Funderhammer

WIP: Magnetizing my Warpwolf kit

2012-04-28T15:44:00.000-04:00

WIP: Magnetizing my Warpwolf kit. So far I have it ready to be a feral, stalker, pureblood and in progress a Ghetorix. I have 2 whole kits, which lets me have enough parts to do all the arms / hands /head variants. Will also give me the 2 arms extra I need to make the Ghetorix. Expand for more pics.

Lots of green stuff down the neck to keep the Magnets in place. With one in each arm socket and 2 stacked for the heads I didn't want them to pull each other loose.

Left Arm socket.

Roght arm socket

With 2 stacked in the body and 2 stacked on the head of Ghetorix, the bond will be strong enough o hold the head. I wanted to leave a slight gap between the sets of magnets, so I would have to work too hard to pull the head out. It took a bit of playing around but I found the sweet spot between ease of removal and a strong bond. Will surround the magnets on the head to keep them in place.

Just used bits of nails in the plastic heads and arms and they stay just fine. I am sure I will need to put Magnets in the arms for Ghetorix though. Will play with that more this weekend.

I will put up a more in depth how too, once I am finished. I may have to change things up along the way.

Adepticon 2012: The Unwinding

2012-04-23T18:54:00.000-04:00

Got back yesterday from my Adepticon trip. I am going to take a day to unwind and then I'll put up my thoughts and a few more pics of the 2012 iteration of this Event. I will say that I had a blast and plan on going again next year.

Friday Adepticon Photo Dump

2012-04-21T12:28:00.002-04:00

Friday Photo Dump

Thursday Adepticon Photo Dump

2012-04-20T09:24:00.001-04:00

Just gonna dump Photos here for now. Will do a daily Photo dump as long as I have meaningful content to dump. Let me know if there is anything you want snapped. I opted f a bit.or the larger pictures. The original sizes are bigger if you dont mind panning and scanning

Mathieu Fontaine is a cool guy

2012-04-16T17:00:00.000-04:00

Quick Update on something theleadhead told me about while we were painting on Sunday. The full story is on Mathieu's blog linked below, but basically he kicks arse. He got tied up in US immigration for flying to the US to teach some classes for Adepticon. There was not enough time to make the changes to his visa/passport to get paid for Adepticon.
Instead of canceling all his classes, he chose to donate all the proceeds to Doctors Without Borders so he could still come and teach his classes. I have taken his classes and they are great. Those of you taking them this year will have the added benefit of supporting a great charity as well as learning from on of the best. Here is his Blog entry: http://www.akaranseth.com/blog/adepticon-ill-be-there.htm

I don't know about you guys, but theleadhead and I already agreed were gonna hook him up with some food and drink on our dime. Hes giving up a lot of his own time and money to be there, so show him some much deserved love!

Road to Adepticon Part Deux

2012-04-13T12:41:00.002-04:00

Well I am all kind of excited gearing up for Adepticon. I am assembling and painting models like crazy. This is all much to the chagrin to the "Budget Authority" as I am taking up the entire kitchen table to do this. The boys are with nanna, so I am getting away with it (for now). I was able to get listed on the Adepticon website again as a covering blog, which is very cool.

Continued

My budget and experience is larger this year, so I plan on having more fun and cover more events. I have a few interviews planned out, and I am working on a few others to pan out. Again I ask if there is someone or something you think deserves attention that hasn't got it in the past. I will be hanging out with theleadhead a bunch so look for us on blog row, Iron Arena, or out and about. I will work on something so I am identifiable from the sea of other nerds.

What is everyone looking forward to the most this year?

Road to Adepticon: 2012

2012-03-20T10:32:00.001-04:00

Its getting close to that time of year again. My good friend theleadhead and I will be heading to Chicago for Adepticon 2012. This year I am not signed up for any events or classes so I will be able to spend more time blogging about all the goings on. I do plan on being at the Iron Arena a lot so if you want to get in sme games hit me up here or on twitter.

I'm gonna bring my laptop with me this year and actually put up some posts of the eventx while I am there instead of waiting to get home and put up something prettier. I will still do the roundup, but I think it will be more interesting to see stuff on the fly. I think between here google+ and twitter I should have a lot of stuff up at any time.

If you guys would like something specific covered that you didnt get any info on last year or just didnt think got any love, Let me know.

I am funderhammer on twitter and Blake Everhart on Google plus if you want to follow me there as well.

Its been a long time.

2011-08-28T20:32:00.000-04:00

I have been pretty bad about posting lately. This is due to me not having the time to get any miniature stuff done. Whats sucks, is I have been up to A LOT. Just not anything within the scope of my blog. So today I fixed the problem. The scope of funderhammer will now grow to include all my nerdy habits. So now I'll talk about my video games, miniatures, role playing, insert anything else nerdy I love. With this in mind I will have much more to talk about. Look for more updates as I am downloading Dues Ex: Human Revolution and about to dig into that.

Also in the works is me gearing up for BF3 and getting some folks together to form a clan and host our own server. More about that as we solidify some things.

I have been more than addicted to League of Legends and getting fairly good at it. Its so fun my son and my better half love it too. If you haven't tried it out, its a free 2 play game so its worth at least looking at. Click HERE to give me credit for your referral.

I have also been playing a lot of BF2BC2, hit me up anytime. Lars4life is my ID.

Sorry for the long break but I think I have the problems resolved. The table top gaming posts will be picking up starting next Thursday and Theleadhead and I will have more time to game.

Early Fathers day gift! A lightbox.

2011-06-13T16:00:00.012-04:00

As it turns out my better half was sick and tired of me complaining about my lack of a light box. So she did what any awesome better half does (I mean duh shes not the worse half), she made me one!

I am pretty stoked about it, so I retook some pictures of Adeptis Rahn and Kaelyssa to see the before and after pics.

The results are below for your viewing pleasure.

Rahn and Kae here together. I dont have a comparison picture of these 2 but wanted to show them off together.

The difference with the Kaelyssa pictures below is huge to me. The lightbox really lets you see my Shading and highlights. The non lightbox pic are very washed out.

Lightbox

No Lightbox

Lighbox:

No Lightbox:

Below are 2 supersized pictures of Adeptis Rahn in the new lightbox. Didn't post any comparison pics. I was very happy with how his face turned out and now I have some pics that I think do that face some justice!

So basically if you take pictures of your minis and dont have a light box.... Get one (or moan about it until someone gets one for you...)

How to: Assembling your Mage Hunter Strike Force

2011-06-09T16:00:00.004-04:00

Assembling your Mage Hunter Strike Force:
I have read over and over that this particular unit is a pain in the arse to get assembled. Worse yet, it seems the crossbows like to break off after you go through all the trouble of getting them together.
I am a big advocate of pinning my models and set out to see if you could reasonably pin the crossbows on. It turns out, you can, and I will walk you through how.

   There was very little blood in me figuring it all out! I jabbed my pin vice fairly deep into my thumb, so hard that the drill bit bent a little. It hurt badly and was mainly due to me being careless while chatting with theleadhead and his wife.

   I did some research and found a great article at Lyoss is Burning. They only reason I just didn't follow Haydn's guide is they use green stuff to hold the crossbows in place. I've tried using green stuff in this way several times and in the long run the join never holds. It may be due to me using too much modeling putty, but either way I'm not fond of that method.

    If you pin a model well, it will take some serious abuse and not be a shattered mini in a small to medium drop situation. Case in point, my Kaelyssa was dropped on a glass table so hard it bounced! The sword arm didn't break off, just some paint chipped (it hadn't been sealed yet). This is the durability I want in a model that: A) I want to paint nicely B) Intend to play with.

   Since the Lyoss is burning guide is very good, I will just cover what I did differently. If you want me to post a more in depth guide I will, but really Haydn's guide is top notch.

These are getting mounted on custom bases, so I snipped off the base tabs and filed everything so they would sit flush.

I took one of my files and filed the curved part of the crossbow stock to be a little flatter. This will help get a good surface to get the drill bit to "bite" into.

I then drilled out a hole on the stock. This doesn't have to be very deep, just enough to get the pinning material in the stock.

Next I drilled out a hole in the bow piece. You have to be careful here as if you go too deep, you will punch through the other side and ruin the head of the crossbow bolt. You may need to file a little bit to get a good surface to get the hole started.

I added some super glue to the hole and put in the brass pin. I then snipped off the rest of the rod; there isn't a large pin, but it will get the job done. Then dry fit the 2 pieces together to make sure they will form a flush join. If they don't, file, cut, or drill a larger hole as needed.

Once the 2 pieces fit together nicely put some glue on the stock side of the crossbow and join the pieces together. Press firmly and count to 10-15. You now have a secure crossbow that should not come apart unless some serious force is applied.

Attaching the arms basically follows the same process. File the end flat, line up, and drill away.

I'll use the UA sword arm as the example this time.

Here's the other side of the sword arm for the UA. Glue the pin and attach. Do the same for the crossbow arm. With the crossbow side you will need to file down the "nub" that fits into the model. I know the nub and the pin serve the same purpose, you can just sink the pin further.

Here is the UA with the arms attached and 3 pins on the bottom of the model. I typically put a pin on each foot and am done with it, but this guy is balancing on a small area so I wanted some extra stability.

Best tip here is once you have the pins in the model, press it firmly down on the base to mark where the holes need to be drilled in the base

Then dry fit the model to make sure it sits flush. Again file, cut, drill as needed to make sure it fits.

Add glue and press firmly down on the base, counting to 10-15 again. You now have an assembled model that will be ready for the abuses of the hobby.

Here are a couple of different poses mounted on the bases:

If you have any questions let me know, I'll be happy to help out.

Warming an old gamer's heart | Play a osom game naneed warmosheen

2011-05-25T17:32:00.001-04:00

I am a parent, and sometimes get the opportunity to see some adorable stuff that comes from my kids. My 6 year old did a report at school about something he recently learned; that thing, was Warmachine. I have been showing my 6 year old and my better half how to play the game at the same time. The 6 year old is way into it, since he can actually lay hands on some of my miniatures.

As you can see to the right, he learned to "Play a osom game naneed warmosheen" Which after years of decryption is: Play an awesome game named Warmachine...

He even drew a picture of the kitchen table with the miniatures. I think it's great that everyone got a smiling face, even if they don't smile....or even have a face.

From left to right:
Kaelyssa?, a Griffon, a deathripper (the dog looking thing), Manticore, Chimera?, a Slayer, and Deneghra.

We were doing the Cryx vs Retribution battle box games and it was a load of fun. The better half kept claiming that this game was "putzy," much to the 6 year old's chagrin, but she was enjoying it. He kept defending the games honor.

She's never played a table top mini game so it was a learning curve. Even worse, we were using a 24" x 18" Rotary mat as the play area, it was cramped. After it was all said and done she wants to play a full game on a standard sized table. The seed is planted, BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA (ominous lightning strikes in the background).

Here is a close up of his work, with Denny for reference.

He did a fairly decent job with Denny considering he did that all from memory. This is the kind of stuff that puts a warm fuzzy in your chest.

Painting: Kaelyssa Finished and some WIP Griffon shots

2011-05-17T16:00:00.003-04:00

Kaelyssa is done! Based, sealed, and ready to KILL ALL HUMANS!
Ahem...

In this post I also have some shots of my Griffon; sadly it's gonna get stripped. The Greenstuff work is rough, I found some mold lines, and I am not happy with how the wash settled in some places. I did some of the work on him under the comfort of something southern. Too much comfort in fact.

Anyway, below are the pics.

I don't have a light box so I took some shots under a natural light bulb directly overhead which washed out highlights and some with flash. The flash shows the highlights but they are over exaggerated. Hopefully between the 2 extremes you can get an idea of how this model looks. A light box is in my future so I can avoid this stuff.

<Forced insert from the editor, ie the better half>
I love to spend money but for some reason even though my better half keeps telling me to "get a friggin' light box," (because she is tired of hearing the moaning and groaning about how bad the lighting is, it washed this out, you can't see the detail now, grrrr, ahhh, whine, sob, etc.) I keep stalling on getting a light box. Not really sure why, other than maybe I like doing all the moaning and groaning. :) <End forced insert>

You can make out the hair a little in this shot. It's a build up of 5 layers, from a dark green all the way up to a very bright one. I had planned on tossing in some yellows but liked the greens and didn't want to mess it up.

The brown leather pieces turned out excellent (you can really see it on the next picture, especially if you click to make it all big and stuff). It's a brown base with a light drybrush, then a brown wash, and then a watered down black wash. It's a simple and effective leather technique.

Here is a better angle to see the leather.

The next three shots are me trying to show off the cloak. It blends better IRL, and I was having trouble getting the dirty brown on the bottom of the cloak show up in the pics. This is a flash pic so the edges look EXTREME!

No overhead light or flash.

Overhead light.

All in all I am pleased with how she turned out and will use her as a building block for my Mage Hunter Assassins with all their leather and cloaks. My Soulless is almost done and I'll put some pics of him, and my Griffon, when they're done.

Speaking of which, here is the Griffon:

House Shyeel Artificer repose

2011-05-04T19:27:00.001-04:00

I hated the standard pose of the House Shyeel Artificer but loved the model. So, I did what any sensible person does, I purchased the 20 dollar model and hacked it to pieces with the help of my good friend theleadhead.

Below is the conversation that lead up to me heading over to destroy my perfectly good model.

The leadhead is the red box, I am the blue:

To say the least we are stupid sometimes, but we have alot of fun....

Here is the concept I mocked up in GIMP 2 using the picture from the privateerpress website. We had the tools (well theleadhead had the tools) and the concept so it was just a matter of doing it.

I show up and theleadhead busts out his dremel and jewelers saw. We both agree on a plan of attack; cut twice, measure once, or something like that.

He gets the cut all marked out with the dremel, then takes out his saw and finishes the job.

We are excited at this point because no one lost a finger and the cut happened according to plan.

I drilled out 2 holes on both halves and pinned them together. Theleadhead did some file work to get everything fitting nicely.

We nipped off the base slot because I planned on using one of my resin bases.

Got the pins in the model. I kept them longer than I usually would because I wanted to retain the floating look of the original model.

Lined it up to the base and drilled out some holes.

Bam! It's attached to the base. Now onto greenstuffing the center!

Below are some rough pics I snapped (in some poor lighting). I even brightened them up in GIMP 2 to get them looking the way I wanted.

Added all the rest of the pieces, except the shoulder pads, and let the greenstuff dry.

It's turning out nicely and just how I pictured it in my head. At this point gluing on the pads and gap filling is all that's left.

Here he is all done. The greenstuff work isn't perfect, but when its all primered up none of the flaws should be apparent.

This was stretching my abilities with sculpting tools much like Rahn stretched my painting abilities. I have a lot of room for improvement, but am not in anyway disappointed.

The next step is painting him up but that's for another post. Feel free to comment and let me know what you think. Also you can follow me on twitter HERE

Painting: Retribution Update

2011-04-25T16:27:00.001-04:00

I have the last (no really I swear it) pic of Rahn all painted. Also are some W.I.P pics of Kaelyssa and a Soulless escort.

I also have the base colors on 4 Myrmidons so I just need to start washing, drybrushing, and highlighting. At the pace I'm going I should have at least 1 or 2 ready by this Thursday.

Anyway on the pics.

I am excited with how Kaelyssa is coming along. I have learned a lot with my successes and failures painting up Adeptis Rahn. She is a much busier miniature and leaves me more things to paint, which I am grateful for. There is very little shading and highlighting in these pics so bare with me.

I love that the cape is riddled with bullet holes and ripped up looking. It will be fun painting it up to bring out the worn in feel of it.

The Soulless has highlighting and shading and its almost done. I intend to give him the trooper treatment and not spend anywhere near the time the Warcasters and Solos will get.

Last but not least Rahn, done. Like done done, sealed, and I'm sick of painting it. It doesn't show well in the pictures but I added quite a bit more shading to make the armor plates stand out form each other. The gemstone / nodes really shine now and I am glad for it. This model will always hold a special place for me as the gateway for me expanding my painting abilities.

Don't forget to follow Funderhammer on Twitter:
http://twitter.com/#!/funderhammer

Adeptis Rahn 95% finished

2011-04-22T11:37:00.003-04:00

So ended up putting some serious work into Rahn fleshing out his paint scheme. It was a test bed for me to practice some advanced painting techniques and really set the stage for the rest of the force. In both of those regards I think I succeeded. There are still mistakes on the model, but I'm just trying to push the upper limits of "tabletop" quality so i wont go back and fix the little stuff.

Kaelyssa is coming along nicely and am still working out the kinks of the new painting style.

I ended up adding some more shading to Rahns armor with brown wash, which really brought things into focus. My glazing ended up muddying up the shading too much and it needed to be fixed. I had some friendly people on the Privateer Press forums point it out to me. Anyway below are some more pics.

The basing materiel is from the Army Painter line and the Ivy is awesome. It takes very little effort and looks great on the base.

I really liked how the metal gemstone/node turned out on his left hand.

Again there is more wash added between the armor plates and between the fingers and the finger joints. I'll have pics up Monday of the finished model and some WIP shots of Kaelyssa at the least. I may have pics of the whole army in progress.

This is the same picture from up top but larger. I'm glad I decided to man up and paint all the nodes and not leave them the color of the armor.

All in all, this is the best miniature I have ever painted. I hope to take the lessons learned on this model and make Kaelyssa look that much better. I'll need the technique down pat. because the Myrmidons for the Retribution have large curvy areas with little to no detail on them. It will take some work to make them not look terrible.

If you have twitter follow us at http://twitter.com/#!/funderhammer

Oh and wish me luck on Saturday I'm gonna get some games in after I get done with the food pantry.

Gone Sable

2011-04-19T20:02:00.005-04:00

I got my Dick Blick order in. I have 2 Raphael 8404 Kolinski red sable hair brushes. Size 0 & 1 to be specific. To keep my new toys clean I also picked up some of "The Masters" brush cleaner as suggested by my good buddie theleadhead. So I'll finally get to see if all the hype regarding the sable brushes is true. So since my brushes come to me via a fallen unwilling contributor, I will give a small ode to the weasel:

Who knew something so cute could be be both a ferocious predator and have the fur painters crave for their brushes. So my cute friend the circle is complete. You hunt the rat, we hunt you, and I paint miniatures...

Ok so not really a circle at all, but it sounds more dramatic that way. On a side note, I don't think ill be licking my brushes or shaping the tips with my mouth. I mean, they make the brushes with the tail hairs...

Anyway, little Siberian weasel I thank you. I will venerate your sacrifice with each loving stroke and every enemy I smite with my awesomely painted army!

Don't forget to follow on twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/funderhammer

Funderhammer is now on twitter

2011-04-18T11:00:00.000-04:00

It takes me a while on some of this social networking stuff. Theleadhead seems to enjoy it enough that I said @#$% it. So tweet away while I try and find people that I can follow online. Maybe you can suggest some good hobby related folks to follow since I am very new to this...

http://twitter.com/#!/funderhammer If your are interested in following

Scyrah Calls

2011-04-13T18:18:00.005-04:00

My Warmachine collection has grown with the blessing of the better half. Most notably in the Retribution of Scyrah department.

I love the models and the rules. I've managed to play some games and I am enjoying it. This weekend I want to get some larger games in so I can get a better handle of the rules.

I haven't played a game at the new local game store so I don't know exactly how friendly they are...

On to the Pics

So I have in my collection:

Adeptis Rahn
Kaelyssa
1 Souless
1 Phoenix
1 Griffin
1 Chimera
1 "Hydracore" (in progress)

If you blow up the picture I am still playing with the Paint Scheme on Rahn and working on my gemstone technique. Lets face it, the RoS has lots of Metallic nodes/gems all over the models so it just needs to happen.

I am in a holding pattern at this stage until Wrath comes out. I want to see what all comes out from the workshops of house Vyre before I buy anything else.

I haven't got this done yet, but I will be able to do a Manticore or Hydra with the whole thing magnetized. The tricky part was the thumb swap on the set of hand for the Manticore arms. Once I am done I'll add what I did to the many write ups out there. I think I did better in some areas but worse in others. If I end up doing another (which is doubtful) I'll fix my approach.

Should have an update later this week. Thanks for reading!

Adepticon 2011 | General Coverage part 2

2011-04-11T16:00:00.011-04:00

Part 2:

So the line for Forgeworld was insane. In typical forgeworld fashion, they were slow as molasses. I've been to a few Games Days and they were just as slow there. They sort of make up for it by having things like big massive Titans sitting out for you to look at. Theleadhead and I sat in line FOREVER, but it was nice talking to the BlueTable painting crew who had set up shop at the halfway point of the line. Overall though its a negative experience because it's like this at EVERY con they go to. Respect your customers and bring enough people to handle the demand you know is there.

It shows just how cheap you are when you have the artist from the latest Imperial Armor book running the the cash register. Whats even worse is they only brought 100 copies of the con exclusive marine, when it was expected that 1500+ people would be at the Con. While I am glad they finally ventured out of a GW only event, they need to do it right next time. I wont stand in line for nearly 2 hours next year. It just wont happen. I'll spend my money somewhere else.

I've been aware of BlueTable for some time and I have even considered commissioning a project from them. At the end of the day I tell myself to not be lazy since I can actually paint fairly well and move on. The Valhalla event they are pitching is a different story...

Its basically an "all inclusive" (travel, food and lodging) gaming event where you play some themed set of games over several days. It's crazy expensive, but after you break it all down it's not THAT crazy. I don't want to spend too much time talking about it, but you can check it out here on their BLOG. What they were talking about at Adepticon was much more expensive, but it included airfare to the event. Its sounds decadent and over the top, but I cant seem to get the idea of it out of my head. I haven't brought it up to the better half, so I'm sure my fantasy of going will be brought to a screeching halt about 3 seconds after I tell her about it!

*Edit by better half: Or 3 seconds after she reads it as she checks this blog for glaring grammatical and spelling errors :)

Ouch..... Shot down before it even posts. Sadface :(

Anyway. So I FINALLY get through the forge world line and they have all their newest stuff on display. The gentleman behind the counter pulls some minis out of the case to show the scale of the new Phantom Titan. As you can see, its freaking massive. In the head where the pilot sits, the faceplate will slide down over to seal up the helmet. It was a nice touch to have the helmet move like that.

Close up shot of the top half of the Titan

The Crystal brush area was amazing. The lighting they were using was great. You could see every detail and mistake on the miniatures. Sadly about half the pictures I took of the minis did not turn out. Here is what did:

You can go to the official web page and see better pictures HERE, but I will post some of the pictures below. These are not my pictures, they are from the cool mini or not page linked above.

This is the single mini winner

Here are the some that placed from Mathieu Fontaine, my favorite French Canadian:

The level of competition was high and I cant wait until next year when the envelope gets pushed just a little bit further. There were some grumbles about the internet voting, but that was made well know well in advance and the painters knew what they were getting into. Hopefully they can swallow the sour grapes and just step it up next year.

In the main vendor hall there were 2 of the Battle Engines on display for Warmachines upcoming expansion.

The Cygnar Battle engine to which I have not seen a name put to yet

And the Cryx Wraith Engine

Both are very large and look like they can do some serious damage on the table. I'm glad I recently got into Warmachine so I have less time to wait for Wraith to come out! It must be killing the old school players though.

I was hanging around the Warmachine room a lot trying to get a feel for the game and the community. They had a large battle set up that was a massive battle between Skorne and Cygnar. If it was a represented battle from the stories please fill me in. The water effects on the display were looking great, I was impressed.

All in all I had a great time chilling out in Chicago for 4 days with my good friend the leadhead, and we are already talking about what we are going to do next year. Next time around if any of you are there, we should grab a beer and a game.

Later this week, Ill be posting lots of painting projects and assembled models. I ended up making some changes to my Adeptis Rahn paintjob. I just want to have the color scheme down so I can assembly line paint the rest of my Retribution stuff. 29 points in Jacks, 2 warcasters, and a Souless. I'm still undecided on what units to pick up, but more on my undecidedness in a future post.

Thanks for reading, and a have a wonderful day.

Adepticon 2011 | General Coverage part 1

2011-04-07T09:09:00.001-04:00

Ok so moving forward past my new bromance here is some general coverage from Apdepticon 2011. Theleadhead and I arrived Thursday well before our first Class with Mathieu Fontaine. I said it previously and I'll say it again, he is awesome. I'll be showing off my new painting skills here shortly and it's thanks to Mathieu's teaching. If you want to learn more about him, his blog is located HERE.

The Crystal Brush event brought mini painters out of the wood works and the competition level was high. I'll talk about that more in Part 2 and post some pictures of what jumped out at me from the case.

So, I am sure by now you have heard about how sweet the swag bag was. Well, you can see for your self:

The stuff is screaming to get free and into my hands!

This is the contents once freed from the confines of its plastic prison.

Here is the breakdown:

Protectorate of Menoth battle group from Privateer Press (much love)

A bag of various sized Magnets from Amazing Magnets

Warlord Crom and an Adepticon 2011 coin/pog from Gale Force 9

A bag bits from Spikey Bits (I got an assault cannon that will not go to waste)

A Sci Fi Mini from Full Borer Miniatures

A muzzle Flash cinematic effect from Armorcast

2 Undead Ghouls on sprues from Mantic games

A copy ofGame Force Magazine

A Black Library Bookmark\

A snack pack of Oreo's

An Adepticon branded luggage/game bag address card.

And a bunch of ads for other cons, demos, and gaming stuff

For the money I paid to pre-order the weekend pass, I was very VERY impressed by my swag bag. If I end up using any of this stuff, I'll make sure to give an additional shout out to the donating companies. Thanks to everyone else I may have omitted who made my swag bag most excellent.

Opposing Forces had an amazing Battle for Terra battle table set up in the main room with the vendors and the 40k tables. It was scattered with hundreds of amazingly painted models, arranged in a massive battle. Click on the link above to see some great close ups and more pics by the OP crew

The large, arms crossed gentleman in the back was the touch police. I had a friendly chat with him about all the time and effort the OP crew put into making this table. He was very nice and helpful, then again I didn't try and touch anything...

Here is the Chaos Titan with many minions underfoot

Its not a real chaos party until the Daemons show up!

The Imperial side with a Titan as well.

I wish I would have taken some close up shots, but each of the Imperial Fist Termies were customized and personalized to really add the whole bad arseness of the table.

I had a blast running around with 1500+ other hobbyist demoing games, playing games, and just chatting about the hobby in general. I got to swap painting tips and tricks with some friendly people who I hope to see again next year. I'll put up part 2 on Monday with the rest of my pictures and thoughts. Until then, enjoy theleadheads more in depth recounting of our Adepticon adventures HERE

Adepticon 2011 | Privateer imPRESSed

2011-04-04T18:13:00.003-04:00

So I Got back late Sunday night enjoying myself at Adepticon with theleadhead. I went to enjoy all the 40K events and wanted to try some other games. I was however BLOWN away by the Privateer Press showing. First off In my swag bag there was a Protectorate of Menoth box set. That's not a cheap swag bag item, and that by itself would have gone a long way to winning people over.

They didn't stop there though. The had several demo tables set up with some very cool Press Gangers, that didn't mind showing you the ropes. In talking with them, they convinced me to run over to the tourney room they were using.

I had a painting class with Mathieu Fontaine, before I stopped over to the Privateer room. Mathieu class was nothing short of amazing. Learning from such a talented painter will go a long way towards helping me paint better. In his class we ended up trading box sets and I picked up what I really wanted. The Cryx!!! So I go into the Privateer Press room and they give me everything I needed to put my box set together. I mean everything...

They lent me: Glue, Cutters, Pin Vice, Pinning material, Hobby Knife. and glue. It was sweet, and a great way to talk to other people putting there box sets together. The players in the tourney and the Press Gangers were very nice and helpful as I was putting my minions.. I mean mini's together. Theleadhead and I got our sets together and played the battlebox event and had a good time. We had a Press Ganger helping us the whole time and kept the game running smoothly. After it was all said and done I won a Prime Mark 2 rule book.

On top of that I got a pair of Privateer Press dice and a tape measure. Fanfreakingtastic!!! I was sold before the rulebook, dice, and tape measure, but icing on that sweet cake was more than welcome.

I will say this to everyone who reads this Blog and hasn't given them a chance. There is nothing like the Community I saw at Apepticon playing Warmachine and Hordes. I have yet to see the amount of free stuff tossed at me by any single manufacture in my 17 years of gaming. So Warmahordes.... you have won me over, please be gentle! So I shout it from my mountaintop:

Privateer Press is awesome

So later this week I'll post more about my Adepticon trip, other than my new Bromance with 6 ton steamjacks!

Game Aides: Army Creator Mobile App

2011-03-31T20:19:00.004-04:00

I like many others have an Android smart phone. Gamers of all kinds can imagine many ways to use smart phones to assist us in gaming. I know I have been looking for a mobile army list maker since I got my Android. I have been waiting for Lone Wolf Development to port Armybuilder over to the Android or iPhone.

Well now we have an alternative. Army Creator Mobile by Magic Toad Software is now availible through the Android Market for $3.49 USD. Army Creator allows for army list construction using Android menus that pulls data from XML sheets. The menus take a little bit to learn but one you have a grasp on them it takes no time to build a force. As you add units and options it automatically adds the points up for you. It has two views, one is just a list of points and options the other has unit stats layed out like you would see in other builder programs. The units can be reorganized after you've completed the list by a simple drag feature. Lists can be exported out of the program as a .TXT file for emailing or printing.

This app can support any point based gaming system./ The author has already created a 40k file that allows creation of most current armies and has said updates are coming that will add more armies to the list. The use of XML files means anyone can add to or create their own datafiles. The author even has instructions on his web site to help you with this. Now this App is still early in development there are a few bugs and the developer know about it. In fact he is requesting anyone to email him who has an issue so he can try to address it. He has asked that anyone that contacts him with a bug to please include all of the information that you can, it will help out a lot.

What I like:
I like how the program uses Android menus instead of trying to create it's own. Unique menus often create issues for my device. I like the option to add my own games or adjust the files if I find an error. Can't beat the price and the author responded quickly to my email. If sales pick up he might not have the time for that but it's nice while availible.

What I don't like:
The App is formatted with a black background and white text. I'd like to see the ability to change the colors and maybe font size. I'm not a fan of the output method, the ability to send the output to email would be nice. Last is the force close issue, it seems minor now but when it happens and you loose all of your work it can really get you heated.

All in all I say this tool is worth the few problems that it has. This is a great app for anyone looking for a force builder on their Android powered phone or tablet.

Link to App: https://market.android.com/details?id=com.mtsoftware.armycreatormobile&feature=search_result

Developer's website: https://sites.google.com/site/armycreatormobile/home#

Warhammer 40k is a trademark of Games Workshop
Army Builder is the trademark of Lone Wolf Development
This post was created on my Android with the Blogger App.

Road to Adepticon

2011-03-31T16:00:00.001-04:00

I will be in Chicago until Sunday for Adepticon. If anyone is attenting and wanna meet up for a beer, friendly game, ect comment here or email me at lars4life@gmail.com. I'll will be checking my mail and this blog during the event. I will not be doing any posts while there unless things are very very slow. Tuesday 4/5/11 there will be at least one post covering my adventures with theleadhead at Adepticon.

Scratch Build Project: Thunderfire Cannon

2011-03-20T20:05:00.001-04:00

I don't know about anyone else but I'm not the type of person who likes to proxy models. It just feels wrong. I know that for friendly games it really doesn't matter and I don't mind when other people do it, but I try my hardest not to. So when I decided I wanted to try a Thunderfire out I had two choices. Buy one or build one, and building one was way easier on my wallet. I started with styrene tubing for the individual barrels of the cannon.

I had a barrel piece left over from a Bane Blade/Shadowsword kit I used for housing the barrels. I decided to use tracks, to keep it as close to the real model as possible. The problem was what to attach the tracks to. I found a couple of rectangular sprue pieces that are identical and glued them together making a frame.

I then attached a Razorback back hatch piece to form the base. To the base I added a Landraider engine piece and styrene card for detailing. I destroyed a junk tank kit to get the tracks I used. Small time military model conventions are a great source for cheep parts!

For the cannon its self I started with an old GW paint pot, one of the 2nd ed hexagon shaped ones, and added the Shadowsword/barrel housing piece to the top of it. To connect the cannon to the base I again stole from my Landraider bits. I used sponson uprights turned on the side as the gun's supports.

All mounted to a 25mm base so it would fit into the Razorback hatch piece. I then began to add detail parts to give the model a more complete look. I added the old metal frag launchers from a Landraider Crusader and a sensor module from a new plastic LR kit. As well as plastic card and other bits I felt made the model look complete.

I thought I was done...until I put a model next to it and realized I had completely lost all sense of scale when building the base. I scrambled to find a replacement base idea. I again returned to my Landraider bits. It wasn't until writing this that I realized how many Landraider parts I used! I found a couple of Lascannon bits, using only the half of the Lascannon with holes for the sponson to attach too, I glued them to the tracks. The Lascannon bits worked perfectly to give the model a smaller more compact look. It's still larger than the real thing but I am very happy with the results.

Painting: Adeptis Rahn

2011-03-09T16:44:00.006-05:00

After trying the studio white paint job, failing horribly at painting white, stripping the model and starting over. I finished up painting my first Warmachine model.

I found some inspiration for an alternate theme via Doc Kog at the Privateer Press forums. His clubs blog is located HERE.

My better half saw the below photo out of many and she liked it. That pretty much sealed the deal.

The Stock paint job was a mess, turns out making white look good on a large scale is much harder than on a small scale. I now know why so many people hate it. To the right is the scheme that I settled on. I like the way it looks and it was really easy to work with. This is Doc Kog's work and it looks nice.

Here is my attempt at the stock paint job. This is the point right before washes and highlights and it just looked terrible. So he got a simple green bath and was reset to the bare metal. I also took the opportunity to repose him slightly.

This is the new paint scheme with 90% of the work done. I am much happier with this look, and I am certain it will scale up better on the larger Myrmidons. Which was my major concern with the all white paint job. Even the P3 teams paint jobs on the Myrmidons were very bland on the large area's of white.

Below is Rahn at the 95% Mark. I mounted him on a resin base and painted it up. I am probably switching the staff blades to a more metal look instead of a glowy green. I am also debating doing the gemstone technique on all the gems or not. I have been practicing it and almost have it ready for prime time. The problem is there are 35-40 gems on this model most of which are very tiny. I don't think I have it in me. It still isn't sealed so any suggestions will be considered.