I know January isn’t for another 3 weeks, but I’ve been exceptionally rubbish at putting new things onto this blog, despite having done quite a bit of modelling and painting, and there being various “big news” releases over the past 6 months. So I’m resolving to identify that and try and get something up new every week or more often. I now have a reminder in my phone to fire off every Sunday afternoon, so with luck there will be more posts up here, even if they’re a short article on something that has been released or some rumour.
Now rather than simply stopping with a very strong between the lines of “woe is me”, I thought I’d give you a summary of things since my last post with hints at a few posts that I hope to write in the future.
The last post saw me frantically kit bashing a Wolf Priest together for a 40k game that was planned in September. Well I’m pleased to say that I got him pretty much completed (just needs the base smartening up) and the games I had up at Warhammer World in September went really well, my Wolves looked ace on the table and performed pretty well too. We’ve another weekend earmarked for March so watch this space – where I will actually take more pictures of the games as they take place. I did however take loads of pictures of the exhibition!
Games Workshop have slightly tweaked their Citadel paint range. The first change was the addition of 51 airbrush paints. Most of these are have an identical colour in the existing range (a combination of Base and Layer) but there is an air only gold colour. This was the most understated release I’ve ever seen, along the lines of “here you go” and that was it. I picked up a few of these whilst I was in Nottingham (along with some of the Forge World air paints) but haven’t had the opportunity to try them yet. More recently they’ve changed some of their normal paints to be “online only”, added some more dry paints (including 15 new colours and some of the colours of the existing range) and finally they’ve doubled the size of their shades to 24ml (and increased the price). The bigger pots look weird but I can see the benefit of larger pots. Sadly this means my 17ml dropper bottles won’t hold a pot, however what’s even weirder is that their air paints (and Forge Worlds) aren’t in dropper bottles at all.
I’ve finally started putting together and building the three Imperial Knights I have and have worked out a way of magnetising the arms which I’ll post up here one weekend. There are two reasons for magnetising, firstly it does allow some variety in load outs depending upon your opponent or fancy. The main reason however is that it makes it much easier to store and transport. Until you look at it in the flesh (plastic/resin) you don’t realise that each gun arm is over six inches in length and overhangs the front of the model by some margin.
As part of my Knights, I’ve treated myself to even more paints, because clearly I don’t have enough (it’s not a problem, it’s a collection). Vallejo now produce “Vallejo Metal Color”, these are 32ml bottles of airbrush paint. They have a high price, coming in just shy of £5 and for the best effect they need to be gently airbrushed over a gloss undercoat (bet you couldn’t guess that Vallejo produce a gloss black primer too). The finish you can achieve though is fantastic and well worth the outlay – they border on being “too realistic”, and washes work really well on them. They also brush and drybrush on really nicely. I’ll do a proper post on these too, but suffice to say I’m really happy with the finish I’ve got on the weapons of my Knights – plus unlike their Model Air metallic counterparts, they work straight from the bottle and clean out of the airbrush well.
In October I managed to break a collarbone and two ribs, right in the middle of a week’s holiday when I was doing my Knights and redecorating the space bedroom. Needless to say this set me back on numerous fronts and the house is currently still full of stuff from the spare room (which holds the vast repository of books, dvds, cds and board games). My Knights also are nowhere near finished, but that does mean that I can actually post up some progress shots! I’m also intending on painting all of the armour sections over the Christmas period or at least during the points I’m home from work.
The rumour of plastic Horus Heresy miniatures became a reality when Games Workshop released the Betrayal at Calth boxed game. This contains a mass of Mk IV power armoured marines, cataphractii terminators and a contenmptor dreadnought. Forge World are offering bundles of the boxed game plus upgrade kits and it’s allowed a lot of people to start off a Heresy army which was previously fairly cost prohibitive. The actual game is also meant to be pretty solid too.
Games Workshop also pulled another blinder and it would appear that they’re creating Specialist Games again! This appears to have been only released on their app. For those not in the know, Specialist Games became the sub-company that controlled all of the games that weren’t 40k, Warhammer or LotR, this included classics such as Necromunda, Gorkamorka, Battlefleet Gothic, Space Hulk and more. The new division is going to be overseen by the infamous Tony Cottrell of Forge World fame. Interestingly Forge World will become part of Specialist Games too. Nobody really knows what is going to happen, but Games Workshop have been advertising for numerous new jobs.
Finally Forge World have released what I consider the nicest variant of the Cerastus Knight chassis – the Mechanium Atrapos! I may have treated myself to one as Forge World were running an offer to receive a free Knight Scion miniature (that has no use the in the game at all). One thing I will say is that this has to be the best cast model I have ever had from Forge World. Very little tidying required, no mis-casts and it fits together beautifully. It also came in a simply branded white box, cellophane wrapped, which suggests to me that maybe Forge World are outsourcing their casting or at least it’s being handled in a different way. Regardless it’s a welcome improvement and long may it continue. Knight wise this also puts me around the 1600 point mark, which is pretty much a Knight household – once the Atrapos is assembled and painted (once I’ve finished some of my current projects down) I could actually field it in a Heresy battle…
Finally there has also been a couple of Kickstarters that I’ve backed. Dropfleet Commander and the second Arcadia Quest (Inferno). Both of these I’ve sunk a fair bit of cash in and won’t deliver until June time, however they’re games I’m getting because I fancy playing them rather than painting.