Finger Food

Hmmm, all commercial tv channels have filled the entire evening with tacky horror movies, the old cat lady across the street is pouring lines of salt across all windowsills and doorsteps while chanting and I occasionally catch myself muttering "Iä, Iä, fthaghn" under my breath...
It must be Halloween...
I'd better start my preparations!


I made zombie fingers again this year:

They're a basic shortbread recipe*, with green food colouring added and shaved and split almonds for the nails.
*: Take butter, sugar and flour in a 4-3-8 ratio. First mix the sugar and the butter and mix until creamy (at this point I added the food colouring), then gradually add in the flour. Knead into a supple ball. Form whatever cookies you want. Preheat oven to 150 degree Celcius and bake for 30-35 minutes.

Here they are, post bake:

I tend to serve them with a red sauce over the "cut" ends, usually thick cranberry sauce or a red jam.

Now, Halloween isn't really a major event around here, except for shop and pub owners. But if any kids do show up looking for free candy, I can properly give them the finger... :-D

Have fun tonight!

Some stuff

Not much going on hobbywise due to a chronic, stubborn case of Real Life. But, still a little sign of life now and then is nice, isn't it?

Past weekend, a friend of ours threw an arts and crafts day/party. As we had to keep things compact this time the option of taking my miniature painting gear along (as I and a few friend had done previous times) fell by the wayside. Instead I opted to bring my dungeon basing tools along and prep some milliput discs the evening before.
To summarise the party: There was cake, lots of cake, delicious cake! It was good. Cake.... My friends were silly and hilarious, as they are wont to do in congregations above a certain size (i.e. more than one ;P ).
Oh, and I finished the milliput work on the bases for my Knights family, a minstrel, a druid and a paladin. I guess that bears mentioning as well...
This means the minstrel and paladin are effectively ready for paint. The family still needs dirt added and the druid needs erupting plantlife and dirt added before they are ready for primer.
Here they are:

(For completeness sake: the Paladin is a Privateer Press IKRPG Paladin of the Wall with a headswap and serial numbers Menoth Icons filed off, the family and minstrel are from Hasslefree Miniatures, and the druid is from the former Spyglass/Eolith range, now sold by Heresy Miniatures.)

Also some housekeeping: I intended this as a gaming/miniatures blog, but I found that I had an increasing number of medieval/re-enactment related blogs in my blogroll. I consider them relevant to this forum, as a lot of my interests in gaming are inspired by history/historical interest. But to keep things tidy and to prevent confusion, I've separated them into their own little blogroll.

Finally there is this:
An online petition to GW to change their ways and reconnect with their customer base.
A candle in the wind, I know, but I might as well spread the word. For a long time they were the reason I started, and continued, to wargame. They'll never be again who they were when I started gaming, but who knows, the new CEO might take notice? ;-P

See you next time!

"Vade Retro!"

Introducing Father Gerhardt:

Father Gerhardt is the monk assigned as a tutor and protector to the children of my Knight (I really need to decide on a name for the guy!). As such he also does double duty as the priest of the village that forms the heart of the demesne.
The figure is Heresy Miniatures' Brother Bude. A lovely figure to paint, the only problem I had while painting was that I dropped him, bending his cross and taking the paint of his knuckles!
His base is done with my usual milliput method, I've detailed and painted it to look like the well-worn stone floor of a family chapel or catacomb. If you look closely near his left foot you'll see some familiar, but faded, heraldry...

And finally, the view most commonly seen by the undead and unholy things that sometimes invade the catacombs near the village:

I just love the determined look he has on his face!
If his faith won't stop you, his mace will...

Doing 'Shrooms!

Well, painting them, that is... You'll learn more below.

I've been in a bit of a hobby funk for the last few weeks.
The desire to do stuff was there, but no real drive or enthusiasm for any one project. So several things got started, but quickly abandonded again with a "meh" as enthusiasms faded as quickly as they took root. I think it's a combination of the weather/time of year and a general malaise/fatigue from a bad case of sinusitis that I just can't seem to shake. I've had Orks on my desk, Genestealers, Space Marines, I even dug out my old Hellgate London miniature conversions, but nothing got me fired up enough to actually get it finished. Quite frustrating.
Now, I know it's October, also known as "Zombtober" or "Orktober", and I have projects that could latch on to those themes, like I have in the past, but as said above, I just couldn't get excited about either. So I've declared this month to be "Do-whatever-the-hell-I-wantober"
To celebrate the start of this month, I decided to tackle this with a small, easy, manageable project, that I could get finished quickly. Hopefully getting something done would give the boost I needed.
So, I did 'Shrooms:

 "Among adventurers, there are stories about mushroom men sometimes found in the more damp sorts of dungeons and caves. Those who hear these tales for the first time, often scoff at these accounts. When you spend your days fighting the likes of Orcs, Ratmen and even worse horrors in the dark below the earth, how could you worry about something as feeble and fragile as mushrooms, they ask?
Do not begrudge them their doubts, my friend. They, unlike those who live near caverns infested in such a manner, have not spent night after night hidden in their homes as these creatures scrabble at the doors and windows, their eerie, sighing cries sounding in the night. They have not seen the fate of those who breathe their spores, lost loved ones to it.
Those who have know the truth; ancient man did not start eating mushrooms for their taste, or for nutritional value, but for revenge..."
From the accounts of Tobias Wärmduscher, widower and former Truffel-gatherer.

The models are the Agarix from the ever-wonderful Hasslefree Miniatures.
They painted up remarkably easily, using mostly Vallejo Paints and GW Washes.
I've basecoated them in Vallejo Medium Flesh and drybrushed them all over in, consecutively;Vallejo Iraqui Sand, Vallejo Pale Sand and finally Vallejo Flat Aluminium.
Then I washed them with GW Seraphim Sepia, thinned about 50% with water. While this was still wet, I added spot washes in GW Devlan Mud on their lower legs, face and the ribs under their cap. Because both washes were still wet, they blended nicely into each other.
I tinted their caps with a number of glazes with GW Ogryn Flesh wash, with an occasional layer of GW Seraphim Sepia in there as well.
Finally the eyes were dotted with Vallejo Green Sky.

The stone parts of their bases are drybrushed with GW Charandon Granite and GW Dheneb Stone, the dirt parts are painted with Vallejo Burnt Umber and drybrushed Vallejo German Camouflage Ochre.

Here they are in a neat line:

Until next time!

Venting...

I took the afternoon off to paint the recently finished Space Hulk corner. I just couldn't wait to get cracking on it!
After a pleasant afternoon painting in the sun, here are the results:

Though I'm calling it finished today, I may get back to it tomorrow and add some fluid leakage to the big fan, maybe grime the high wall grilles a bit as well. I'm not certain yet.

And because I can't help myself, here's a quick action shot, and an overview of all the pieces finished so far:

(7 down, 31 left... Plus 6 rooms and 5 dead ends and any extras to make it fit for 3rd edition. I'll need all the counters and markers too. Oh, dear, this will take a bit of work, won't it?)

Hulking out

Remember how, in my last post,  I said I was enthusiastically working on my Orks again? Well, guess what...

I'm not.

For some reason, that single true scale Space Marine kept a prominent place on my workbench. Then he got joined by a WIP Terminator, then another, and suddenly I was working on my Space Hulk again... I've got three more Terminators assembled, ready to get plastered in bling.
As an added bonus, my son was on a sleep-over this weekend, so I could claim his play area as a workspace for two whole days! Which resulted in a new Space Hulk corridor section getting ready for paint, the first one I've done in, uh, five years or so...
Here it is:

As you can see, it's a corner which is dominated by a major outlet of the ship's air circulation system.

For some reason the corridor as it is now somehow looks barren to me, it may be the large amount of white plasticard...
I think it will paint up quite nicely though.

This is what it will be added to:

Yeah, it'll take me a bit before I get enough corridor sections for even the first mission...
But hey, I'm not in a hurry. I'd rather build it well than build it quick.

Aside from finishing off the corridor I showed at the start of this post, I also got a bit done on a second passage. It will be a part of the vessel's Ossuarium, where the bones of deceased ratings are kept. No pictures, as it's just a jumble of separate parts right now, but I can say that it features enough skulls that I could build ten corridors without a single skull and still make the GW Terrain Skull Quota. :D
Now I just have to wait until I get another chance to work on it. Oh, well, in the meantime I can continue work on the Terminators and Genestealers (and Hybrids) for the project.

After Action Report.

I had a game of 40K last weekend. The first one since, well, early/mid 5th edition, which makes it roughly 5 years, I'd say?
It was with someone I've never played with before (Maarten), who had an army I've never dealt with before, Imperial Guard (or should that be Astra Militarum, these days...).
My Orks got chewed up hard! But nonetheless it was quite an enjoyable afternoon playing 40K.

So, about the game:
I don't recall exactly what we both had in our armies, we each had 1250pts of our respective forces.
I do recall that I faced an infantry platoon, a lascannon unit, a mortar section, a self propelled mortar, as well as a Leman Russ tank, a Chimaera APC, and a Valkyrie full of veterans with scary guns.
I had my 20-strong mobs, one shoota, one slugga (they rode a Battlewagon), a unit of Trukk Boys, My MegaBoss and his three MegaNob mates, some Lobba Mek Guns, 2 Skorcha trakks and my Lootas.

Here's how our deployment looked from my end:

First turn my Lootas got hit by mortar fire. Hit hard... The entire unit was obliterated in a single shooting phase!
This set the pace for the entire game, really, Maarten used his shooting phase quite effectively.

Another example is here:

The end of the Movement phase, turn two I believe. In my first turn I had rolled my vehicle phalanx up the bridge, intent on taking the objectives that were clustered around it from the imperial guard, well, ... guarding them.  As you can see a Valkyrie just swooped in...
After that shooting phase (and attendant leadership tests for losses. I'm not sure I like the new Mob rule...) the Battlewagon carrying 19 slugga boys and a Nob and the Trukk right behind it, carrying 11 boys and a Nob had evaporated, leaving only the Nobs of the two units. My Stormboys unit (on top of the bunker in front) had been halved, with the irate Nob killing off the other half trying to restore fighting order... 3 Nobs were left on the bridge, where my armoured phalanx used to be...
It was impressive to see, even it did present something of a challenge for me the next turns. ;-P

 Eventually, I managed to get what was left of my Orks into close combat. But by then they were simply too few to really turn the tide. They acquitted themselves well though.
In the end the game was a lot closer that it seemed to me. Despite having less than 10 models left on the field, I had only lost 7 victory points to 9. (Could have been closer, hadn't I prematurely discarded a certain objective card. Oh well...)

So, my first taste of 40K seventh edition, and with a skilled and pleasant opponent to boot.
So what did I think of it?
The core is still the same as before, so no surprises there.
It's nice that vehicles are nice and robust now, it really invites you to be more free and aggressive with them. Which can backfire, as I experienced in this game, but hey, you don't play Orks if you're worried about the occasional plan blowing up in your face. :)
Having had no psyker of my own in this game, I'm postponing judgement on the psychic phase until I've had a more active role in it.
I really like the new dynamic objectives! It kept us both engaged and active throughout the game and presented some interesting puzzles to solve each turn. It forced us to act and think dynamically. Very nice.
I'm sure the game could be optimized further, and no doubt there is already imbalance inherent, and will only get worse with progressive codex releases. But for a friendly game among reasonable people (who despite this still manage to like the 40K setting)  it suffices nicely.

What I took away from this game for my army:
I really have trouble cracking armour with my Orks. The people I used to play with all had fairly infantry-focused armies, myself included, so this has never been a priority for me. Oh, and flyers are dangerous, I should have more than one unit capable of dealing with them.
It was fun playing against an army that doesn't wear power armour, your attacks actually feel effective! :D

And finally, after last weeks indecision, this game put me firmly back in the green hobby wise! I've been painting on the second half of the Meganob unit, doing some converting on my Nob bikers (though the first model for the unit is yet to be completed) and have been going through my stockpile to see what armour-cracking options I already have and could paint.

Until next time!