3/11/14: Finished: Tyranid Monstrous Creature Parade!

Howdy folks!

Whew! Its been a busy week! As soon as I wrapped up that Wraithknight, it was on to the Tyranids! This commission consisted of 2 Hive Tyrants, 2 Haruspex/Exocrine, and 2 Harpy/Hive Crone, fully magnetized, and painted to match a client's existing force! Easy peasy, no sweat! I was given a list of paints, the steps they were done in, and it was pretty much point and click. Went through 3 pots of Seraphim Sepia though just to do this commission; I'm not a wash painter, I mean I'll use them, but not for core shading and bases, so going through that much was a surprise! I'll shut up, and jump right into them, shall we?

Above is the scheme I was told to match. Good looking tabletop force, original scheme, fun to see!

The Tyrants! Every option is magnetized, from the Wings, to the Heavy Venom Cannons and Bone Sabres! The Devourers are just taken from my bits box of old Carnifex pieces from when I was making Tervigon models!

 I need to touch up some of the black; even with varnish, the spikes just love to chip!

My favorite models, the Haruspex is just the epitome of scary alien monster! The icky mouth, the crab claws, the bulk demeanor...*shudders* The mandibles and mouth was just washed with Carroburg Crimson, and really gives that nasty, inner-mouth look.   

Personally, I'm not a fan of my aliens having giant silly cannons for hats, but hey, if its good in game...

You can see the magnets on the inside. 3, in a triangle shape, allow for both the Exocrine and Haruspex to be magnetized! Very simple and easy to do!

The Harpy/Hive Crone! This model proved interesting....

I glued the gun arms in, rather than the sacs or magnetizing them, and just allowed the guns to magnetize on or off. They still look like they're powering the Hive Crone's maw gun, and yet are still more stable than using magnets. 

Ah, the little Spores. These painted up really quickly, and were kinda fun to paint, despite being more of a token than anything!

Man, that's a lot of models painted really fast! Tomorrow will be a day of taxes and working on some personal projects, Wednesday I work at the shop, and Thursday, I'll be on a plane flying to Hawaii with my girlfriend! A vacation will be really nice! As a result, Smells Like Wargaming will be away from the 13th to the 22nd; I'll have my phone and Facebook, but any emails and questions will be answered when I return. When I get back, its Starship Troopers and terrain! 

Stay tuned folks!

Granesh

12/3/13: Smells Like Wargaming: Good Games Farmington Edition

Howdy folks!

So as I mentioned on Sunday's post, I was heading down to Farmington to pick up a new commission and play some games on the terrain I painted a while ago. I packed up my stuff late Sunday morning, and was on the road about 11. Farmington is about an hour from Durango, but thankfully most of the drive is through desert/rocky hills, so the highway is 75-80 mph the entire way. I used to make the drive to Aztec to play every Saturday, so I'm used to it. After a little navigational problems (blame the captain, not the equipment), I made it down there. I ran into some old friends from the area, and we jumped right into gaming!

My first opponent was an old buddy of mine from when I used to drive to Aztec to play; last time we played, Abaddon and his Plague Marines cleared his Genestealer army from the battlefield. This time, we had Arkos and his Faithless facing down a heavy podding Tyranid army headed by two flying Hive Tyrants. I have to say, I've never had a more anticlimatic game as this one. Let me explain.

Yours truly as I watch two flying Hive Tyrants run up into my grill. I completely forgot the rule that if you have no models on the table any time a game ends, its an auto win for the other guy. Knowing I was about to have 3 wound Lashwhip/Bonesword death drop in on me, I gunned the Hive Tyrants down HARD. Both failed their flight rolls and crashed on my turn one, where the Chosen ripped them apart with Meltas and Plasma. By the end of my turn two, both Tyrants were goopy messes, and I won the game. 

I need to play more often, my knowledge of the rules was a little rusty...

My buddy came down and hung out for a bit as well. I had him snag these pictures for me turning my game. My new Helbrute 'Lernaea' grounded a Tyrant before being ripped apart by Devourers and whatever else Tyrants are armed with.

The other Tyrant is behind the building there on the right. Massed Autogun fire and the Quad-Gun brought him down, where the other squad of Chosen got to clean a melted alien monster off their Rhino after the game. Alpha Legion love their Brill-o Pads!

I played one more game while down there, a two v. two 1000 points a player match between against two Tyranid armies. My friend brought his 40k stuff, but as he's just getting into it, we had to proxy some stuff for him. I wish I'd gotten pictures of the 24kt Dark Vengeance Chosen proxy-as Sniper Scouts! Needless to say, two Doom of Malan'tai make it hard to do anything against the big bugs strolling down the field towards you, and I lost HARD. 

Thanks again to the guys down at Good Games for making me feel like a rockstar while I was down there. There were a lot of positive comments on the terrain, as well as my own pieces. My artistic statement is to create the cinematic element of the game through fully painted pieces and terrain, and, for the first time in a long time, I got to experience that again. Speaking of terrain, though,...

...here's their next wave! Not included is 2 sets of resin barricades, but this should be a quick, fun commission, just like the last one....as long as the weather will cooperate for the next two weeks! Colorado weather in December doesn't lend well to spray-painting. But I digress! They want a taiga-tundra theme on these bad boys, so lots of spray paint and some tricks will get their new set looking sweet and sexy for gaming!

Assembly work has already begun, but if the weather plays nicely tomorrow, expect updates on the Battleboard, as well as the Citadel Woods! Stay tuned folks, I can tell this is gonna be one hell of a terrain set already!

Granesh