GW New York & Toronto Stores

In May/June 2019 I travelled to New York and Toronto... and took the chance to visit the local GW stores in those 2 great cities!

I picked up the Gobbapalooza from New York and the Gloomspite Gitz battletome from Toronto. Both were great, vert welcoming stores but I have to say, Toronto was one of the best I've been able to visit. Loads of gaming tables, well laid out and an exceptionally lovely manager.

Nurgle Daemons Colour Scheme

Now my Sylvaneth force is 'finished' (for now) and my trip to Warhammer World is done, its time to turn my attention to preparing for Nerd Day 2018. Part of this preparation is to paint up 1000 points of Nurgle Daemons... and, obviously, I need a colour scheme to do that!

Whilst searching for inspiration on Youtube, I found the rather awesome video below.

Using the colours, techniques and process covered in this video I distilled my own process (described below) which I plan to use... and will test our on a unit of Plaguebearers in the coming days.

For now, here's the process:

STAGE 1 - BASE COLOURS

Skin
Basecoats

• Loren Forest - all over airbrush
• Zamesi Desert  - 45% zenithal
• Nurgling Green - 90% zenithal

Nurglings2

Basecoat

• Rakarth Flesh
• Pallid Wych Flesh

Shade

• Druchii Violet/Drakenhoff Nightshade

Wounds/Boils/Inside Mouth
Basecoats

• Bestigor Flesh - airbrush
• Ungor Flesh - airbrush/brush as needed

Steel/Silver Metallics

Basecoats

• Black
• Leadbelcher - drybrush

Gold/Bronze Metallics

Basecoats

• Warplock Bronze
• Brass Scorpion

Horns/Claws/Toe Nails

• Black - from the top down to green skin colour already applied

Heads and other Trophies of dead Flesh

Basecoats

• Ogryn Camo
• Rakarth Flesh/Slaanesh Grey

Shade

• Druchii Violet/Drakenhoff Nightshade - random washes of the two colours on the skin

Cloth

Basecoat

• White Scar or other appropriate base colour (e.g. Khorne Red)

Weather

• Brown pigment - into areas of shade
• Rust pigments - patchy all over 
• Black/Dark brown pigments - into recesses
• Wipe off from highlight areas with a cotton wool bud
• Seal with pigment fixer.

STAGE 2 - SHADING

• Vallejo gloss varnish
• all over shade with Dark ToneStrong Tone/wash mixing medium *do not wash any cloth* - instead, matte down the cloth with Army Painter wash mixing medium
• randomly apply wash mix to areas of the base to matte them down

STAGE 3 - DETAILS AND EFFECTS

Skin
Highlights

• Nurgling Green - drybrush
• Nurgling Green/White Scar 50/50 mix - drybrush

Targeted wash

• Athonian Camodshde - into recesses
• Athonian Camoshade/Nuln Oil 50/50 - wash into recesses already painted with Athonian Camoshade
• Druchi Violet/Drakenhoff Nightshade - wash randomly around the model in the creases 

Wounds/Boils/Inside Mouth
Shade/effects

• Reikland Fleshade - generous into boils/wounds!
• Baneblade Brown/White Scar 50/50 mix - apply to teeth
• Chaos Black/Evil Sun Scarlet - diluted so like a wash. apply to the lower areas of the founds/boils and drag down (leakage!). Also, apply in mouth
• Blood for the Blood God (slightly diluted with water) into lower parts of the wounds/boils. Also, apply to the mouth.
• Nurgle's Rot - applied around boils/wounds like above step

Eyes

• Nurgle's Rot
• Ungor Flesh

Heads and other Trophies of dead Flesh

Highlight

• Slaanesh Grey
• Ulthuan Grey
• Dark Reaper - highlight any hair on dead heads.

Steel/Silver Metallics

Shade/effects

• Rhinox Hide/Black - sponge over metallic areas
• Agrax Earthshade Gloss - applied only to any mechanical parts (to simulate oily parts) 
• Typhus Corrosion/Ryza Rust - in patches (to simulate rust)
• Stormhost Silver - drybrush (edge highlight for character models)

Gold/Bronze Metallics
Shade/effects

• Rhinox Hide/Black - sponge over 
• Agrax Earthshade Gloss - applied to any mechanical parts to simulate oily parts 
• Stormhost Silver - drybrush 
• Nihilakh Oxide - slightly diluted applied to some recesses (less is more!)

Horns/Claws/Toe Nails

• Gloss varnish - towards the top of the horns

STAGE 4 - BASE

In terms of the base, I'll be going with something like the below. Black/brown colours and some rusty weathering powders along with some black glossy areas.

Base colours

• Mechanicus Standard Grey - airbrushed over the whole base
• Dryad Bark - airbrushed around the outer edge of the base
• Abaddon Black - Airbrushed around the rim and at various spots on the base to create a shadow.
• Soot/Dark Brown pigment heavily diluted and applied to the base

Weathering Powder/Effects

• Rust pigment weathering powder - selectively dabbed on to the base.
• Seal pigments with Isopropanol alcohol
• 'Ardcoat - selectively applied to areas of the base
• Abaddon Black - paint the rim of the base.

Sylvaneth Kurnoth Hunters (2nd unit)

Being a very lucky chap whose wife is very supportive of my hobby activities, part of my birthday present this year was this unit of Kurnoth Hunters. This was the second unit of Hunters I've painted...  I posted the first set of models here.

Generally, I followed the same steps covered by the post linked above. However, I wanted to learn from the experience of building and painting the first unit so I did a few things differently!

The main difference centred around the use of subassemblies. This time around, I didn't glue the arms, head or shoulder pads together. This allowed much easier access to the dark green 'flesh' areas of the models.

The second change relates to the arrows. This was quite minor but I chose to apply an edge highlight to the yellow 'feather' areas of the arrows. I felt that on the first set of models, the yellow looked a bit flat and this change helped them start out a lot better!

Thirdly, I wanted to prevent the wash from neutralising the blue used for the runes and facial details. I first tried this on the unit of Dryads I recently completed. It worked a treat!

I really like how this unit turned out. I feel as if the small changes I'm making to my process - removing the wash from the blue areas, spot highlighting certain details - will really help address the concern I have around the models looking too dull/flat.

Sylvaneth Treelord

The pressure to get my Sylvaneth army finished for April is well and truly on! To that end, over the past week or so I've been working on this Treelord.

I followed exactly the same colour scheme as that used for my Treelord Ancient here.  I did, however, embrace painting in subassemblies for this model. This is something I didn't do for the Treelord Ancient and I found painting the small green joint areas rather painful! Although it's quite a big model, as a result of using the airbrush, I think he took about 3 days of effort to complete... which isn't bad!

Next, I'll be working on the Malign Portents Lord-Ordinator. He's a great model so can't wait to crack on with him!

Sylvaneth Dryads (2nd set of 16)

I posted about my first set of Dryads here. This set came from the 2nd Start Collecting Sylvaneth box I'm working through.

The process used for these models is the same as that described in the post linked above. However, I'm still trying to fine tune my colours/technique for this army so I tried to achieve a brighter finish for the blue details. I did this simply by wiping away the wash from those areas... and it worked a treat!

Next up will be my 2nd unit of Sylvaneth Hunters.

Social Painting Events!

My hobby progress has been slow over the last month and whilst I've made progress on a variety of models; Blood Angel Tactical Marines, Slyvaneth Kurnoth Hunters, Tree Revenants and 2 Branchwraiths... I haven't finished any or managed to take any recent WIP photos.

This post, however, is mainly to cover a couple of social painting evenings I've hosted recently in preparation for Nerd Day 2018. The goal is to help a couple of friends who haven't painted models for many years to paint up a selection of their models which can then be used during nerd weekend 2018.

For individuals on the fringe of the hobby I believe the notion of painting models can be quite intimidating... not only do you need to understand the techniques involved, there is also an associated cost (paints, brushes etc.) which can easily become a barrier of entry. Hosting events where I can remove those barriers has been very rewarding and, as you can see below, seems to be nurturing some potential talent!

First I'll cover the hobby area! I set up two stations for my budding hobbyists, complete with citadel paint system chart for easy reference.

The only requirement I placed on my two protégé was to supply their own models. Neither let the side down! Dan, arrived armed with some goodies from his childhood! An old skool, 1994, Citadel Paint Set... which had usable paint!! very cool indeed!

Dans also brought along a complete Warhammer (4th? edition) boxed set. It's from this set that Dan chose which models to paint.

Alongside Dans Fantasy Battle models, Barry rocked up with an extended Skaven 3rd Edition Blood Bowl team!

These in progress pictures were taken following the second evening. As you can see, good progress has been made by both hobbyists!

Here are the archers Dan has base coated. I've been very impressed by the state of all the models and can't wait to see further progress in the new year.

Games Workshop: Brussels

As is tradition when I go on holiday, I try and visit the nearest GW shop to check it out and also pick up a little something. On the weekend of the 16th September my wife and I celebrated our first wedding anniversary and had planned a short break in Brussels... mainly to drink awesome beers and eat delicious chocolate!

The store itself is located in the heart of Brussels and is one of the best GW shops I've visited. It was big, lively, well laid out, had some great displays and the staff were great!

I'd like to say that mistakes were made, but these aren't mistakes! Cant wait to get them built and painted!

BathCon 2017

BathCon 2017 was the wargaming day I've planned since the beginning of this year. On the weekend of 2nd September, I hosted 3 friends for a full day of X-Wing, Shadow War: Armageddon and Warhammer 40,000... and then some Poker!

Since I organised the event it has been the sole focus of my hobbying time. My goal was to get into a position where I could present a gaming table full of painted terrain and where possible fully painted models. Whilst achieving all the goals I set myself was impossible, I was able to prepare all the scenery pieces I wanted to paint. With one of the game on the roster being Shadow War: Armageddon this was no small feat!

Prior to the event, I ran a roll to determine which game systems my guests would like to play. the 3 winners were X-Wing, Shadow War: Armageddon and Warhammer 40k. The two games which lost out were Age of Sigmar and Blood Bowl.  

So, here are some of the photos from the day...

The Board

This is the board set up prior to the event. Whilst I made posts on this blog covering some of the pieces of terrain used, I didn't post about them all. Over the coming weeks, I will probably catch up with such posts as I learnt a lot from my experiences and would like to share that information.

X-Wing

To kick things off we played 2 games of X-Wing. It's been about 18 months since I last played and had forgotten how much fun it can be! I played a simple 50 point match whilst the other game involved a few more models on each side(as can be seen in the picture below).

Shadow War: Armageddon

We chose to play a 4 player battle in SWA, so 1v1v1v1... which turned out to be a lot of fun! We played it on the full 6v4 table packed full of terrain. It took 3 hours.. which is a bit longer than most SWA battles are supposed to last but it was hugely entertaining. We had Orks v Chaos Marines v Space Marine Scouts v Sly Marbo! the Orks and Chaos Marines spent most of the battle trying to tickle each other to death in combat whilst Sly Marbo did some cheeky stabby-stabby moves with his poisoned knife. The less said about the Space Marine Scouts the better!

Warhammer 40,000

Finally, we played some 40k. a 50 power level battle. Chaos v Space Marines/Blood Angels. Unfortunately, we ran out of time and only managed 1 turn each before having to call it a day.

Nerd Day 2017

So, in September 2017 my other half is out of town for the weekend and I have arranged to have 3 friends over for a weekend of war gaming. On the agenda is:

• Warhammer Age of Sigmar
• Warhammer 40k (8th ed!!!)
• Shadow War: Armageddon
• Blood Bowl
• X-Wing

Needless to say, this is quite an ask for the time available. My aim is to run quick battles of Age of Sigmar and 40K and focus on SWA, Blood Bowl and X-Wing.

I am extremely excited about hosting such a day and in preparation I will spending the next few months preparing a suitably awesome gaming area (40k battle mat already on order!) and completing as many miniatures as possible.

What this means for readers of this blog is that posts will come thick and fast over the coming months! Lets do this!

Games Workshop Wellington (New Zealand)

Whenever I get to visit a new GW store I like to post about it on this blog. Whilst on honeymoon in New Zealand during September/October 2016 I had a few hours to spare whilst in Wellington... so what else is a hobby nerd to do?!?! Go find the GW store! 

I managed to rock up bang on opening time and the typically awesome manager welcomed me in and we spent a good half an hour chatting about the hobby. Of all the GW managers I have spoken to, I have to say that this chap, Nathan I believe his name is, was up there with the best. A very nice chap indeed! 

As a souvenir I picked up a Blood Angels Sanguinary Priest (still unopened!). I did notice the price difference which I've heard Aussie and NZ gamer's mention... this model cost $40.00, which is £22.30 at current exchange rate. Compare that to the £18 which the models costs on the UK web store. So that's roughly a 20% price increase. 😟

Warhammer World 2017 - Part 2: The Old Stuff!

A few photos covering the 'old stuff' from the initial hall in the Warhammer World Exhibition Centre.

New Project?

If you cast an eye (or two?) over my recent blog posts it's no secret that my hobbying hasn't had much focus! I've chopped and changed between Blood Bowl, Blood Angels, a Land Speeder Storm and a box full of scenery. To add to this, over the past few weeks I have also found myself being tempted by Age of Sigmar.

I think its fair to state that AoS had a slow start but has nicely found its feet recently. Whilst on a day out to watch some cricket recently I visited Excelsior Comics and picked up a couple of classic White Dwarfs and the Generals Handbook. I'll post about the White Dwarfs at some point in the future.

Anyway, back to my point: So alongside AoS finding its feet and the purchase of the Generals handbook, I absolutely adore the recently released Sylvaneth! They are about as far removed from Power Armoured dudes as you could want... and I find that VERY appealing. Check 'em out:

Of course, this temptation brings with it a bucket load of hobbying guilt. I have a couple of Blood Bowl teams to paint (and some star players), a small Blood Angels force and enough scenery to keep me occupied until England next win the World Cup. I dont 'need' a new army... but why do I want it so badly? I'm not really one for giving in to the impulse buy for the new shiny so there must be more to it?!?

Well, I think the root of the matter is that AoS is a more accessible game... and I'm missing the fun of getting my models onto a board and rolling some dice. Whilst I love 40k, considering where I am in my life at the moment, AoS could be the a very sensible avenue for me to explore and allow more gaming opportunities (and when I say 'more', I mean 'any!').

I am currently working on a Human Blood Bowl team so, at the very least, I want to use this interest in the Sylvanth to help push me to complete this team and then maybe some further outstanding units. If this all pans out, my next post will cover a completed Blood Bowl team!

Work In Progress: Blood Bowl Ocs and Humans

Today I want to cover some models in (another) 'work in progress' post. 

These two sets of models are the Ocs and Human teams from 3rd Edition Blood Bowl. I owned this back in the day (it was initially released in 1994) but somewhere along the way I sold the game on eBay. In 2014 I managed to find a well priced auction (on Ebay) so took advantage of the deal and picked up the game 

Since that point it has remained on my shelf; not getting the love it deserves! With ForgeWorld working on a new edition (due Christmas 2016 I believe), my motivation was rekindled so I dusted off the game and started to paint the models! 

The Human team had received a fairly basic paint job from the previous owner but the paint wasnt thick so I didnt bother to strip the models down. The Orc team was still fresh plastic. The first step, as is usually the case, has been to undercoated and base coat the two teams. Next, I'll start working on a team at a time (I'll probably tackle the Human team first) and will post an update when I have completed team(s) to show.

Dusting off 3rd Edition Blood Bowl

So after dusting off my Human and Orc Blood Bowl teams I was motivated to play a game so invited @bignerdbowski over for a match. 

Although I own the original Blood Bowl video game (which I didn't really like and as a result I didn't managed to complete a match!), it has been over 22 years since I last played a Blood Bowl match from start to finish. Needless to say, it was epic fun playing a game and I'm annoyed that I waited so long to reconnect with the game.

In the single match that we had time for, I played as Humans whilst my opponent played as Ocs. 'Back in the day' my team was Ocs so it was a new experience playing as squishy 'umans. Without going in to too much details of how the game played out... it finished 1-1. My opponent had an opportunity to score with a long bomb in the last turn but fumbled the throw.

Off the back of this match I have been trawling eBay and have picked up some Orc and Human star players. I'll get to work on these when the models arrive and I'll post updates at that point.

Work In Progress: Grimwrath Berzerker

Going a little rogue with this one... a Dwarf Age of Sigmar model!

I know, weird right! This model was purchased via a lucky dip in the Warhammer Bath store as part of their store birthday painting competition. Unfortunately I haven't been able to dedicate enough time before the competition entry deadline to complete the paint job. I will continue to work on him  when the mood takes me, and will post photos of the finished article when completed.

I haven't ever painted a Dwarf before so the large amount of skin/hair has (and will) pose a new set of challenges and expand my experiences.

Warhammer Quest: Silver Tower

I'm very excited by this release! I vividly remember washing my parents cars, cleaning out the garage and cutting the lawn in order to save up the £45 to purchase the original Warhammer Quest back in 1995. I then took some of the models away with me on the family holiday that year as I slowly made my way through painting up the many miniatures (and blimey there where loads!). I've also sunk about 35 hours into the iOS game! So, as you can probably tell, I quite like Warhammer Quest. 

This new, Age of Sigmar, version of the game looks to be brining back the basic concepts but with some added mechanics. I'm not certain whether I'll be able to pick this up on release day as the contents of my coin purse need to go towards paying for my wedding and honeymoon later this year, but we shall see!

Assassinorum: Execution Force... nice!

I think the original (2nd Edition, metal) Vindicare Assassin was the first non basic Space Marine model I picked up back during my first stint in the hobby so when i saw this board game I couldn't really resist! Combining some pretty cool Assassin models with a cooperative board game seemed to encourage my credit card to make its own way down to the GW Bath store without my knowledge! :)

I haven't built any of the models yet as I have to focus on my backlog before playing with my new toys but as soon as I do, further updates will follow!

Its Been A While!

So, after a fair few months out of the game due to moving house (twice!) and taking an examination I'm finally ready to get back to some hobbying!

Whilst away from having the time/space to hobby I have been keeping up to date with the glorious GW release schedule and now find myself with quite a backlog of models to keep me busy.

First up, to get me back in the groove, is a 5 man Terminator squad. I painted the armour prior to my break and have started off painting the silver bits this week. Hopefully I'll be able to get these finished in the next couple of weeks and discover that I haven't lost any of the (relative) ability I had developed.

More pics after the break.