I wish they'd hurry up and....

... cast Daniel Craig as Ibram Gaunt already. Defiance was fucking brilliant and he's not getting any younger. Also with the new Necron models and whatnot. 


Speaking models coming soon, we forge on with Anubis. I'm busy resurrection my ancient airbrush so I can shade his bronzed frame properly.  Also, there's a clone of General Grievous coming and a bunch of other things from commission-land. 

Oh, come ON...

My version isn't even done yet, and they go and come out with this.

It's just so well made, too. 

Man.... I really need to get a move on and finish that model.

9/11

This is what should have arisen again as a monument to the slain. 


Personally, I hate the current memorial. While I get the symbolism, leaving two holes in the ground is an insult. It feels like handing the slime who did this a trophy to hang on their cave wall. After all, they didn't leave a notch in the Pentagon, did they? Hell no. 


Sigh. 


RIP, Donna Hegelmeyer. Your kids are doing fine, but they sure miss you. 

State of (my) Hobby....

Been a turbulent summer so far, what with changing jobs and all, so I've been busily doing life things and sort of neglecting my hobby bench, and more's the pity. So, this is going to be a "what's next" article. Short answer: that ebon chap is ready to be worked on, so a finished Anubis will be the every next model you'll see. Other revisions to my To-Do list include things that are on....


The Back Burner: 
• All Tyracron Projects: I know, I'm sad about it too, but this Fall is set to bring about a Necron Renaissance where (hopefully) our favorite robots won't suck, and that means a (hopefully)  a slew of new parts and inspiration to work from. Plus, let's be honest, the Nid codex sorta got nerfed and that screwed things from a playing standpoint. I will say that I've had nothing but good battles with the Tyracrons, although none of those have been against adversaries with AV 14. 


• Fantasy Projects: At some point, I'll be painting some suitably Japanese-looking cannons to make my Dwarf Samurai army a more fully-filled out one, and then putting it on the auction block. I need the space, and one of these armies need to go. Sorry, Samurai Dwarves, you were my first WHF army, and my first large-scale army project ever, but you have to go. If anyone is interested in a unique, character WHF army, please contact me. Otherwise, off to eBay they'll go. In their day, the did a lot of pounding on goblins and undead alike. Sad Panda. :(


Coming up after Anubis:
• To show you I'm not full of shit I'm standing by my word from a previous column and converting up a Storm Raven. It'll be looking more like our friend the Helghast Dropship:

You remember him, don't you? I'll be splicing his genes with our other buddy, the better Storm Raven design that uses the actual kit:

See all those redeeming features? It's a lovely design and not at all the kind of visual punch in the face that thing you can buy off the shelves is. Remember the pledge also that it's going to be able to swallow a Dreadnaught. Ooooh that'll be a pain in the ass, won't it? But I will not have my Dread frying off all of his expensive Autocannon ammo on re-entry. No sir. 


• Also, my Vendettas are getting wheeled landing gear like their modern equivalents, the Black Hawk and the Osprey. (Not the Valkyrie, which shall remain stock) Now that I'm working at an aerospace-associated non-profit, I get to stare at really, really nice photos of planes and rockets ALL FUCKING DAY (so awesome!) and it hit me that the IG need to wheel things into hangars and such. You need to pull them around when they're not powered up, and to do that you're going to have to hitch your Centaur up and pull the thing around. Yes, in the 40k universe you have repulserlift technology and servitors with forklifts for tits and all that, but it'll look so damn cool, so I'm doing it. 


• There is also another Orbital Frame kit, this one of the Vic Vyper, which is getting joints put in as we speak, but is a long way from being finished. This one may preempt other 40k models, because it's really, really, really cool. I may even resurrect my airbrush for it, it's such a nice model. 


• Lastly, the Emperor's Tarot poker deck is going really, really slowly because I keep drawing an erasing various cards, so barely half of them are done. Producing a sheet of number cards is the easy part, it's the major arcana that are really, really hard. I'm sure John Blanche, the God of Weird Dark Future Imagery, could fire a bunch of them off in no time, but I'm not as prolific as I used to be, because now I am employed and have a third of the free time I used to. 


So that's about it. Things are picking up, and we are again looking flush and getting our life on track. Maybe I'll take that vacation to England I've always been meaning to, and visit you all across the pond, too. Ah, to be able to plan things again.....

Vincent Villafranca

I have seen the next level, and it is this guy. 


Okay, the design of his page is horrifying, but his robot chess pieces? 

Fucking amazing. Click the link and check him out. You won't be disappointed. 


Well, except by the layout/graphics/etc of his website, which is awful. His work is excellent, but man, you'd think the guy could design a better looking website. Of course, maybe he's too busy turning out masterpieces like this to give a flying shit about web design:

In which case, more power to him. 


Happy Friday, people. 

What the crap is going on with Dreadnoughts these days?

By now, everybody's seen this ungainly monster. I'm still on the fence about whether I like it or not, since it's not exactly a new design:

Yeah, that's right. Instead of grabbing a movie design to repurpose (go see Terminator 5 to see where the Dreadknight came from), FW went back several generations to the old Epic scale game and up-sized that thing. Someone loved that ugly little thing so much, they went back and made it the de-facto "old dreadnought, instead of the one we all knew and loved from the early days. You all remember Chuck, don't you? from the 40k Compendium? 

There he is, the poor lil' roly-poly guy. Look at him. Gonna go stomp some Chaos Squats with those two twin-linked bolters of his. Who's the big man? Not you. Sorry, Chuck. 


We're supposed to believe that during the 40k timeline,  Lee Iacocca took over Mars and started cranking out the K-Car of mecha:

Go research K-car, kids. It's a real term. 


There's more than one entendre at work, here. 


Get it? 


Good. 


Personally, I'm glad GW didn't slink away to the movies again. It wrecks the consistency of their design quality--- ooooh right:

C'mon guys. A Glaug from Macross? What were you thinking back then? Even FASA learned that lesson the hard way with the Marauder. You're all over the place with rules, all over the place with design.

Sigh. 

That brings us back to Monstroso, there:

There are some things I like about this model. I feel that it's generally a step in the right direction, I really do. In fact, you can shut down all the current model production lines now, from Rhinos to Stormravens, and art direct everything around the curved, riveted lines of this model. For consistency. 

However, there is a another shade of consistency at work here.  

This design is consistent not with rest of the angular, slab-sided, reasonably well art-directed army. It is consistent with the brand new, hero-focused, special-characters-grant-special-rules bent of the current codexes. There is one message you can take away from this, and it is:

"We envy Warmachine."

Think about that. 

DALEKS ARE SUPERIOR!

Played Necrons vs Vulkan Marines today, and this was the highlight of the match. They took a round to devour his Thunderhammer Termie bodyguard, and ate Vulkan the round after this pic. 


Game ongoing. 2 combat squads, one Assault Squad, and one Dread left to go (that LR is immobilized and weaponless). Updates to follow. 


UPDATE


After swallowing Vulkan, the Daleks engaged a combat squad and proceeded to pummel them to death with their doom plungers. A full assault squad nearly deep struck in, but hit a building. The subsequent mishap roll resulted in them dropping in dangerous terrain across the board instead. Destroyers disposed of that Rhino in the foreground, and the Warrior squad behind them held firm against that Tac squad you can see on the left. 


To make a long story short, a round or so later my opponent conceded. As he was short on units, he was unable to effectively contest control enough objectives. Had we continued, he could've squeaked out a draw, but I think the death of his rock unit (and the delay of his assaulters) dismayed him a bit. I put on my teacher hat and pointed out some  things he did well (covering his Rhinos long enough to make it across the board, targeting/downing my Destroyers with his Rifleman dreads) and some things he did poorly (choosing to assault Warriors in a ruin with his Termies instead of sending them at some Destroyers in the open who were 7" from the LRR). 

WIP: Tyracron Hive/Tyrant Guard and future project thoughts....

Just a quick post today, since Saturdays are for Dark Heresy. These two little monsters flew together last night in a burst of creativity. Since they'll pull double-duty as both Hive and Tyrant guard models, I've magnetized the right shoulder, and am currently figuring out some kind of fiddler-crab style shield arm. Maybe I'll use the arm/shoulder bits from this ungainly monster. Being Hive Guard though, that right arm gun had better be more substantial than a mere Necron Gauss Cannon, so stay tuned. Over all, these guys will make better companions for my forthcoming artillery Hive Tyrant than for Grievous, though.


Grievous had a person bodyguard composed of these fellows, if you'll recall. Hmm.... I wonder how tall these things stand? Time for a trip to the hobby store. 


The Warmachine range tends to be larger and smaller than you'd think it would be, which is a pretty effective optical illusion on their part. From a design standpoint, it makes their mecha seem rather topheavy and slow, and you'd think with that much weight on their tiny little legs, they'd all sink in the mud. Maybe combat in their universe happens on solid rock. I dunno. 


Happy Saturday, people. 

Commissions: Their first Rhino....

Blogger is being a shit today, making it extra tricky to upload photos with their widget. Hopefully they'll fix it soon, because it makes things take twice as long. 


Patron X has seen the Mechanized Force light, and has gotten his first Rhino/Razorback for the Angels of Flame. Properly kitted out, the Rhino really is an excellent little model, if a little fragile in the game. 

And why not use the little hunter-killer mount, too? Give that APC a reason to feel good about itself before an enemy model sneezes and blows it up. (Of course, you get the same result if more than one Marine tries to cram his frame inside the thing) I fitted the Razorback turret plate underneath the double hatch, which itself is pretty snug without the need for magnets. So, all he needs to do is pop the top off and voila!

Burly little monster, isn't he? If only they'd designed the Storm Raven as well. Incidentally, have you seen the latest Chapterhouse mod kit? It turns that shitty aircraft into this:

Looks a little generic now, but it's a step in generally the right direction. Had I these parts, I'd also shift the wings farther back, eliminate that ugly rudder, put some proper forward sponsons on for the hurricane bolters and missiles, and--oh hell.  Alright, gang. I'll make you a deal. If I get the design job I just interviewed for, I'll celebrate by getting a SR kit and this spacer from Chapterhouse, or just make the whole shebang from scratch Klaus-style. God, that little nose gun bothers me, now, and that horn thing still needs to go. I wish they'd used those vector mounts on the Valkyrie kit, though.

Their wheeled Chimera kit is pretty nice too. Honestly, I don't know why they didn't go the extra yard and just flesh out a full wheeled tank kit. For $13.50 I could plasticard out the rest and have  cheap wheeled APC ready to go.  Chapterhouse does nice work, they just need to not be so fucking stupid with their naming conventions to the point of getting sued. GW has the cash to litigate you into the stone age,  and you go and do something like bandy their copyrighted material about? You're not fanboys anymore, you're business men. Show some smarts and do it right. 

I'd watch it.....

I've really got to hand it to the new writing team of Doctor Who this time. The idea of Silurian swordswoman solving crimes in Victorian London is terribly fascinating. I'd much rather see 8-10 episodes of that than another "Oh Fuck The World Is Ending" Torchwood series.  


Also, all the best lines in "A Good Man Goes to War" belong to the Sontaran. 

Happy Friday, people.