Taking the Deathwing up to 1750 points

Hi everyone,

So my Deathwing army painting is progressing at a decent pace now that I've gotten myself settled in Bratislava and been able to unpack. One of my new coworkers at the language school is also a 40k player and will be introducing me to the gaming club here soon.

The army as it is so far.

I'm happy with the way that the models are turning out so far. I need to test out some highlighting as I'm not sure how much more I want to brighten up the bone armour and how extensively. Should I just do edge highlights with a brighter shade (I used Menoth White Base so I can do Menoth White Highlight next) or should I look to brighten up the armour more in general? Not sure on that one yet so I'll be doing a test on one of the grunt models before I apply it to Lysander/Belial/etc.

Now the army comes out to just over 1500 points with upgrades and I hear that a lot of people here game at 1750 so I want to increase my army size a bit. With 215-230 points (depending on upgrades) to play with I have some options. I don't really want to add more terminators since the current lot are such a mix of styles (GK, SM and SW) and I like the variety. Plus I already have 27 terminators to paint and I don't need more ;-)

I've been thinking about one of the new venerable dreadnought kits and the techmarine with servitors. I know the latter is not a power unit by any means but I've always liked the model and now that it's in the easily-assembled Finecast format, it's something I can consider. Superglue still hates me but the lack of weight on the Finecast means even I can assemble the models.

Some groovy venerable dreadnoughts


A good picture of the Finecast techmarine from the always excellent 40kbitz blog. Go and follow it ;-)


Any thoughts or advice for boosting the army? I'd like to keep everything in the same bone-white though I don't mind painting Ravenwing in that colour if land speeder is the way forward.

If only Sammael on Jetbike was available in Finecast, he'd be on my list for sure :-)

Thanks for reading,

Pete

PS: The other option is to leave the army at 1500 and move onto my new crush of a Dark Eldar Skimmer army. More to come on this soon ;-)

PPS: I got my new Windsor and Newton brushes as a birthday present to myself (27 years young and still playing with toy soldiers).
Deathwing Lysander approves of my new brushes!

WFB Orcs and Goblins using just a sprinkle of GW for flavour. Pt 3: The army list

Ok, time for the final part of my making an Orcs and Goblins army post series.

Here is the model list from the last post. Now it's time to point it up roughly and see what it comes to.

- Warboss on boar
- 40 Black Orcs
- 10 Boar Boyz
- 75 Orc Boyz
- 60 Night Goblins
- 2 Speak Chukkas
- Giant
- Arachnarok spider


Lords
1x Black orc warboss on boar = 160pts


Core Units

25x Orc Boyz with shields, boss, musician and standard = 175pts

25x Orc Boyz with shields, boss, musician and standard = 175pts

25x Orc Boyz with shields, boss, musician and standard = 175pts

20x Night Goblin archers, boss, musician and standard = 90pts

20x Night Goblin archers, boss, musician and standard = 90pts

20x Night Goblin archers, boss, musician and standard = 90pts


Special Units

20x Black Orcs, shields, boss, musician and standard = 295pts

20x Black Orcs, shields, boss, musician and standard = 295pts

10x Boar Boyz, Big Uns, Shields, boss, musician and standard = 255pts

2x Goblin Spear Chukkas = 70pts


Rare Units

1x Arachnarok Spider, flinger = 320pts

1x Giant = 200pts


Total army points as shown = 2390pts


So there you have an army that comes out to just about 2500 points. I don't know WFB that well but I understand that magic plays a solid part in it these days so perhaps some points tweaking to include some shamans would be a good idea.

That's all from me for now. If I get the time and funds to kickstart this project I'll be sure to keep you all in the loop with how it goes.

Thanks for reading.

Pete :-)

New brush time. How about Windsor and Newton Series 7s?

This is just a brief interjection before I get on with part 3 of my Orcs and Goblins posting.

I'm painting up my Deathwing now and I've come to realise it's time to buy some new brushes. My current set have been going for over a year now and while they're in decent shape, they're forking quite a lot not, making it hard to keep the detail painting going. My GW brush forked a while ago after just a month or so of use, so that's no help.I've heard rave things about the Windsor and Newton Series 7 brushes and wonder if it's time for me to invest in a set of them.

Does anybody have any experience with these brushes and what sizes to pick up? I was thinking of a size 2, a size 1 and a size 0 so I would have a range to work with.

Thankyou

Pete

WFB Orcs and Goblins using just a sprinkle of GW for flavour. Pt 2: Saving money ;-)

To continue our look at making an orcs and goblins army on something of a budget, here are some price comparisons and ideas for saving those precious dollars/pounds/euros/florints/yen etc. ;-)

I know that many people buy from online retailers who offer discounts but for this post I'll keep everything on RRP or it will get very confusing with all the different places you can buy. Also, I'm rounding everything up to the nearest £ so don't have to type endless .99 etc.

1x Orc Mega army from Mantic (96 figures) = £100
1x Orc Ax horde from Mantic (30 figures) = £25
3x Night Goblin regiments = £63
1x Giant = £31
1x Arachnarok spider = £36
2x Goblin bolt throwers from Ramshackle Games = £9

Total = £264

Now if I want to be even cheaper, I'd drop the night goblins for now and either the giant or the spider, making the total around £170. Either that or I'd track down a set or two of the Goblins from the old Battle for Skull Pass Warhammer set. If anybody has the gobbos models from Skull Pass they'd be willing to sell/trade (I have metal Grey Knight Terminators), please drop me a line ;-)

Skull Pass Gobbos, have you seen us?


So the basic army I can build from this is as follows:

- Warboss on boar
- 40 Black Orcs
- 10 Boar Boyz
- 75 Orc Boyz
- 60 Night Goblins
- 2 Speak Chukkas
- Giant
- Arachnarok spider

Now for a brief comparison of cost vs GW sets.

- Orc Warboss = £17
- 4x Black Orcs = £104
- 1x Boar Boyz = £16
- 6x Orc Boyz = £108
- 2x Night Gobbos = £42
- 2x Spear Chukkas = £38
- 1x Giant = £31
- 1x Arachnarok spider = £36
- 1x O&G Battalion (15 boyz, 20 gobbos, 5 boar boyz, 10 spider riders) = £60

Total = £452
Difference = £188 looking at RRP, or

To be fair to GW, the spider riders in the battalion are extra, so I should knock £19 off the difference to account for buying a set of them to match.

Adjusted difference = £169.

Not a bad saving in my mind. Once you add in the discount from online retailers, you can knock a bit off each total as both Wayland Games and Maelstrom Games stock Mantic and offer shipping within the EU.

Ordering from both (and Ramshackle) to take advantage of the prices on offer, I come out with a total of £224 delivered for everything.

Part 3 coming soon where I put together something of an army list and ask advice from more experienced WFB players.

Pete

WFB Orcs and Goblins using just a sprinkle of GW for flavour. Pt 1: Inspiration

Hey everyone,

I recently had a crazy idea about Warhammer Fantasy. When I first started with GW I was mainly a fantasy player and had a dwarf army. Since then it hasn't piqued my interest compared to 40k and other tabletop miniature games that are availablhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gife. That is with the exception of the greenskins. Much like my 40k ork army, which I was sad to pass on (especially after painting 80+ figures), I love the character of the WFB orcs and goblins army.

To me they hearken back to the days when Warhammer and 40k were less streamlined and dark worlds. There was more of a light-hearted dorkiness to a lot of the units and gameplay mechanics that I love. Perhaps it's something of the nostalgia for those innocent early days of wargaming :-)

However there are two big problems for me:

1 - I think the WFB orc boyz look really goofy and I don't like the proportions.
2 - It gets really expensive to make a horde army, especially with GW's prices on basic core unit boxes. I'm not inspired by spending £100 on two units of orcs who will make up basic regiments.

However, I've been browsing the web a bit as I wait for my training to start for my new job and have found a company that can help me out with my two major objections. Enter Mantic Games Orc range

I really like the character of their models compared to GW and the price is great too.

The GW orc looks to me like a caricature with its heroic proportions, where the Mantic orc is hunched and menacing.

I also really like the warboss on a boar that Mantic have going.


Their boar boyz, in my opinion, outdo those offered by GW as well.

GW's boar boyz

Mantic boar boyz


So the models live up to my standards, certainly with respect to making large blocks of troops. I know that there will be more repetition of model types using Mantic orcs as they are not the same kind of multi-part kit that you find from GW orcs, but in a big regiment of 20+, I think the difference between them will be less noticeable than when comparing individual figures.

When browsing the Mantic site, I notice the following deal for an Orc Mega Army

For £99 retail you get:
- Orc Krudger (warboss) on boar
- 10 x Plastic Resin Gore (boar) Riders with Command Group
- 20 x Plastic Orc Greatax with Command Group (Two handed weapon)
- 20 x Plastic/Metal Orc Morax with Command Group (Twin axes)
- 45 x Plastic Orc Ax with Command Group (boyz)
- (Enough little snotling-like additions on the sprues to make two or three bases)

Mmmm greenskin horde


Now that a solid bulk of the army is there, what from GW just can't be replicated elsewhere? Well, there are three big things for me that I would consider from GW. These are the parts that add some flavour you can't find elsewhere. When you're just getting the odd bit at GW prices it makes a horde army a lot less daunting.

- The Giant. Great model, lots of options for construction and fun to play with.
- The Arachnarok spider. Expensive but a really nice big plastic kit. Plus forest goblin riders are just cool.
- Night goblins and forest goblins. The little buggers are just awesome and have the fun of fanatics, netters, spider riders. I am also a big fan of Warlord Skarsnik.

So a possible purchasing block could look like this:

- Army deal from Mantic.
- Additional Boar boyz and orcs from Mantic
- Giant from GW
- Arachnarok from GW
- Couple of Night goblin regiments with fanatics from GW.
- Some forest goblin spider riders from GW
- Skarsnik and Gobbla from GW

So there's the gem of my next idea to go alongside my Deathwing army. Part 2 of this post will look at some cost savings from using the Mantic range. Part 3 will put up a basic army list using the models I've found.

All the best,

Pete

Painting display models

Hey everyone,

Been very busy recently getting myself settled into my new life in Bratislava, Slovakia where I'm teaching English (for more info see here http://pete-teaches-in-bratislava.blogspot.com) so not much time to do anything wargaming related. I've managed to keep up to date on blogs and internet news for the most part but haven't broken out the brushes or even taken my models out of their packed state since June 28th when I put them away before flying here. Since I haven't yet managed to find any gaming groups around here and I'm not sure I'll have lots of evenings free to play wargames, I was thinking of getting a fancy model or two to really go to town on and make into display pieces.

The two possible models that have caught my eye for now are:

Ruby from Studio Mcvey



...and the completely crazy option of Elspeth Von Draken on a Carmine Dragon from Forge WorldRaaargh

Mmmm, insanely fine detailing

Now the difference between this two are primarily scale and cost. Ruby fits on a 50mm base and costs about £27 shipped, whereas Elspeth would set me back something like £80 shipped. Quality-wise I would trust Studio Mcvey more but then again this is a new model from Forge World so the moulds are likely to still be good.

The main concern I have with both of these is making sure that my painting lives up to the quality of the models.

Have any of you painted models that were intended almost entirely for display? If so, how do you suggest going about it, especially for something as big as Elspeth? What's the best way to maintain interest during such a long and complex project? What techniques should be mastered before going about such a task? Paint in pieces then assemble? Create a fancy base for the model in case I want to game with it in the future?

As you can tell I'm both excited and intimidated by the idea of either of these models. Who knows, with a good enough effort over time they might even be somethiing I can sell for a profit. I can dream right? ;-)

All the best,

Pete

Simplifiying 40k for a children's summer camp....in another language ;-)

Hey everyone,

So I'm in Bratislava, Slovakia now and about to begin the exciting job of teaching English for the next year. It's been very fun so far and I'm relishing the opportunity to soak in a new culture and get new life experiences.

Big thanks go out to Old Shatter Hands for his networking to get me the job over here and giving me lots of insight into places to go and things to do while here. Props also for his helping me start learning the complex and very multi-layered Slovak language.

Later today I will be taking a bus with my new colleagues out to a summer camp the language school is running for children. During a meeting with the owner of the school, he asked me how I came to know Old Shatter Hands. When I explained that it was through wargaming and explained the basic premise to him, he thought it might be a fun activity to play with some of the kids, if I'm willing to bring the models.

Now I only have my Deathwing and there are only a few of them (27 total). Given that the children are going to have variable comfort and skill levels in English, I'll need to bring the rules waaaaay down from their current level so that we can have fun games but not get completely lost in the combination of poor rules and language barriers :-)

So my thirty second rules ideas are something like this:

- Giving regular terminators a 5+ save, SS termies get a 3+ save.

- Storm bolters are 2 shot. They need 6s to cause a wound (skip the hit and then wound mechanic)

- Assault cannons are 4 shot, needing 6s also. Cyclones are 1 shot needing a 3+ to wound.

- If TH termies get into combat, they need a 3+ to wound (again, combining hit and wound rolls). LC termies wound on a 5+ but get two attacks. Regular termies need a 6 to wound with one attack.

- I'll probably include the run rules so the assault termies can rush up a bit.

- Each team/player has to choose if they want a shooty or an assault squad.

I will be leaving out Belial and the Librarian from the game (or use them as objectives maybe) to keep it simple, which gives me 3 assault squads and 2 shooty squads.


So tell me what you think people. Does this look like a fun game that will interest the kids and give them a chance to use English, without completely confusing them?

Any and all advice is gratefully received.

All the best

Pete