From The Chopping Board - Articulating a Dreadnought Part 1

Hey folks.

Regular service of chopping up things and making them a little different resumes! I've been a bit 'meh' about all my projects recently, having stared a cool Ork conversion (but not bothered to finish), purchased and built and Eldar War Wlaker (but not bothered to paint) and dabbled with a couple of small, insignificant projects. None have held my attention for more than a couple of days.

Then, last week, I played a 1,500pt game vs my friends new GK army. All went well (I won 14-1) but I took two Dread's, one being my old metal Furioso. The thing weighed a ton! It didn't come apart to fit in my army bag! It looks dated!

Something had to be done...

Oh my, oh my: Kingdom Death Kickstarter

Those of you who've read this blog before will have notice I'm quite a fan of the Kingdom Death range of miniatures. While often controversial (the Wet Nurse) I think their models and some of the bet cast, most originally imagined models out there. I now own four of their limited edition resins.

So imagine my excitement when I woke this morning to an email introducing their  Kickstarter campaign for new board game 'Monster'.

I will be backing this. My first thought though was "oh no, I can't afford it - I have to buy Christmas presents" but it's a relatively long 45 day campaign,meaning pledges aren't charged until New Year. Great news! Think I'll go in at $150 for the game and the Kickstarter exclusive mini, unfortunately the next step is $295 which I think is a little beyond my budget :(

Cant wait to see the stretch goals start falling and discover the extra goodies - especially as their $35,000 goal was pledged witin the first 24 hours! Head to the Kickstarter page to learn more

Throne of Skulls 2012 Recap, and ZOMBIES!

Thought I'd finally post the pictures of the October 2012 Thone of Skulls we attended a couple of weeks ago.

Unfortunately quite a few haven't come out great so I've left them out, fuzzy pics are no fun for anyone and don't do some of the great armies justice.

So I Almost Won Throne of Skulls...Or Not

I'm a glamorous chap huh?? Two weeks ago two friends and I returned to Throne of Skulls at Warhammer World.

Between us we ere equipped with Grey Knights (Draigowing) IG (mixed) and Angels Sanguine/Guard ally (me). My list:

Reclusiarch

Sang Priest

5 DC, power fist

DC Dread, talons

RAS, 2xmelta, fist

Attack Bike, m.melta

Attack Bike, m.melta

Stormraven, ass.cannon, m.melta

Company Commnd Sqd

Platoon Command Sqd

Infantry Sqd x 3

All these 5 had autocannon and vox, plus a Commisar with the Infantry

Vendetta

I'll keep this brief as I can't get the photo's on properly. I SUCKED. Last time I managed 2,2,1. This time I was very much 1,4,0. I lost FOUR. I know. Oh well. 

So imagine my (incredible) surprise when I got called up for best Blood Angel player?!!! I actually mouthed 'how' while having the poto taken for GW's website! So, there I am at the top of the page with my certificate. This made me think two things - my opponents must have LOVED me - at ToS you get either 1, 3 or 5 points depending on if you got 0-1, 2 or 3+ best game votes. I also concluded hat BA got owned at the tournament. To win anything with 4 losses is crazy! When the results were handed out after the awards I thought I'd best check. Loe and behold they had me down with two wins. 

MORAL CRISIS!

Give it back and not be the 'winner' or keep it and bask in the false glory?? After all of a few seconds thought I went up to the events team and showed them the mistake and the correct dude. He beat me by a point in the end. Luckily he was still there so I was able to pass on the award. 

It's likely this'll be the closest I'll ever be to winning a tournament, and if I win on having fun games and the fact I was the most fun guy to play then that's awesome! 

On a slightly bitter note, not so fitting with the above, my 4th game, while fun, was spoiled by some rules errors. I believed what my opponent said regarding our weapons are useless but, instead of fleeing he just broke them off combat and shot up my Dread and Raven. As it happens they should have been destroyed for fleeing off the board, leaving my two hard units in the game. I think I'd therefore have won...guess I should have kept the certificate ;)

Anyway, I'm back online, still re-painting the Guard which I'm taking my time with as I'm enjoying it! Updates soon.

Now Stripping: 2nd Ed. Imperial Guard Allies

As mentioned the other day in my Vendetta conversion post I'm adding Imperial Guard to my force for the upcoming Throne of Skulls tournament at Warhammer World.

I have 20 days and need to paint 40 Guard! At my rate this is going to be a real nightmare.

Before these guys take the plunge into simple green I thought I'd photo and post them, partly for nostalgia and partly so we'll hopefully see improvements in the next three weeks!

Vendetta: Paint Progress

A very quick, very brief post tonight to quickly show where I'm up to with the Vendetta painting.

I'm trying a couple of new (to me) colours on this, also getting some practice in on the airbrush - still a lot to learn there!

Without further ado:

I posted this last night from my phone so added a 'proper' picture now. I also wasn't initially too keen on the paint scheme as it'd come out but, after sleeping on it and being at work all day, I'm actually pretty happy how it's ended up looking.

More progress over the weekend :)

From The Chopping Board - Easy Vendetta Conversion

It's been a while since I did one of the ever popular From The Chopping board posts.

Along with two friends I'm heading back to Throne of Skulls at Warhammer World next month. Imperial Guard allies are along for the ride with the Angels Sanguine with a Vendetta included in their number.

I've been busy digging out all my old metal Guard guys, it'll probably be the next post later in the week as I start to strip and re-paint them. For now, here's a nice, simple way of getting a cool looking (I think) Vendetta.

Kingdom Death - Unboxing

Kingdom Death, if you haven't already heard of it, is a manufacturer of 'Boutique Nightmare Horror' miniatures. They produce some of the prettiest and, in some cases, most controversial models of the last couple of years.

So, what's all the fuss about, and what exactly do you get for your $25 (average) mini?

I recently ordered two models from K.D so thought I'd share the unboxing experience with a few pictures to show you what they're up to.

Back In Action!

Just like Prince Harry (sort of...not really), I'm finally back in action!

The main differences being he's been hanging out in L.A with nude girls and Olympians, I've been trying to move flat. He's off to Afghanistan, I moved to north London.

Anyway. He's back, I'm back, the nation is happy.

Enough nonsense. I finally moved, got everything sorted and set up. I don't have the freedom of being in the front room anymore, but managed to rent a room with enoug space for a permanent set up. Pretty much the same as it used to be:

So, with all that ready to go, what's next? My group has been playing a little more Malifaux. I actually understood almost two whole games last week and another of the 40K group is buying a crew. To that extent expect to see some of the models for Colette and the Viktorias coming up.

40K-wise I've done very little. I bought Dark Vengeance and want to swap Chaos for more Dark Angels, will see how that goes. I'm also heading back to Throne of Skulls in October and really need to sort myself out for that. I need to be able to cope with flyers and terminators to some extent. I don't have the time to really add much into the list though, will have to ee how it goes I guess.

Beyond that I'm about to do a post about some Kingdom Death stuff I bought recently, that should be up over the weekend.

I also bought Zombiecide:

So have a HUGE number of zombies and survivors to paint once I pick it up, including parody versions of Bruce Willis in Die Hard, Uma Therman as The Bride and Samuel L Jackson from Pulp Fiction. It' going to be fun!

See you all soon!

20 Questions (Surprise!)

Hey there dudes, dudettes and geeks of all ages!

T-minus 3.5 days to go until my computer, models and everything else back (TV, playstation, bedding, hurrah!) are back in my life in the new flat. In the meantime, I'm posting from my phone. There's this little 'quiz' doing the rounds amidst the blogosphere.

It's something I can do from my phone so, why the heck not?

Favourite Wargaming Period and Why?
A few folk have said 'the future' which I think is a good answer. I'm feeling nostlgic though so I'm going to say mid-late 90's. Everything was new. White Dwarf was a bible. Dark Reapers on overwatch ruled (my) game table and no one complained on the internet ;)

Next Period, If Money Was No Object?
After GenCon, I'm really, really looking forward to seeing the Dystopian Legions - 28mm Dystopian Wars. It looks amazing. Money no object will come in play here if ll their tanks are solid resin as rumored!
Wyrd taking Malifaux plastic is really going to improve the games colectbility, and their paced expansion of the Malifaux world is steady, solid progress.

Top 5 Films?
Tough question. In no particular order...
Blue Valentine (sad)
Inception (head ache)
Some Like It Hot (Monroe!)
Blues Brothers (Shake your tail feather)
Avengers and/or Nolan's Batmans (can't decide/lycra-latex-fest)
I know, I'm a nerd blogger that didn't list Star Wars, you'll get over it...

Favourite 5 TV Series
Again, toughy. Again, not ordered.
Sopranos
Southland
Game of Thrones
Breaking Bad
Fawlty Towers
And, again, I know, I'm a nerd blogger that didn't list Star Trek or Battlestar...my bad :)

Favourite Book and Author
Right now, L.A Confidential by James Ellroy

Greatest General - and You Can't Count Yourslef?
Not my area of expertise but I'm going to go with The Most Noble Lord Horatio Nelson, Viscount and Baron Nelson, of the Nile and of Burnham Thorpe in the County of Norfolk, Baron Nelson of the Nile and of Hilborough in the said County, Knight of the Most Honourable Order of the Bath, Vice Admiral of the White Squadron of the Fleet, Commander in Chief of his Majesty's Ships and Vessels in the Mediterranean, Duke of Bronté in the Kingdom of Sicily, Knight Grand Cross of the Sicilian Order of St Ferdinand and of Merit, Member of the Ottoman Order of the Crescent, Knight Grand Commander of the Order of St Joachim.
Yes, I got it off Wikipedia, but if you shouldn't have to ask why after that list of titles (from his coffin!)

Favourite Wargame Rules?
Either 40K 2nd Ed (got me into the game) or 40K 5th Ed (brought me back to it)

Favourite Sport and Team?
Ask me this a year ago and I say Premiership football, Blackburn Rovers. But after last season with incompetant management at every level of the club, I'm struggling to care this season (plus we got relegated so I'm not fussed about waiting to watch the Championship show after Match of the Day).

If You Had A One Use Time Machine, When and Where Would You Go?
I want to go see some freaking dinosaurs dude!

Last Meal On Death Row?
It's a toss up between American Breakfast (sausage, bacon, hash brows, pancakes, maple syrup) or a proper English pub Sunday roast (beef, roasties, yorkshire pudding, peas...)

Fantasy Relationship and Why?
Anne Hathaway, because maybe she kept the costume...

If Your Life Was A MovIe, Who'd Play You?

A more unhealthy looking Joseph Gordon-Levitt. No idea why.

Favourite Comic Book Superhero?
The Boys

Favourite Military Quote?
I don't have a favourite as I don't know enough, but here's a 6th Ed relevant one from Monty:
"If we lose the war in the air we lose the war and we lose it quickly."

Historical Destination To Visit?
The Great Wall of China. Like the Grand Canyon, I don't think I'd get the scale until I saw it.

Biggest Wargame Regret?
That it's niche and, because of that, some of my closest friends don't/won't be involved in something I love *sob*

Favourite Fantasy Job?
Own a really, really amazing toy shop.

Favourite Song, Top 5
Impossible. Totally.
I have all time favourite bands; Zepplin, White Stripes, Queens of the Stone Age, RATM...but can't ever pick you 5 songs

Favorite Wargame Moment?
Squad assaults termagaunts, all but one bug dies. Sanguinary Priest chases down fleeing bug, shoots in back of head. Meanwhile my army dies to a man. Priest flies back in to find everyone dead. Goes for 20 Gaunts, gets shot 20 times, lives. Gets charged. Lives. Kills 2. Eventually goes down gets cool new resin model! From the last Throne of Skulls I went to.

The miserable git question: What upsets you?
Rude people. Negative people. People who do not indicate (thank you Dark Templar). Pedestrians when I'm cycling, cyclists when I'm driving. 'Superiority complex' arseholes.

If you got thisfar, well done. It took the length of a whole film to write! Looking forward to having a keyboard, spellcheck and more than one picture again!

Adios y'all

6th Ed, 2nd Game

Hi all,
I'm still being quiet - I'm still living on my Aunt's sofa while I wait for the new flat to be sorted. No model news as such as everything is stored up north.
I did bring down a single 1,500 Angel Sanguine force though which is living at my friends.
With all the moving I've not read the while rulebook, I've also been avoiding the blog and net talk of it all - I wanted my own opinions first before the extremes of net reviews and rants!
Two games in and, while I'm still figuring out some of the finer points, it's been good.
Both games against IG. First was Relic with the long (short edge) deployment. Terrain lost me this game with me having to jump the length of the table into his guns. I got tabled by turn 5...
Today we played Purge the Alien (?) and I took my revenge, winning 13-7 I think. Not tabled as such but he had three fleeing Vet's left to my remaining 2 squads, raven and chaplain.
Good fun all round. Not much detail I know but I'm posting from a phone.
In the meantime the Olympics have taken over the city. I went out to see the male and female cycling road race and couldn't believe the speeds they were doing. Hopefully I'll have my bike back, along with computer, paints etc and normal service can resume shortly!

6th Edition, Finally!

It was a brief affair.

Over the last week of my life I've been packing everything I own into boxes. To remedy this I treated myself to the Collectors Edition of the new rule book.

The mini version will be my heavily used one so I liked the idea of having this as a reference/display piece.

Then it didn't arrive! The guys in the shop promised me it for Friday or Saturday - giving me a whole weekend to read, absorb and comment.

It didn't arrive.

My friends have suffered this last two days as I ranted on Facebook about my lack of something they all own!! Grrr.

Today was moving day and, 30mins before I left the flat, Mr UPS shows up and hands me over The Package.

I didn't have time to look. We loaded up my life in the back of a transit van and, in the minute I had before waving off my dad to drive my belongings to the other end of the country I opened The Package for long enough to take the top picture, and this one:

As far as cardboard boxes go, it's quite nice!

Then I packed it back up and sent it on it's way. I don't have a proper home this week and only have a satchel and tiny suitcase - no room for the whole of 6th edition.

You wait for three days for something then have to ignore it when it finally arrives!

Ah, irony.

Oops...It's Been A Month! Resin Catch Up

A month and two days to be precise. Sorry!

Did you notice? No? I got away with it then and life goes on (unless BoLS kicked me off their blog list like last time!)

So, as you see in the picture here my desk is about the messiest it's ever been. Thought I'd take it as a particularly good metaphor for the last month of my young, handsome life...

Warhammer World: A Brief Introduction

Anyone who's been around our hobby for more than a week or two will have heard of Warhammer World in Nottingham. Due to the ever growing international nature of the 40K community there's a relatively small percentage of us will actually ever make the pilgrimage.

I've been into all things Warhammer for half my life or so and have never made it there, until a couple of weekends ago when we went for Throne of Skulls.

We were like kids in a sweet shop (candy store for you Yanks).

It's My Birthday And I'll Buy (A Titan) If I Want To!

Hi readers of the Blogosphere!

Today I'm 30. Thirty. Three Oh. Damn.

Admittedly I feel no different but for the few cards that came and the VERY cool clockwork UFO my girlfriend bought me.

I thought I'd write a quick post a a bit of a preview of things to come on the blog over coming weeks/months with a little shopping I did at Warhammer World to console myself.

Throne of Skulls: Game 5 - The Most Awesome Game EVER

So here we go, into the hallowed realms of the fifth and final game of the weekend.

So far I've won one, drawn two and lost one. I really wanted to win to round off things with the positives (my two pick up wins didn't count unfortunately).

So off to the last table I headed to be met by...Tyranids!! Again. At least it wasn't terminators again!

This game turned out to be EPIC. I'll try and do it justice over the coming paragraphs!

First a War Pigeon, Now an Ugly Duckling

Well, if you've been living underneath an internet rock over the last 24 - 48 hours you might not have heard much about the 'upcoming' flyer release: Apparently the two Necron options, 3 (in one kit?) Ork options and the Space Marine Stormtalon shown.

I'm going to keep this brief. If the above drawing actually looks like the model (that is possibly out on June 2nd) I really don't like it. What's with the lack of wings? I get the VTOL thing, but surely it still needs...wings??

Meh.

On the other hand the supersonic flying around the board and still being able to shoot will be nice. If it follows in the vein of the Forgeworld releases the Blood Angels probably won't get it anyway. If they do it'd fit in really nicely with the flying theme of the rest of my force.

Bring on the conversion!

Throne of Skulls: Game 4 Pictures and Summary

A little later than planned as I decided to wait for the blog to be back up on the BoLS blog roll after they rebuilt it this week.

Following on from my previous post covering games 1, 2 and 3 here comes Saturday evening and game 4. Read on for the battle summaries and photo's...

Throne of Skulls: Games 1-3 Pictures and Summary

Hi All,

It's been a quiet couple of weeks since my last post. My few spare hours have been spent furiously batch painting the Marines which has been...tiresome.

It was all worth while though, the army, while not finished, looked decent enough. So on Friday morning we jumped on the train to Nottingham to my first ever visit to Warhammer World.

Road to ToS

Hi all once again. Welcome back to the Grotto for a (rare) post about the direction of the Angels Sanguine army from a gaming perspective.

I'm heading the Throne of Skulls with three friends at the end of April and want to have the A.S 100% finished for it. This means; No airbrush experiments, no building Grey Knight henchmen, no playing Grey Knights, no fiddling with more Dark Eldar.

FOCUS!

Go ahead and click for the army list and jobs list...

One of 'those' days...

We've all had them. That day when things are all going well and then...

...shit.

No fun is it?

One thing that does help is laughing at other people, so I hereby offer myself up to the internet to be laughed at...read on my friends (it's only short).

Airbrush Noob: The First Project

Still very definitely not my work!

It's been a couple of week now since I got my airbrush all set up. I went and bought myself a couple of Dark Eldar vehicles - a Venom and Razorwing - as subjects to practice on.

I'm now on the verge of having the Razorwing finished, here's how it went...

Limited Edition Models - Rip Off? Usable? Cool??

It's Thursday folks and I'm in the mood to write a fairly random piece for the Grotto. I've spent the last few hours spraying everything I've built over the cold couple of months so I'll sit back and have a typing session, one of my irregular chatty rambles!

With the release of the one-day-only 25th Anniversary Crimson Fist I ended up thinking a bit about GW's limited releases over the years; which I own, what I do with them and why, for some of them, I spent years hunting them down.

A few thoughts to follow...

From The Chopping Board - Scavenged Devastators

Heading to Throne of Skulls in April has made me think a bit about my force selection as, in recent months, there ain't be too much winning going on!

The Scout snipers I run serve little purpose in games apart from sitting round the back of the table and holding an objective before they die relatively easily.

I decided to fit in some (hopefully) more effective ranged shooting and, at the same time, increase my anti-tank ability - both of which I'm currently lacking in my list. The cheapest way to do this was with missile launcher armed Devastators. The cheapest way to afford them however was not to have to buy the launchers, which go for anything between £4 and £8 each. Here's the results of a very successful bits box raid last week...

From The Chopping Board - True/Art Scale Marine Update

Hi All,

My hernia operation last week has really hit me for six. I thought it'd be a pretty simple recovery but I honestly feel like I've been stabbed in the stomach (semi-technically the case). Therefore progress is slow as I can't sit on my stool at my workbench. Never-the-less, here's an update on Big Boi Marine™.

Airbrush Noob: Day One - The Purchase

I very definitely did not
do this.

I've spent the better part of a year (casually) researching airbrush recommendations. I've learnt quite a bit from the 40k community online and also a few bits here and there from airbrush forums and other miniature communities.

Everyone's been really helpful and quite patient in some cases. Here, fresh from the post, are the results of my quest for the ultimate new toy...

From The Chopping Board - True/Art Scale Marine

Yesterday I posted my month of Hobby Limbo and included a shot of a few components for a True Scale/Art Scale (anyone know the difference?) Marine.

Click on to read more with some better detail shots...

Jan & Feb - Hobby Limbo

We're already in February, January whizzed by yet I've been so busy NYE seems so long ago!

My new job has kept me pretty busy since Christmas so I've been the model equivalent of Jack of all trades, master of none.

The morbid picture above there is from the game Limbo, it's the best I could do to tie it in with the title!

Anyway, as ever, after the break there's plenty of catch up pictures of the bit and bobs I've been up to.

A Belated Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year

Happy New Year World!!

Merry Christmas too ladies and gent's.

It's been a while (again) but I can't complain. I work in retail and got a new job but, as far as time to take over a clothes shop goes, Christmas and it's ensuing sales are about the worst.

So, that's where I've been, working long days, tripled my commute time and managing zero 'fun'. It's not been the most enjoyable but, still, a positive end to the year.

Here's how Christmas went (model related) and what's coming up over the next 12 months...