Where Have You Been?

Bloody great whats happened with my first attempt blogging hey. For anyone that might possibly come and check on this teeny bit of the internet, please be assured that I have not forgotten about it, just had a fair few things happen as of late.

Not only did I have problems with viruses, my Son was also hospitalized with pneumonia due to the last one. Everything is good now, he's out of hospital and on the road to recovery.

Other than that, it was my birthday a few days ago! WOOT! I got a box of Plague Marines, an Obliterator and a Rhino. I'm happy, but now I have yet more bloody models to add to my collection of must paint items.


For the wife I have chosen to test out my painting skillz, I will be painting up Reaper's new Mousling series for her, for Christmas.
I'll of course have to post up my progress, and hope like hell she doesn't look at the blog :P

Chaos Space Marine Tactica

Ok,
Time for some tactics. To be honest, I'd never really taken much time looking at tactics, which meant my army consisted of 3 Obliterators, 2 squads of Berzerkers (with a Rhino and Landraider), Predator and 2 Dreadnought's.

While this may not sound too bad, if I went up against an Imperial Guard army I was generally shot to total shit before I got out of the starting gates. I won't deny I have actually won a couple of matches with this, but not many.

After doing some searching around, and posting on one of Australia's dedicated wargaming forums Wargamerau. I was informed it is wise for me to drop one of the Dreadnought's, Lord (I have a Khorne Lord and Kharn) and Predator for a squad of CSM in a Rhino and a Defiler. I'll be trying this new setup next time I play and see how it goes.

Told You I was Sick! (Again!)

Another month, another illness. Just when I thought it could get even worse, 2/3 of the house has come down with a nasty flu virus. Vomiting, fever, aches, pains... You get the gist.

Anyways, before I got sick I managed to do a little bit of painting. This resulted in getting 1 more model completed and around half way through another. I tried to take some pictures (as I promised I would) though they all looked terrible. Time to buy a new camera, which means adding it to my list of must buy items (which currently sits at OVER 9000!)

One thing I want to do is put out some plugs.

Privateer Press have a very nice brush called Formula P3 Fine Studio Brush. I just find myself constantly using this brush while doing all my normal and higher detail painting. At $12US it's also very well priced.

Also I would like to send out a plug for Escoda Brushes. While being generally unheard of behind big names like W&N. these brushes are bloody fantastic! I bought a 2/0 and a 2 of the Escoda Kolinsky-Tajmyr Sable Point and was amazed. They have a Super fine point that always stays pointed with absolutely no stray hairs. The only downside is the 2 is practically as fine as the 2/0, just larger and more un-wieldy. If you want to a good brush for fine, to super fine detail, you just can not beat the Escoda brushes.

I Told You I Was Sick!

Hello to all the people that don't look at my blog. I haven't really done much lately, as I have been rather unfortunate to have caught a cold. I would like to turn around and say it's like a major flu virus, and I have been clinging to life, but that's not really the case. I've just been feeling like crap and not much else.

Anyways, my life and death predicaments are really not that important. Painting, gaming and modelling are. Well I've done bugger all on all three counts. I have nearly finished around 3 Khorne Berzerkers, and will definitely look at uploading some pictures in the next couple of days.

While I have been ill I did take up reading again. I have a fascination with older Sci-Fi novels, especially Post Apocalyptic stuff. The last book I read was a novel called Rogue Moon by Algis Budrys. The significance of this book is that the final chapter plays out like a modern computer game. Plus my wife pointed out that it seems some ideas of the book were possibly used as inspiration for the movie Moon, starring Sam Rockwell.

Berzerkers Pt 2

Hey,
Been a little while since I posted. I've been playing too much SC2 (starCraft 2) and not enough model painting.

Anyways I have spent a little time on the Berzerkers I was intending on painting, and made myself a nice little area down in the cellar for painting and modelling. It's cold, dank and smells like mould. But it's a nice little spot, where I won't get in peoples way or make the house look messy with my clutter.

As for the Berzerkers. I have gone for a base coat of Chaos Black, followed by a heavily watered down paint over of Scab Red. I literally splashed the Scab Red on like a wash, then blew vigorously to remove bubbles. This was followed up with a wash of Baal Red, then a wash with Devlan Mud. You could probably skip the Baal Red and just use the Devlan Mud.

You could alternatively go over it with Brown Ink (if you still have a bottle of the Citadel stuff). This was very nice, but very glossy. I would in hindsight advise NOT putting on the washes till after the highlights, you hit the red and it's a turd to match once the wash is on.

Next up was painting the details which is very much a straight forward affair. Gold, white and silver on their respective areas. Once I've finished this first model, I'll post up pictures to show the end result.

Bitz and Pieces

Bitz... Don't you just love em! They are small, expensive and in some cases a real turd to get. I had heard that Games Workshop, used to have quite an extensive Bitz collection on offer through their site a couple of years back. This unluckily is not the case anymore.

Now I am stuck to scouring the internets for such things as Aspiring Champion bitz, Icons, Poles and other assorted pieces. On my journeys, I found a couple of good online stores and a couple of decent Ebay stores as well. These include:

The Combat Company: They are an Aussie store with quite an assortment of bitz plus other things. I picked up a bunch of Aspiring parts and also 4 brushes for $20AU. They arrived pretty damn quick so I was happy.

Bitz Box: Not a bad site. Very well priced and arrived quite quickly. The downside is they usually have very little in the way of stuff I'm looking for. I also posted a request on their forums, which was subsequently ignored as well.

Hoard-O-Bitz: Very good little ebay store, postage was a little rich, but he had stuff I just could not get elsewhere.

Window-Box: Another good Ebay store. The owner was nice enough to even put them in a little plastic box. I could just feel the love! :)

Now the last thing I need to mention is the Army Painter Red Primer I bought. What a bastard that was! I started out by laying on so much paint, one of the models looked like they needed to go on a diet. I then got half way through can and the pressure fizzled out on me! Not happy jan!

StarCraft 2 Launch

I know this has nothing to do with Warhammer, painting, modelling, etc. Though this is the biggest event since... Well... StarCraft. I was lucky enough to go to the StarCraft 2 Launch in Brisbane, Australia last night. Over 2000 (would've been funnier if I had the chance to say OVER 9000!) people turned up and damn was it fun!

They had a Sound Alike contest, Best Dressed comp, Trivia Contest and Q&A with SC2 Producer Kaeo Milker. We also snapped up our pre-order copies of SC2 (collectors editions of course!).