Junkyard Terrain

These are scaled for 40K, War Machine and Infinity. Four large pieces on board and two smaller pieces on sealed styrene foam. Took over a week to piece together and have been in play in my studio for nearly a year. A coat of paint has been added to touch up light scuffing from storing them on top of each other on the shelf. Really don't recommend stacking terrain like that. Better to separate the pieces with a towel or bubble wrap.

Anyway, here are the pictures:D

And an overhead shot of a few pieces

Tyranid Hive Node

       

This is part of a display board. I won't be painting it. It's nearly done. All that's left is to texture the base and add a few more tendrils then prime it white for the client.  It measures fifteen inches to the platform and nineteen to the tallest spire. Total time has been eleven hours including consultation and initial sketches.  I think the next 'big' project will be the Castle of the Crystal from Dark Crystal.  Should only take me thirty hours.

Some photos of the display board, now completed.

Since the client is doing his own painting, I've primed the board in black for the earthen colors and white for the Tyranid bits. The bright orange Termagant is part of my scale reference minis. 

Adeptus Mechanicus Display Board

I've recently taken on a commission to fabricate an army board reminiscent of an air strip for an army of Adeptus Mechanicus. The client had the idea of the hanger bays from the reboot of Battlestar Galactica.  Since there's to be upwards of 80 bases, several large including two flying bases, he asked for a 24"x36" board. I suggested going with all wood substrate and details in styrene. After a rough layout was drawn, the client, Ben, set out his models to confirm the space then it was off to the hardware store and hobby shops to get the materials.

I went with 3/4" x 1 1/4" got the frame and 1/4" thick fiberboard for the surface. For the bay housing and observation deck I used 3/8" thick fiber board. Now, I don't have a scroll saw so I use a tile knife to cut the shapes needed.

The main board was screwed to the frame and wood filler used to cover the screws and add a somewhat smoother surface to the frame.

The diamond plate, set in a 1:48th scale, was added the whole of it was primed in a Fenrisian Grey mixed with a bit of black.

The AM logo was free hand with a graphite transfer as a guide. The caution stripes were achieved with a bit of masking.

Here are some close-ups of the initial weathering:

UPDATE: Landing Lights and Thruster Burns.

Warhammer 40K Custom Special Rules and Missions: At Any Cost

I've always been a fan of house rules and missions. Some balance out or mix up the meta, some are just amusing and others come from the "what would happen if...". I've always been annoyed with the idea that you could never shoot into a close combat "for fear of hitting friendly models". In earlier editions, this was to avoid the problems of assigning hits and taking saves so it made sense to just bypass the option all together. Now, in 6th Edition, hits are assigned to the models closest to the firer until they are removed as a casualty then on to the next closest and so on until all models are removed or all hits have been resolved.  This is cool in that it encourages you to consider from which direction you want to fire as well as taking full advantage of the skirmish style formation.

Based on this mechanic, I've come up with the CSR:  

At Any Cost

Any scoring unit accompanied by an Independent Character may use this special rule at the start of its Shooting Phase.  This unit selects a Close Combat and targets it for shooting. The shooting unit takes a Leadership Test based on the IC's Leadership.  The IC's Leadership suffers a -1 modifier for every friendly model in the close combat.  If the test is failed, the shooting unit does not get to shoot at all this turn, including Overwatch and any other Snap Shots it may have been able to perform, and is immediately PINNED. If the test is passed, the shooting unit conducts it shooting as if the targeted close combat were all one unit of enemy models. This means that the opposing player rolls saves for all models in the Close Combat that have been assigned a hit.  Models in the affected close combat may not perform any LOOK OUT SIR.  Wounds from this shooting attack do not count towards the close combat results. Regardless if the shooting unit passes or fails the leadership test, it is no longer considered a scoring or denying unit.


Well, there you have it.  Based on my understanding of the rules, it should be fairly hole free. I can think of a few armies that might want to use this.  Give it try and tell me what happened.

In the meantime, enjoy!

Blood Angels vs Imperial Guard at 1250

I had a fun game the other day playing against Imperial Guard as lead by my brother, Marc.  We played Big Guns Never Tire (3 objectives) with Vanguard Strike.  I ran a Librarian Terminator (Blood Lance and Wings), Sanguinary Priest(Plasma and Claw), three full Assault Marine units as combat squads with three in reserve (split a melta between the squads; sarge sporting a Claw) along with the fully kitted Stormraven.  I know a few players out there will drop jaws, cry foul or otherwise have fits about the points sink, but with very little else to deal with fliers, the Stormraven is a good choice and has so far succeeded in it's role more times than it has failed.  Marc castled up behind his Aegis with a Manticore, Command Platoon and Vets with his two Vendettas waiting for turn two. I focused on keeping my Marines out of line of sight as much as possible in deployment and turn one, which was Night Fighting, relying on my reserve units to make the dash for objective denial since Marc placed two of the three objectives in his deployment zone.  The whole of the game played very tactically with the only casualties being a Vendetta, due to the Stormraven and a unit of Marines that got too close to the Manticore.Neither the Librarian nor the four IG Psychers got a chance to duke it out, but I feel the threats were played very well.  Here's some highlights:

Blood Angel deployment and turn two disposition except for the preist...

...who took up position between the two combat squads.

Turn two and the arrival of the fliers!

IG deployment and disposition until turn four.

Turn three the Blood Angels begin advancing on the IG strong point and pay for their arrogance on turn four.

Turn three and four...taking fire!

"EVASIVE!!!"

A little off the track...

Okay, so these aren't directly related to miniatures battle games, but have been a significant influence in my enjoyment of the hobby. These paintings are on their way to a local doughnut shop called Doughbot Donuts who makes the most epic donuts this gamer could ever want. It's a shame I don't live closer 'cause these would rock during a game of Warhammer 40,000. My current favorite is the Bacon Chocolate!

If you ever get into Downtown Sac in the early part of the day, stop by their shop and try them out.  Pure AWESOME awaits!

 Necron99, later known as Peace, is my favorite character from the classic animated story Wizards. Shortly after seeing this film, courtesy of VHS, I converted a Guardsman to look like Peace and used it as a character mini in many a game. I'm tinkering with the idea of doing an allied detachment consisting of a platoon of Necron99 Guardsmen lead by a  Commissar called Blackwolf, though I'll most likely take the concept to a unit of Blood Angels Scouts or maybe some Storm Boys.

Gojira!  Godzilla to us westerners.  Who can deny that the awesome, often stunningly detailed miniature sets featured in the TOHO films hadn't inspired the would be terrain maker in all of us.  For a few of us, the great old monster has become synonymous with the armies we play.

As the Sun Rises!

Here's some shots of a game I had with Ben of Empire's Comic Vault in Sacramento.  Tau vs. Space Wolves at 1750.  Believe it or not: in all the years I've been playing this was my first game facing Space Wolves.  Yeah, I play Tau.  I've been playing them since late 4th edition and have seen the army change quite a bit. Any how, some particulars about our game:

Dawn of War, Big Guns Never Tire with three objective and Tau taking the initiative (I've been unusually lucky with this over the last dozen or so games).  Being a fan of random chance, I suggested we randomly place the objectives adjusting their locations per the rules.  The board I made for Ben is a three-part modular design, so a D3 to determine the section the marker lands in then another D3 to locate its final position.

The Tau reserved a Monat Twin liked Fusion Blaster suit and the Wolves reserved their Landspeeders and Scouts.

The Rune Priest and Predator were the main targets for the Braodsides and Hammerheads while the Suits and Devilfish worked on the tactical squads.  The Wolves, for their part, weathered quite a storm of rail fire and ultimately claimed victory.  In all a very fun game!

As I play more games, and become more familiar with the rules, I plan to start reporting more detailed battle reports.  

Rounding out the GEG Tyranid Scenery Set

At the request of Great Escapes Games for a "larger piece of terrain to block line of sight" I created the Hive Cyst.  The Cyst is a spore like the mycetic spore that carries large creatures and broods, however, the cyst carries the myriad of support organisms like Spore Chimneys, Spires and various plants and burrowing creatures all designed to transform a planet into biomass for the Hive.  This particular Cyst carried Spire Seeds.

I've suggested that the piece be classified as impassable or lethal terrain.

And here's the whole set ready for play...

An Elder Gate for the Thousand Sons

Ben, a Thousand Sons player, had the idea for a Skyshield Landing Pad custom. This structure would tie into his army's theme of the quest for knowledge and sorcery.  We agreed that it should be an old temple of some sort yet still fit within the rules for the GW model.  After some designs, we came up with the idea that it would be configurable for friendly games as well as competitive play.  I chose to style it after an Old One's place of power as described in the lore of both the 40k universe and the Cthulhu stories merging the two in my own way.  The next step was to decide how the shielded and unfurled modes of the SSLP could be represented on the Elder Gate. I came up with a wall of fire since it would make sense that the wall would be mystical fire and that the encircling nature of the wall would relate to the Thousand Sons current emblem: an Ouroboros of fire. It then occurred to me that I could size the Wall of Fire to the proportions of the Aegis Defense Line.  This way, Ben could get dual use from the set.

Once all the preparations were made I began work. The process was fairly straight forward:  meticulously clip squares of acid free Bristol board and glue them to an armature of foam board and styrene. Then seal all the surfaces with more glue. The glyphs and tablets would be made of polymer clay as well as the walls of fire.  Now came another decision: what style of runes and symbols to use for the tablets?  I had at first considered using material from HP Lovecraft's Necronomicon mixed with Lizardmen runes then realized that if these beings were to be the progenitors of all the other races, should not their writing be some kind of root as well. So I looked over all the symbols and alphabets of the other races and began to scrawl across the tablets mixing the styles as the muse hit me.  I came up with four panels which would indicate the ziggurat's purpose: a gate to the Webway and the Warp.