Where we've been in 2018, where we're headed in 2019

Hi All,

One of those year end posts that everybody loves. I'll try to keep it short and sweet.

In 2018 I:

• Painted 100 items
• Finished and played with my Bretonnian Army
• Went to Kublacon, Monolithcon and got in a game in Sacramento.
• Wrote 18 comic reports
• Actually built some terrain (I still have woefully little)
• Actually played a game at home with my son (WFB 3rd Ed.)

In 2019 I'd like to:

• Finish my Undead Army for OWAC2
• Paint my Renegade Warband that I've rolled up
• Paint a Slann Kill Team
• Build more Terrain (Especially finish that dang Coach House)
• Paint up IG for a local (Phoenix) Rogue Trader Campaign
• Get back to cataloging stuff for the 100% painted challenge
• Go to BOYL2019
• Go to Monolithcon 2019
• Maybe some other Con
• Finish my expanded campaign map and play out more games in that world

Unfortunately I cannot go to Kublacon in 2019. We have a family trip that we postponed last year and it was rescheduled to conflict with the con, so guess what takes precedence. It's all good though.

Welcome to Dark Knight, thanks for following the blog. If you have a hobby blog, let me know and I'll add a link.

Thanks for looking and commenting. Happy New Year.

Paint Table Saturday 268 - Undead and IG

Hi All,

Still unpainted, but slightly more assembled this week.

Here is the 1000 points arrayed. Nowhere near as far along as they should be. Oh well.

The Command section I'll be adding to my existing IG squad for the local campaign I've been invited to. I'm trying to ridge the gap between the compendium and 2nd Ed 40K IG lists with 2000 era figures. Above is the medic, Lieutenant, banner orderly and Lascannon team.

This is the squad they will join. I painted them last year. I will swap out the Vox Caster for a guy with a grenade launcher.

Thanks for looking, happy painting and happy holidays.

Paint Table Saturday 267 - The Dead Shall Rise

Hi All,

Wow! It's been awhile since I've post a Table report. That was not the plan.

Here is the Army I'm assembling for the Old World Army Challenge. I of course over bought and so have way more than 1000 points here, but you get the idea.

This is my setup in the garage. I'm trying to relocate my hobby stuff in there to stop taking over the whole house. It is now very cramped in there.

I plan on using a mixture of Games Workshop, Reaper, Mantic, Skull and Crown, and Upstream Games House miniatures in this army.

I'll post up a better look of the units in the coming weeks. As you can see I have a lot of assembly to do before January 1st and I need to write up my starting post for the OWAC.

Thanks for looking and commenting.

White Dwarf Guides for building and painting an Undead Army

Hi All,

As usual I am all over the place and having trouble finding the focus I need to get things done. I think last time I mentioned that I would share some resources I found in White Dwarf that deal specifically with putting together an Undead army. I found those in #'s 142, 211 and 226 (Thanks, Rochie!). So let's tuck in, shall we?

Trying to give you a little more of the cover for reference.

The Official White Dwarf Guide to making a 1000pt Army

Hi All,

With people in full prep mode for OWAC 2 there can be a lot of angst when it comes to making your 1000 point army list. One tactic would be to just give points to what you want to paint and then any amount over the 200 points per month is just not considered.

For the last challenge, I attempted to make a strict, legal 1000 point force. 1016 I think. I ended up adding a lot of stuff right at the end that brought it up to around 1300 and some, War Altar and wizards mostly.

We've all heard that the Armies book, and its minimum troop requirements, were designed for 3000 point armies. It's also been kicking around for quite some time that you could just reduce the troop minimums by 1/3 or 2/3 for a 2000 or 1000 point army. Airbornegrove pointed out to me where you can find this in writing, White Dwarf 144.

It's a pretty good article on a person's thinking for how they're going to start building an army, and I think what the intent of the OWAC really is, rather than being a straight up painting competition.

See, this guy thought so too.

There it is in Black and White. reduce compulsory numbers by 2/3 for a 1000 point force.

But the minimum unit size is still 5 models.

This looks like a pretty playable force.

Anyway, thanks for looking and commenting. Next up we'll be talking about assembling and painting and Undead army.

"Greatest" Battle Report of 2018 voting

So over on the Oldhammer forum they are having a Greatest Battle Report of 2018 contest.

If I had paid attention I might have put up one of my reports for consideration, but I don't do forums very much anymore.

Anyway, here's a link to the nominees http://forum.oldhammer.org.uk/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=16396&p=95756&hilit=greatest+battle+report#p95756

Or you can go straight to the voting site. https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/JWMDTZS

I voted for The Siege of Graveskul, of course. There are other fine reports on there as well.

I will say that I think the report needs to be the total package. Good visual representation is at least as important as a good story, otherwise we could all just write fiction and save all the time and effort we spend on collecting and painting.

Monolith-Con III - Apes of Wrath

Hi All,

Last report from Monolith-Con. I think we were winding down at this point. Apparently I forgot to take pictures so this is a short one.

Kill team is an interesting game, but if you don't like status counters it is not for you. I liked that you knew exactly what you needed to roll to hit, no more Ballistic Skill charts, but all the special rules were a little hard to remember to use. The cards make it easier to reference, I just mostly forgot to use my command points all together.

Anyway, enjoy.

Thanks again for looking and commenting.

Probably be a lot of year end wrap up and prep for OWAC in 2019 if I can find the time to blog.

Monolith-Con III - Imperial Rebel

Hi All,

In this battle report I was in charge of the objective in a game between Lopez and Blue. It was a fun little diversion. Hopefully they will write reports of the battle from their perspectives. Mine was a little short and missed a lot of the action.

Thanks for looking and commenting. I think I have one more for the weekend.

Monolith-Con III - Bounty Hunterz

Hi All,

A fun Venator scenario. Little did Abdul Goldberg know he would meet an imposter. (Impostor?) Why does that word seem to not look right no matter how you spell it?

Any way, Enjoy.

Thanks for looking and commenting.

Monolith-Con III - Ambull Safari

Hi All,

I got to run my Ambull scenario again for the guys. We used some home made counters and I got to break out all the plastic Ambulls and monsters I had painted up.

We tried using knock out grenades to subdue the Ambulls, I'll let you decide if it worked.

The idea was to try and collect the most VP's of Ambulls. Live (5), shot up (3), indiscernible hunks of meat (1). The Knightmare Ambulls were worth double.

Enjoy.

Thanks for looking and commenting.

I'd like to welcome Alex Joker to the blog. Besides this blog he reads some pretty good ones, thanks for adding me to your reading list. If you have a blog, let me know and I'll link it.

Monolith-con III - The Siege of Chateau Crane Tombe (Castle Graveskul)

Hi All,

This was the epic battle we played on the Saturday. 10 hours but it didn't feel long like some 3rd ed games can. Lots of action all over the table. You may be able to read other accounts or the lead up to this battle on the other participants blogs. Give 'em Lead, Governor General of Sector Six, He of Three Names, Blue in VT.

On a technical note, I used my cell phone and then processed the photos in lightroom. To get the "comic" look I wanted I decided to use the photoshop Poster Edges filter and bumped the exposure as needed. Anywhere from 0.3 to 0.5 of a stop.

It was a little more work but I think it achieved the look I want without overpowering the figures.

Enjoy.

We have all decided to not be overly concerned with adhering to each others fluff. We try to use the appropriate character names to give credit but where it goes from there may be totally different.

Monolith-Con III an overview

Hi All,

Just a quick post giving you the gist of the games we played last weekend. You can also see what airbornegrove, Blue in VT, Bulldog Lopez and Maj. Guiscard each have to say about it. But they're probably lying.

I neglected to mention that Maj. Guiscard made everyone those sweet commemorative plaques. I made a Monolith for him.

Next up will be the massive 3rd Ed battle, it may take me awhile to go through the pictures though.

Thanks for looking etc.

Terrain Tuesday 8 - Monolith quick build

Hi All,

I got back from Monolithcon last night and thought I'd fill you in on how I built the Monoliths this year. As you may remember I built some for the guys last year. This year we had two new people, so I built them again with one new thing.

Let's take a look.

I started with some pieces of styrofoam that I had saved from some packaging.  I cut them 4" tall.

They are about 2.25" wide and .75" thick

Next I used .25" foam core for the base. It's not the best basing material, but I have a bunch of old foam core on hand. I also want this to be light and fairly cheap, so I'm keeping it to what I have on hand. I cut it 4" long.

I cut it about 2.5" wide.

I then cut another layer 3" long,

and 1.5" wide.

I beveled the edges and rounded the corners of all the foam core with a 9mm snap blade cutter.

I then cut tooth picks to a length I wanted with the wire cutter on a pair of pliers. A touch overkill, but it worked. I lost one piece when it bounced somewhere after cutting, so be careful.

Next I punctured holes completely through the top piece and into the top of the bottom piece. You can do it with the tooth pick, but it's easier to do with a metal object. Just be careful not to stab yourself in the hand trying to push through the paper.

Looks like I forgot to show, but put the tooth picks through the top layer with the points up and the cut part sticking through. Those cut ends will stick into the holes in the top of the bottom layer. Then the styrofoam will be stuck down onto the tooth pick points until it is flush with the top layer of foam core. All of this will be stuck together with PVA glue. I used Aileen's Tacky glue.

After I gave that a chance to dry I covered the base in spackle as well as a couple of dents and chips in the styrofoam. The spackle was lightly sanded after drying and then I did my normal ground work. In my case that means spots of natural sand texture gel and spots of PVA with a mix of sand and different sizes of railroad ballast.

The next step, I again forgot to photograph, was a layer of Hotwire Foam Factory Foam Coat on the styrofoam. Last year I used only mod podge to seal and harden the foam before painting. I bought the Foam Coat for use on my Mighty Fortress and I wanted to try it out on this. I did a 3-1, powder to water, ratio and it was a little hard to brush on at that thickness. I also learned, and was later confirmed by Bulldog Lopez, that Foam Coat only sticks to itself and Styrofoam. Nothing else. So don't use spackle to fill your styrofoam.

Anyway the Foam Coat does what it says on the tin. Makes it hard and sandable. I then painted everything black and then drybrushed on Charcoal, Rain Grey and Drizzle Grey. The last picture looks a little weird because I edited it so you could see the surface of the Monoliths better.

An easy project that I did while waiting for other things to dry. Any tips you want to share or questions you have, please leave a comment.

Thanks.

Also a welcome to Miguel Guillermo. I think he may go by the handle Skully. If you have a blog please let me know.