25/05/2011

Windows Live Writer

After the recent Problems many of us have had with Blogs disappearing and sundry other problems with the Blogger system, I have decided to try out Windows Live Writer to prevent the loss of complete or semi-complete blogs. It may take me a little time to get used to Writer and i may try out a few different setting and styles so bare with me as I’m finding my feet (it shouldn't take long, it seems pretty simple tbh)

Ben

24/05/2011

Battletech Boxed Set Un-boxing

Beasts of War have done a video of the new Battletech Introductory boxed set, here it is:



And a link: BeastsOfWar

23/05/2011

New Forge World Space Marines

Forge World have announced two new kits of Assault Space Marines in MkII and MkV Armour respectively. Nice to see the pre-heresy jump packs, Would look great in a Vanguard Veteran Squad.
Some Images and a links to ForgeWorld:





22/05/2011

What a week

Well what a week in Wargaming, two things have happened that have got the internet all of excited (or pissed off!).

GW drop a metaphorical bomb, then try to heal the gaping wound with a sticking plaster (link).

Beast of War seem to have lost their Youtube account, still no solid news on this.

On the latter hopefully BoW can get it sorted soon as over the last few weeks I have become addicted to their site.

On the former... well I have yet to hear any wargamers positive spin on this and I my thoughts are mirrored all over the internet. I just feel a little sad :(

Anyway lets not forget that there are other gaming companies out there, I intend to dig out my old Battletech stuff out and I am really looking forward to the new steam punk naval game Leviathans. I also intend to have a good look at the rules for Infinity as I hear very good things about it all over the web.

Also next month I continue my ongoing Traveller campaign, well looking forward to that!

15/05/2011

Introducing Captain Florian, Blood Angels Third Company

Just a quick introduction to my current army Commander, (the late) Captain Florian, third company commander at the start of the second War for Armageddon. Remember the fluff about Tycho replacing third companies commander? Well this is him.

14/05/2011

Venerable Dreadnought

My Venerable Dreadnought finally arrived from Wayland Games on Wednesday. Here he is all built. As you can see I decided to use the studded helmet and front with the arches. I also had to use the cool Powerfist:

Here he is in all his plastic glory showing the build options I decided on.


Some of the different arms you can build.

A great kit as you can see and there are loads of bits left for customisation and other stuff. I really love the proper power Powerfist, makes it look really punchy. I hope to get his primed soon along with my Sanguinary Guard and am really looking forward to painting it.

Ben

11/05/2011

New Dark Eldar Announced



Well whadya know, more Dark Eldar are on their way:

The new kits (with links) are:

Cronos Parasitic Engine

All look pretty cool. The Engines in particular look great and could be good for Archo-Flagellant conversions if Inquisitors are your thing. Personally I think the Venom looks too much like a Craftworld Eldar Vehicle with the glass canopy, looks like it could be optional though.

Dark Eldar Venom Box Art

A Quick Ork Army List

Here's a quick army list for my Orks. 800 points cobbled together from what Orks I have lying around.

HQ

Warboss,
TL Shoota, Power Klaw, Eavy Armour.

Elites

10 Nobz in Eavy Armour.

Troops

20 Boyz, slugga n choppas.

20 Boyz 18 slugga n choppas, 2 big shootas.

15 Gretchin, 1 Runtherd.

Fast Attack

3 Deffkoptas with TL Rokits.



What do you think? Not much anti armour in there but I think that is a common problem in Ork armies. Maybe that is something to look at to take it up to 1000 points.


Ben

10/05/2011

Forge World Resin Guide

Not sure if this is new but I only noticed it today.

Forge World have released a handy pdf guide to getting the best out of your resin kits from how to clean and prep them, how to glue them and how to paint them. It also covers some of the different issues you may have with e resin kit if you are more used to the more common metal and plastic kits.

A useful guide for those of us new to resin kits.

Heres the link: LINK!!!


Ben

There's gonna be some changes around here.

The more observant readers amongst you will have noticed that a few things are changing on this blog. Well hold on to your hats because it's going to be a wild ride...

Not really I'm just going to be messing around a bit for a while with the look and feel of the blog.

Hopefully this will improve the generic look and make it a little more to look at.


Ben

09/05/2011

Looking for That Extra Little Something? pt2 Ratgard

Ratgard are clearly a very small modelling operation with only two Imperial Guard Chimera variants on offer. One changes the overall look of the basic IFV Chimera and the other is an AA alternative to GW's/ ForgeWorlds Hydra

Lets look at the IFV variant known as the Sciuridae (The Latin name for the Squirrel family apparently). This is an 8 piece resin kit that replaces existing parts of the Chimera model mainly the top of the hull, turret and back door.

The parts look clean and when placed upon the model do give it a Soviet BMP-1 look due mainly tothe sleek low turret and twin back doors. This is a nice subtle mod kit and I think is a great direction for Imperial Guard vehicle modders to go.

The Cold-War era BMP series is clearly the inspiration for this mod kit.

A good look at the twin back doors and view slats.

You can see the sleek profile the new top and turret gives the kit.

If there is any criticism in the kits it is the lack of turret weapon options but this is a small gripe over an otherwise great looking kit.

Now lets look at their second offering, The Hedgehog AA gun. Again this is a large multi-part resin kit consisting mainly of a large quad-cannon turret assembly that retrofits the existing Chimera model and fulfils the role as a Hydra alternative.

Again it is pretty clear to see the similarities between the Hedgehog and the Soviet Tunguska vehicle . The mod looks great and the attention to detail is fantastic, I especially like the optional radar dish cover.
Guns held high, this looks like a great kit.

It really does look like it's real world counterpart.

Now lets face it, the basic Chimera is one of the oldest vehicle designs still knocking around the GW range and I think Ratgards attempt to update it is great. In going with a Cold War retro theme as oppose to the traditional Great War or WWII that GW and ForgeWorld have in the past, his kits will give anyone's army a distinct theme and would look great with a Valhallian or Vostroyan army. I just hope the kits are successful as I would love to see even more Imperial army mod kits in a Cold-War era style.

BTW The wonderful images above are mostly from the Ratgard website and are not my own work.

Go check them out at Ratgard's website!

08/05/2011

Looking for That Extra Little Something? pt1

Lets face facts nothing screams COOL! like a miniature that is totally unique. Thankfully GW has made achieving a unique character or unit a lot easier in the last few years thanks to improved plastic castings and sprues. Just look at the options you get in some of their plastic kits, the Blood Angels Death Company for example gives you enough extra bits to give a few squads a distinctive Blood Angels appearance. The new Dark Eldar kits are awesome and these multi purpose kits are now becoming the rule rather than the exception.
Blood Angels Death Company

Thing is though for some people this is just not enough, so GW came up with ForgeWorld. A small scale operation producing resin kits that gave modellers even more pieces to play with. What started off as a fairly small range of Imperial tank mods has expanded to give the 40k player (and the FB player too) a great range of stand alone models, modification parts, transfers, terrain and more.
Leman Russ Destroyer by ForgeWorld

ForgeWorlds success is due in no small part to their using resin as a modelling substance as oppose to the poly plastics of the main GW range. What this allows ForgeWorld to do is do smaller scale castings with great detail at a reasonably low cost.

Great news but... if ForgeWorld can do it on a small scale then surely other miniature model manufacturers can too.

Now lets get one thing straight, there can be only one GW and their IP is heavily protected. Even thinking about making a model that looks a little bit like a Space Marine can get a sculptor into all sorts of tricky legal problems. So if someone wanted to make pieces compatible with the 40k range they have to be fairly clever about how they market and sell these pieces.

Thankfully for the 40k modder looking for some new parts such sneaky companies exist. Over the next few days I will post up some of my favourite pieces I have found that appear to be compatible with the 28mm scale of 40k miniatures.

See you soon for some exiting 3rd party 40k compatible parts

07/05/2011

Discount Wargaming? what is the cost?

Brother Loki M.I.A?

When buying Games Workshop stuff in the past I have always bought directly from a store. Games Workshops own stores mostly but I have also used a number of independent stockists too. When I got my beady little eyes on the Venerable Dreadnought recently I decided to try out mail order for the first time. So on the 30th of April I placed an order with Wayland Games for the Dreadnought. the cost was £21.40 for the model and I paid £2.65 for first class shipping. It was a bank holiday weekend so I did expect delays however what I didn't expect was this:

The next day (Sunday) my brother made an order direct with GW's website for a Vanguard Vet squad and some paints. His order which came with free shipping arrived on Thursday. According to Wayland games website they are still awaiting for stock on my Dreadnought seven days after I placed the order on what is still showing as a "high availability" item.

Now I should be clear that at the moment there is a message on their site explaining severe delays due to the double bank holidays we have just had here in the UK and that even without this, the time I have waited is within the period that Wayland Games say high availability items should take.

However this would possibly put me off shopping with them again. I wouldn't say this was bad service but it certainly isn't good. For trying to save money (£2.70 in total) I am having to wait what I personally feel is an unacceptable period of time due to them not having the damn "high availability" item in stock in the first place.

Maybe I'm being unfair, maybe the disruption caused by the two bank holidays had a much bigger effect than I would have thought possible however I believed that "high availability" would mean "in stock" I personally think it should but it seems it does not and should have realised this by the wording on the website.

If I did use Wayland games in the future I would check first to see if they had the item in stock as high availability according to them could result in having to wait well over a week for your item, bank holiday or not!

There has been no direct communication from Wayland Games to myself but I presume this is down to this still not being outside their own terms for high availability.

Man I want that Dreadnought so bad :(


05/05/2011

GW Thought for the Day

Of course, in the direst of circumstances, when all else has gone to pot, just knowing that you've got 40 lasguns pointing at the Bloodthirster can be a reassuring thought...


...for about two minutes.


Then he'll eat you.

Posted by Dan in GW's thought for the day "Shoot the Big Ones!" 05/05/2011

03/05/2011

GW, Corporate Over-fiend or Misunderstood Hobby Saviour?

In a recent visit to a local Games Workshop I overheard a quite bizarre conversation between a member of staff and one of the hobbyists at the store. The hobbyist in question was with a small group of friends, one of which was painting up some Grey Knight for the store, this lead me to believe that both him and his friends were known to the store. Now this guy pulls out a half painted Land Raider, pulls up a chair and using the store paints starts working on his model. This is roughly how the conversation went:

Staff- Hey is that a store model?
Bloke - Nah it's my own.
Staff - Ah Ok, in that case you will have to use these old paints, unless you have brought your own. These paints are for store use only.
Bloke - Ah man are you serious? these other paints are all crap, why can't I use the store paints?
Staff - Well because they are for store use only. You can always bring your own paints to use you know.
Bloke - I've been into GW stuff for years now and I have never bought a single paint, I always use the stores.
Staff - Well you will have to use the old paints if you want to do it today. By the way, why have you never bought any paints of your own?
Bloke - Because they are so bloody expensive, everything in here is.
Staff - Well how are we supposed to make money?
Bloke - It's all a rip off, look I'm not getting into this I'm off.

So off he trotted, miffed because he couldn't use the stores own paints. Now this exchange highlights an issue I have noticed in getting back into the 40k hobby. Many hobbyists seem to view GW as some kind of money grabbing corporate over fiend. The number of times I have heard hobbyists in blogs, in youtube vids and in person say GW's stuff is over priced or not good value. Now I don't doubt these people love their hobby but I also think it is a slightly unhealthy situation when you hate the source of that which you love.

Now I don't intend to get into the minefield of Games Workshops pricing strategy or the delicate balance between shareholders and customers but I do intend to highlight what I think is the root of the perceived lack of value many hobbyists seem to attach to GW products and how the Warhammer hobby is quite unlike any other hobby or pastime I have ever been involved in.

Apart from 40k, I also love videogames, music (both listening and composing) and a number of other hobbies. Over they years I must have spent nearly £8k on music production equipment and musical instruments, countless thousands on videogames and consoles and god knows how much on CD's etc. In comparison what I have spent of GW products probably amounts to less that £2k in all over nearly 20 years of gaming. I doubt my story is that unique, I'm sure most people who play and collect GW products also have other hobbies that they may spend equal or greater amounts of their hard earned money on but I doubt they complain about these hobbies, expensive or otherwise in the same way as they criticise GW.

Over the years I have felt ripped off or hard done by many companies, an example would be when I was expected to cough up several hundred pounds for an update to some music production software I already owned. Or when my Xbox 360 kept RRODing on me. In both cases I was a pretty pissed off consumer however I had an option open to me that to most GW customers don't really have, I could spend my money somewhere else.

Lets look at this simply, If I really didn't like what Steinburg (the providers of my production software) were doing I could always jump ship to a competitors system. If Microsoft pissed me off I could get a PS3, yes it would cost me but it would in the long run cost them more in a loss of after sales and bad word of mouth. However if I am a pissed off GW customer I really do not have this option. True there are plenty other gaming systems out there but I challenge anyone to name a tabletop gaming system with the vision, pedigree and quality (in game design, models and general production values) of Games Workshops flagship systems. There really are no other products in the war gaming marketplace like Warhammer and 40k.
So if you want to play the creme de la creme of wargames, GW have you, hook line and sinker.

Lets look at another aspect of the hobby. Games Workshop not only create the systems we play, the models we buy, the paints we paint them with and the magazines and other hobby related stuff we lap up with gluttony; they also have positioned themselves as providers of the only true hobby centres (in the UK at least) making their own premises the pivotal geographical epicentres of their own hobby. If you are involved in the Games Workshop hobby you no doubt spend quite a bit of time in a Games Workshop store. So not only do we rely on them for their products but in many cases we rely on them to provide a place for us to enjoy our hobby.

The simple fact of the matter is that Games Workshop as a company has an almost complete monopoly over all aspects of the Warhammer and 40k hobbies. This instantly puts peoples hackles up as it eliminates an important aspect of consumerism: choice. If we don't like what GW are doing then tough, find a different hobby.

Is there anything Games Workshop could do to make this situation better? Hehe I'm sure plenty of you are shouting "yes make their products bloody cheaper!" hmm, I don't think this is going to happen and to be honest I don't think it needs to happen either. GW products are amongst the best in the industry, I would expect to pay premium prices for a premium product and lets not mess around here Games Workshop as a brand is premium with a capital P. Could they do anything else? Well not really no, to change this state of affairs would require drastic action of the kind shareholders don't like. Things like allowing other none affiliated companies to make products for GW's core systems or to provide some kind of premium charged for gaming centres would cost to much money and would be far to risky. Lets face it GW didn't get in the position they are in today by taking risks.

So at the end of the day Games Workshop are neither over-fiend or hobby saviours, they are simply a company providing a very popular premium product to a customer base that in most cases have hobby eyes bigger than their wallets (I know mine are). Should we hate them for their desire to make money? Hell no, we live in a consumerist society and to do so would be hypocritical for all of us however we should also be aware that in their vaulted position they do have a responsibility to their customers and that we as customers also have a responsibility to ourselves and other consumers. If Games Workshop have truly offered a poor service or you really feel ripped off by them, do what any good consumer would do. Write to them or phone their head office. The details are easily found on their website.

Agree or disagree? let me know.

Another Blood Angels (and other stuff) Update

Well I spent last night putting together my Sanguinary Guard, I have gone with my original plan of building the unit with the Chapter banner and one Inferno pistol and am just waiting for the delivery of a couple of paints (Gryphone Sepia and Burnished Gold) before I paint them.

I have also ordered a Venerable Dreadnought, after watching this BeastsOfWar vid and seeing what was in the kit. It looks immense and I just can't wait to build it. At some point in the future it will be kitted out as a Rifleman Dreadnought using the Forgeworld Mortis arms but that is a project for the future.

I have also started highlighting the rest of my Blood Angels, a technique that until now I believed beyond my abilities. So far I have done my Tactical and Terminator squads, my Rhino and Black Reach Dreadnought and am pretty happy with the results.

Now ever since my first eary encounters with the 40k universe in the late 80's and early 90's I have been a true Blood Angel fan, no other Chapter of Marines has lured me from the path of Sanguinius, that is until now...

I am proud to announce that my next 40k project will be to build a small (800-1000 point) army of Carcharodons. In reality this choice is down to one model, Forgeworlds fantastic Tyberos the Red Wake:
This is one of the best 40k models I have ever seen. I just love the blend of Mk V Heresy armour and Terminator Armour, it just screams out bad ass and those weapons look vicious! This model is begging for me to buy and paint and is my next 40k purchase. So over the last few days I hoovered up all the info I could get on The Carcharodons chapter on the web and finally managed to take a look at the Badab War books (it will be a while before I can afford a copy mind). Their background is wonderfully mysterious and they have fought alongside the Blood Angels during the 7th Black Crusade making them a nice ally for my existing army. Yes sir they should be a great project for me to try out some more advanced painting and modelling techniques on. Roll on my next pay day.

I leave you with a wonderful quote from the equally wonderful second Badab War book:

Extract from: Addendum: [Archivists Note] - The Nature of the Carcharodons Enigma.
"A Space Marine fundamentally is a superhuman engine built, bred and trained for war; an Angel of Death - a monster by any other name. In the case of the Carcharodons, it is well that such monsters belong to the Imperium rather than are counted in the ranks of its enemies"
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