Angron WIP

I've had Angron sitting in a drawer since he came out. Never satisfied with my color scheme for my World Eaters, I let him sit unpainted for years. The thing that made them work for me today was using a very pale blue for their shoulder pads. I am definitely going to paint up a small force of World Eater loyalists now. The pale blue and touch of orange on the bases really works for me. (less so for the camera which struggled here!)

One note about the chains on the wrists of two of the troopers. I know they signify killing a superior officer in gladiatorial combat. One would think loyalist World Eaters wouldn't engage in that kind of activity. However, I think it makes sense that Loyalists would have gone along with gladiatorial challenges as necessary to simply exist within the legion prior to Angron turning traitor. Dueling to the death was simply a fact of life within the legion. I think NCOS and officers would not have had a choice on whether to engage in the practice or not.

*Just learned that the World Eaters are the 12th legion not the 8th! Looks like I put those decals on upside down. So, these guys are the 8th chapter of the 12th legion. How about that! I kind of like the symmetry here. The ones who remained loyal are the mirrored image of those that did not.

30K Ork Dreadnought Size Comparison

I've been thinking out how to paint this taller than usual ork dreadnought, and I think I am going to go with yellow. Yellow is pretty common these days, but I think I can come up with an original recipe for it that works for this model. I am also considering a teal-ish green with cream colored checkers. Ultimately I think my tall Orks should look good with my 30k armies and Death Korps, so they'll get what is becoming my standard basing of destroyed concrete.

Stylistically, if I am to create a 30k Ork force rather than just a one off, I think I need add more realism and barbarism to the models. In my mind this breaks down to super detailing the kit and painting them darker and more realistically. I have a bunch of chain left over from one of my conversions. I think the Orks would make heavy use of it on their vehicles. I am tempted to channel a little mad max and have Orks riding on top of the dread like a boarding party. It might be too much, but I like the idea. Plus it would let me paint up some ork skin tones. Now I just need to find some characterful orks to add.

Dreadtober Ork Dreadnought With Re-Posed Legs

Dreadtober is a who holiday event, where hobbyists from all over the world build dreadnoughts. If you've never heard of it either then you are in the same boat with me. (I think Greg and Todd invented it) If you'd like to participate, and why wouldn't you, head over to FeedYourNerd to get more details and have your name/blog added to the dreadtober roll call. Todd over at SincaiN40k has been making all kinds of cool images for the event.

So this is my first Ork dreadnought. It is also my first Ork conversion. I haven't painted Orks in ages, and even had to add the Ork label to the blog for the first time. I am not sure what type of Ork dread this is, but when I opened the packages there were three little dreads, and one larger one. I grabbed the larger one, and dismayed at the stumpy legs, hacked them apart. One of the nice thing about Orks is that I don't feel totally compelled to do a clean conversion. Reasonably clean is good enough. This makes the build a lot less stressful.

So what Ork clan should this guy be part of? He will be an army of one for quite a while unless I paint that Stompa lurking in my closet.

*Edit added some photos of the dread with arms magnetized on. I think the added height the re-posed legs give really help the model. It still has the hulking Ork vibe, but looks like it could actually stomp around.

Normandy Houses Now With Back Doors!

The game I am running for our club is coming up at the end of October, so it is time to finally finish all of the terrain needed for it. I think I may have reached my tolerance for house building. I think these houses push my total to something like 19 buildings. Unfortunately only a few of the buildings have entrances on the back of them, but with careful placement I should be able to limit the pain for any player stuck trying to assault a house from the backyard. With roads, fields, bocage, trees, and houses, I think the terrain is now set. That is good, since I've become quite a bit sloppier painting these than the first bunch.

Building a Static Grass Applicator Out of a Fly Swatter

I usually stay away from static grass. Like many, I can never seem to make it come out standing up. Usually I end up with a weird little mashed pile of the stuff. Taking a cue from the name of the stuff, I searched online for a solution. It turns out that all I needed was a negative ION generator. Enter the bug zapper. 

It turns out that a bug zapper will do what I want. The basic principle is simple. Replace the racket head with a metal tea leaf basket and attach one of the two wires inside the device to the new static grass basket. Once that is done, take the second wire and attach it to a nail that will be positioned near any area needed static grass. Presto, a static grass applicator.  

So following that online, I made one.

These are the two wires I was mentioning. I cut away the originals and soldered on replacements.

In the photo above I've already attached the tea leaf strainer to the handle of the bug zapper, and have inserted the long wire into the test piece. I used regular white glue for the test. One gotcha here is that the current generated is not terribly strong, so the basket needs to be close to the nail. I'll improve this later. For a test, I think it worked pretty well.

After I had the device built I grabbed containers full of static grass that I haven't used in years and started experimenting. I think the results would be better if I had some different lengths of static grass, but I think it still worked pretty well. The model railroad guys seem to use a variety of lengths. I've seen them apply grass right over the top of a base layer of previously applied grass.

So, what do I do with this now? I've already experimented making tufts of grass. I know how to make patches. I played around with a pen mashing down areas of the grass to make it look trampled. I suppose I could add static grass to something big. Any ideas? What would you do with this?

Bocage Battle Report

With all that bocage, Rhett and I decided to throw together a quick game to see how a full bocage table would play. I plan to use a lot of bocage for our club's halloween table, so experiencing it first hand was a must. Plus it just looks cool. I had to play on the board. I had to.

Our group plays games a bit differently than a lot of folks. We try to play narrative games, where the objectives make sense, and a story can be told. This forms the framework to make tactics fit into an overall strategy. Fighting a battle to the annihilation of both forces is fun sometimes, but we've found it makes for better games if the forces are no mutually suicidal. Somehow this game, which was designed to avoid slaughter failed to do so.

For this game we want to put two forces trying to reach different destinations in contact. Each of the road end points was numbered, and we randomly drew our entry point and our exit point. The idea was to represent how confusing the first few days of Normandy were. To make things more exciting, we would not reveal either deployment or exit. Obviously the person who entered first would be revealing their starting location, but it was a fun little dance to see who would ultimately bring on the first unit, and where it would come from.

I got very lucky in my deployment road and my exit road. My draw put my entrance leading into the town, and my exit jus tot the right of the town in the top photo. Basically I could amble over to the exit and preserve my forces.

Rhett drew the lower right corner of the first photo for his deployment road, and the middle road exit on the right. This meant that he had to drive into the town, and make a hard right to exit. He would have to drive by all of my forces.

I could have just run my forces off of the table, but that wouldn't have been fun for either of us. Instead I decided to take the town, in order to hinder his advance. I figured I could leisurely mosey on over to my exist later.

Germans aggressively take the town. I did not want to reveal that my exit was immediately to the left in this photo, so I tried to keep my forces towards the center.

In the far right corner in the fields, Rhett immediately moved troops towards the middle road section. I knew exactly where he was going now, and planned to trap his vehicles on the road, and fire at his troops from the safety of the roadside bocage.  (we swapped out the tank for a Sherman during the middle of the game. Rhett decided he would have preferred to have had one.)  :)

Germans move to take the town. The half track had an anti-tank weapon mounted on it, so it let the howitzer deploy, and prepared to block the road. The halftrack moved forward to the crossroads and took a shot at the Sherman. It missed. A bunch of confused Germans wondered what the Sherman would do.

Rather than shoot,  Rhett decided to just ram the halftrack. He succeeded, however we were then left with a quandary. I had effectively blocked the road, making it impossible for him to achieve his objective. We decided to let the sheer spend a turn pushing the half track out of the way.

The half track was pushed by the Sherman tank out of the way, clearing the road for US vehicles. The rest of game became a dance of tanks. The Sherman drove nose to nose with the Panther and proceeded to stay that way for three turns before the panther expired. A foolish charge by American infantry directly into the front of a howitzer ended exactly as you would expect for the infantry. In the end we decided that this would be a tie. The Germans could evacuate two units, and the Americans could only evacuate 1 unit. However one of the German units was sitting next to an angry Sherman. It would have ended badly for them. I accidentally deleted the tank dance photos, so we'll end this little report with an artsy black and white photo.

Sometimes You Need Forty Feet of Bocage

I've been playing bolt action for a while now, and have grown to really enjoy how interesting battles are that take place in Normandy. In order to do the French countryside justice, I finally decided to make a boat load of bocage. I think these will work equally well at 1/72 scale as well as 28mm. (yes I know one of those is a height and the other is a scale)

With 40 feet of the stuff, I think we are going to be able to set up some really nice tables. Once an old stone french church is added it will be perfect.

Bocage Recipe

1. Buy a green natural air filter and cut into sections
2. Base coat bocage sections with brown paint
3. Dust bocage sections with tan paint from above
4. Spray 3M adhesive all over sections
5. Roll bocage around in tray of woodland scenics tree tufts. (use at least three colors)

Stug Zug For NOVA Open

A while ago we decided to give Bolt Action a try at 1/72 scale. When we finally have forces painted, this will allow us to play with all of the 1/72 scale models on the market. The scale is also helpful in that individual infantry are still individually based. That satisfies our group need to not abstract a squad into a single base. I had not intended to put these into the painting competition, but I think these came out pretty well.  What I am most excited about, was proving to myself that I could paint at this scale, and produce models that make battles more interesting to watch.

So, with only two days left before the NOVA Open, I'd like to invite all of you to partake in the speed painting competition, and to watch me compete. Please steal techniques if I happen to have any techniques that are new to you. You are also welcome to kibitz during my painting session Thursday at 3:00PM.