Tag Archives: WH40K

Thinking about strategy and army building

  By Josh Bazin | July 16, 2012 - 10:00 am | Boardgames
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From my latest posts, it should be no surprise that right now, I’m very excited about my Space Wolves army and the game of Warhammer 40,000 as a whole.

I’ve had the opportunity to play two games, which both were a blast, but I’ve realized that for how I want to play my army, I made some poor choices!  Now, for clarity, they aren’t bad choices overall.  They’re just bad for how I want to play my army.  Certainly, someone else would make a different choice and be just as effective.

So, what did I do wrong?  Well, the way I see my army – I’m all about the close combat.  None of this shooting from a distance thing.  I want to walk up and rip your head off.  So, with this in mind – Plasmaguns and Combi-weapons aren’t exactly the best for a group that is looking to assault as often as possible.

What else?  I don’t have much in the way of tank-busting.

So, what am I to to?  Bust up a bunch of models, of course!  Thankfully, I used super glue, so it was relatively easy to break my models apart.  I tore off several arms and prepared them for re-assignment.  Meltaguns will be added to bolster tank-busting abililty (in addition to a unit of Long Fangs) and a Wolf Standard will be added to each squad of Grey Hunters.

My next game, I will have a force that is a much greater threat, methinks.

 

Not just miniatures…

  By Josh Bazin | July 13, 2012 - 10:00 am | Boardgames
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So, miniatures gaming would be pretty boring without terrain.  I had some foam core sitting around the house, so, I pulled a few templates off the web and started cutting.

This is a pretty impressive terrain piece that adds quite a bit to the battlefield.  Imagine a squad of snipers in the windows.  Pretty much negates any cover saves another unit might get for cover because of the height.  Could be terrifying.

Alright, so these aren’t exactly great looking, but they’re suitable for small pieces to add a little cover around the battlefield.

These need work, particularly lots and lots of flocking.  But, that’s ok!  So far, I’ve spent about $2 on materials and no more than 2 hours of my time.  I’ve got one great piece and a few little ok pieces.  Not bad!

More painting…

  By Josh Bazin | July 11, 2012 - 8:35 am | Boardgames
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So, I’ve been keeping up with my painting, trying different techniques and things here and there and just working on my skills.

First up, here’s a model after the application of the first layer color, which basically covers all stained areas from the wash.  Definitely looks a lot more like a Space Wolf suit of armor now.

Then I applied some highlights and gave the model some drybrushing.  It looks pretty decent.

Now, the backside of the model, again, it looks decent.  You’ll see on the right leg some area that was drybrushed – definitely not happy with that area of the model, BUT, it isn’t noticeable from a distance, so it’s ok.  And ultimately, this model is about me trying out different techniques.

So, with lessons learned from the model above, I just applied highlights to some key areas of the armor.  This model is looking pretty good, aside from sloppy work on the first layer.  Again, on the tabletop, it’s going to look pretty decent.

Overall, I need to work on my brush strokes.  I’ve often had too much paint on my brush, or overshot the area I’m trying to paint and I’ve covered area of wash that I shouldn’t have.

I have a smaller brush now and I need to work on just using the point to get the nice, tight lines.  I need to steady my hand a bit.

I also have a number of models that were washed poorly, so there isn’t the nice ‘pools’ of paint in the crevices, but rather just a big pile of ‘dark’ all over.  Definitely need to revisit those models and work on that.

It’s enjoyable to paint the models.  It’s a learning experience and I know I’m not perfect.  Overall, I like the look of what I’ve produced – and that’s the important thing.

If not writing…

  By Josh Bazin | June 27, 2012 - 9:52 am | Boardgames
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So, I’ve not been a complete vegetable in the few weeks I took off from the blog.  In fact, I finished building all of my Space Wolf models.

On top of that, I picked up some paints to start down that path – and I’m really pleased with the results thus far.  Especially since this is my first foray into painting minis.

So, here comes the image heavy post of my army.

So, this is my complete army.  It’s a little more than 1000 points.  On the left, I have a Wolf Lord on a Thunderwolf joined by two other Thunderwolf Calvary.  In the back is a drop pod with a squad of 10 Grey Hunters.  To the right is a squad of 5 Grey Hunters.  The right is 5 Wolf Scouts.  And the middle has 5 Wolf Guard, a Wolf Lord and Razorback.

A close-up of the marines.  See the difference between the plain (left), primed (right), and armor basecoated (middle).

And I bought some more paints and added basecoat colors to fur, weapons, faces and shoulder pads.  Everything is starting to look pretty darn good.

Here is a bit of a close-up of one of the models to show some detail.  Obviously, some touch ups are needed!

And finally, to test out the technique, I used a wash on this model to add definition to the small recesses of the model.  It looks really quite good in person.

I’m really excited to keep painting.  It’s enjoyable and things are really starting to come together nicely.  I was worried about this part of the hobby, especially given the small details of many of the models.

Yes, I absolutely have a lot of detail work to do, but as first group of models – I’m really happy with how things are looking.

First Battle

  By Josh Bazin | March 20, 2012 - 10:30 am | Boardgames
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For anyone that’s been reading lately, you know that I’ve been working on completing my Space Wolf models.  D-Day was Sunday, when I played my first skirmish.

Up first, here’s a few pictures of my assembled (but unpainted) models.

So, for my first skirmish, I had a good time.  I didn’t really know what I was doing, nor really understood the rules, but having several people at the table with a knowledge of the rules made it pretty easy for me to just roll dice and let someone else sort it out.

At first blush, I need to learn the rules (which, means buying a rulebook, blech).  My units have special abilities that I don’t really know what they mean, but, from what I’ve been told, I still created a pretty competitive force.

I was actually quite impressed at how fast the game played.  There was much less downtime than I expected – and we weren’t exactly taking speedy turns.

I liked the game, I want to play again, and most importantly, I want to keep building models.  I’ve been having fun with what I’ve been doing thus far and definitely want to continue.

Rekindling past joy

  By Josh Bazin | March 16, 2012 - 10:31 am | Building Blocks
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When I was younger, I enthusiastically built plastic model kits.  I had several fighter jets, cars and even a rotary engine.  It was a hobby that I really enjoyed.  It was like building a Lego kit (which, I did as well…) but had that layer of permanence to it.

For the past week, I’ve been working hard at putting together enough Space Wolf models for the game of WH40k that I am participating in this weekend.  It’s brought back a lot of the enjoyment that I used to have when building models in my past and that’s really cool.

I hope that when my kids get older they’ll be interested in model building too, among other hobbies I hope to share with them.

The Wolfpack Grows

  By Josh Bazin | March 13, 2012 - 4:30 pm | Video Games
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So, a long time ago, I started building a Space Wolf army for Warhammer 40k.  You can see my start at The Wolfpack Begins…

It’s been a while.  Life has been busy.  Whatever.

I got some time and put together a few more models.

The back row are Wolf Guard.  Second row is Grey Hunters and the front row are Wolf Scouts.

In total, this is about 270 points worth of models.  My major holes are transports and an HQ.  Since my friend wants to play this weekend, I need to get a few more models together.

But, he still stands no chance against the Sons of Russ.