Hobby Project – Display Board – Assembly Day 6

Wow, but its been a long time since I painted. Had a little time and decided to put some base colors down on the wizard. Went with a lighter color palet as he'll have lights shinning on him. 

Ill finish the base colors next time. 

Hobby Project – Display Board – Assembly Day 5

Just a quick update as I was only able to squeeze in an hour or so to hobby this weekend. I decided on the arrangement for the room. Based on how i think the buikding will go into the board, i faced the grey seer so his back will be towards the audiance and more towards his army. 

While I didnt fix him in place, for easy of painting, I did go ahead and fix the book down and gave it some rough gap filling.

It was the time to get everything sprayed and prepped for painting. The building will be painted as the board is painted, but the dude and his study will need to be painted before they are installed. 

I decided to go white on the bell because that will make for a more vibrant metal, but black on the rest of the terrain. I even did the inside of the buildings, even though I expect to put something to treat the windows. I left it in major sections to easy integration into the display board.

Gotta say, I really love this terrain kit.

Infernal Zoo – What Makes It Special!

Infernal Zoo is probably the most unique event I have been to.  This will be the second year for it, and it’s a blast.  It’s a not quite Storms of Magic event, taking the monster aspect and ditching the magic bullshit.  There are still scrolls of binding, but they cannot be unbound.  Last year I didn’t take it seriously, and just took a monster list.  I don’t recall the exact list, but it was basically two abominations and three Brood Horrors.

Army construction is a normally constructed 2000 point army with 500 points of monsters from either Storms of Magic or Monstrous Arcanum.  For every unit taken in that 500 point selection, 1 wizard must be taken.  There are consequences for that wizard dying.  In addition, if the monster unit is also a wizard (as some dragons and others are); either that unit or the parent unit miscasting requires that BOTH of them roll on the table – ouch.  Just with the loss of power dice that is going to wreck your magic phase.  What is also means is that you need to leave points in your 2000 point army for at least 1 wizard to even have access to the additional 500 points.

While the event doesn’t allow the items from either of the supplemental books, the event does have a list of its own magic items.  Originally, as it was last year, the magic items were out of the 2000 points.  Later in the process it was switched to come out of the 500 points (though still not allowing a character to have two in a category).  I think this is a better place to put them.  Lots of the monsters don’t add up to a clean 500 points, and having a few ways to use up those extra points is a good bonus.  It is too bad that the magic banner still requires a character to be able to actually have a magic banner.

Magic Weapons:

Bizarro Hammer (50 points) – 2 hands, +2S, and once per game gives ASF and HKB

Whip of Bestial Subjugation (10 points) – Always wounds on 5+.  Causes monsters fear (on their own leadership), and effects monsters otherwise who wouldn’t be effected by fear

Magic Banner:

Banner of Pillowy Mist (25 points) – One use only.  All modes with “Fly” must take a dangerous terrain test or suffer D6 wounds.  All missile fire is -1 to hit.  All artillery scatters further (No BS correct for indirect fire, otherwise additional D3 inches).  Cannons shift their first point with a scatter die.  – This is basically a very weird Storm Banner.

Talisman:

LowKee’s Loadstone of Dubious Worth (5 points) – All models within 6” of the item that are hit by S5 or greater missile weapons get a look out sir.  Successful hits are applied to the bearer.  The bearer gets no saves and all shots become magical (screw you ethereal).

Enchanted Item:

Enrapturing Ball of FETCH! (15 points) – One Use Only.  At the beginning of your opponents turn, target a spot 18” away and fire like a stone thrower – all monsters, war beasts and monstrous cavalry (friend or foe) within 12” must take a leadership test using their base leadership (even if ITP).  If failed they must immediately attempt to make a normal move (including marching) into contact with that point.  If it lands on an enemy they will charge it possible.

These items add some interesting ideas.  The first year, the Ball of FETCH made monsters stupid within a certain range, including your own.  It suffered from post-errata dark elf anti magic ring (can’t think of name), in that it hurts you in the beginning and then you hope to get it into a position to hurt your opponent.  Now it has the chance to do something funny.  Last year the Bizarro Hammer (unchanged) was very popular, though I’m not sure how well it worked out for their users.  I didn’t take any of the special magic items, and am not going to again this year (though doubling Banner of Pillowy Mist and Storm Banner into one army would be very funny).

In addition to the game being win/loss, every round a special objective is chosen by each player and not revealed to the opponent until the end of the game.  They are all monster themed.

1.       Love Connection – have your contingent kill their contingent (2 for killing, 1 for only engaging)

2.       Mark the Territory – 2 points for having a contingent at tallest terrain feature at end of game, 1 point if it got there at any time

3.       Don’t Tread on my turf – 2 points for having a clear deployment zone, 1 point for having more units in your deployment zone then they do (Also gives your monsters ITP and auto pass reaction tests in your deployment zone)

4.       Fito Sick Balls – 2 points for killing opposing general, 1 point for just doing a wound to him (Also gives your monsters hatred versus the general)

5.       Feed the Beast – 2 points for destroying largest unit (with some weighting for unit type), 1 point for killing half the unit

6.       Top of Food Chain – 2 points for killing entire contingent, 1 point for killing half the points of contingent.

There is also a composition system for the event, which is used in the first two round’s pairings and added into some of the scores.  It will be judge subjective comp, but they did provide some guidelines to keep in mind.

Things that will tend to knock DOWN your score (down is bad):

Multiple monsters costing 300 points

Ethereal units of more than 200 points
VP denial
Multiples of same rare choice that’s more than 100 points
More than 2 S9 artillery pieces
3 of the same special choices
More than 50 BS shots
More than three warmachines

Things that will help knock your score UP:

Multiple monsters with no save

Themed army
All core army (huh?)
No rare choices
Overpriced units
Zoo contingent themed with army (yay brood horrors!)
Flying monsters characters with no save

North Star – Dilemma

And solved, new book out Oct 5 officially. Means after Oct 1 deadline and using the old book. This will be my last 5 games with the book. Then I will decide if I want to adapt my list to the new book or move on to something else… finish chaos dwarves or adapt to High Elves.

Will have to decide in time to finish 2k for waaaghpaca, and work in their missions. 

What If Chaos Daemons – 2500 points

Eventually I plan to make a Clan Pestilence themed army.  I’ve been bouncing around between Chaos Warriors or Chaos Daemons, as nurgle is the obvious theme.  After getting my butt kicked by that Chaos Daemons player at the August Contest of Champions, I was playing around with the Chaos Daemons list.  Thought I would post if up as a fun little thing.  I may keep going through the armies, we’ll see how my interest takes me.

Great Unclean One, Level 4, Lore of Death, Exalted Gift, Lesser Gift

Epidemius

25 Plaguebearers, musician, standard bearer, banner of swiftness

25 Plaguebearers, musician, standard bearer, banner of eternal flame

4 Beasts of Nurgle

4 Beasts of Nurgle

4 Plague Drones, musician, standard bearer, plague proboscis

4 Plague Drones, musician, standard bearer, plague proboscis

Simple, straightforward list.  For the great unclean one I would use a vermin lord.  The plaguebearers would just be plague monks on 25mm bases.  For the beasts I would make up some new rat ogre conversions, as my ogre models all have scryer tech built in.  I am thinking that using some left over tyrnaid bits would work well, along with converting some of the forgeworld nurgle trolls that I’ve picked up and am stashing.  For the plague drones, I would use the drones but would just put plague monks on the back.  For Epidemius I would use the old plague priest on pox rat special character that doesn’t exist in the current book.

I think it would be a nice, clean and simple looking list.  I’m not sure that Epidemius is actually needed, that his 200 points could be better used in more beasts and some furies (which would be plague monks with wings or something, can’t reuse my jump packs as they need 25mm bases).  But those would be easy to switch out.

I actually already have most of it.  I’m sort 5 plague drones, and maybe some plague monks, but I think I have the majority of it.  I could probably flush out what I was missing for less than 100 bucks, especially if I could get some cheap plague monks.

Now I just need to finish my Clan Scryer Chaos Dwarves!

Hobby Project – Display Board – Assembly Day 4

Just a quick update for a quick hobby sit down. 

Finished hollowing out the bottom for the bell to rests. The bell now swings, but when I glue it in when I finish putting it together. Ill wait for the next time i actually have the board. 

What If Lizardman – 2500 points

First I want to note that this list assumes that the FAQ will go back and fix the giant hole – that terradon characters can no longer join terradon units (or Ripperdactly units).  I believe that this was done in error, since Tiktaq’To’s rules still are written assuming he joins such a unit, even though he doesn’t actually have a rule allowing him to join.

Slann Mage-Priest, Lore of High Magic, BSB, General, Focus of Mystery, Reservoir of Eldritch Energy, Harmonic Convergence, Soul of Stone, Book of Ashur, Banner of Swiftness

Tiktaq’To

Skink Chief, Ripperdactyl, javelin, light armor, enchanted shield, egg of quango, warrior bane

Skink Chief, Ripperdactyl, javelin, light armor, dragon helm, potion of strength, luckstone, shield

Skink Chief, Ripperdactyl, javelin, light armor, Sacred Stegadon helm of Itza, dragonbane gem, shield

10 Skink Skirmishers

10 Skink Skirmishers

10 Skink Skirmishers

10 Skink Skirmishers

10 Skink Skirmishers

10 Skinks, banner

10 Skinks, banner

10 Skinks, banner

10 Skinks

10 Skinks

4 Terradon Riders

4 Terradon Riders

3 Terradon Riders, Tiktaq’to’s ambushers

4 Ripperdactyle Riders

3 Ripperdactyle Riders

3 Ripperdactyle Riders

This is a Flight of the Valkyries list, and I think would look amazing on the table.  The massive ripperdactyles leads to one of two things happening.  Either a wonderful gang-banging of some key units, or some horrible frenzy fails leading to a loss of lots of points.  But either way, I think it would be a blast to play, with the slann jumping from skink unit to skink unit trying to keep up with the needs of the ripperdactyles and the 6 units and 4 characters flying around and every angle – though not really doing much I expect.

Hobby Project – Display Board – Assembly Day 3

Today i worked on the display board. I also was more proactive writing the post so it wasn't as delayed as the last two. The last two sessions I built up the structure; this time I worked on the details.

For the inside of the top of the building portion, I wanted to put a grand wizards nest, or something. Last time I had built a floor. 

This time I wanted to populate it. A major hole in the skaven line is the characters. The only plastic ones come in either the Isle of Blood starter set or on the Screaming Bell/Plague Furnace kit. That makes it a pain to get additional copies of each. Luckily, I have an extra bell kit waiting in my reserve pile (probably some really old tournament win). 

I didnt want to use the grey seer model though, because he is posed for being put on the bell. While i have used him on mounts, I havent figured out a good way to make him  look standing. The plague priest, on the hand is standing , but didnt have the look I wanted. The engineer was also a little more armored than I wanted. 

I decided to play around mixing them. Here is the grey seer head on the plague priest body. 

I think it looks pretty good. I will probably have to figure out how to get another set so I can make one or two for my own army. Now that the head is on, i will need to modify the cape and arm pieces to fit around the new head. 

I decided to keep the staff, but got rid of the censer. In side the building i think it will be too crowded, and a free hand might be better for what else I might put into the room. 

Taking a break from the room, mostly because I'm putting off digging through my bits, i decided to get started on the bell. Decided just to assemble it normally. 

And *poof* a bell…

I would install it later, but next I switched back to the tower. While the bellwas drying   i looked through my bits and found a book and some scrap. 

The book is from the warshrine kit, which was purchased for the possibilities of turning it into a custom plague furnace. After about a year I havent gotten back to the project so i thinking stealing the bit will be ok. I dont like the stand it comes with, but i found this end of warpstone I had taken off during some other project. Its almost the right height, just needing a little greenstuff cap.

Im not a big green stuff guy, but i think after is drys and ive put in a little sanding work it will meld it fairly well as a stone stand. 

I like the way this looks. If fills the space well. Heres a shot with the building finished. 

While waiting for the green stuff to dry and thinking about what i want to do with that floor, i decided to move on to some clean up. This being a GW kit it has lots of skulls, which for the most part is fine. But being a fantasy kit it also has lots of two tailed comets. Thats not so good. 

I decided to see if i could  remove some with my dremel. It might not end up clean, but a little more worn stone cant hurt.

Got most of them. I did end up leaving one or two just not to the overkill amount it comes with.

While moving on to the next step, i forgot to take a before picture. Here is an in progress shot while i wait for my dremel batter to recharge. 

Ive carved out what i can on the supports and will next be hollowing out the roof to make room for the top of the bell. 

 Not worried about neat as its going to be hidden as a support for the top level, since I've decided not to use one of the buildings. 

This is the bottom most of the way done, but it was time to take a break. 

Hobby Project – Display Board – Assembly Day 2

Well, I had some pictures, but it seems they got eaten.  So here is the text that was written for the pictures... sorry.  Update… found the pictures, or retook them.

Banished from my wife’s presence as she wanted to get some online class stuff done on her computer, I decide to get started on my homework, even though it’s not even 24 hours after the first session.  Why couldn’t I have been this proactive with actual homework?

I decide to get started with the building half of the skullvane manse.  I had gotten most of the plastic assembly done one Day 1, even though I didn’t mention it (I mean, who really cares about assembling stuff by following the instructions?).

Having left off the long back of the building upon initial assemble (making putting on the roof fun), I decided that there was a need for additional detail to be added.  The building comes with many open windows.  My first thought was to do something with the second level, but it has grated bars.  The top floor though, has two sets of nice open windows.  I decided that something would need to go into that space.  A little trial and error later, as it’s hard to measure accurately without the final size I had cut down a floor.  Its close, with very little gaping around the corners.  In one of the pictures I put a model in, just to see how the size works out.  I’ll be putting another model there in the end – likely a converted greyseer.

Not shown is that I went through and caulked up all the gaps, both those that were obvious mold failures, but also all of the super tiny gaps between bricks on the sides.  This will come into play sometime in the future.

For the other half of the manse, I wasn’t really sure what I wanted to do.  Sean and I had discussed 2 options, either putting on the building, or working it into the structure as support for the second level.  I decided that I needed to assemble to building portion to see how it looked.  I did decide that I not want the level with the big skulls, and so I removed it.  I knew this would make the rest of the assembly a little more difficult.

Here is a shot of my assembling the third level of the tower.  I had also decided I did not want the horrible base piece.  There are so many damn two-tailed comets on this model.  I did assemble base though, so that I could use it to properly space and angle the crenulation – the parts just aren’t glued together.

I also knew I would be using the main bottom of the building either as a support of the building or the second level, so I utilized it for forming the main level of the building without gluing it on.

Here is a picture of level 1 and level 3 together on the tower.  I’m not  a big fan, and they don’t go together that well.

Here is a building without the crenulation.  I would just have a flat roof, maybe some rubble representing that there used to be more, but skaven mismanagement led to its failure.

Here is a picture of me holding a bell under the support piece.  This could be, and probably will be, done for any of the three options (big building, little building or as a support piece).

Next time I will work on what’s going into that upper floor, and likely assemble and install that bell.

What If – A new segment

So sometimes I get bored, or I hear something on a podcast or from a friend and that leads me to play around with an army list.  Sometimes it will because something just kicked me butt.  This tends to be with the newer armies, but sometimes with something that’s older.  I won’t post every list that I come up with, but I will post some, just for fun.  I don’t claim to be any sort of expert though.  Maybe something I put down will trigger something for your own use.

I’ll drop the posts in between events, or when I have another gap.  This might make the lists a little out of date when I post them, and while I will try to make sure things are still correct given new FAQs, I don’t promise it to be so.

Hobby Project – Display Board – Assembly Day 1

With the bases started and under way (though now behind since I haven’t been working on them at home like I’m supposed to.  I swear I was going to over the last holiday – but it rained all day.) it was decided that it was time to begin laying out the display board.  My friend Sean has once again offered to provide assistance.  Today he provided much more active assistance then he had on the bases.  This is probably for the best, as while he carved foam I began some of the other aspects.

But first we started with THE BOX.  Having done this before, Sean said that the best way is to make a box.  We decided on a 2x2 base for the box, as this is the size used by Armies on Parade (I also like it because if I were to make 4 I could have myself a little Mordheim board – Sean didn’t like the idea of doing 3 more though – and that is really getting ahead of myself).  So we made a box.  The base and sides were made out of mdf – basically super packed particle board.

Some of the tools we used – Sean on the saw since it was his home owners insurance.  Also a few belt sanders we used for some more controlled wood removal – they weren’t that effective and we ended up just skimming the edge with the saw.  After building the sides we used a combination of wood glue and this nail gun to put the box together.  Sean said he got it for $4 at a garage sale, unused.  It used the same air set up as his paint brush.  It jammed a few times, but need a good job.  The mdf did like to split, and wasn’t very thick, so we tried to angle the nails in, to punch through on the inside, as you can see in the pictures.  This would all be covered up anyways by the foam, or removed.  That’s right, we made close to a 2’ cube, but the plan was to pare down the sides.  It is just easier to reduce the size than increase them.  Sean having a high hobby ethic didn’t want any of the foam exposed to any sort of direct contact.

Here are some pictures of the box as it goes up.  Once again, Sean’s high standards had us sealing the inside with a little white glue.

While I had some grand ideas of what I wanted, even including a moving rollercoaster for mine carts (which we ended up dropping due to the limited size – maybe when we have 4?), the main goal was to be able to place down 3 key sized units and still have some space for other stuff.  These 3 units represented the peak of my units size and included 2 10x10 20mm hoards and 1 long unit, just short of 5x12 and as close to 12” long as you can get with 20mm models.  I haven’t run these units at this size since 2008 or so, when 8^th first came out, but I didn’t want to limit my options.  To make sure these units could go down we used movement trays at the very initial stages.

Here you can see us playing around with some foam placement.  It was decided that the back left corner would hold both of the 10x10 units and the long unit with go into the center.  To accomplish this, we would need to make a two tier board, leaving plenty of space for the bell/furnace should such a unit go there – but also for whatever rock material we will need to place on the underside of the second level.  This can was fairly close to the size we would need.

Designing around the left corner, we decided that the back right corner would also have an elevated level, though not as high as the top of second level.  This picture shows how far we got, though it may still be raised up another inch or so.  We decided that the overall look would be that of a dwarf hold that is a little run down and that has later had a lower quality of construction added.  As the two tier section would be the higher quality dwarf construction, a nice parade ramp would be required.  The thicker, short second right up against the large flat space will be steps, and the rest will be a bricked ramp.  On the left, that rock will represent a cave in covering up additional brick space going into the front left corner, where there will be a building.

As I was initially thinking about this display board, some months ago, I picked up two boxes of games workshop terrain that I wanted to build in.  One of them didn’t get utilized at this early stage, so I’ll keep it back until then.  The one that did get started this session was Skullvane Manse, Lair of the Astromancer.  I feel that the core of this model brings a very skaven feel to it.  It is after all a rundown building.  It does contain more than a few aspects that I didn’t want.  So the first thing we did was break it in half.  The left building side will become the building that will go in the front left corner.  The left piece would end up in the back, centered.

We got as far as shown in this picture, with all of the foam glued and fixed in place.  We scheduled a session the following month, and I was sent home with the assignment of finishing getting the skullvane manse into a position to be installed into the construction, where we may still increase the height of the back right and add more details, but would also be beginning to add the next step – quality… I mean texture.  Rocks, bricks, sand, etc., and also a surprise.  Hopefully I will be able to break, and keep broken, my lack of hobby time and not only get my homework done but also get back to work on my chaos dwarves.