VICODIN LAND!

I got my wisdom teeth cut out today...all four. It was completely painless because they put me under. They gave me two percocet and a prescription for vicodin. I just took the second percoset, haven't cracked the good stuff yet.

Never had surgery, been put under, or taken pain killers before. It's been a new experience day. The weirdest part is I'm pretty coherent so far, so I've been painting like crazy.

*Wanders off back to his painting table*

Some Painted Models

So far I've painted a whole unit of Fire Warriors, the better part of a Devilfish, a single Kroot test model. I'm working on a Crisis Suit, trying to get an idea of what I want the army as a whole to look like. Oh, and I roughly base coated some Stealth Suits...keep forgetting about those. I keep forgetting to do the sept markings on the Fire Warriors too...note to self.

I forgot to take pictures of the Devilfish. Now that I think about it, I might just finish that one up after this post.

Anyway, I really love my Fire Warriors. I feel like, if I did it all over, I could do a much better (read: smoother) job, but I'll have a chance when I get a few more. I also didn't even know they had shin guards until I saw OSH's; I use the pictures from the book to sort of see what they're "supposed" to look like and the shins there are very similar to the under-suit, but live and learn.

This is the only Kroot model I've finished. I like to do one complete model, before moving on to the rest of the unit. It gives me a lot more direction when I'm pulling the assembly line on the other, in this case, eleven. I'm about as happy with him as I am with my Fire Warriors. I'm very much looking forward to seeing both completed units on the table.

You might notice the solid band on the bottom....hair spike? in the second and third picture. I was going to try something similar to the fluffy Kroot in the Codex, but changed my mind. I need to black it out or something and fix it. The rest won't have that.

Ahh, togetherness:

No internets!

We have completed the move into our new apartment, no internet from now(I'm at work atm) until the 28th. My potential Warhammer room has been converted into a bedroom for a new roommate...rent is lame, but I've known her for a long time and hopefully it'll work out for the best.

I've been conflicted with painting or working on my secret project...the lack of internet until the 28th is probably going to lead to the former :)

Yay Snow!

I've noticed the further away from my high school graduation I get, the more snow just sucks. We were planning on moving tomorrow, but now I have to bail out of work early, rent a u-haul, and do it all today to avoid this:

See the boxes there in MD? If you follow them to the center, that's roughly me. HOORAY! SNOW DAY!

The good news is, when it's all over and done with, I can get back to painting and terrain making! I really have gotten into a bit of a terrain obsession lately...

Repeating myself; The Future; Amazing Kroot Renagade Conversions.

Like I said in my first post, this was a terribad time to start a blog. I have no monies, no time, lots of deadlines, and I'm moving this week. I am getting some stuff done, but I imagine there won't be much here until around the 28th. I have a nice, solid 11 days off of work and class from the 24th to the 3rd.

Things to look forward to:
 - A showcase of all my models (Chaos Daemons, Vampire Counts, and Tau)
 - Potentially a showcase of my new apartment
 - Painting updates
 - Terrain updates
 - Overall improvement of blog look
 - the unveiling of a secret project I'm trying to get going (hobby related, but keep in my mind my profession)

Another related bit of information, my roommate has decided Raven Guard are amazing, which means he's finally picked a chapter and started trying to model what he fields! (he usually proxies...everything almost. Like the Dreadnought, but sometimes the Whirlwind standing up is a Drop Pod...). He's also painting!

The key bit of this is that I'm painting his Dreadnought because I have an unabashed love of Dreadnoughts. I'm considering doing a "Kroot Battlesuit" conversion of a Dreadnought, potentially with tau weaponry.

Something akin to this: Kroot Battlesuit

If you haven't checked out those Kroot Renagades, I STRONGLY recommend it. He has conveted Commanders, Broadsides, Hammerheads, Crisis Suits. and Fire Warriors It's all damn cool.

This one is my favorite by far. The Shaper basically has the Fire Warrior on a leash! It's very anti-Tau philosophy and all, but damn if it doesn't look awesome.

A small disclaimer just for redundancy: Those pictures are from http://www.hivefleetmoloch.de/, used with out permission as thier use was a random tangent and I doubt they know I exist.

Holy Mother of Tyranids

Holy crap...
http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/content/blogPost.jsp?aId=6700002a

SuperMagnet Man

Just a small shout out to the SuperMagnet Man: http://www.supermagnetman.net/

I ordered some 100 small (1.5mm in diameter, 0.8mm tall) aboubt a week ago and I must say they were impressively strong. It's also really is a nice site with decent prices. The shipping was prompt and he sent out e-mail updates at each stage (Processing, Packing, Shipped). My only minor complaint is a lack of tracking service, but my order went from Alabama to Maryland in 2 days (Ordered to in my hands).

It's probably also worth noting: Those magnets were the perfect size for fitting in the various slots on the Crisis Suit and the back slot on the Stealth Suit. They also happened to match a drill bit on my pin vice perfectly, which made it all just ever so simple.

1 magnet in the suit and 1 in the weapon is more than enough for 80% of the people out there in terms of hold, but I think it was worth the effort to do 2 side-by-side, it makes them a lot harder to knock off and they don't rotate so easily. This does make it a little more important to line them up right on the weapons (the XV8s have straight slots, so you don't have to worry about the suit so much.)

Tau Tank Traps

Tau Tank Traps : WIP

(I described these a bit earlier)

So these are my Tau Tank Traps I'm working on. I'm trying to decide between these two varients, with or without rubble. They aren't done being built yet either. I'm going to work up craters around each trap to make it look like they were air dropped in.

My roommate likes the "naked" ones because it "looks like dirt". I would probably add some small rocks and possibly something around the more central area (like in between the craters) and along the ridge of the craters to make the "Just dropped in" look more complete.

They obviously need more paint and little details, but what do you think? Rubble? Dirt? Other ideas?

I would also like to apologize for the crappy pictures. They aren't terrible for a cell phone, but it's the only camera I have. Working on that though. C'mon christmas!

Magnetized Suits

BEHOLD! MAGNETS!

Stealth Suit

Stealth Suit w/Burst CanonStealth Suit w/Fusion BlasterStealth Suit Weapons

Crisis Suits

Fireknives

                                     

HeliosDeathrain (Back Mount)

Deathrain (Top Mount)

These marks are the magenetized points. you can sort of see them all on the center one. They all have those 6 points. 2 per arm, 2 per "back slant", 1 per "back top". then there are 2 per weapon and 1 per system (only multi-trackers atm). The Stealth Suit has 2 in his arm and 2 in each weapon. The burst cannon is actually slightly off so it doesn't sit quite right :(

So...now I don't have any excuses not to finish painting them all (though they do still need sanding on the green stuff)

Trees

So trees are kind of hard. Not impossibly so, but I've always had a hard time with them. I even bought some Woodland Scenic trees and foliage for them, but utterly failed at assembling them.

This guy is my hero: How to Assemble Woodland Scenic Trees
I haven't tried it yet, but I will be soon.

Did Stuff

Tau Tank Traps
So I've been working on a lot of terrain lately. The most interesting piece, to me, is a set of Tau tank traps. I found these perfect corn cobb holders, pulled the pins out, and wah-lah, tank traps. I'm going to post some pictures in a bit, all I have is my cell phone camera and I left the cord to transfer the images at home.

The overall idea for them is to get a Tau looking tank trap, painted to match my army scheme, that look like they were air dropped in (debris and small craters around were the impacted, thought about making them kind of crooked like they came in at different angles, but technology should be able to drop them in right).

Magnetized Suits
(I'm not going to do a big thing on this because there are soooo many guides out there, but I'll throw up some pictures when I do the traps)

The other big thing I did last night was magnetize my Crisis Suits and one of my Stealth Suits (I only have three so there is only one fusion blaster option). It just occured to me I didn't do the top hard point on the Stealth Suits...I'll remedy that at lunch time.

All in all it was a royal pain of a process, mostly because I used 2 magnets per weapon and getting them next to eachother took some time to figure out. The magnets were 1.5mm in diameter and 0.8mm thick, they fit in the "slots" perfectly. I did 2 per arm, 2 per back "slant" and the 1 per back shoulder (where it's flat). The idea was weapons go on the arms and slants, but things like multi trackers tend to look better flat on top (the systems also lend themselves to a single magnet and are fairly symetrical, where-as the weapons tend to be longer in one direction, making two a lot stabler.). 2 per weapon and weapon point also keeps them from rotating.

All in all it was a pain to get the tiny magnets side by side without them flipping or snapping to their neighbor, but once I got some putty and tooth picks (which eventually became my craft knife) involved it all sped along quite nicely. 10 magnets per suit may be a but much, but I'm a completetionist like that :)

First Real Post

Apparently the guys at mini-wargaming were given a sneak preview of the new Tyranids: Mini-Wargamming - New Tyranids

This all comes out January 16, 2010

For those who don't want to follow the link, this is the new stuff:

• Tyranid Codex
• Tyranid Ravener Brood - 3 Plastic Figures
• Tyranid Gargoyle Brood - 10 Plastic Figures
• Tyranid Trygon - 1 Plastic Figure
• Tyranid Pyrovore - 1 Metal Figure
• Tyranid Termagant Brood - 12 Plastic Figures
• Tyranid Hormagaunt Brood - 12 Plastic Figures
• Tyranid Venomthrope - 1 Metal Figure
• Tyranid Hive Guard - 1 Metal Figure
  

  The new battleforce will contain:

• 3 Warriors
• 16 Termagaunts
• 16 Hormagaunts
• 8 Genestealers
• Ripper Swarms (that's really all it says, it doesn't say how many)