For my recent effort at painting orks (see here for the finished product – a complete Combat Patrol force), I decided to try a few new things.

First up, a quick thanks to Ron at From the Warp for an old tip of his.  I cannot find it, but he was the first to mention putting a small piece of plasticard underneath your models’ feet.  It lifts them off the plastic base just enough so that when you add sand and glue the model doesn’t look as if it’s sinking into the dirt.  I did this for all the orks in that post above, including the Killa Kans.

Anyway, on to the tips:-

1. Speed Painting

There’s nothing like yet another speed painting tip to make your average ork player salivate uncontrollably like a Wall Street banker during bonus month.  This one would work for tyranids and, frankly, practically any models without large areas of metal or armour.

Step 1.  Prime your models white.  I didn’t include a photo of this because, well, how boring would that be?  If you cannot prime a model white without a photo to guide you,  maybe you should take up knitting instead.

Step 2.  Either paint or (preferably) airbrush Badab Black or the black wash of your choice over the models.  However you do it, thin it with water 1:1, as all you want to do is shade the recesses, not blacken the whole model.

Step 3.  Once the wash has dried (be patient), drybrush the models pure white.  This leaves your models pre-shaded from pure white to black.  Now for the fun part.

Step 4. Apply your thin paints and washes.  In this case, I wanted green ork skin, but skin should have some colour depth to it, and a green wash over white would be rather flat.  So I thinned down some bright yellow paint (3:1) and put a light coat on.  Once that had dried, I put a fair amount of Thraka Green wash on.  Here are the three stages side by side:-

From left: basic greyscale, thin coat of yellow, Thraka Green wash applied.

The pre-shading does a lot of the work, making the shadows dark and the highlights bright.  As someone who has painted various versions of ork flesh before, this is by far the best ratio of results to effort I have come across.

I should name all the grots, but painting the names on the bases takes ages.

The clothing is just Vallejo Brown Ink, although I also used Skin Wash and Sepia inks.  The hat is just a few coats of Baal Red wash.

Where the technique falls down is on metals and any large, smooth surfaces.  Watering down the metal paint to the point where the shadowing would show made the metal paint too thin to be effective, so just do the metals with your usual technique.  Here’s mine.

2. Greasy Metal

I first saw this mentioned on a forum, and this is my version.  All the gretchin guns are done this way, as is the metal on the Big Mek.  I didn’t do the Kans like this, because rust and grease usually aren’t found together.

Step 1.  Paint with Boltgun Metal.

Step 2.  Mix up some Tamiya Clear Orange with some Vallejo Black Ink.  Thin with water as desired and slap it on.

Step 3.  Selective wash with Devlan Mud with or without some Badab Black, although you can skip this step if you just want speed.

Step 4.  Drybrush with Shining Silver as usual to highlight.

The Tamiya Clear Orange is the secret sauce here, but the unhealthy sheen and sickly colour (when mixed with black ink) really stands out.  For best results, re-apply a thinned-down version of Step 2 after varnishing, as matt varnish will knock the sheen off.

3. Blood and Gore

The blade is mostly free of blood, due to its motion, but you can see where the gore has collected in the blade guard at the bottom.

As above, most of the blood has collected where it would be flung off the rapidly moving chainsaw teeth. Look for the lumps on the iron spike, and where the teeth of the saw re-enter the housing.

I don’t like overdoing blood and gore but, if you gotta do it, better make it look special.  I think this is the best way to get convincing blood and gore, in anything from a simple smear to a drill dripping in viscera.  Less is more (unless you are painting Kharn, for whom more is always more).

Always do this after varnishing your models, since you want the glossy sheen from the Tamiya to remain.

Blood mix.  Mix up 3 parts of Tamiya Clear Red with 1 part each of black and purple ink.  It will thicken quickly, which is ideal, but does cut the working time down.  You can apply it with a brush, but it is best applied with some sponge or a piece of ripped foam from a blister pack.

If just shiny, gloopy blood isn’t enough, you need gore.

Gore method.  Take a tiny amount of tissue paper, and soak it in watered down PVA.  The PVA ensures it won’t come off your model easily.  Then (using some suitable tools such as two cocktail sticks), tear off a tiny piece, soak it in the blood mix and apply it to your model.  You really only need very little, as large chunks of viscera will fall off all by themselves – we just want bits of liquified organs and pulped connective tissue, here   Take a look at the two photos above to see how I placed the pieces.

Once the blood has dried, the tissue paper will likely have a matt finish.  Apply gloss varnish with a brush as needed.

The only time I don’t use this method for blood is when I want realistic splashes, such as on the ground.  For that, this mix is far too thick, but if it’s splashes you want, then mix up some black, red and purple ink, load up a paintbrush and literally blow the ink onto your model.  Practice on some paper first, but you can get some incredible effects this way.

4. Vallejo Liquid Mask

Not much to say about this.  Ordinary chipped paint effects involve painting the chips on top of the paintwork, which can only look so good.  For example, here the chips were done by painting black, and then painting over the black with silver:-

Image copyright Games Workshop. Used without permission.

If you can actually chip the paintwork for real, it will look a lot better:-

It takes some planning ahead, but all you need to do is work out what the chipped paint will reveal.  Will it be bare metal with/ without rust (as above) or will it be a base coat?  Once you’ve worked it out, just paint on the colour you want to “reveal” – Boltgun Metal in the above photo – and then apply the Liquid Mask.  It is very thick and will ruin a paintbrush, so I used the tip of a cocktail stick.  Apply it to the edges and wherever paint might chip or rust might bubble through.  Less is more, unless you like more.  Orks like more.

Once the Liquid Mask has dried (about 10 minutes), you can paint over it.  In the case of the Killa Kan above, I used Mechrite Red and then layered lightening mixes of Red Gore, Blood Red and Blazing Orange.  Once all that was done, and dried, I rubbed my thumb along the edges and the Liquid Mask came away instantly, revealing the Boltgun Metal underneath.  Instant chipping!  I added some Flesh Wash Ink for rust, and some Devlan Mud and other bits and pieces for weathering (Tamiya Smoke applied neat makes for superb engine oil).

And that’s it!  Hope you found something to help you in your painting

Behold – 400pts of the first 40k army fully painted from start to finish by yours truly.

Introducing Big Mek Boss Dredgob and his Rekkin Krew.  Boss Dredgob had to leave his last few Warboss employers – usually in the middle of the night, loaded up with all the choicest bitz and gubbinz before the Warboss noticed his favourite battlewagon was missing key parts – and has now set up shop in the badlands, aided and abetted by his ever loyal, ever willing and ever-more-likely-to-be-strapped-into-a-Kan Gretchin.  Out there, far from the covetous eyes of his former employers, Dredgob churns out as many of his beloved Killa Kans as possible.  His dream, sent to him one night by Gork (or maybe Mork) – to see the badlands filled horizon to horizon by a clunking, hissing, gouting stampede of mechanical mayhem.

His dream draws ever closer…

I will put up a couple of posts showing how I went about painting these guys.  The Kans took ages, but the other models were very quick.  If you have any questions or comments in advance, just let me know.

(* unless you live in Glasgow, Scotland, of course, this is a complete lie)

Less than 24 hours ago, I posted this about my attempts to make a high resolution, full colour, modular set of city tiles for games of Malifaux.

Less than 12 hours ago, the Laughing God of the Internet delivered this to my Twittery inbox:-

WorldWorksGames and Wyrd Miniatures are proud to present TerraClips.

TerraClips is an innovative 3D, modular terrain system which allows gamers to create expansive, multi-level layouts on-the-fly. Simply punch out the durable components, clip them together using our patent pending TerraClips system, and PLAY! Exquisitely detailed textures created by award winning artists at WorldWorksGames combine to make this one of the most eye catching, easy to use, and flexible terrain systems on the market.

TerraClips is suitable for 25mm to 32mm miniatures, tabletop gaming and role playing systems. Mix & match components for an unprecedented range of terrain combinations and designs. TerraClips allows creators to freely stack buildings, roads or sewers below while allowing easy anytime access to each discrete level.

Available this August online and at your favorite hobby store! Official TerraClips website launching in August!

And added:-

Special note to the WWG crowd; Yes, this is a tangible product. No you don’t have to print or cut or do…well…anything! This is heavy gauge 1.5mm thick, die-cut card, pre-printed with a beautiful satin finish, utilizing our patent pending TerraClips connectors (transparent connectors). Makes a guy smile just thinking about it Come see us at the WWG booth or at Wyrd’s booth at GenCon for a first hand look at the shape of things to come!

Not to be left out, Wyrd Miniatures included Terraclips in their mammoth preview of releases for Gencon 2010 (who wants to be my ninja buyer? Dan?) – Gencon Preview.

Even once the first gush of geek-love has passed, I am still convinced that this is going to be huge.  Huge.  Maybe the 40k-only players among the readers here might not see this, but a full colour, ready to use, high resolution, modular and robust terrain system at an affordable price is going to go through the general gaming market like a dose of salts.   The concept and execution fits so many different tabletop miniatures games that there are a host of markets this could expand into.  This will (unless the implementation is fatally flawed) pick up awards from places like Tabletop Gaming News without blinking.  It is perfect, and I can say that because it is exactly – exactly – what I was trying to make in the first place.  Okay, that sounds a bit hubristic, but it does tick all the boxes I drew up when I did an overview of the gaps in the pre-made terrain market.  What is WWG stock going for, right now?

And also, Laughing God of the Internet, can I have £1m?  Hey, it worked last time

Bad attitude? No...bad assitude!

Words cannot express how poor I find the official GW Farsight model, or at least not unless I intervene and put them in the right order, which would go something like this:  a static, lifeless, uninspiring lump of metal as boxy as a boxer in a box.  We will not speak of it again.

So, I made this fella.

The model is based on Shas’o R’myr, aka the finest Tau battlesuit ever made, but I had to do a bit of chopping and changing.

First up, I headed over to Tau of War.  Old Shatter Hands has been in my blogroll for a long time, and he is overdue a shout out, so here’s a shout out for just one of the things that make Tau of War one of the great Tau blogs – the amazing crisis suit conversions he creates.  Specifically, I took a long look at this post, “Secrets of the Fio’la” and, in particular, what OSH had done with the hands.  Suitably inspired, I ordered some bits and started playing about with the pieces of R’myr.

His original right arm comes with twin plasma rifles, but Farsight only has one (poor lad), so I had to ditch that piece and find a replacement.  In my bits box.  You know you’ve been buying too much Forgeworld when your bits box has loads of resin in it, and I happened to have a resin plasma rifle.  I had to decide whether to attach it to his left or right arm.  That brought up the question of which arm to put his sword on.

You see, Farsight gets a sword.  Not just any sword, but one that counts as being wielded by a Monstrous Creature in close combat.  So Farsight isn’t bothered about his measly little single plasma rifle, because while all the other Tau battlesuits get wee bonding knives, he gets a sword nearly as tall as he is.  This cat is the William Wallace of the Tau Empire*

One option was to put the plasma rifle on his right arm and stick the sword in his shield (left) arm.  The GW model (No! Must not speak of it!  Will to live…draining…) takes this option, but you lose a lot of potential for interesting and dynamic posing by combining sword and shield in the same arm.  If you put some blades on the shield, that might work, and I thought about that, but then I remembered Inquisitor Hector Rex from Forgeworld, and how much I loved his pose and knew that I had found my inspiration.

Now I needed a sword, and I quickly settled on the Wraithlord’s weapon as the one to use, but I couldn’t get a hold of the piece from any of the bits sites.  I bit the bullet, ordered a Wraithlord hand and scratchbuilt the sword from plasticard.

Click to embiggen

I printed out a photo of the sword from one of the bits sites at various scales, picked the one I wanted, glued it to some 2mm plasticard and cut it out.

For the handle, I used the chain from a Chaos defiler close combat weapon.

His hand is from the Wraithlord kit.

I couldn’t use the forearm that came with R’myr, as it had the twin plasma rifles attached, so I carefully trimmed a normal XV8 forearm off, sliced the elbow joint in half and drilled a hole for the resin piece to slot into.

Click to make his sword grow larger

The metal Tau symbol on the sword came from my bits box, but I have no idea which model it comes from.  It had some antennae attached, so might have been a commander bit or an XV88 bit.

To ensure the necessary strength in the sword, I drilled a 0.5mm hole in the top and bottom of the hand, and corresponding holes in the sword and handle, pinning them with some brass rod through the hand.

On the reverse of the sword, I needed something to cover up the weapon slot in the forearm, so took fuel cells from two fusion blasters and connected them with more of the 0.5mm brass rod.

Adding the plasma rifle to his left (shield) arm was simplicity itself, as it fits in snugly just in front of his hand.  I considered using the left hand from a Wraithlord, but after blutac-ing it in place decided it didn’t really look right.  A piece clipped from a pulse carbine covers the join between plasma rifle and hand.

I need to do a tiny amount of greenstuffing at some joins, and smooth out the blade of the sword, although with all the dings and notches I will be adding to it, I might not need to.

This model will be my HQ for the upcoming [ELG] Counter Attack tournament, and I hope to take many power-armoured heads on the 21st August!

As for painting, I will get to that once I have finished my ork Combat Patrol, but I am very excited about the new Vallejo Liquid Mask I have been using on my Killa Kans, and the simply amazing chipped paint effects it allows.  Given Farsight’s background, expect to see some serious weathering on his armour, along with some notes on how I went about it.

(*Yes, Scottish historical references and Tau conversions in the same post.  Ain’t no-one else gonna treat ya this good, baby!)

First step: Define the problem.

I want a playing surface for city-based games.  Not the buildings or ruins themselves – it is the playing surface I want.  Putting ruins on a grey-painted table just doesn’t cut it any more – I want roads and kerbs and cobbles.  I want the playing surface to be highly detailed, but also modular, so I can change the road and open-space layout.

But my free time is very limited, so whatever the solution is, it must be quick and easy.  Having to glue, assemble, paint or – eek – scratchbuild terrain is something I want to avoid, if possible (I had enough of that with my Cities of Death terrain).

So my options are either buy pre-made or make it myself.

Second step: Consider solutions.

Games Workshop's Realm of Battle

Easy Terrain tile from TheTerrainGuy.com

Pre-made modular terrain exists.  GW’s own Realm of Battle is a modular tile set, but its modularity is limited, with only 4 pieces for a 4′x4′ table.  I want more and smaller tiles than that.  Ideally, I want 12″ tiles and I don’t want to have to paint them.

There are plenty of companies who will make you terrain tiles of that size, although these are all (prove me wrong) generic open countryside tiles.

Battle Grounds from CNC Workshop

CNC Workshop make a terrific-looking set of urban cityscape terrain tiles.  They are made in MDF and need cutting out and painting.  While they allow for level changes, any intricate details you want need to be painted on.  To get a full 6′x’4′ table would cost over £170, with raised city levels adding an extra £80 on top.  All that money, and you still need to cut out, assemble and paint it?  It’s a great product (I have and love their paint rack), but not what I am looking for.

Various companies make roads (Amera, GW and Forgeworld spring to mind, making modular roads in vaccum-pressed plastic, foam-backed paper and resin respectively), but again these aren’t the simple solution I need – I still need a detailed surface to stick them to.

Textured gaming mat by Zuzzy

Then there are gaming mats, by the likes of Mat-o-War and Zuzzy, but while they are good products, they are not what I am looking for.  I need more detail – more to draw the eye.

Enter World Works Games.  This company makes paper terrain (COME BACK!), but paper terrain is flimsy and unconvincing.  I have had some success with making foamcore buildings and gluing the paper to that shell.  Maybe I can do something similar here.

Third step:  Bring it all together.

A Himmelveil Streets layout

WWG have a range called Himmelveil Streets, and the look of this is perfect for games of eg. Malifaux.  However, their tile system is based on 6″ squares, with a complicated and fiddly mounting and tab system.  Lots of cutting out of both paper and foamcore required.  Having been through that before with apparently simple paper models, I was not keen on trying it with 6″ square sections with lots of cuts per side (total sides for a 3′x3′ table made of these? 144, all with multiple cuts to be made and then scored.  No thanks).

I decided to see if I could take the best bits of Himmelveil and make them into what I needed.  What if I made 12″ tiles and glued the 6″ square sections to them, 4 to a tile?  I could get around the need for tabs and mounting systems this way.

At first I considered foam core for the tiles, but due to the sizes foam core is available in, cutting 12″ tiles results in a huge amount of waste. The A-standard of paper sizes are just the wrong dimensions.  The A1 and A2 sizes are 594mm on a side, which is only a few mm too short to let me cut another tile out.  I would need double the amount of foamcore.  Foamcore is also available in 30″x40″ sizes, which is great, but I could not find them in singles, only in expensive packs of 5 or more.

I wound up going with cork tiles.  Specifically, I bought 9 12″x12″ cork flooring tiles from Wickes Building Supplies in the UK (Sealed Cork Flooring Tiles Product SKU: 620950) for just over £7.  They are thin but strong and weighty and – this is vital – they lie flat all by themselves.

I don’t want to glue the WWG printed sections to the cork.  Glue is messy, time consuming and might result in warping.  So I bought 50 sheets of white A4 label paper, with a single label on each sheet.  Printing the WWG tiles onto this, the bit I want (the 6″ square bit with all the detail on it, not the faffy mounting bits around the side) fits well within the label itself.

This is what I ended up with:-

Top left: the four 6" square tiles cut out from the label paper. Top right: uncut tiles on the label paper. Bottom left: a single 12" cork tile. I have already gone around the outside with the black marker. Bottom right: my layout plan and printing list.

I made up a layout plan (you can see it in the bottom right of the picture – click to enlarge), noted how many of each type of floor tile I would need (36 in all for a 3′x3′ table) and printed them off.  Then I cut the first four out and blacklined the edges, to get rid of the white cut edge.  I also ran a black marker around the outside edge of the cork tile and in a cross pattern in the middle, where the four 6″ tiles would meet – this would hide any gaps.

Then I just peeled the backing off the four WWG tiles and stuck them down.  This is what I ended up with:-

The ork Runt Herder is just for scale, and the buildings are by Daves Games. Papercraft models mounted on foamcore.

Presto!  A thin, portable, modular gaming tile for my games of Malifaux.  I can even print and stick another set on the other side, to make them reversible   Only 8 more to do.

For details on the Counter Attack tournament, see this post.

I got a reply from Andy at [ELG] confirming that an errata will be issued in mid-July, but that specifically:-

1. Mission 2: Victor should score 15 if they get “>2x”, not less than.
2. Mission 2: Gun Drones that detached from a vehicle do not return if destroyed.  My Devilfish love this rule
3. Mission 3:  units within the Burning or Smoking terrain can draw line of sight out of the terrain, and likewise have line of sight drawn to them.  Line of sight is only blocked if the terrain lies fully between them and the other unit.

My Broadsides love Mission 3 as they get a 3+ cover save and can start in Dangerous Terrain, protecting them from assault somewhat, but it makes me rethink Pathfinders for the competition.  If they cannot see the enemy,because the enemy are hiding behind 4th edition terrain, they are useless.  They are also not great in Mission 2, since if they come back from reserve they cannot shoot until the next Turn.  Hmm – can I run this list without pathfinders?  Where would I get markerlight hits from?  Marker Drones are stupidly expensive (3 of them buys me 8 Pathfinders, by Odin’s beard!), and the other options are less than ideal.  Sniper drones? Hmm.

I wonder if I should take a Pos Relay for Mission 2…

Lastly, my Shas’o R’myr arrived, and I have some cool plans for his paint scheme.

…can someone explain to me why GW couldn’t do this for 40k 5th edition?

Pay no attention to the poorly folded washing in the background

Work on the Ork Kombat Patrol continues…

Assembly is complete, and the primer coats of black and then rust are on.

They actually look good enough right now that I am sort of tempted to just leave them!

But only sort of

The konga line at the Big Mek's birthday party always got off to a good start

On the 21st of August, Edinburgh League of Gamers hosts their annual Counter Attack 40k tournament.  I attended last year, and it was my first solo tournament experience.  I will be returning this year, bringing the awesome firepower of the Tau once again.

The missions this year are a little different.  You can see the PDF here.  Game 2 brings back the Meatgrinder rule from 4th edition, letting you recycle destroyed non-vehicle units into reserve.  Daemons and Tyranids rejoice, although the fact that it is Annihilation tempers this a little.  Game 3 treats all area terrain as either on fire (Dangerous Terrain) or smoking (+1 cover save).  In both cases, the terrain blocks line of sight across, letting even vehicles hide completely out of LoS.

Thoughts.

Infantry will do well in Game 2, provided they are not cheap KPs, so things like Gun Drones on vehicles should be avoided.  SMS on vehicles is best.  In Game 2, a Positional Relay would be handy to manage the recycling of killed units in reserve – get your Broadsides back on a 2+ every time?  If they don’t have ASS, however, they won’t be shooting until the Turn after.

With large LoS blocking terrain in Game 3, anything that can indirect fire will be hidden out of sight and left to get on with it.  Need some way of winkling those units out.  SMS and AFP would do the job, as would a suicide Crisis squad – although I am opposed to them on principle.  ASS on Broadsides will also be essential to let them reposition to get LoS.

That’s all well and good, but it wouldn’t be if I didn’t make it harder for myself  so here is my proposed Farsight list:

Farsight (170)
Bodyguard:
    Crisis Suit (35), Plasma Rifle (20), Missile Pod (12), HW Multi Tracker (5), Black Sun Filter (3), HWDC (0), 2 Gun Drones (20)
    Crisis Suit (35), Plasma Rifle (20), Missile Pod (12), Multi Tracker (5), HWDC (0), 1 Gun Drone (10), Target Lock (5)
    Crisis Suit (35), Airbursting Fragmentation Projector (20), Missile Pod (12), Multi Tracker (5), HWDC (0), 1 Shield Drone (15), 1 Gun Drone (10)
    Crisis Suit (35), Plasma Rifle (20), Missile Pod (12), Multi Tracker (5), HWDC (0), 1 Shield Drone (15), 1 Gun Drone (10), Target Lock (5)
    Crisis Suit (35), Plasma Rifle (20), Missile Pod (12), Multi Tracker (5), HWDC (0), 1 Gun Drones (10)
    Total: 633
 
3 Crisis Suits (25), TL Missile Pods (18), Flamer (4)
    Total: 141
 
3 Crisis Suits (25), TL Missile Pods (18), Flamer (4)
    Total: 141
 
3 Crisis Suits (25), TL Missile Pods (18), Flamer (4)
    Total: 141
 
6 Fire Warriors (10)
    Total: 60
 
6 Fire Warriors (10)
    Total: 60
 
6 Fire Warriors (10)
    Devilfish (80), Disruption Pod (5)
    Total: 145
 
6 Pathfinders (12)
    Devilfish (80), Disruption Pod (5)
    Total: 157
 
3 Broadsides (70) w/ Advanced Stabilisation Systems (10)
    Team Leader (5), with HW Drone Controller (0), 2 Gun Drones (20) and HW Target Lock (5)
    Total: 270
 
Total: 1748

Initial thoughts on how it will work.  This army starts on the table and shoots one thing at a time until it is dead.  Without Kroot and Piranha I have no blocking units, which means that fast enemy assaulters and transports will be in my face on Turn 1/2.  I can let them eat Fire Warriors/ Devilfish, but I need the firepower to wipe them out before they can assault into my suits.  The Pathfinders will support either the Broadsides or the Farsight unit, depending on what it is I want dead that Turn.  3 Broadsides aren’t really enough without fusion Piranhas to threaten AV13/14, so I will see in some test games whether or not I need some fusion in the Crisis Teams.

With ML support, the Farsight unit has enough plasma to disassemble most 3+ armies, which means I can go with cheaper missile pod Crisis Teams.  Twin linking is better (and cheaper) than a Targeting Array, and the flamer is there just to be cheap, not as a viable option.  Although, if I go up against a horde hiding in 3+ cover, they might come in handy.

No SMS on the vehicles, but I cannot afford it.  I will see in the test games if I still need it, but hopefully the Broadside SMS and the AFP will suffice.

I greatly dislike the GW Farsight model, so I have ordered another Shas’o R’myr from Forgeworld.  My current one is built in the normal fashion, but I intend to convert the new one to be Farsight.  The model comes with all the normal FW right arm options, so I can put a single plasma rifle on him to replace R’myr’s double rifle and, for the Dawn Blade, I quite like the idea of a pair of brutal blades attached to the end of the shield.  Either that or put the plasma rifle on the shield arm along with the shield and give him an enormous sword in his right arm (a Wraith Sword perhaps).  We’ll see