New Trygon model in progress

Im painting the new Trygon model for GEG, more pics when I get it done.

2010 Tournament Circuit

GW has posted a listing of all the tournaments included in the 2010 Circuit. The goal is the 2011 invite-only Vegas GT. I strongly encourage everyone to take advantage of this opportunity, as it really seems like the GW GT scene has a hard time getting off the ground.

2009 CoC Champion!

So I won the 2009 40k tourney season at the store. The final tournament was 2500 points and although I did not win the final installment, I won Best Painted (woo!) and had enough of a lead in the overall standings to still take home the title. That makes 3 for me, in '05, '06, and '09. Ill be back to defend my title starting January 2010, and I plan on documenting the games and breaking down what happened.



Heres a pic I took in my second game. My Daemon Prince is sitting center, locked in melee with two armless dreadnoughts haha. Took her 8 combat rounds to finish them both off but it saved her from being cooked by the Deathwing return fire. Respect to Tim Trammel for a good game and a hearty 'Curse you!' for beating me by 1 vote for Players Choice. Damn Imperials! ;)

2009 CoC season finale

The last tournament this season is 2500 points. Im adding an additional squad of 10 Berzerkers with Land Raider transport. Some quick updates:
Side doors are good places for freehand work. I didnt have an idea of what to do here, I just started painting and this is what it became. Heres the finished product:
The unfocused blob in the foreground (thx cameraphone) is the cupola marine, modded to hold a severed head, as if pink and black wasnt scary enough. More pics of that when the modelling putty dries. Heres the whole army laid out, minus a squad of Berzerkers thats currently in pieces on my desk:

Coming up in the near future are a continuation of the Apocalypse league, a shot at the Siege of Vraks from the Forgeworld books, and a new Daemon Prince thats in the process of having new arms sculpted. Details later~

The Beatles: Rock Band

From this moment on I know
exactly where my life will go
Seems that all I really was doing
was waiting for love

'Real Love', by The Beatles

The Beatles: Rock Band

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Pictures!

Ork Warboss on a Bike, a commission for Ed Allen. Resin original from Forge World. No conversions wanted or needed. A very big model. Took awhile to get all the metal appropriately rusty/dirty and still make the colors pop. Im also super proud of the checkerboard on the right rear fender, right dakkagun, and left shoulderpad. Blended up from Fortress Grey and all freehand!



Shot from another angle.

Daemon Prince for Ryan McCall, about 18 months old now. Converted the right hand from generic sword (yawn) to elite crab claw (pinch) and the head from boring normal daemon head (zzZZzz) to snake/leech thingy (it sucks in a good way!). Slapped some wings on his back, added some modelling putty, and off he went. This is just a rumor, but I dont think Ryan has lost a game since he started using this model. Coincidence???

More daemon prince.

I need a better way to take pictures, a proper lamp and backdrop would do the trick but the camera software does a good job of compensating. I'll work on that. Also, the Tale of 12 Gamers was last Sunday, Ill post pics when I have some progress. My Chaplain is finished but he has no base and I have been busy getting the Ork Warboss finished and prepping for this weekend's Apocalypse throwdown.

Apocalypse!

Our Apocalypse league started last month. Hosted at Great Escape Games, it is part of Games Workshop's Lucky 13s campaign. We started off at 3000 points a person with 2 tables - one with IG and Marines vs Orks, Chaos, and some Tyranids and another with Eldar and Inquisition forces against more Chaos. As in any good Apocalypse game, there were plenty of superheavy units on each table: a Chaos Warhound, an Eldar Revenant, Ork battlefortresses, an Ultramarine Thunderhawk, an Eldar Vampire and Mk. I Scorpion, and no less than 5 Baneblades. See for yourself...

This is a shot of the orks and chaos setting up opposite our Imperial forces. They attacked along a wide front, and their objective building was dead in the center surrounded by a minefield. We initially left the building empty, and had a few squads of Terminators teleport in. They held against multiple broods of Genestealers and a horde of Ork Boys, thanks to a few well placed shots from the Thunderhawk and Imperial artillery batteries.

This is my army, the Kreig 194th Armored Cavalry. For the record thats a Baneblade, 2 Basilisks, 2 Vanquishers, a Laser Destroyer, 4 Leman Russ MBTs, 2 Hellhounds, an Exterminator, a twin heavy flamer Chimera with 6 Ogryn inside, a Medusa, and 3 scout Sentinels with multilasers. It was my job to clear the field near our right side objective and start rolling the flank.

This is me clearing the field near our right side objective and beginning to roll the flank. =) I was lined up with Mike's IG army, which had 2 Baneblades of its own. An obscene amount of firepower when all the ordnance went off. The highlight of my game was the 3 Sentinels screening the end of our line (visible in the foreground) against 2 Carnifexes outfitted for melee. I was charged at the top of turn 2 and still had a Sentinel left at the end of 5 combat rounds. If you've ever used Sentinels, you know they usually do more damage when they explode than they actually do when fighting so this was quite an accomplishment.

A shot of the action. The Laser Destroyer (in grey) positions itself for a shot at a Battlefortress as Jeremy's marines swarm on around it. His Mortis Dreadnought with twin autocannon arms, one of my favorite models, was standing on a hill blazing away as wave after wave of gaunts assaulted the incoming Imperial forces.

All in all a good time. We have the next megabattle on 18 July, Ill be bringing a pair of superheavies (a Stormblade and a Stormsword) along with the usual assortment of tanks and mechanised infantry.

The Tale of 12 Gamers

July 12th marks the start of The Tale of 12 Gamers, a painting/modelling class intended to take the participants through all the stages of constructing, modelling, and painting a 1750 point 40k army. It will be held at Great Escape Games in Sacramento and captained by local brush jockey Ananda Sisk. I will be participating in this event and I have chosen to build a Space Marine army. I am leaning toward Salamanders, only because Space Wolves are still in the works and I dont want to build an army only to see new models appear when they are released later this year.

My tenative army list contains:

• Vulkan - the centerpiece. He's pretty.
• A Terminator Chaplain. My initial HQ choice and a solid model in terms of gameplay and appearance.
• 5 Assault Terminators, with Forge World shoulder pads and maybe greenstuff cloaks.
• A Land Raider Redeemer. Forge World doors and custom flames let the Terminators and their Chaplain ride in style.
• 3 10 man Tactical Squads in Rhinos. A mix of meltas and flamers for theme and more Forge World doors for their rides.
• 5 Sternguard and a Razorback. They'll serve as Vulkan's posse.
• 2 Attack Bikes with multimeltas - more theme! Fire good!

The Tale of 12 Gamers will focus on more than just basics. We'll be learning how to sculpt green stuff, how to make effective conversions, how to paint more than simply 'tournament standard' 3 color models, basing techniques, you name it. The gamers range from brand new players to veterans of Grand Tournaments, so we will be sharing tips and wisdom and hopefully elevating everyone's hobby experience. We'll be working in 250 point stages, so I'll include pics as we go and hopefully I'll be able to document each step of the way, showing how I did it and why I made the decisions I did along the way. I am going into this intending to sell the army after I am done with it (my Blood Angels are grumbling jealously about my infidelity) but who knows, you might see me in Vegas 2010 with a horde of green power armor.

Go With the Flow

I have much work ahead of me.

Im working on an Ork Warboss on a bike, a Nurgle/Blood Angel dreadnought, Ryan's Salamanders, and Titan/Sean is meeting me on Friday to talk about a project he wants to me do for him, plus finishing 10 stormtroopers and a rhino for Tom. This is all separate from the models I need to paint for my own army for the CoC, which at this point looks like another 5 or 6 plague marines and a Rhino. Pics coming when I dig myself out of the hole. I also have Thom's (separate from stormtrooper Tom) insane quartered scout army sometime in the future, which will be a real bitch to paint. Even thought I rail against unrestricted capitalism Im thankful we live in a society where harder work equals more pay, because that stack of cash will be the only thing that soothes me while I paint 60 scouts in medieval heraldry. For now I will simply state the mercenary's credo: "No job too small, no fee too big".

To keep you entertained, heres one of my favorite videos.
'Go With The Flow' by Queens of the Stone Age

The Substance of Style

Im a pretty big Wes Anderson fan.  No surprise there, hes massively popular among film students and fans.  I have recently been studying elements of old classics and I am starting to see similarities in Anderson’s style and other legendary film directors.  The video included below is a good start if you are interested, and it comes from one of my favorite movies to boot.

The Substance of Style, Part 5

Welcome to the Show

Like most of the others, I was a seeker, a mover, a malcontent, and at times a stupid hell-raiser. I was never idle long enough to do much thinking, but I felt somehow that my instincts were right. I shared a vagrant optimism that some of us were making real progress, that we had taken an honest road, and that the best of us would inevitably make it over the top. At the same time, I shared a dark suspicion that the life we were leading was a lost cause, that we were all actors, kidding ourselves along on a senseless odyssey. It was the tension between these two poles - a restless idealism on one hand and a sense of impending doom on the other - that kept me going.

Hunter S. Thompson, The Rum Diary