Because no-one can look at the Showgirls and not want to join in, Killjoy launches himself from the bowels of hell, bursts through the floorboards of the Star Theatre, puts on his bestest of hats and breaks into a Rogers and Hammerstein number.

The OSL does not show up as clearly on the camera phone image as in real life, but hopefully you can see what I was trying to get (strong light from above, heavy, dull, fire-y glow from below).

Here is how I did the blood on his cleaver (although I am fairly sure it would work with thinned red paint instead). Mix Black Ink and Tamiya Clear Red. It is very thick, so thin with Alcohol. Load up a brush, and hold it over the part you want to splatter. Hold the straw over the brush. One sharp blow through the straw, and splatter effect complete. Best to practice on a bit of paper first to ensure you have the right consistency and amount of paint on your brush.

Underneath the gore (and on the chains) is my usual diseased metal mix – Black Ink and Tamiya Clear Orange, dabbed on. Works wonders, especially if you follow up with Devlan Mud and/ or Badab Black.

Here is another shot of him with a slightly darker tone so you can see how I painted his skin, lit from above.

I am just trying out these slightly more extreme styles of painting for the first time, so if anyone has any pointers, helping hints or suggestions, please comment.

You can get it here – http://www.forgeworld.co.uk/Downloads/Product/PDF/t/Tauupdate.pdf – and highlights include:

1. All the units in it are 40k-legal
2. Tetra Markerlights are Heavy 4! Tetras come with Marker Beacons, and something called Forward Observer. What is that?
3. Remote Sensor Towers now get TL Markerlights, can grant one unit per Turn re-rolls to hit and have Positional Relays! No more loading up your IC with one of those.
4. The Hammerhead Turrets have all changed, apart from the Fusion turret. They are all cheaper; Burst Cannon turret gets 2x the shots it used to have, Missile Pod turrets gain Blast, but only Assault 2, and Plasma Cannons basically become Ion Cannons, but with +1 shot and TL for the same price as an Ion Cannon. Err, why would you ever take an Ion Cannon?
5. Drone Sentry Turrets are now Troops and 20pts cheaper each! Woohoo. And they come with Marker Beacons for free, meaning they get re-rolls on the deepstrike if a Pathfinder’s Devilfish can see their landing spot.
6. Heavy Gun Drones haven’t changed so far as I can see.
7. The Great Knarlocs are all Monstrous Creatures now
8. Knarloc Riders are -10pts, but lose Fleet. Still failing badly.
9. No TX-42s. At all

I played a 1500 point game the other night against Jamie Farquhar’s latest creation, his Iron Warriors army. Now, I have played against some beautiful and creative armies before, but I have to rank this one as simply the best I have seen across a table. It is amazing how much detail Jamie (Insane Psycopath on Warseer and B&C) has managed to work into these figures, as well as the conversions and basing, which are just spot on.

Note that this army is not finished yet, so some things like the sacrifices on the front of the Rhinos and some bases need to be finished. But even so, wow. Just wow. Wish my Iron Warriors looked 1/10th as good

Army lists and batreps later, guys, but for now some eye candy (click to enbiggen):

By which I mean, Brian and Robert seem to have taken “terrain making” pills and gone on a creative bender.

Here is Brian’s Youtube video of his scratchbuilt video ad-hoarding, for use as scatter terrain:

And then Robert made this, which is only a freakin’ monorail:

My non-club-based gaming buddies have just decided to get into Infinity allinarush! So, being awesome and talented and stuff, they have started making terrain, including LED-lit streetlamps and holographich billboards, and rusted shipping containers, all scratchbuilt in about two days!

If one of them, as he has threatened, buys some of the Walkways from Sarissa, we might have a heck of a table in very short order.

Next step, maybe buy some models

More to come.

In my last post I mentioned Robert’s terrain. I reckon it is worth a post of its own (at the very least).

What Robert has done is take various materials (greyboard mainly), and make flat-pack Wild West buildings out of them. Early ones had Whitewash City PDF textures on the outside, while with the later ones Robert has been using scored balsa wood and painting it with his airbrush, before adding pigments for weathering.

His innovation (Rabtab™) is to make interlocking plasticard tabs in the inside. Once these buildings are assembled they are very sturdy indeed, but can be quickly packed away into a shoebox.

I will let the pics do the rest of the talking.

The annual Partick Crucible 1000pt 40k tournament is coming up, probably in April, although the exact date has yet to be decided.

Here is my report from the last one.

Last year I took Tau, and this year I will most likely do the same. There is a chance a new Tau codex will appear between now and then, but if I didn’t have that kind of eternal optimism what kind of Tau player would I be?

Taking my love of Crisis Suits to an obvious and extreme conclusion makes this year’s list a fairly easy one:-
• HQ: Shas’el with Plasma Rifle, Fusion Blaster and Multitracker
• Bodyguard of 2 Crisis Suits with TL Missile Pods and Targeting Arrays
• HQ: Shas’el with Plasma Rifle, Fusion Blaster and Multitracker
• Bodyguard of 2 Crisis Suits with TL Missile Pods and Targeting Arrays
• Elites: 2 Crisis Suits. One is a Team Leader with Plasma Rifle, Fusion Blaster and Targeting Array, with a HW Multitracker and the other has TL Missile Pods and a Targeting Array
• Elites: 2 Crisis Suits with TL Missile Pods and a Targeting Array
• Elites: 2 Crisis Suits with TL Missile Pods and a Targeting Array
• Troops: 6 Firewarriors
• Troops: 10 Kroot
• Heavy Support: 1 Broadside Team Leader with a Targeting Array, Smart Missile System, a Gun Drone and a Black Sun Filter

It has a theme – that theme is Crisis Suits. An elite Strike Force of them, backed up by a few ground-pounders and with some lumbering heavy support in the back.

It makes for 12 Crisis Suits in all, which is not bad for 1000pts! I split the Crisis Suits with Plasma Rifle/ Fusion Blaster up among three different squads. I don’t usually mix and match armaments like that, but it does make it much harder for the enemy to wipe out the most deadly weapons, and make it more likely those suits will be around on later Turns – which is when suitable targets are most likely going to be in range.

Everything is hitting on a 3+, with all the Missile Pods as well as the Railgun also being Twin Linked. That gives me 18 S7 shots across five units, which should take care of MCs and transports. Mathhammer tells us 16 of those shots will hit a Turn

I only have one Railgun. If they shoot it, there’s a chance it will run away to a dead drone, but I usually only need it on Turn 1 anyway. It will be useless in Dawn of War as it cannot move on and shoot, but I would rather give it a 3+ to hit. There is a fair chance I can deploy it where only a few lascannons/ dark lances can shoot at it, rather than a whole army’s-worth. Need to see what the mission pack looks like.

The weak link is Troops, of course. Best I can do is keep them in reserve and try not to get them killed. Come on, go to ground, and try and wipe out the opponent with shooting.

One of the concerns about Terraclips my mates have is how long it takes to build a playable set. With just one build under my belt, and therefore still a Terraclips noob, I decided to find out.

I picked this fantastic build over at the World Works Games forum as my template. Turns out that having a design to work to really speeds things up.

It took me 25 mins to make the first 2′x2′ section (my son turned up to help) and about 35 mins to make the second storey. Having made it once now, I think I could build the whole thing again in under 45 mins. You can watch it all here (and apologies for my attire – just finished decorating!):

My son got quite a lot of Halo Mega Bloks for Crimble. Fortunately, he also had a Dad with silly amounts of wargaming terrain in the garage, so he wound up playing with this set-up for a few days post-Santa. Fun times