Death Korp of Krieg Command Squad

So I painted this unit a few years back for Golden Demon and made 1st cut, but was just out of reach of honorable mention. The models were actually pretty easy to paint. Almost painted themselves really. I couldn't put the brush down once I started. The amount of detail on the models is amazing. I bless and curse forgeworld at the same time for such gorgeous models but at the cost of an arm and a leg.

Hope you enjoy and leave some comments :)

Light Box for Photos

So I've been wanting to get one for the longest time, but the ones that I want are pretty expensive. Plus that fact that I needed and wanted one at this moment didn't help either. So I decided to google a little bit and found some do it yourself constructions and improvised some of the ideas to make my own. See the one that I've made below.

Materials needed:

1. Shoe box or some sort of cardboard box. Needs to be sturdy.

2. Bright white paper or white cloth.

3. Sharp knife.

4. Ruler

5. Pencil or pen

6. packing tape (the clear ones)

Instructions:

1. To start, I measured about 1 inch from all borders to create sort of a window on the two sides and top of the box.



2. Once the measurements are done, place the ruler down and draw out the lines and then examine.



3. Use the knife and ruler to cut out the windows.



4. Place the bright white paper along the inside of the box. Why the inside you say? Well, if you put the white paper on the outside, the inside will still be brown cardboard and the light will not be effective. The paper inside creates white walls allong the bottom sides and top. With finishing off the bottom and back drop, the white interior will allow the rays of light to bounce around and illuminate the interior of the box more.



5. Tape all the edges of the exterior of the box to create a sturdier box. This will also help prevent any light leaking out rather than bounce around inside where your object of interest is.



6. Print out a background image that is white gradually fading into a different color using a gradient tool on illustrator. (can also be found online if you look for it). Experiment with different colors, they all give the model a different look.

That's it, you should be done with the box and all you need now is a camera (hopefully mounted so it won't move), an object of interest you want to photograph, and lighting. Lighting is key here. I usually 1 daylamp above the box so the light comes through the top window, and two smaller ones on either side. Once in awhile I will put only one on the side and a smaller light source in the interior of the photo box but out of camera view. This creates a shot with more depth with high contrast due to light being directly on the source versus being spread by the white back drop. Not the best photo booth that could be made, but it serves its purpose for me.

Hope this helps and have fun taking some photos of your beautifully painted pieces. I hope you can send me some samples or photos taken using a photo box/booth. Cheers.

AoBR Marines Finished

So I've been all over the place lately between writing army lists for my daemon army to AoBR marines. I kind of like to skip around alot if you haven't noticed yet. But it isn't always a bad thing since I won't get stuck with just some models and I get to play around with different colors alot. This allows me to experiment with color combinations and the like which I wouldn't otherwise. Doing this helps me become an overall better painter using basic color theory and also quicker with painting the standard model(s) for table top gaming.

This leads me to show you my finished AoBR marines. I know I posted a unit WIP a few posts back, but again, while skipping around with so many projects, they unit got done now. If I would have focused on just this unit I would have taken a few hours or so to finish the unit from scratch.

The unit is base coated and has 2 highlights and mud on boots/leg done along with free hand chapter symbol. Enjoy! Comments appreciated.

Tactica: Nurglings

My Thoughts of Nurglings in 40K:

So I've been playing with the idea of having more nurgling units on the table. To me it seems like the nurglings are pretty hard-core objective holders in 5th edition where everybody seems to be going mech. I mean that fact that they are able to deep strike on the objective (if you roll correctly), have an invulnerable save, can't be instant death, 3 wounds a base, have stealth giving them an even better chance in cover.....I think they are just perfect for holding objectives. The fact they are still vulnerable to blast templates still kind of hurt, but you're only taking 2 wounds instead of instant death. That means another shot wasted to try to take them out.

How to use them:

Well I definately wouldn't just put them out in the open or try to charge the enemy with them....that's for sure. Unless I was desperate and needed to tie something up before another unit came to support them. Nurglings by themselves IMO are use-less unless supported by another unit that can provide a counter attack.

Defensive:

The idea that you could possibly have a unit of 8 nurgling bases (24 wounds!) for just over 100 points backed by a unit of plaguebearers at 14 strong for only 210 points, that's a tough 310+ points your opponent has to deal with just so that you don't hold the objective. All you have to do is keep the nurglings in cover close to the objective. Keep the unit of plagebearers close enough that they can counter assault or move to where they are needed. You probably don't even need to have a full 14 man squad, even a 7 man unit of plagebearers are tough to take out (going with fluff, that's why the numbers are 14 and 7). The point is that you are trying to hold the objective until you can bring in the rest or part of your army to stop your opponent. Of course if your opponent really wanted, they could wipe out your nurgling and plaguebearer units if you don't pay any attention to them and leave your units be. Support is key to holding objectives for any army, it's just that nurgle has it better IMO :)

Offensive:

So how can you use nurglings offensively you ask. Well for one, they provide cover saves to your units behind them. For a demon player, this is huge. If my opponent decides to fire bolters or whatever at my plaguebearer unit, as long as I have nurglings in front of them I get a cover save which is better than the invulnerable save. Plus a re-roll for FnP. I would much rather have to roll a 4+ instead of a 5+ any time any day. Who wouldn't? Not only the cover saves, but the fact that once I get close enough, I can tie up my opponents units (either charging or taking the charge) until my other units can join in. Most nurgle units have the slow and purposeful rule which kind of hurts their movement. This allows opponents to punish them and kill as mush as possible before CC. But if you can tie them up for a turn or two, that would make a world of a difference. Less shots would be taken by the plaguebearers who can then slowly take their time to walk into the fight with more numbers on my side to help make the difference.

So your thoughts, should I take 3 units of nurglings at around 7 or 8 strong?

Please feel free to post a comment, both negative or positive comments will only make my army better in the long run.

Updated Daemon List

So since I really can't build or paint much with the move, I've been coming up with a list for my daemon army. Originally I was going to do an all out nurgle army, but with a low WS and only wounding on 4+ (with the opponent getting an armor save), it was kind of tough to win....even to compete. So I decided that I was going to have a one two punch by using nurgle and khorne.

The reason behind this is that by playing nurgle, I will have pretty tough units to defend objectives and just be a pain in the butt for my opponent to try to waste their time getting rid of them. If they decide to just ignore nurgle units, then they will have a harder time as the game continues to wipe them out from contesting or holding objectives and even for kill points. As for khorne, what can I say, the power of the hellblades just keeps on calling my name. The fact that even a small desperate unit of 5 or 6 bloodletters having the capability of wiping out an entire 10 space marine squad just is not fair at all. So having about 15 of them or so should be pretty fun.

All in all, I am not making this army to be competitive as I do not go to local tourney's (work gets in the way...yes I work 6 days a week), but for the fun of it. Plus I would like to make this a showcase type army for when our gaming club sets up next year in Games Day Baltimore. I will be using VC Ghouls as my plaguebearers and I will try to convert some of them along with bloodletter pieces to make the entire army seem more as a whole instead of individual squads just put together.

Here is the list:

Ku'Gath
7 Nurglings (instant death does not apply so 3 wounds each base should make it fun and annoying for the opponent)
30 plague bearers split into 2 groups
25 blood letters split into 2 groups
5 blood crushers
1 DP with mark of nurgle
1 DP with mark of khorne

All adds up to right around 1750pts.

Give me your opinion on the army list and what I can do to make it better. Although I will not be competing as mentioned before, I still don't want an army that can't win either :D

Moving = Sucks

Sorry for lack of updating everyone. Unfortantely for me, the past couple of weeks and the next few upcoming weeks will be very busy for me. I've been slowly moving stuff into the new place and I have no idea which boxes some of my models and things I need are! This sucks....I have to go through each box and pick the things I need and pull them out to model and paint. Most of my other stuff will be stored away in storage until we can move all the things out of the old place and organize the new place a bit. But have faith as I will definately make up for it :) Maybe some pics will be posted later of the move and crap (boxes) all over the place.

AoBR Marines

Sorry to all my viewers for the lack of updates. Recently being busy packing and moving. It's kinda hard to keep track of my projects while stuff is packed in boxes and in two different places at one time. I will be a little bit more settled in in about two more weeks or so. During that time I will try to post up much as I can with what I have available atm.

Anyway, I just wanted to get away from building the IG army for a bit and get some paint on the brush. I figured I would just paint up some AoBR marines to very good table top quality. I'm thinking about selling them, but not sure how much they would actually fetch me.

Soooo....this blog is to see what my viewers think. If you were to see these mini's on either ebay or online store, how much would you pay for them? Mind you that they still have some finishing touches that need to be done along with a more finished base. Plust the unit would be 10 man strong including a missile launcher (not shown).

Valkyrie

So it's been almost a week now and I've been pretty busy with moving to a new home. Working mornings and evenings fixing the place up and afternoons working at the job. :( I'm so tired and sore, but I wanna get the IG army built up before I start test painting and painting the army.

An update from my last blog entry with the 1750 list. I'm debating if I should take out some of the tanks and substitute it with a pair of either valkyries or vendettas. This would give me more transport capability and fire power from the both the multiple rockets pods and twin-link las canons. Your thoughts...

Here are some pics of the valkyrie/vendetta in progress of being built.

Jungle Fighters

So with the release of the new IG Codex, I'm beginning to build my IG army. I haven't figured out exactly what it is that I want in the army, but I have a rough idea. This may all go in the trash after I play a test game and lose horrifically, but I never know. That's why I'm writing this to see what your opinions are on my army list so far.

The 5th edition having many armies go mech, I decided to counter that with a mech army as well. The standard IG Troop choice isn't going to be all that great. I mean the best choice of a troop slot is the veteran squad with BS 4. You get 3 special weapons with the unit and mounted in a Chimera, they can be both fast and deadly to opposing players vehicles. But with the amount of troops contesting objectives and kill points sake, I'm also planning on taking some big guns. And I mean some BIG GUNS!!!

Here is the list as it stands. May change after a game test or your opinions.

HQ:
Company Command Squad w/Colonel Straken, Regiment Standard, Vox, 2 Plasma Guns, and a Chimera w/extra armor, camo netting

Troop:
Veteran Squad w/power wpn, vox caster, 3 melta guns, chimera w/dozer blades, extra armor

Veteran Squad w/vox caster, 2 plasma guns, 1 melta gun, chimera w/extra armor, camo netting

Veteran Squad

Veteran Squad

Heavy:
Leman Russ Vanquisher w/extra armor

Leman Russ Vanquisher w/extra armor

Leman Russ Exterminator w/extra armor

Medusa w/bastion breacher shells

Medusa w/bastion breacher shells

Colossus

Total Points: 1750

The idea is that I would have the 3 ordanance tanks in a corner or behind terrain with the two chimeras with camo netting on the sides to provide cover. The command unit and 2 of the veteran squads would sit back for counter attack. The other two veteran squads could try to claim objectives with the 3rd chimera providing support. Lastly, the 2 vanquishers would target enemy armor while the exterminator would target enemy transport vehicles or squads.

Sounds all great in my head, but I would have to play test the list to see if it can compete or not. My first thoughts are that I probably should lost a few tanks and get a few more veteran squads...but the thought and idea of so many templates blasting away at the enemy was too hard to resist. Your thoughts?

GD Entry Pics

As I promised here are some pictures I took of the GD entries from this year. All the models made it into first cut, but failed to achieve anything further. Hopefully by next year I can learn to tighten up my blending and work a little bit more on contrast to brighten the models up a little bit more for the poor quality lighting at gamesday. Hope you enjoy the pics and leave some comments for me :) Suggestions on making the models better would help too.

Thoughts on GamesDay 2009

So I'm back after a pretty fun weekend. I got to see alot of great things and overall had a good time. Mostly because I was hanging out with the club members and browsing through other club tables.

Golden Demon entry was ok. I was able to make first cut with all four of my entries, but unfortunately fell short of any placing or even honorable mention. Lighting was horrible as usual and I felt that some of the models that won this year shouldn't have. There was ALOT of competition this year IMO than last year or the year before.

One of the greatest moments for me was being able to sit down with the great painters in the demon lounge and just sitting and chatting with them. I tried to pick their brains as much as possible about their styles and techniques. After a disappointing no win entry this year, I brought my Khorne Lord over and asked them about their opinions on what I can do to make it pop and stand out. To my surprise some of them were dumb founded that I didn't make even honorable mention, but all agreed that I needed just that one or two extra hightlights. Though I didn't win, in the long run I did because I felt that my piece was appreciated by even some of the greatest slayer sword and demon winners. There will always be next year.

I was also stoked that a fellow club memeber, i.e.- JAWABALLS made first cut with his BA honor guard. This was also the first time he has entered and I just wanted to give a shout out to say GOOD JOB JAWA!

BTW, in case you're wondering...I will have pictures up soon of my pieces as well as fellow club members pieces.

GD Entries Done!

Finally, after painting non-stop, I have finished painting my entries. I will be entering the Khorne Lord and also a Nurgle Dreadnought. I will take some pictures during Gamesday and post up either on Saturday night or Sunday night. I wonder how I'll do, but either way I am very happy with the turn out of my models. As I tried new techniques that I am not used too, this will be very interesting to see compared to some of the other models there.

If you get a chance while at Gamesday, stop by the table which is being run by Jawaballs and Fritz. I'll probably be there building and painting some mini's :)

Also now that GD entries are out of my mind, I will be back to painting and building all sorts of mini's and posting them up to show progress.

Lastly, for those in the NY area, if you haven't heard already...BFS located in White Plains is hosting a tournament on the 30th of May. 40 players are signed up so swing on by to check it out.

GD Entry Update!

Well, it's time to push for the finish line! GD is just around the corner and I have ALOT of work to still do. Below are some pictures of my still WIP Khorne Lord in Terminator Armor. I'm hoping that I just place top three with this model as it is the one model that I have spent the most time on and lots of lovin'. Maybe over 16+ hours so far and still some more to be done to finish. If I don't place...maybe an honorable mention or best of forgeworld would be nice :D

Anyways, enough yapping by me...I gotta get back to painting. Leave a comment pls. I love to read them and respond.

I know I know....it's been a long time. But I was really busy with work, moving to a new home, and steadily painting for GD....I just didn't want to be bothered with taking pictures while I could have been painting. After awhile, time passed by faster than I could have imagined. I mean, there is only 1 week left for GD and I need to still be painting 27/7 to make it in time. Anyway, for you long wait, I just posted up some teasers as I don't want to post the entire model until after it is done. I hope you enjoy.

Black Matt's Black Legion

Just a shout out for you guys to check out a fellow club members blog. Another great player and painter at our local club 'Battle for Salvation'.

http://chaos-space-marines.blogspot.com/

Slow progress of GD entry

Well, here's a small update on the status of my GD entries as of now. I am currently busting my butt to finish off the armor on the khorne terminator lord. That way I can start working on the NMM and face. IMO he is about 20%-25% done. As for the nurgle dreadnought, I put a couple of coats of rust on him and going to finish off some of the skeleton sections. Dreadnought is about 85%-90% done. As for squad, the ork stormboyz are all primed and one model has base coat skin...alot of work still needed. I just hope I can finish in time this year with my entries.

I decided to drop the librarian vs sorcerer idea because there is just too much to be done and too little time to finish it. Some more thought and work needs to go into this piece to make my vision a reality and I don't want to make it look like crap trying to rush it.

Well, anyway, the pics below are of the khorne termi lord. pics do not do it justice IMO. some of the club members agreed that the blog is not showing the blending as it is in real life. but enjoy regardless. As usual comments and suggestions appreciated.

Another GD Update

So I'm still working on the nurgle dreadnought, but I also needed to start on my single entry. I will be painted up the forgeworld khorne terminator lord. I thought the model was just jaw dropping....literally, like the khorne lord himself. I decided instead of my usual blending technique that I always use, I was going to try out using 'juices'...or in other words, glazes of paint over and over and over again to achieve seamless (almost) blending.

I start with a mid-tone color instead of the usual base coat then highlighting with lighter paints. One the mid-tone has been based on the model, I use a mix of 1:1 base and a highlight color and water it down ALOT. I apply the glazes over and over until I like the color. Then I start on the shadow with is 1:1 basecoat and scorched brown. I don't use black because it tends to be too cartoony looking and not realistic. I think the brown tends to give it a warmer shadow. If I really really need, I'll use a very little bit of black and mix it with the shadow mix to darken a tad.

WIP so far on the glaze in the pic below. I took this pic before I threw on a few more glazes or shadow. I still need to do an extreme highlight and extreme shadow....2:1 ratio or 1:1 with a bit of black or white.

Comments and suggestions appreciated. Especially this is my first go at glazes, those that know better, please critique...the more critiques, the better overall piece I will have for GD. :D BTW, sorry for the bad pic.

Update on GD pieces

Nurgle Dreadnought so far.....pictures don't really show the blending I've done. Looks better in person IMO. I'll probably do another stage or two of highlighting and shading on the dreadnought armor on the base. As for the Nurgle Dread itself, I've got 2-4 more stages of highlighting and shading to do.

I'm going to dirty it up a bit more and make the contrast between the light areas and dark areas a little bit more extreme due to the horrible lighting conditions at GD. I think the sharper and more intense contrast will show better in the hall with the lighting. As for the arms, still a WIP, but getting there. ONLY 1 MONTH LEFT.......grrrr....need to finish this piece up soon so I can work on the other models I want to enter.

Comments appreciated. Suggestions more then welcome.

Nurgle Daemons vs Fritz Harlequins

So to start out, we began with a list of 1,750 points a piece. My list consisted of:

Ku' Gath
Epidemius
3 units of 14 Plaguebearers
2 units of 3 Flamers
2 Daemon Princes with wings

I won the initiative and gave Fritz first turn. He deployed his entire of into the corner as the mission was Annihilation. I believe he had Eldrad, 2 units of snipers, 3-10 man units of Harlequins, and 3 wraith lords. He packed everything into a corner....hmmmm....gonna be tough to kill his units as I was hoping he would spread them out a bit for me to pick them off one unit or two at a time.

Turn 1:
Fritz deployed everything as mentioned...packed into his corner...hiding like cowards...or was it just another eldar trickery?

When my turn came along, I rolled my die to see if the Nurgle gods favored me and my champions, but alas it was not meant to be. My second group would DS in....not what I had planned for. But it somewhat worked out for me since I had both my flamer units in the second group and Fritz had his army packed in. Along with my 2 flamer units, I had 1 DP and 1 unit of PB deepstrike in. All but the DP materialized where I needed them and the DP popped up in the open and not behind a building like I had intended. The flamer units scorched the earth and the tricksters. The first flamer unit was decieved by the Harlequins trickery and must have flamed the wrong area as only 1 Harlequin perished. The second flamer unit paid no attention to the false images of dancing aliens and flamed them to death. All but 1 sniper survived and ran off the table.

Turn 2:
Fritz would begin this turn by moving up 2 Harlequin units and shooting at the flamer units that popped out of the warp. He managed to kill 2 flamers from each unit. His wraithlords and second sniper unit would take aim at my lone DP hanging out in the open and causing 2 wounds on the mighty prince. Come assault phase, the harlequins easily dispatched the remaining flamers back to the warp.

I knew my flamers would bite the dust this turn. So I needed some good reserve rolls......blank, blank, blank, and only 1 unit would come on....DOH! So Epidemius and his unit of plaguebearers would materialize in the open on Fritz's left flank. No shooting and no assault for me. :(

Turn 3:
Fritz had moved his units closer to the plaguebearer unit on his right flank. Hoping that my high toughness would see me through it, I didn't mind the imment attack much......what i fool i was. Fritz began firing his wraithlords and snipers and finally took down my DP which was a big threat to him. He assaulted two units of harlequins into the plaguebear squad and totally cut them down.....my downfall was that he cast doom on them allowing for any failed wounds to be re-rolled. Though I though my high toughness would help, it didn't help as the harlequins rolled 6's (he needed only 5's and 6's to wound) to rend and I would only get my invulnerable save. And Fritz must have used some eldar trickery with image altering powers or something because he rolled a crazy amount of 6's.

Finally on my turn the rest of the army would appear....I'm thinking a tad too late by now. I decided to be bold and take a chance. After destroying the right flank of plaguebearers, the harlequins were kind of packed together. So I unleashed Ku' Gath on the left flank and threw a nurgling bomb at him.....what a low point of the game for me. He hit 3 harlequins and rolled triple 1's to wound them.....grrrrr.....then for fun i saw what i would get if i rolled again....triple 6's!!!!! why do the gods of nurgle hate me so......anyways, with that epic failure to do any damage there i knew the game would end soon.

Turn 4:
Fritz's unloaded shots in Ku' Gath and he took 4 wounds. He also inflicted 1 wound on the second DP. In the assault, Fritz took out the Greater Daemon and his right flank. He charged my second plaguebearer unit with two harlequin squads....same story as before....with doom on my unit, i lost all but 1 plaguebearer. He swung back only to miss and vanish back into the warp with his tail between his legs.

On my turn, I had to atleast redeem myself and take out 1 more unit. I flew my DP behind the harlequins on his left flank and marched my last plaguebearer unit forwar. No shooting. Charged both PB and DP unit into the Harlequins and won combat. Fritz failed the morale test but unfortunately for the Harlequins, the DP caught them while they turned to run and cut them down.

This is where we finished the game as I called it as there was no way I would be able to continue and put pressure on his units. All in all, it was a great and fun game. My thoughts are that what hurt my the most was 1) Doom on my units 2) Evenly dispributing my groups 3) and lastly, placement of my units when they come in the game. But at the same time I feel that if I were playing against marines or IG, there would be no rending and only 1 model with a powerfist or powersword that I would have to deal with....not a full unit with rending and re-rolls to wound on top of that. I will continue to tweak my list and play a few more games before really trying to make a fully competitive list. Maybe I'll go the local tournament being held end of April to see how the nurgle list does.

GD Entries

Ok, so I'm still working on the Nurgle Dread...no pics up yet since I want to finish up a little bit more and make it look nicer :).


I'm also throwing in a unit of Ork Stormboyz for the unit entry (see pic below). I think I'm going to do a unit of either 5 or 6. Another few pieces I recieved in the mail is the FW Inquisitor Rex and FW Khorne Lord. Which should I do for single and which should I toss into Open? Your thoughts and comments as to why will help me out IMMENSELY. I'm also debating about doing a Tyranid model for the large model category, but not sure yet....I'll wait until I'm confident enough that my other models are mostly done first.

Nurgle Dreadnought GD

Ok....so it's been quite some time since my last update...I've been pretty busy with work and all, but i figured it was boring to post up putting together models and all. Anyway, I started work (finally) on some of my GD entries for this year in Baltimore. Usually I procrastinate until the last two weeks or so, but I'm being good this year :)

I decided I wanted to do the Nurgle Dreadnought because 1- it'll help me finally put together some nurgle pieces for an army, and 2- I think the FW model is just fantastic and filled with detail, which I like alot.....if you haven't noticed by now, I get into the detail part of everything.

The first few layers are drybrushed on, but once i give it a wash, i'll be doing to painful task of painted each armor plate, maggete, pus, etc. with highlights and shadows to make each part pop.

Pics of progress so far......BTW, for some reason while working on this model, i felt a bit of pain in my left pointer finger, and you'll see in the pic why......so wierd.....This shows you the power of NURGLE....lol.

Realm of Daemonic Damnation

If you would like to follow along with my Daemon Army, please follow my blog at:

http://realmofdaemonicdamnation.blogspot.com/

Nurgle Plaguebearers

So it's been quite awhile since my last update, but some good news.....I got pics for you :)

Going ahead with my last post on doing the nurgle/tzeentch daemon army, I broke out some boxes of nurgle plaguebearers and got to work. The first pic has 14 plaguebearers in it. You'll notice a slight difference in color from the back row to the front row. That's because I used the 'dipping method' on the back row, matte varnished, and devlan mud washed it. The first row was just base coated, watered down (really watered down) paint for pink areas, then straight devlan mud wash. Please comment which you like better if you can see clearly enough on the small pic. If requested, I'll throw up some bigger pics for comparison.

The next few shots are more plaguebearers getting ready for primer and paint, unit of BA marines (including the dread from first pic) I'm painting up to throw up on ebay. PM/email me if you want to make an offer. I'll sell it to you instead of putting it on ebay, then we both won't have to worry about ebay's ridiculous surcharges. Pics of comission work (BT dread), and my current work shelf with stuff in WIP. Alot has been just sitting there and this shelf gets cleared and full again about every 3-4 weeks LOL. Enjoy the pics and leave comments...I'll throw up some zoomed in shots on request.