Harvester of Souls finished display boards

I just realized I have yet to post images of the finished display boards my brother and I brought to the Harvester of Souls this September. So better late than never!

Jarom's turned out very well and was very popular among the tourney-goers. The reference to Mad Max was obvious to everyone, so mission accomplished. As you can see Jarom's army was unique in that it was all bikes and vehicles. Keep in mind, this was before the new codex and all the new vehicles. So you could say he was doing the Ork motorcade before it was cool.

This was my miniature display board. I brought my Verminlord Skrax army, and didn't want to bring the sewer board again. The only new stuff in my list was a small battalion detachment of Kabals, so I did a display board just for them, also as a teaser for next year's big project for my space pirates. Depicted is a dark portal and a massive kraken-like creature emerging from it (the big head and tentacles are all 3D printed). Also on the bottom is the name of the Kabal, similar to the process I used to make the Coven's name plate.

How to make a display board in 7 days

Or alternate title:

How to not freak out when your brother asks you to make him a display board at the last week before the event!

As the alternate title suggests, my brother and I are getting ready for this weekend's Harvester of Souls 40k tournament in Spokane Valley, WA. I already have my display board and army prepared.  My brother, however, is running a little behind on getting his army ready. So about a week before the event, he calls me up and asks me to make him a display board, nothing too fancy, but something to center his army. I agreed because his birthday is coming up soon, and this can be part of it.

I thought about it a little. Jarom's ork army is pretty much 100% vehicles and bikes. Going for a Mad Max Fury Road theme. So I wanted to tribute a little to that movie (being one of my favorites), and rather than just doing a flat board with desert, I figured the mountain pass scene would be a cool scene to base it off of, especially since that scene employs bikes. I sketched it out and this is what I sent to him:

He liked the idea, so I began working on it. I had just recently watched this excellent video by one of my favorite YouTubers, and I was anxious to try the method out, so this gave me an excuse to do so. From here on out I pretty much just followed the video's instructions.

I start off by building up the layers using broken 1/4" insulation foam. It's thicker than the video, but it works for a board this size, which is about 18"x36". Much larger than I normally do a display board, but it makes sense considering the next step...

Before I continued, I wanted to make sure everything would fit on it, so he came over with his army and did a test fit. I found I had a little extra room to put some stuff on the ground level to break up the transition from the cliff to the ground. But this is a big army that needs a big board.

After adding some rock and debris, I sanded off the rough edges and blended the levels a little bit.

Next with a new tub of spackle, I got my hands dirty and filled in all the gaps, being sure to keep the striations visible in the rock face, but blend the top levels and rocks into the ground. This took a lot of spackle.

After the spackle dried, I went on to apply the sand, using a common construction sand. I did my usual procedure with this. First all purpose elmer's glue, then sand. Let it dry. Then did the coat of watered down glue over top to seal the sand in.

Now on to the coloring, because I am almost done. I am using cheap craft paints for this (Apple Barrel brand that you get at your common Walmart). I did the base coat in Burnt Umber which was tricky because the sand and rocks had a lot of nooks and crannies. I found the best way of doing it was taking a mug filled with the paint, add some water and some sort of flow aid (I just used a dishwasher rinse agent), this allowed the paint to flow easier into the tight spots the brushes have a hard time getting into while keeping most of the opacity of the paints. I was careful to not make a wash, though, I just wanted to thin the paint some and improve its flow.

Next I did a couple heavy drybrush coats of Golden Sunset. It took a few coats because I didn't want it to be too brown, but liked keeping the brown underneath and in all the cracks.

 

Finally I did a selective highlight drybrush of Lite Mocha to knock down some of the yellow and give it a final sandy look.

And that's it! A lot simpler and quicker than I feared, and I now love this construction method to make high cliffs. Today I'm prepping for the tourney this weekend so unfortunately I wont have a chance to show you the final board with Jarom's army on it until I take some photos at the event, so I look forward to that.

On another note, I realized I forgot to do a post on my army and display! So you will see that too at the event.

2017 Year in Review

This was another good hobby-filled year. So here is a summary of 2016 for me.

T'au Empire (Warhammer 40,000)
I took my T'au to the Harvester this year. While my Index army didn't have too much success, it was fun. Let's hope they get a good codex in 2018. At least I have some newly painted battlesuits.

James' Necrons (Warhammer 40,000)
I guess you could call this a commission. Something I did for my brother so he could attend the Harvester of Souls with us. We will see what kind of codex will come out for it in 2018.

Censers & Tocsins (Nurgle Mortals - Warhammer: Age of Sigmar)
This is an army I have been trying to keep up on with painting. Compared to last year's summary, I only had some built, and none painted. My goal with this army is if I build something for it, I paint it, before building the next thing. There will definitely be more to come for this AoS force.

Forthammer Clan Throng (Dispossessed - Warhammer: Age of Sigmar)
I have had a ton of fun with this army. I took them to the Las Vegas Open, added some cool conversions, and am running them in a campaign, which is still ongoing. I have more on the painting table for these guys, so I am not done with them yet.

The Klad Barag (Dispossessed - Warhammer: Age of Sigmar)
This deserves its own entry here because I consider it quite the achievement. Still not 100% sure what I will use him as, but he will be a proxy for any big dude I want to run in friendly games. Perhaps not tournament legal due to being a proxy and all. I do plan on taking some better photos of this guy and sending them to White Dwarf. Let's hope something comes from that.

Forgesworn Eternals (Stormcast Eternals - Warhammer: Age of Sigmar)
I haven't really added anything to this army, just got completely caught up on painting. Lately nothing has really stood out for the line to get me to want to add here. At least with being completely painted, if I do add anything, I will be inclined to immediately paint it. Like my plans for my Nurgle dudes.

Tempest's Eye Rangers (Grand Alliance: Order - Warhammer: Age of Sigmar)
I only have a couple things here for the army, for now. They are only really ever intended to be for some Grand Alliance army, rather than a start of Freeguild. I would like to paint them this coming year.

Song of Blades and Heroes Stuff
For my favorite non-Warhammer fantasy skirmish game, I have added a lot of Reaper BONES minis to it here and there. And I made some nifty ruins for it as well. But most of all I am still slowly working on the Song of the Deep Empire campaign supplement for it. More on that in the coming year.

And that sums up the year. Lot's of fun projects, and of course, lot's of plans for 2018. Stay tuned.

T'au Display Board finished, and finished army

My army is complete and ready for the Harvester tournament.

And here it is next to my old board. I tried the best I could to match the colors, and I think I got it close enough.

And the list I will be presenting to my opponents.

T'au Display Board - Work in Progress

The Harvester of Souls looms closer. With my T'au army painted, I want to try a new display board. I already made one for my old tau force as seen here. I kept that board in mind when building this one. I wanted it to continue off of the old one. The idea is so when I have them both set-up at home, I could have a couple boards to display all the painted models in my army.

Initial foam layering. I worked with 1" pink foam on particle board, same dimensions and materials as the previous display board.

I wanted more Tau structural presence on this board. So I opted for sort of a garage that serves as the top entrance to a much deeper underground layer. So even the generator and pillbox on the other board are considered part of this installation. The door in the floor is where the battlesuits come up from. The roof and front wall meet in the middle to connect and close off.

Furnishing the indoor. Most of these bits are remains of Devilfish and Hammerhead kits.

This shows how the 2 boards will connect when finished. Again these 2 are meant to display together for my own home display, I will not be taking the old board to the Harvester, thankfully.

So far this is what I am deciding on the arrangement of my army. A very battlesuit heavy army.

Sand applied to everything. As with all other sanding, it's a layer of glue, then sand, then another layer of glue on top to really lock it in.

Some of the inside bay painted up. I have more detail work to do, especially decals. I plan on adding a lot of the Tau decals.

Now to get some paint on this thing and finish the detail work!

Harvester Preparations - Necrons Complete

I completed my brother's Necron army. He was pretty pleased to see it, despite me only really going to tabletop minimum. I don't have enough time to get all of this painted to the standard I like, with lots of washing, highlighting, drybrushing, detailing, etc. So I just got him to tournament legal, and luckily he understands that and didn't expect much more. Regardless he is excited to try his first 40k Grand Tournament out with them.

Some different angle shots of the Monolith. The centerpiece of his army. I took a little more time with this one than the rest because I knew it would be the most noticeable. I think those extra plates really help it to stand out. As you can see the front has the symbol of his Dynasty.

Triarch Stalker with heat ray. An excellent all-comers choice for this model.

The Overlord and Lord. Each with Resurrection Orb, and the Overlord with a Warscythe. You may notice on the base of the Overlord the warpstone from my Verminlord Skrax army. Just a little homage. "COME AND GET IT, SKRAX!"

Front and back of his Cryptek. I like the way the big metallic tentacle turned out. The way the back blends into it gives me sort of a 'viper' vibe.

10 Lychguard, swords and boards.

3 Canoptek Wraiths, basic loadout with just the claws.

5 Deathmarks. A flexible and versatile little unit.

7 Immortals with Gauss Blasters. An odd number, but we ran out of points.

15 Warriors.

And 15 Warriors.

Finally his formatted list he will be presenting to his opponents.

Harvester Preparation - Tau Painting

I haven't had much to show off the past couple weeks because I have been working entirely on getting the following painted:

I had built this back when the Ghostkeel model first came out. I liked the look of a larger stealth suit, so I wanted to give one a go. Again, not being satisfied with regular posing, I tried to build the kit in a very dynamic run-n-gun action pose. I also wanted to make sure the preserve the ability to open the cockpit. The head is actually the bare head from the Shadowsun kit. I wanted a female to be piloting this suit. It just seemed to fit. Haven't thought of a name or story for her yet.

My counts-as Technical Drones from Forgeworld are painted. Again with drones, using 32mm bases and wire rods is a significant improvement over the brittle clear plastic GW flying bases. The main drone bodies are from the Hammerhead SMS sponsons, and some other drone bits. I decided that little mechanical arms for repairs fit the technical drone better, so these are from some Adeptus Mechanicus bits I got from a bits site, I can't remember which kit they go to.

Ethereal Commander Aun'Mei is complete. I am proud of the way this one turned out. I hope it conveys the Ethereal inside (with the blue and tan and tall hat), as well as the Honor Blade. Of course the model itself is not considered to have an honor blade, it's mostly there for aesthetics. Here it is in the Coldstar Battlesuit configuration, which is likely what I am going to run at the Harvester. The Coldstar is a fun model. It has a 20" movement, with the ability to double that for an advance move. I played a game against my brother's Necrons, dropped her down on one far side of the table, then on the next turn, ended up completely on the other side to contest an objective. That's what the Coldstar is for, to get a model to where you need it FAST.

My tacticool fusion suits are completed as well, painted normally in the pattern of the rest of my battlesuits. The main difference is on all my other Crisis suits, they are completely magnetized, but here the guns are set, because of how they are held and converted. But I'm not worried. I have plenty of other magnetized crisis suits already, and the Sunforge configuration (2x fusion blasters) is a weapon set I don't see going out of style this edition, or even the next ones.

These combined with some of my existing painted Tau, I have the current iteration of the army I plan to bring to the Harvester, unless through playtesting I swap a few things out. We will see though. But with this done, all I need to do is create my display board, base these new minis, and finish painting my brother's Necrons.