7th Edition, First Impressions

I went up to my FLGS today to do some re-learning of Warhammer 40k, and perused my shiny new Ork Codex!   Keep in mind that I skipped 6th edition, so I'm really drawing parallels between 5th Edition and 7th Edition.  Observations and questions below, and PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF GANDALF correct anything I've misunderstood.

Indy Open & My Army

Well I made it back from Indy without crashing and just ahead of the snow. I figured I'd share some photos of my army and how I did at the tournament with you guys.

You can find my army list here: http://hulksmash-homeplace.blogspot.com/2013/03/indy-open-this-weekend-initial-thoughts.html

Hobby Article: My Holiday Haul

Well Black Friday has come and gone and finally most of my stuff I grabbed has arrived. I not only grabbed a ton of the bitz and pieces I needed to complete at least two of my Iron Warrior projects but I also dove head first into two new games.

I’m Alive, I’m Back, and I’m Enjoying 6th Edition

Well I took a bit of a break. And instead of posting an idle thought here and there I took a page out of Brent’s book from Strictly Average and just stopped posting. I should be back on a relatively regular schedule now but more importantly I’m in a good place to write about my hobby again which my recent break made possible. No one wants to feel like writing for their blog is a job instead of a hobby (unless it is their job).

Anywho this is mostly a catch up post of what’s been going on with a couple of lists and articles scheduled to post over the next two weeks.

6th Edition, Army Building, and Travel 40k

I know I've been quite lately. It's equal parts busy life and the pre-new edition apathy that sometimes overcomes us.

Let's start by saying I'm super stoked for 6th edition. Now that we have a pretty solid release date (6/30 or 7/6) it's just a matter of waiting to see what 6th is going to be like. It does make it a bit pointless to talk about tactics and strategies though.

This does leave me a little light in the drive department for building and painting though. I don't want to commit to to many new models or conversions if whatever I decide to play with might become much less viable but at the same time I'm a bit of a hobby nut. So where does this leave me?

Adepticon Daemons - Thoughts.....

I've been wracking my brain since I got back from the Indy Open about what my next project is going to be. So far this year I built and painted a GK army that has gone 10-1 over 2 GT's and now it's time to change up a bit. As most of you know I'm easily distracted and lately Daemons have been on my mind.

Now I have a soft spot in my heart for Daemons. I've never loved nor loathed an army so much at a tournament. You can see pictures of my Admech counts-as army in the army picture tab and I really am proud of how those turned out. I ran it at 2 GT events and at both events had that dreaded drift game where everything went wrong and my urge to kill rose. My Daemons actually accounted well for themselves but I admit I got a little frustrated with the lack of consistancy. But I've had my fill of consistancy it seems since I'm seriously considering Daemons for at least Adepticon if not the local GT in May as well and maybe more.

So that brought me to my main issue. Do I add models to my existing converted army or do I rebuild it from scratch? Well I've wracked my brain and come up with several fun themes for a rebuild like:

-40k Beastmen
-Iron Warrior/Dark Adeptus Alliance
-World Eater Legion Warband

Hobby - Tyranid Re-Paint (Test Model Done)

So at an RTT this last weekend I was again inspired to run my Nids. I've come to realize the main reason I don't wanna pull them out is that they are nowhere near the paint level of my other completed armies. It bothers me enough that I'm not bringing them out even when paint isn't important.

The Dark Star’s a Comin!

Well we’re about a week away from the Dark Star (http://darkstargt.com/index.html) and lists were due yesterday. I was saddened when I re-read the rules for the scoring as I noticed that if you don’t paint your own army you can’t win best overall or best painted. While I can understand not winning best painted I thought it was a little harsh about best overall. So that being said the Necrons that Reece from http://www.frontlinegaming.org/ won’t be making their first appearance. That’ll probably be reserved for a local RTT and maybe the Indy Open before Adepticon J

Since lists were due yesterday the field is pretty solid now with what people are bringing and it looks like this:

Iron Within, Iron Without

So most of us have heard that the new Chaos codex might be coming out in the next 5-6 months. For most of those that don't know in 3rd edition I was an Iron Warrior nut case. It started with the Index Astartes article in WD. The look and feel of the army made me smile. Thanks to the rumors of the codex, that damned short story in the Horus Heresy anthology book, and the fact that I sold off my previously painted Iron Warrior army a year ago or so I've decided to build a new Iron Warrior army. This one painted and modeled to my current standard.

Hobby Update - Necrons

This weekend I had a little time to get started on my Necrons and I figured I'd share the beginnings of my newest army.

Need a DE conversion idea!

Hey folks!

Scores from the Nova Open are filtering in. I finished 4th in the competitive bracket, and 33rd Overall. Much of that “overall” ranking was due to receiving 43% of available painting points, which stunned me. My army has never looked as good as it does now, and I was fully expecting to be 70-85% of points.

The two major “paint” categories were “Best Painted model” and “best converted model.” While everything in my army is definitely tabletop quality (with my ravagers being on the lower end due to recoat touchups and magnetic issues), I don’t have anything that really stands out as an exceptional painted model or an exceptional converted model. All of my beasts are converted…but they are functional conversions. Necron scarabs in the DE color scheme with bladed wings attached, LOTR Wargs with Tyranid scything talons attached for khymerae….

Hobby! Deathwing Painting Update

So I finished putting these together on Sunday and as of Wednesday morning this is where they are at paintwise and I wanted to share with you guys my mad rush to finish painting and basing this army before the Bugeater GT this weekend.

First is Belial/Logan and another painted Termie. This is how all the models will look and these are two of the five total painted models I had when I started this insane project.

AdMech Counts-As Dark Eldar (Hobby Article)

So last night while I was at home watching the truly awful movie Pirahna (we all have guilty pleasures!) I decided to finally get started on an idea I'd been messing around with for quite some time. Some of you may know and some may not that I built a counts-as AdMech Daemon army last year, you can find it here:

http://hulksmash-homeplace.blogspot.com/2010/10/my-daemons.html

I had a great time modeling this army and producing it. I have little labels printed out and put in the bag to limit confusion for my opponent and it got a very positive response in tournaments if not from some elements online.

Well when the Dark Eldar came out as much as I love their models the painting style doesn't mesh well with my styles (not good with smooth, I like edges) so again I was tempted to jump back into my AdMech to convert up a cool counts-as army. Well that project fell by the wayside as I got into my Bugs for most of this year as well as getting stuff painted for Adepticon and trying to get stuff painted for other events. Well I think this is going to be my hobby project for this year. I've been trying yearly to take on a moderately difficult and fun modelling project and I think this is the one. I've got 3 fully painted tournament level armies that would only need a small addition here and there at most so I think I'm ok taking a breath and finally getting started on this.

Weekend Hobby Update!

So this weekend has been a heavy weekend for hobby stuff. In case you missed the news Adepticon is coming up on Friday! I drive off Thursday morning to a full weekend of drinking and gaming. But for that weekend I needed my Nids for the Championships and my team tournament IG all infantry force. So things I needed to do this weekend:

Hobby Update!

So yesterday and today I’ve been taking care of the wife who’s recovering from some surgery. Which has given me the chance to get my Adepticon team army built and started on painting. So yesterday I put together:

2x10 Vet Squads

2xAuto-Cannon HWT’s

2xInfantry Squads

1xPCS

My version of Yarrik

I also got all of the above primed as well. Today:

I plan on getting the 5 Ogryns I wanna run built as well as getting started on the painting. I’ll put some pictures up either later today or tomorrow so you guys can see what I’m working on. I swear I haven’t fallen off the face of the planet J

Death Watch-Count's As Project

So I have lately been really hung-up on creating a Deathwatch “counts-as” army. I’ve got 30+ Sanguinary Guard torso just sitting around (used wings and robed bodies for my DIY Chapters all SG army) and 25ish Deathwatch shoulder pads and bolters. I figure this with the more knightly heads available either thru MaxMini.eu or from various plastic champion models would make for a really stand out force. I might have to pick up another pack but that would be it. So I’ve been extremely taken with the idea and come to the conclusion that there are only 3 “counts-as” lists that I think would be appropriate and worth playing. Of the three, two really stand out as fun and different-ish from my standard armies. I’ll go into those in a second. 

Waagghh of the Grand Loota! [Part 2]

Well I'm taking another break from painting so here are a few more of my units for the Orks I'm building. These are the nobz of 4 out of 5 of my Boyz units. Painting this will probably take a back seat to everything else I have on my plate but I like to share some of the extra stuff I'm working on. Plus I really love the concept behind this army and sharing that concept makes me smile. So here we go!

Waagghh of the Grand Loota! [Part 1]

So I've been painting a commission most of today and didn't have a lot of time to type up a new post and since I'm polishing off the third part of the Tyranid article I figured I'd post some actual hobby content. So here are some of the pictures with little blurbs to make sure people see where I'm going with it.

My Ork army is based on the idea that they've been attacking Imperial Worlds for years and stealing everything that isn't bolted down. They take particular delight in stealing from Space Marines they've killed. The Grand Loota is my Big Mek who is in charge of the expedition and responsible for the constant upgrades for his troops.