A day of Miniature Gaming (40K)...

With plenty of beer, pizza and Chinese food, we embarked on a great day of miniature gaming.  In attendance were the Blood Angels, Nurgle Chaos Marines, Grey Knights, Dark Eldar, Dark Angels, Necrons, Imperial Guard, and proxy Necrons.

There were some real tough fought battles and a few clean sweeps but I think everybody had fun.  As the host that is all I was concerned with.   Here is a whole bunch of pics from the day... sadly I am not a very good photographer and an even worse one when drunk hah.

My friends from The Lazarus Effect were here with the Dark Angels, Dark Eldar and Grey Knights.

A few of these guys drove over an hour to come join the battle.  Glad they could make it!

Here are my Blood Angels turtled-up in preparation of the horrible bloodbath the Nurgle marines are about to bring.

This epic game between the Dark Angels and Necrons took most of the afternoon.  It ended in a tie.

Sure I'll name drop! ...we've got International 40K super-stud Ben Mohlie in the house (attic) with the proxy Necrons.

If you're trying to make sense of the "Salamander" army here don't.  It's a proxy Necron list and the pod/landraider is a Monolith.

Most of us had a chance to play two games and I know at least I had a great time.  Still a lot more unpainted models and pieces of scenery on the table than I would have liked, but I am making slow progress.   Next time I will iron the felt mats before gaming and have some beer in reserve but overall the day went pretty smooth, this is what "Attic Wars" is all about.   Thanks again to all that came!

Amera Vacuum Molded Terrain WIP - Phase 2!

Quick update here ...I haven't had much time for nerdy things recently.  Here is a small amount of progress.  I basically finished the base-coating on the redoubt, bunker, and the two bastions.  I'd like to go back and add washes, weathering, flock, automated guns, Aquilas etc, but that will have to wait.  Still on deck - all the rest of the Amera terrain and the GW buildings.

Here is another shot of the terrain...  I hope to have them completely finished by the end of the year hah.

It is worth noting that this terrain is incredibly cheap if you live in the UK.  Shipping to the US took a bite out of the savings but still worthwhile in my opinion.

Here is that address again if you are so inclined: http://www.amera.co.uk/

Amera Vacuum Molded Terrain WIP - Phase 1!

So I have a lot of this stuff.  I jumped in deep and got an assortment of everything.  The city buildings (not shown here) are a bit dodgy, strange to assemble, and look very generic next to a GW or Pegasus building.  The rest however, are really quite fantastic.   They are surprisingly sturdy because they are mostly all one-piece molds, and it's not difficult to add further detail with textured primer, sand, flock, bitz etc.   I have to say, I love this terrain.  I still have a ways to go before all of these pieces are completed but I believe it will be a relatively easy task.   The picture above shows my current state of progress.

I used a combination of primers, some of them textured-primers as you can see.  I am such a huge fan of Krylon primer and its "360 degree" spray tip... it sprays perfectly every time.   The Rust-oleum "textured" primer was a disaster and splattered large dots everywhere, but the Rust-oleum "stone" worked great.   Anyway these babies are ready for a quick airbrushing now (Phase 2)...

Oh and here is the link to the Amera Terrain site: http://www.amera.co.uk/

My big fat terrain database... a WIP

So I have a LOT of terrain it seems.  I've never previously had the space to see it all together on one table, and remind me that I may in fact have a problem hah.   I have enough painted pieces for a few games, enough just built for a super-mega Apocalypse game, and still plenty on sprues (most notably another entire Imperial Sector, and an Imperial Stronghold).

These 'no-frills' Gothic ruins by Pegasus are really fantastic.  They were easy to assemble and paint, and they look great, even next to the highly detailed GW buildings.

The Amera vac-mold stuff will be fairly easy to paint once I hit it all with textured primer, and I believe it will end up looking quite good.  I will add some spray-foam to the interior of a few pieces just for weight... these pieces are surprisingly sturdy already.

The GW terrain is of course in a league of its own and I find it a little intimidating to paint as it all has just so much detail to contend with.  So far this is where I am at... yes, a long way to go.

This is the full list of all the terrain that I own, in its various stages of construction.

GW:

1 set of WH40k Jungle trees – completely unbuilt.

1 Imperial Sector - completely unbuilt.

1 Imperial Strongpoint – completely unbuilt.

1 Skyshield Landing Pad – built unpainted.

1 Warhammer Fantasy Fortress – built, partially converted for Planet Strike.

1 Imperial Sector – (1 Manufactorum – primed, 1 Sanctum Imperialis - primed, 1 Basilica Administratum – primed).

1 Shrine of Aquila – primed.

1 Honoured Imperium – primed.

1 Battlescape – primed.

1 Temple of Skulls – primed.

1 set crashed Imperial Aquila Shuttle terrain pieces from BfM – painted.

1 set of 2 small ruins from 3^rd edition Box – painted.

 

3^rd Party:

Package of Woodland Scenic trees – unassembled.

Package of Woodland Scenic tree (clump foliage) leaves – unassembled.

Various Amera vac-mold buildings – completely unbuilt.

Amera small hill & large hill – unpainted.

Amera ruined walls set of 2 – unpainted.

Amera amphitheatre – unpainted.

Amera craters set of 8 – unpainted.

Amera crashed helicopter gunship – unpainted.

Amera redoubt – unpainted.

Amera fortified barricades set of 3 – unpainted.

Amera observation bunker – unpainted.

Amera bastion strongholds set of 2 – unpainted.

Amera scenery set – unpainted.

Amera castle ruins – unpainted.

Gothic City Ruins Set 1 Terrain (Pegasus Hobbies) – painted.

“Dugg” from Dakka vehicle crater set – painted.

Homebrew:

2 hot-wire / razorwire placements – unpainted.

2 foam armory-type structures – unpainted.

2 mossy ruined wall placements – painted.

Old plastic tank (dark angels) – painted.

1 hot-wire / razorwire placement – painted.

2 tiki heads – painted.

6 tree bases varius sizes – painted.

28 jungle trees – painted.

The guy with a Ton of Paints...

Yeah so I've got pretty much all of the major miniature paint brands represented in my collection, even the less popular Tamiya, Andrea, Foundry and Coat D'Arms brands.   Does this make me abnormal? -- wait till you see my 'reserves' in storage.   Anyway, my intent here is to show off my new painting space and also talk a little about the more popular brands of mini paint and give my own spin.

Let me start with my favorite, P3 (Privateer Press) paints.  Only in the last few years have I begun using these paints but I cannot live without them now.  Sanguine Base, Umbral Umber and Menoth White Highlight are used on nearly every model I paint.   All of their paints thin incredibly well, better than any other paint in my collection, and their color selection has some fantastic and rich colors.  The one exception to my heavily favored line would be the metallics, in which I think P3 is very lacking.

On the subject of metallics, I'll jump right into Vallejo.   If you've seen my article on GOLD, you know that I can't say enough good about Vallejo Model Color metallics, particularly the golds.   The Andrea Golds were equally as smooth, but I just love the metallic (gold) color choices from VMC.  In general the non-metallic line of VMC paints are also quite good.   The Vallejo Game Color paints are very nice as well, and they match closely the GW line of paints.   Finally there is the Vallejo AIR paints that have become quite popular as folks are doing more airbrushing in our hobby.   I like these paints, but I do feel they are somewhat over-rated.   The naming conventions for one are really obnoxious, and they do still require some thinning, but my major beef is with the golds.  I now have 4 of each gold-ish color AIR paint and they are all total crap ...each has separated to the point where no amount of shaking can recover.  I was fool enough to keep buying them thinking I had a bad batch.   That said, the Vallejo AIR silvers are actually very nice and easy to use.   The best thing about any of the Vallejo paints is of course the dropper bottle.

So yes the Reaper Masters Series paints also use dropper bottles.   For some reason though these get clogged up incredibly easy.   I don't know if its the agitator or the way these paints dry or what but I am consistently having to unclog the dropper with a needle.   The paints themselves are not bad, and I have a large collection of them, but I will no longer keep buying them as I find they often dry 'chalky' as compared to my other paints.  They do have a great selection of colors and the Triads make shading and highlighting very convenient.   I would say if you are just starting out with shadows and highlights these triads might be a very nice option.

Lastly I will cover GW / Citadel paints.  I do love this brand of paint, though I am increasingly more frustrated with every change to the paint-pot container.    GW makes very nice paints with very nice colors.   I know I am clearly obsessed with gold, but regarding this color GW paints are a real let down.   Some of their other paints are also somewhat lacking in pigment like Blood Red and the yellows etc.   I believe the GW Mithryl Silver is hands-down the best silver available in the miniature paint brands however.   I still have many of the old original Citadel paints that are good as new.  These old paints spent a decade in my parents' uninsulated attic with extreme temps and came out just fine.   With my Blood Angels I still use mostly GW paints because I like to keep things consistent, but when I begin new and different armies I will likely use P3 and Vallejo exclusively.  The paint-pots are just too obnoxious and the prices too high to keep using GW.

I hope someone found this little summary useful.  You might want to also check out the Paint Range Compatibility Chart on Dakka Dakka.

My newly acquired Table Top!

Thanks Bob! ...this beauty was donated to the hobby space for free by a fan of my blog (really? - yes!).   I just hit it with some textured spray paint (pictured) and I may do a small amount of airbrush work on it later but it's pretty much ready to go.  I will have to get some legs but this will bring the total now to Five 4'x6' tables in this Attic.