10mm Napoleonics

Viva Le France

Something happens to you when you turn 40. For some reason the section of the store with the old boxes no one ever buys, thats right the historicals section suddenly appeals to you, in more than the empire pikemen way. For the last few years (yeah its been that long since I posted) I have been gradually building up my napoleonics collection. I overbought 28's foolishly thinking I could paint up a ~ thousand miniatures. But now I am on the right track, I believe with 10mm. In my early tests, I figured out that I paint 10mms 5 times as fast as 28's i.e. 5 10mm ligne in about the same time as 1 28mm ligne. And with rule sets like blucher I could come up with a brigade of infantry in the same time it would take me to paint a company (4-5 figures) in 28. So now I have 2500 figures to paint, but I've already managed to paint 250 on a very light schedule in 2 months, and I should be playing the smll battles of the napoleonic wars (I am targetting Raab) in about 3 months.So until the battles come, I will be updating painting on this new page on my site:
Old Glory 10mm French Review

The Knights of Infinite Rust

My latest painting project for adding to my chaos daemons army.

Key:
G: Games Workshop
F: Folk Art
A: Americana
V: Vallejo
AP: Army Painter
S: Secret Weapon
R: Reaper
+ colors are mixed
: Technique Used

• Primer
• Orchard Supply Hardware Gray Primer
• Basescoats/Highlights
• Skin- (G)Rakarth Flesh, (G)Pallid Wyche Flesh: Layered
• Armor- (F)Dove Gray (V) Pale Grey Blue,  (V) Dead White: Sploched
• Bone- (AP)Skeleton Bone
• Cloth- (V) Sombre Gray, Mix Sombre Gray with (V) Glacial Blue: Layered
• Light Cloth & Leather: Reaper 09149 Moldy Skin: Layered
• Wood- Americana Burnt Umber, (F) Mushroom: Layered
• Super Nurgly Skin: (A) Light Avacado+Moon Yellow,(F)Capucino andSkin Colors: Layered
• Rust Effects
• (A) Burnt Umber, (A) Georgia Clay, (F) Terra Cotta, (V) Plague Brown: Sploched/Dry Bruched, Layered (as you go up to brighter colors)
• Do not Ink!
• Washes:
• Dark Cloth: (S) Blue Black
• Bone: Sepia Shade
• Armor, Light Cloth, Wood (S) Baby Poop: Cloth overall, Armor Crevices only
• Skin: (G) Carroberg Crimson
• Bases
• Pour Glue and Dry Bases to make them smoother
• Bubbles made by rolling greenstuff and pouring glue over bubbles
• Used (A) Light Avocado added (V) Moon Yellow for Highlights, Ger. Camo Drk Green for Dark Areas. Mixed all paints with water effects
• Dirt- Burnt Umber base, (V) Green Grey
• Static Grass to taste

Scenario Ideas for Warhammer Tournaments

So Reece recently posted this: http://www.frontlinegaming.org/2013/12/18/40k-tournament-format-and-the-future/ and for those who care about 40K even less than I do, he basically said:

• Comp sucks because it restricts what a player can bring (and is horribly inconsistent)
• Special rules (i.e random movement, magic fluxx, fog of war) suck because they take away models that a player paid points for,
• So maybe the way to even out discrepencies between lists is to fiddle with victory conditions.

I'm not sure that comp completely sucks as for example banning allies in 40K would be an excellent idea, but when looking at fantasy the idea of altering victory conditions does seem to have merit.

I started thinking up ideas about how this can be done in warhammer, and I am going to write them down here and now for your amusement. These are ideas for scenario victory conditions, not actual scenarios!

Haunted house, improve the supposedly unplayable scenario where the winner is the one that holds the building with

1. Holding building is an extra 500 points
2. Assualting the building makes it 50 points less valuable

This makes it so both players have to think more carefully about which unit holds the building, as putting your best unit in the building could allow your opponent to destroy the rest of your army. the 50 points less valuable thing allows an interesting use for larger units of weaker troops who have no hope of taking the building but could chew away at how valuable the building is.

Wheat from the chaffe (any or all of below), 

1. none core units count half for victory points
2. core units only count half for vp
3. player who killed largest unit (by wound count), gets 100VP bonus
4. player who killed most expensive unit gets 100VP bonus
5. killed most flyers (by wound count) +100VP
6. killed most missile (or warmachine) units (by wound count) +100VP

First blood/Vandetta

1. First/last unit (broad sense of the term) killed counts for double vp
2. Player declares a unit  (broad sense of the term) at the beginning of the game

Blitzkrieg

1. Table quarters +100
2. Enemy deployment zone +100
3. Unit still in own deployment zone -25
4. 4 objectives placed by players worth 100 each at end of game (uncontested)
5. Cleanse style mission for Fantasy

Favor of the dark gods:

1. Every miscast + 50 points
2. Winning a challenge of any kind +50pts
3. Winning a challenge against superior class champion < hero < lord +50 points per class
4. Accepting challenge +25 points

Awards (nothing like best General...best painted)

Wins and losses DO NOT MATTER, as this makes all games meaningful, and solves the problem of having a "true winner" over 3 games, it does create the problem of possibly having someone go 3-0 and still not win

Chosen of Khorne: player who killed the most points of enemy models (i.e. Regardless of how much he had killed of his own)

General of the Empire: Player who had most objective points at the end of tournament

Architect of Fate: Player who gave up the least points (mission and killed) at the end of the game

25 Facts About the Imperial Fists

A Few years ago, at the height of the Chuck Norris Facts  craze, me and a friend of mine decided to record some facts about the Imperium's foremost space marine legion/chapter, the Imperial Fists. Posting it here to keep it from getting buried on the forums I posted it on.

1. It is true that Guilliman wrote the codex astartes, exactly as dictated by Dorn
2. Imperial Fist Librarians don't take Perils of the Warp tests, the Warp takes Perils of the Imperial Fists tests.
3. When an Imperial Fist crosses the road, no dares ask him why he did it.
4. The pen is mightier than the power sword, when properly wielded by an Imperial Fist
5. Imperial fists tactical squads don't take special weapons, as every weapon is special in the hands of the imperial fists
6. The universe is always expanding, but it knows full well that it can't escape the wrath of the Imperial Fists
7. The Codex Astartes defines Impregnable as: "Can only be taken by Imperial Fists"
8. The Imperial Fists have designed several fortress worlds, and let them fall to Chaos, just in case they get bored
9. They Catachan devil was known as the Segmentum Solar devil, before the Imperial Fists started hunting it
10. The mechanicum's 3rd law of motion is wrong, there is no reaction equal and oppisite to an assault by the Imperial Fists!
11. The mechanicm's 1st law of thermodynamics is wrong as well, an Imperial Fist can destroy anything, even energy
12. Rogal Dorn invented black, in fact, he invented the whole spectrum of colors...except pink which is clearly the work of the Ultra Marines
13. An imperial fist can play russian roulette with a fully loaded storm bolter, and win!
14. Had the Lord of the Rings featured an Imperial Fist instead of a hobit as its main character, it would only be 5 pages long
15. Rogal Dorn once engaged in a staring contest with the eye of terror, and won!
16. If at first you don't succeed, you are not an Imperial Fist!
17. The Codex Astartes was originally titled: "How to be more like the Imperial Fists"
18. The Imperial Fists did not lose Bechters Gland (spit poison) they donated it to needier chapters
19. The Imperial Fists got rid of the Sus-An Membrane (1/2 sleep) because they realized that
20. if they didn't take an occasional break there would be nothing left to kill in the Galaxy
21. To this day no one knows if Imperial Fist Vehicles have a reverse gear, as they have never retreated
22. An imperial Fist never has to oil his bolter or armour as they are always slick with blood.
23. If an Imperial Fist wants your opinion, he'll beat it into you.
24. After taking a steroids test, the Apothacaries informed Rogal Dorn that he had tested positive. He laughed upon receiving this information,
25. and said unto them "of course my blood tested positive, what do you think they make steroids from?"

Unleash the Flames of War

After running a long 40K campaign, I am ready for a warhammer (40K and Fantasy) vacation. So I've set up a trade for some of my chaos warriors for Flames of War Germans and Russians. So Obviously the goal now is to save on hobby supplies. I had to order german late war armor spray from flamesofwar.com at full retail, as I couldn't find it anywhere else, but I am determined to use craft paints for most of my models because a) I already have a ton and b) anything I need is half the price of Vallejo or GW. So with a bit of digging I found this chart, which has the Folkart conversion for every fow color.
http://wargames.nordalia.com/index.php?option=content&task=view&id=34

Finished First Section Of My Wall of Martyrs

I decided I'm going to use this blog to keep track of the formulas I use for painting stuff. 

First up is this section of my wall of martyrs defense line that I just finished, this was done by stipling  10 or so colors (from both the folkart and the GW range) onto the main body, and another 3 colors for the fiery parts. Recipe can be found in the recipes page: 

Why I Like Shogun Miniatures Trays

I had an article earlier about magnetizing your miniatures, but I talked mainly about your bases, this one talks about the trays. For Warhammer fantasy...to me, there is really no debate to be had, Shogun Miniatures is by far the best choice, here's why:

1. They are very reasonably priced, compared to GF9 or Litko Aero
2. They seem to provide just the right level of adhesion compared when paired with my favorite base magnetizing solution (magnetic rubber base bottoms from Litko Aero
3. They come in ANY reasonable size you want, which means the tray can fit whatever formation and base size combo you have so you never have to glue movement together
4. The lip of the tray is very thin, meaning it blends in with your base and it avoids arguments about with to measure distance from lip or tray.
5. They are metal which means there is no rubber sheet that might fall detach from the tray.
6. They are very durable (which is less of a problem now that finecast is prevalent , but if you have entire large units old metal miniatures like I do, your tray wont break like some of the plastic ones you glue together.