said.

It speaks for itself.

"If you win a wargame you always feel it's because you're a great tactician... If you lose, it's always the dice's fault."