On the Bench: Centigor

Monthly Update: Painting Points

Last Month's Total: 31 Points
Points Earned in November: 3 Points
Total Points in 2009: 34 Points

If you would like to see the original post about Painting Points, check out the following link.

Special Thanks to Lone Pilgrim for introducing such a fun idea to the 40K blogsphere.

North America Warhammer Tournament Round 1

All North American Hobby Centers
February 27th or 28th
Warhammer - 2,500 points

Starting in February, we will be running a Warhammer Tournament in all of our North American Hobby Centers over three months. You will be required to play one game a month on a particular weekend to take part. Check back for the date of Round 2.

Armies must be chosen from one of the current printed Warhammer Army Books only and from the main army list entry. Your army must have at least 4 Core Troop choices, and you may only have 1 Dispel Scroll in your list.

Bring in the 2,500 points of your favorite Warhammer Army and play a single game of Warhammer against an opponent of your choice. The game must be played in a GW Hobby Center at any time on either the 27th or 28th of February. Fill out a score sheet and hand it to the staff.

These score sheets will be sent to our HQ to be verified and tracked. The highest scoring individual in each GW Hobby Center after all three rounds have been completed will receive an award. The three highest scoring individuals across the whole of North America after all three rounds have been completed will receive an amazing prize, which will be announced at a later date.

The post above was originally posted on the GW Website.

I don't see a painting requirement, so I may assemble enough Daemons to play at the Pleasant Prairie store. That is a big maybe...

I am really glad that GW is doing this, but I fear that the "adult" community will whine and complain about it. The rules require a minimum of four core choices and limit an army to one dispel scroll. This means that magic armies, aka Tzeentch and VC, will be very powerful. I personally welcome any kind of army build, but the tournament addicts will cry that unless your playing a top tier army (DoC, VC, DE), you cannot compete. My response, "WHO CARES!" It is one game each month for three months at no cost to the player. As for the lack of painting requirements, again, WHO CARES! If you want to make a statement about it being a hobby and painting is a core aspect, bring a painted army and inspire people with it. Whining and complaining about it does nothing and just marks you as an elitist dumb ass.

Anyways, I really applaud GW doing this and will try my hardest to make the three games as I really want to support this event. If anyone is interested, I will be playing at the Pleasent Prairie GW (if I can make it). Figure I can meet some new folks and maybe we can go to Tazinos afterwards for pizza.

On the Bench: Centigor

On the Bench: Flamer of Tzeentch

This "On the Bench" entry covers some of the colors used up to this point.

Green
4:1 Sick Green (Vallejo Game Color) 72029
Wash GW Thraka Green
4:1:1 Sick Green (Vallejo Game Color):Vallejo Glaze Medium:Thinner
8:1:2:2 Sick Green, Scorpy Green (Vallejo Game Color) 72032: Vallejo Glaze Medium, Thinner
4:1:1:1 Sick Green, Scorpy Green: Vallejo Glaze Medium, Thinner
4:2:2:1 Sick Green, Scorpy Green: Vallejo Glaze Medium, Thinner
2:2:1:1 Sick Green, Scorpy Green: Vallejo Glaze Medium, Thinner
2:4:1:1 Sick Green, Scorpy Green: Vallejo Glaze Medium, Thinner
1:4:1:1 Sick Green, Scorpy Green: Vallejo Glaze Medium, Thinner
1:8:2:2 Sick Green, Scorpy Green: Vallejo Glaze Medium, Thinner

Flames
GW Foundations Mechrite Red
4:1 Vallejo Scar Red 12
Wash GW Baal Red
2:2:1:1 Vallejo Scar Red, Vallejo Gory Red 72011
4:1:1 Vallejo Gory Red 72011
2:2:1:1 Vallejo Gory Red, Vallejo Blood Red 72010
4:1:1 Vallejo Blood Red
2:2:1:1 Vallejo Blood Red, Vallejo Hot Orange 9
4:1:1 Vallejo Hot Orange
2:2:1:1 Vallejo Hot Orange, Vallejo Orange Fire 72008
4:2:1 Vallejo Orange Fire
4:1 Vallejo Orange Fire

On the Bench: Flamer of Tzeentch

A little more was completed last night...

On the Bench: Centigor

Just some more work on the centigor

On the Bench: Flamer of Tzeentch

Completed some more work on the first of three flamers of tzeentch. I am hoping the other two go faster than this one now that I have a feel for the model.

On the Bench: Flamers of Tzeentch

Today's Tournament Tuesday entry is an On the Bench article about the Flamers of Tzeentch I am currently working on in the Kaiju Lounge.

On the Bench: Centigor

I have been considering this color scheme for awhile and thought while I was traveling that I would try to develop it. The scheme is suppose to use earth tones and not be the explosion of colors that is typical for my armies.





The color scheme for the skin/hair used the following Reaper Master Series paints.
09029 Earth Brown
09030 Leather Brown
09031 Tanned Leather
09032 Amber Gold
09033 Golden Blond

In addition, I used some Gryphonne Sepia washes on the skin at certain points.

The horns are started just like if I was painting bones for my Vampire Counts.

The Cheddar Bowl III - Working the Composition System

This week’s Fantasy Thursday article explores the composition scoring system that will be used at the Cheddar Bowl III. The system is different from the WPS or similar systems in that a player doesn’t really know his exact score when he walks in the door. The debate about whether or not this is a good thing is not the point of this article. What is the point is to try and apply the written rules to my army in order to get a sense of how I will be scored.

To start, here is a quick run down of my army list for the event.

Daemon Prince w/ wings and ASF 345 pts
Herald of Nurgle w/ lvl 1 110 pts
Herald of Slaanesh w/ lvl 1 & BSB 135 pts
Dark Emissary 265 pts
16 Bloodletters w/ full cmd 222 pts
16 Bloodletters w/ full cmd 222 pts
27 Horrors w/ full cmd 354 pts
18 Daemonettes w/ full cmd 246 pts
18 Daemonettes w/ full cmd 246 pts
14 Plaguebearers w/ full cmd 198 pts
10 Furies 120 pts

An army’s composition score starts with the army book being used for the tournament. Daemons of Chaos are considered a tier 1 army, which means that the base score for them is 4/10 or four out of ten points. In comparison, my future Beasts of Chaos army would be 8/10 or eight out of ten points. According to the Cheddar Bowl III website, “Tier placement is solely a starting point. The judge (or panel) will assign a modifier to your base comp score to arrive at your final comp.”

The guidelines are vague for how an army is judged, but there are some general and army specific criteria that have been provided to help guide participants towards a better score. The first general guideline centers on the number of power dice in the army. According to the site, “7-9 Power Dice, 10+ PD may result in heavier penalties.” I am reading this to mean that the standard is 7-9 dice and that having greater than 9 power dice will result in a point deduction. If we look at my army, I have two base dice, one for each herald, four for the dark emissary, and two for the horrors. (I believe I may have missed one or two dice, but the point here is that I have hit the magical threshold.) Since the rules state that I will be heavily penalized, I am going to consider that to mean a two point deduction.

The next general guideline is regarding the use of standards. The rules state that, “Standards taken when appropriate (in blocks of infantry / hammer units)”. All of my non-character units with the exception of the furies have standards. I have been told that this is a bad thing, but frankly I don’t usually listen to the folks that give that kind of advise. Reading the guideline, this means to me that I am doing something that is a disadvantage to my army, so therefore I should receive a bonus for taking so many standards. I will hazard a guess that I will have earned myself one bonus point.

The last guideline is regarding dragons, which is not an issue for me as my army doesn’t have that option. With the last general guideline not applying, I figure that my base composition score is now 3/10.

As mentioned earlier, there are also some guidelines that are specific to each army book. The first one is regarding the use of a greater daemon. Since my list doesn’t contain a GD and instead uses a daemon prince, I am going to call that a bonus and give myself a point.

The next guideline is regarding the use of flamers in the army. The wording of the guideline states that I should be wary of how many of them I have in the army. Since I have none, I think I am safe. The same guideline is also stated for flesh hounds. Again, since my list is composed of mostly core units, I figure I don’t need to worry about this penality.

When it comes to the listed bonuses; large infantry blocks with command, mono god armies, less than 3 characters, and no rares, I have one of the four criteria. I am going to assume that this will translate into another point for me.

So skimming over the army specific criteria, I believe that I have earned two bonus points and now have a composition score of 5/10. What this score means is that each round, four in total, I will earn 5 out of a possible 10 points in additional to whatever points I earn during each game. Another way to put this is that I need to have solid wins each round, but I am not looking for massacres in order to compensate for the points lost due to composition.

On the Bench: Tyranids

With all of the talk about the upcoming nids codex, I felt like posting some pictures of nids that I did during the last edition.

While I liked the scheme, looking back, I debate if I selected the right color scheme.

On the Bench: Horrors

I decided to go back to Emerald Eye and complete another unit/regiment of horrors for inclusion in the army. With this second unit, I decided that they would be painted in the same green color scheme as the Slannesh and Khorne units.

Tournament Tuesdays: Adepticon Warband Tournaments

Since being posted, I have dug into the rules for the Adepticon Warband Tournaments and have begun to consider what I plan on bringing to the tournament(s). I still have not decided whether or not I will attend both tournaments or do one warband and one combat patrol on Friday.

As it stands, I know that time is very limited for me and I need to focus on one army first and complete it before moving on to another army. If I allow myself to become distracted with swapping between armies, the odds of me finishing anything for Adepticon are very low.

I have decided that I am going to focus on the Emerald Eye first and complete a Tzeentch themed version of it as my warband. By taking this approach, I should have a solid army with an easy to identify theme. This army also translates over to 40K instantly so that I have a combat patrol army (give or take some models) without working on a second set of models.

Herald of Tzeentch w/ Master of Sorcery (140 pts)
10 Horrors of Tzeentch w/ standard (132 pts)
10 Horrors of Tzeentch w/ standard (132 pts)
3 Screamers of Tzeentch (90 pts)
3 Flamers of Tzeentch (105 pts)
Total 599 pts
Power Dice: 6, Dispel Dice: 5

Yes, this tournament is using 600 points as the army size for warband games. I am accepting that while this army has a clear theme, I think it will not hold up well against better warbands. I also expect it to be kicked in the crotch for composition since I have 6 power dice, master of sorcery and a small pack of flamers.

Adepticon 2010 - What Should I Do?

Registration for Adepticon 2010 is now live at http://www.adepticon.org/. I am looking at the Friday events as I cannot attend anything on Saturday, and Sunday is starting to look doubtful based on the courses being offered for the Spring semester (Yes, I do have higher priorities than warhammer!).

The question I am asking myself is whether I should participate in one warband tournament or one combat patrol tournament. I love small games, so both are tempting options. I am also not a big fan of large tournaments and crowds, so the warband and combat patrol events are more my speed and style.

So the question to my readers is whether I should play in a warband tournament, a combat patrol tournament, or both on Friday. Poll is open till next Friday, so please help me decide.

On the Bench: Amethyst Veil

At this point in the process, the last few layers are rather non-descript, so I will just list them and provide the final product.

Bleached Bone/Skull White (Bleached Bone:Skull White:Thinner, 6:1:2)



Bleached Bone/Skull White (Bleached Bone:Skull White:Thinner, 2:1:1)



Finished Model

On the Bench: Amethyst Veil

Painting a Dead Horse is Harder than Beating it

Picking back up with the horse skeleton, the next step is by far the most important as it really does set the tone for the model. The ink wash requires a bit of precision, as the wrong mix of ink and thinner or application of it incorrectly can result in the whole model looking off when compared with other skeletons. My suggestion when using the wash is to apply it from the shallow part of the model into the deeper part.

Brown Ink:Black Ink (8:1:9, brown ink:black ink:thinner)

Desert Brown (4:1, paint:thinner)




After the wash has been applied, I let the model sit for a few hours, assuring that the wash has completely dried. With the wash dried, I proceed to apply another layer of desert brown (4:1, desert brown:thinner). Depending on coverage, I will apply two layers of the paint as needed.

The next layer is a transition layer, meaning that I will apply it, but don’t need to apply multiple layers like the prior step, as this layer is meant to transition between the desert brown and bleached bone colors. When applying this layer, I will thin the paint slightly more than fundamental layers like straight desert brown or straight bleached bone.

Bleached Bone:Desert Brown (3:3:2, bleached bone:desert brown:thinner)




With the transition layer applied, I proceed with another fundamental layer, this time of bleached bone. Again, I apply a first coat and follow it up with another layer of the same color, though applying it to slightly less area.

Bleached Bone (4:1, paint:thinner)



With the second layer applied, I call it a day.