Tuesday, June 27, 2017

Coming plans and getting ready for the Harvester

The date for the Harvester of Souls 40k GT has been officially announced, and it's coming a little early this year. Meaning I don't have as much time as I originally thought to get an army ready for it. Thus I have to put any AoS painting on the back-burner for now.

That also means my original plans for a 40k army may change. I was going to expand my Haemonculus Covens army with some space pirates themed Drukhari. But with as much buying, building and painting I need for that plan, I may not have enough time. So I am going to default to my Tau, of which I have most of it painted already.

The other thing I need to take into consideration is one of my other brothers, James, is likely going to join us. This will be his first 40k tournament attended, and the Harvester is great for that. Unfortunately most of his army, Necrons, is unbuilt and unpainted. He joined us a couple years ago for a kill-team campaign, but not much playing beyond that. 8th edition is great for beginners and people getting back into the hobby from a long hiatus. So I will be helping him assemble and paint some of his army.
I've already gotten started by making his monolith. I am not done, but this shows off the symbol he designed of his dynasty on the front. I made it out of plasticard. So it will look like an engraving, rather than painted on.
Some pictures I took of his painted models. He designed the color scheme himself, so when I paint his other things, I will try to match it.
James' Dynasty symbol, lead by Lord Ter'omenti.

Monday, June 5, 2017

Drukhari - Combat Drug Tokens

I have always had some plans to expand my current Dark Eldar force with some more traditional (not rats at least) Dark Eldar. I have some plans for them and more on that later. With everything we have been seeing about 8th edition 40k, I am getting more excited than ever to get back into the grimdark future. One thing is Dark Eldar (I like the new name, Drukhari) seem to have gotten a boost. It's a combination of changes to their army and just the new edition being much more friendly to their play style.
So I whipped these up in a night. It was nice because I didn't need to prime them, and I wanted to get started painting something simple before I moved onto bigger projects. These are combat drug tokens. The units with the combat drugs rules get to choose which drug they are taking at the start of the battle, but each one has to be different per unit. So making 6 tokens to remind myself which unit has which drugs seemed like a fun little project. I could just write the benefit (like +1s, +1a, +1ws, etc) on a scrap of paper to follow the units around, but I sort of fell in love with doing little hand painted things after making my display board plaque.

Following a similar process, here is how I made them. This would be good for just about any hand painted tokens you want to put on the battlefield.
First thing is I found the little symbols I need and printed them out on sticker label paper. Then I cut them out and stuck them on 32mm bases. The symbols I got from game-icons.net, which is an excellent source for this stuff. Check it out. The only one I didn't get from there is the Dark Eldar helmet, which I just got from Google images. I stuck them down on my surface using blue tack.
Next it's just as easy as painting the base colors inside/outside the lines. Trying to leave most of the black lines from the print in place. Here is also where I experimented on the colors I would use. Originally the lotus flower to the right I started painting in blue, but then I realized the drug was called Grave Lotus, so I opted for black instead.
This step is kind of subtle, but I went around the symbols with a lighter color, painting in a sort of splotchy pattern to highlight them over the background darker color.
Next I wanted the tokens to have a cool border because I knew I wasn't going to be able to paint a perfectly round border where it meets the black of the base. So I just did a black splotchy pattern around it to contain the symbols and colors.
I really like the black lines, so to preserve them I went back over the lines with a fine tip artist pen to redefine them.
Next I went with the lighter corresponding colors inside the symbols and painted them within their base colors so some of that is still showing through the edges. This brings them out against the background.
Finally I touched up with some final details and I am done! This is always a fun little project because it's easier than painting miniatures and you get more freedom with it. I would recommend doing something like it.

Now, can you guess which token represents which drug?

Friday, June 2, 2017

Blog Update - Broken Foot, Klad Barag Groinplate, and Crewman Bolt-tip

My foot is still broken, in a cast. It's been a few weeks so I can get around more, but I still need to take it easy. I may be able to get back to painting soon. Which is good because I am excited to get started on....
The Klad Barag is officially finished. His groin needed something, so I found the ideal bit from the Dwarf Blood Bowl team. It's the coin piece with the surrounding material shaved off. Think of it as a belt buckle. Dwarves like to wear those on there. Now that space isn't so bare. If you think it ridiculous that I bought an entire model kit for one bit, I did have future plans for them anyway, so it's a win-win for me.

Also a friend from accross the great pond did a small bits trade with me to get me another frigate spear tip for my crewman here from my last post:
Now that build is complete. I always get on edge when a project isn't finished and it is so close to being done so.

On a side note, I have not been living under a rock, Warhammer 40,000 8th edition looks very exciting! As you may know I was for the longest time primarily a 40k player, but with how bad the rules got in 7e, I was finding a much more fulfilling gaming experience in AoS. However 40k seems to be learning several good lessons from AoS, and becoming a solid system. My brother and I are excited to get a demo game or 2 in to get a feel for it. For those of you who came in for my AoS stuff, don't worry, I don't 'switch' games. I am definitely a poly-gamist (is that a word?)