2015; A year in review

It's been a good year some big ups and downs, both at and away from the painting table. But this is an Oldhammer blog so let's get to it! 

The biggest achievement was the completion of my Skaven army (so far), it comes in at a maximum build size of just over 4K in points and I stopped counting at 250 figures. 

It's all for the sake of completion; having options is the spice of life and I can now place every unit available in the armies book with 14 characters in total to choose from with every weapon option available at least twice. Which brings us to;

2015 Painting

8 clan rats OG plastic 

19 giant rats

20 black skaven

2 halberd hero 

20 Stormvermin 

10 gutter runners 

1 spear hero 

Throt the unclean 

Beastmaster hero 

4 warp fire crew

4 jezzailachis crew 

1 wizards 

3 poison wind globadiers (Gnawdooms)

5 chaos hounds 

99 figures painted & based, over 50 painted shields (mostly converted) and 4 hand painted standards. 

It's a step down from 2014: 121 figures but still better than 2013's measly 61. 

I also got to meet Sully who runs oldenhammerintoronto which is a great blog. He's fun to run against, drinks beer and has some great terrain, the man can paint too;

Here's a shot from my latest head kicking, doesn't sully's table look great? 

Damned Orc enginuity go back to squatting in a ditch stick berries up your noses.

My Void Dragons have have been slow going; they are the first army where my initial colour choices changed. In the past I've never done a test model. 

I just put a lot of thought into the paint scheme and do a lot of testing on palette but these Eldar are a pain. Could've had my painted figures over 100! 

Some boring details below;

My long and overthought paint scheme really took a lot of joy out of my brush time. I went from Tamiya XF-74 olive drab then hit it with army painter dark wash and then laid the basecoat again in two light coats.

In future I will use Secret Weapon black wash, it's just as pigmented but has a better flow additive leaving less behind on armour plating. It also comes out of a bottle so no future floor polish mixes or any other inconsistent nonsense. 

I then highlighted with XF-13 JA Green which turned out to be a terrible idea as you can see above. It really darkened the figure and it wasn't enough of a colour difference to justify the time. I'm trying to keep coats thin and even to reflect the smooth armour plating; no blotches or paint chunks.

My second attempt

I then tried Tamiya XF 58 Olive Green which turned out looking ok, it's the same as the basecoat just without the drab part. I read a very good article of olive drab paint in the US military especially their armoured core.

Apparently it was nearly impossible for mechanics to replicate the original paint jobs resulting in some very questionable definitions of olive drab, and some very upset Majors. 

It added a bit of brightness but nothing overpowering. Remember the original was to do a 3 stage highlight but time is not on my side.

There's a little_24 on the way and I want as many armies finished as possible before he arrives.

My third and favourite choice though would prove to be Vallejo game colour 70.924: Russian Uniform WW1

I think the "fine lining" highlight is the most effective, my future line work will be made much more precise; the work on the feet is outright sloppy. In my own defence though I did paint the entire figure with a No.2 brush, in future I'll take something half the size and do some edging whenever possible.

Anyway this is the look I've chosen, the helmets are going to be the real star of the figure. 

Ideally The armour should've been highlighted in XF58 and then a fine line on the edges but time is not on my side.

I haven't decided to go extremely bright or to go for a creamy yellow on the helmets Feel free to comment I'm up for debate. 

Either way they will be getting some striping; hey what can I say I'm a sucker for the book of the Astronamican. 

I was originally going to base them in a Mars theme but red/orange with green armour; I'd be called the Christmas space elves forever.

I'm going to go with a beige/white stone for the bases; hopefully it will make the greens really pop and make the eye lenses stand out. 

In theory and the Vallejo black grey guns should stay nice and neutral.

The goal is for it to look like a darker salt flat (does that make sense) but with rocky outcroppings and a minimal amount of dead tufts. I prefer to lavish my bases but I put a lot of work into the "hard" elements to offset the lack of vegetation. Hopefully I can pull it off. 

I'd like to put some Saim Hann transfers on just to show some allegiance to their maiden craftworld. But like I said; 

TIME. 

I've got a game in mind for a RT three way between a genestealer invasion force, Eldar pirates and chaos terminators, with secret objectives (thanks for the idea from your 2nd ed battle reports legio custodes)

Oh and did I mention it will all be played on a custom space Hulk board? Lots to do but it will all be worth it in the end. 

Lastly; 

All the best to my readers in the new year, thank you all for your ongoing support, you have no idea what it means to have people following my projects albeit at my snail's pace. I hope to have a game with you all someday! 

Please everyone mind your P&Q tonight and don't drink and drive.  

A Little Late On the Update

Finally massed to get the basecoat

Finished on 12 figures; 6 more to go and I'll have my serpent squads complete.

I plan on upgrading a squad with the vyper upgrade which makes the unit champions and gives them powered armour on top of their already magnificent refractor field invul 5+ save

2/3 melts guns thus far. 

Next I'll be working on 

2 Eoan hire hearts, and an irric true shot; 

They appear to be wearing powered armour and so they get the nod from me for priority

To complete the viper squad I'll take Elres fireflash as their leader

After that a couple of commander inghin  keen tongue models and that's all my serpent squads complete.

It was important for me to include figures with at least passable powered armour for the vyper squad; what you see is what you get is an important rule which I endeavour to follow.

Well that's it for now, hopefully I'll get the chance to get the 6 models finished for New Years. Hopefully, not likely. 

Eldar WIP

I thought I'd have 10 done by today but I've only washed and basecoated 5 warriors. 

Although I am way behind schedule I am happy with the effect so far; especially for the limited time I've had to put aside for them. I've had the flu so painting is a pain.

Really starting to reconsider tiger striping. 

And then there were 10

I've decided that if I don't push myself to split the army into "chunks" then I'm going to end up line painting the entire force; I suppose it is a lesson learned from my fantasy army. 

With a great deal of the army (30 of 32 infantry thus far) already basecoated in Tamiya olive drab, metal areas in citadel (boo hiss) leadbelcher and weapons and ammo pouches in Vallejo model color black grey and then laden with an army painter dark tone wash I've decided to stop and concentrate on getting 10 figures, all but 1 carrying a shuriken catapult finished. 

The catapult variant are actually standard bearers but that's a moot point. I gave their helms an army painter strong tone wash and I must say I'm digging the effect. If it turns out as I hope I may just decal the helms and leave tiger striping back in the 80's.

I'm still under a month in on the project with a chance of having 10 finished (up to the basing stage) by December.

My original goal was 5 figures but line painting just makes things so much easier IMHO, but it is a double edged sword, too much you get bored in the repetitive, too little you feel less determined starting from scratch.

That is just my opinion, there are those of us (oldhammer painters) which are perfectly content to paint a single figure at a time; to them I say bravo, but it's not for me. I hope to find a bottled colour to highlight the olive drab otherwise custom paint will be a pain. 

Thanks for reading; comments always welcome.

Void Dragons Part 2

I am 18 days into the project, to show for it I've gotten 2 serpent squads basecoated with the dark areas wash coated, and another 5 basic troopers dark parts base coated. 

My goal was to get 5 painted fully based, decaled, based and varnished by the end of the month, but I think it may be better to get as many of them basecoated and washed ready for highlights. We'Il see; these are a lot harder to paint than Skaven, lots of detail and plenty of room for freehand, fingers crossed. Fallout 4 and battlefront are out this month, not a good sign! 

Plasma gunner! 

Leader 

Trooper

And Now for Something Completely Different...

Eldritch Raiders! I've had these for almost a year, the genesis of my collection is as follows:

I've always loved the Book of the Astranomican for its flavour, army lists and a fantastically fun scenario; so when I saw some figures on the dreaded eBay for a decent price I splurged, some might say I went a little bit overboard but I ended up collecting 32 infantry representing approximately 1500 points that I could lay on the table, with absolutely no upgrades whatsoever which includes every character available with the exception of the cadre Pirate commander. 

What really struck a chord with me though is a very dear friend of mine named Lightfoot died unexpectedly in a motorcycle accident and the name of the shadowlord model was named Lightfoot that pretty much sealed the deal for me and I jumped in with both feet.

So with my Skaven finally done (an army

is never done I need a screaming bell and to paint up my greater daemon of the horned rat) 

I'm just getting around to the Pirates  now here's a photo of my progress so far on my test models: 

it's taken me five days to get 32 guys cleaned, assembled and based, with a ton of pinning, then primed and the initial body suit/mash armor base coated with tamiya spray TS-70.

These guys went through the most intricate paint stripping I've done and they came out looking brand new, honestly. The bases are actually cool IMHO and will simulate the surface of Mars. 

I was also sick and tired of doing bases the same way after doing my Skaven so this time I'll have virtually no vegetation whatsoever I might put some dead tufts in there just for some flavor but that's pretty much it.

I hope to have these initial 10 guys finished by the end of November that might be a bit of wishful thinking but I'm going to do my best. 

Id like to include some jet bikes and I would like to use a couple of the more modern viper jet bikes and use them as grav attack (hovererers) they fit the description to a T and are sculpted by Jes Goodwin who is my favourite sculptor of all time. 

Here's a color swatch for the entire army 

the top row is for power weapons it would start with tamiya paint olive drab followed by dark angels green from '95 followed by emerald green from '95 followed by scorpion green from '95 gonna try to do a lightning affect on all power swords and squad leader helmets in all my squads.

the second row is for the common ft trooper helmets; Japanese uniform Yellow followed by pale yellow both by Vallejo game color, I want to do tiger striping so if anyone has tips on a sound technique please comment below. 

the third row although you can see it's blobbed together cause I'm a complete fucking idiot is Vallejo black or I should say matte black, the middle is black Gray and at the end is the wondrous beautiful army painter uniform grey that would be used for weapons/any kind of underlay.

the third tier is the actual armor color it started out with tamiya olive drab followed by Vallejo game color medium gray followed by Vallejo game color French MIN grey; that was the plan anyway but I'm so in love with the green now it's such a lovely colour; from far away it appears to be black at mid range appears to be green gray and up close it's blatantly obvious that it's green you really have to take a second look So I may stick with it and highlight it up just using greens. 

the final row at the bottom is for any kind of metallics to use for chain blades any kind of hosing etc. On the left I used leadbelcher from modern GW ( boo hiss)  then Vallejo gunmetal metal and on the far right citadel Mithral silver from an old bottle circa 1995. 

I want for them to resemble the old Eldritch Raiders paint job but I want them to be their own thing, less neon and more militaristic. I also I cannot stand the name Eldritch Raiders so I'm going with void dragons. 

I have a special surprise once the project is done... Nah I'll tell you right now it's going to be a prefect holding loft the pirate cadres official flag I got it from the high elves skycutter. 

It is nicely molded front and back so no freehand (phew) 

In the future I plan to do a full dreadnought host but I think I may alter the color schemes cause quite frankly they deserve to really stand out. 

I got my mits on the assassin variant ghost warrior which I'm quite proud of.

Storyboard wise he will be my commander's bodyguard but game wise they're damned killers. 

I'm not using the dreadnoughts found in the pirate list I'll be using the ones found in the Redbook compilation I want a banshee and I want a war demon because quite frankly eldar dreadnoughts kick fucking ass they look cool and if your opponent doesn't make them a priority well then he could be up shit's creek.

I want to know what you guys think I don't know why I am doing a blog if I only get like a couple of comments am I doing something wrong? Not enough insight? I don't know. 

So if you're bothering to read it shoot me some ideas, what you like or don't as this is my first rogue trader army list, and I'm open to comments,

thanks have a nice day. 

Clan Scourge 3k Army List

24_Cigarettes has collected and painted a massive Skaven Horde from which the 3,000 point army shown in the adjoining photographs was selected. 

The Sacred Standard of Clan Scourge carried by Warlord Skrail. The standard is imbued with the Talismanic and Relic properties. 

A single survivor from each of the Clan's  victories is crucified upon the banner's crossbeam, such unfortunate souls endure horrific torture as their flesh is flayed from their bones by bound carrion birds. The power of the standard keeps these poor victims alive so that every ounce of pain is wrought from them without mercy until all but a shallow husk remains. 10th Hero: Hand weapon, heavy armour, BSB, Talismanic & Relic properties: 178 points.

Xerxes Orc Hewer; Lord of Decay & general. 25th Hero with Heavy Spell-Tempered-Armour, magical halberd with Degenerative & Parasitic properties. 187 points.

Festerlice the Deceiver, Emissary of Clan Pestilens. 20th Wizard with hand weapon. 230 points.

28 Clanrats with spears, light armour shield, standard bearer & musician. 195 points

26 Clanrats with spears, light armour shield, standard bearer & musician. 182 points.

25 Skavenslaves with hand weapons, standard bearer & musician. 67.5 points.

20 Plague Monks with hand weapon and light armour, Magical Relic Standard & musician. 121 points.

3 Plague Censer Bearers with Deadly Plague Censers and light armour. 123 points.

Verminlord Raidraze; 15th Hero with Magical Degenerative & Hell-Honed double-handed-weapon, light armour & shield. 117 points.

20 Stormvermin, +2 Shock Elite with Double-Handed Weapons, light armour and shields. 223 points.

Warpsquealer Blackmaw; 15th Wizard. 147 points.

20 Black Skaven +1 Shock Elite with halberd, light armour and shield, Magical Relic Standard and musician. 201 points. 

4 Warplock Jezzalachis with hand weapon and Warplock Jezzail. 156 points. 

3 Warpfire Throwers with light armour and Warpfire Thrower. 243 points.

10 man Koga Ninja Team (Gutter Runners) with poisoned attacks, light armour, shield and slings. 145 points. 

Lash-Tyrant Slavrax; Emissary of Clan Moulder with Magical Degenerative and Parasitic double-handed-weapon, Beastmastery and heavy armour. 145 points.

6 Rat Ogres and 3 Beastmasters with light armour and shield. 261 points.

3 Plague Censer Bearers with light armour and poisoned wind globes. 

78 points.

You will notice, being the astute reader you are that I've overspent by 4 points on characters, not that big a deal; well it shouldn't be anyway, if I met an opponent who made it a big deal I would seriously reconsider playing them; I'm not a rules lawyer and can't stand playing them. 

I took units I liked over the most combat effective; I played a mock game with 8 Warpfire throwers and it was shall we say an eleven bbq. It was hilarious for me, not so much for the elves. 

I engineered my list with my opponent's enjoyment in mind, I haven't been accused of being a power gamer yet and I hope not to be. 

I definitely believe in the Stillmanic approach to army building; make a list & never change it, paint/model your magic items and to hell with the odds, enjoy yourself! 

That being said the army in smaller denominations has a record of 4-1, which I attribute more to luck than battlefield acumen. 

Thanks for reading, thanks for following and thanks for watching my collection grow! Please comment or ask a question,  they are always welcome!