In Which Our Hero is Beaten by 10-year old...

Painting is still slow going but I have spent the time well. Having picked up Codex: SM and Codex: Orks cheap off ebay, I build a couple of balanced army lists for the two forces and me and Ewan (eldest offspring)  managed to get a good and proper fight in at 1250 points each. Whilst we've had a few matches before, they've never been with properly costed forces and mission rules, so this was a first for both of us.

My Blood Raven Force ready to roll out. The books at the top of the picture represent a swamp and the egg-paperweight-thing is my objective. 

Ewans Orks - mostly painted by Ewan. The two Imperial Guard vehichles are "Looted Wagons" and the Leman Russ had a rather lethal Boomgun on it before I Autocannoned it to death in the early game. The slippers aren't terrain, they're just proof Ewan never cleans his room!

Mid-Game and my Sternguard gaze across at the approaching horde next to a shot-up Razorback. What you can't tell is that I'm being heavily outflanked on the far side of the table.

...and thats all folks. With time out on the game it was technically a draw, but Ewan has killed more units than I have and has a force advancing on my objective whilst I'm bogged down on the near-side. As you see the Razorback's bad day continued to get worse!

Overall, pretty good fun and proof you don't need huge armies and "proper" competition to have fun with this game!

Not Dead Yet!

Not Dead....but still in moderate pain. My elbow is steadily improving, and this means I can start painting again. I've spent some time just assembling figures - some Orks for my sons army and a load of Marine stuff for me. With luck we'll even get a fight in this weekend. The return of the Blood Ravens to my painting table has meant I've cracked open the new paint set i treated myself too a while back - a series of Vallejo Game Colour paints which I'd heard good things about. First impressions are strong, especially compared to the old GW paints (not tried the new range) although the coverage is...different. a better different, but still different and it took by surprise.

This is my commander. As usual I'm starting on the armour first, and that's all i've done. But he's, well, Red-er than i expected. I don't think its a problem, and with a bit of work he's in line with the colour of my existing BR force, but at first I thought "oh hell". Maybe I should have started on a Troop, not an HQ? Still, live and learn, eh? 

Eyeing things up

Well, my arm hurts and aches but I've slowly been getting enough mobility to hold something steady in it, and  gods I've been bored not being able to paint, or play computer games, or do much apart from watch the telly. and it's only been a week.

still, I have managed to polish off another "quick and dirty" Kan for my son's Ork force, including my first real attempt at a "glowing" eye. So on lieu of anything more interesting, here he is.

Not Only War?

Things have been a little quiet here for the last couple of weeks whilst I've been waiting for my next batch of figures to be delivered. and now they have!

So thats a whole stack of Marines to expend my Blood Ravens out to a fairly rounded 1000 point force, plus some Orks for Ewan to add to his collection. Unfortunately, just as these guys finally arrived, I managed to fall over and break a bone in my elbow, which really precludes much in the way of painting in the near future.

Well, bugger, as they say.

End of Orks, and Onto new Things

..and with him painted, thats the end of the Orks for now. Its been quite fun to just bash some "tabletop standard" figures out for Ewan, and I'm sure I'll do some more in the future, but for now it's onto a new plan. With a little bit of careful Ebaying, I've got both the Ork and Space Marine Codexes, and am now planning on putting together moderately balanced 1000 point forces for both factions for us to play with. For the Orks this is pretty easy, but for my Blood Ravens slightly less so, given my eclectic purchasing habits.

So, I've ordered another tac squad, and a command squad to round them out, and will get to building and painting. This will also be the time to crack open the new paints I've picked up too, so its all change for the next few months!

Quick 'n' Dirty Orks

So, as I think I've mentioned previously, my eldest has a growing Orky Horde and whilst he's happy splodging paint around on them I've nicked a few to paint up myself. Now other than messing about with some of the AoBR Boyz way back when I started painting again.

So I've swiped some Burna Boyz, and gone for a quick approach that is fast and understates a lot of the detail. Because the thing that I've noticed is that Ork figures are covered in straps and furs and stuff, which can make them look very cool, but I can also imagine that it will get quite frustrating for a novice as it hugely multiplies the number of passes they need to make on it. So for these guys, sod that, and I've tried to keep the colour blocks simple and aim for a "straight to the tabletop" look.

This means - body colour is blue, leather gloves and boots are brown, and the metal work is tin bitz. Where its on the outside of the model (ie front and centre to the eye) I've added highlighting and detail work, but really what I want to do it give them back to him and say "this is what you should be aiming at" without them being so detailed he'll be defeated before he starts. I want to encourage the idea that if you just get the paint "between the lines" as it where you can do a lot with a simple basecoat - wash - highlight. I can save the fancier stuff for my Blood Ravens! ;-)

So they look like this:

Tau Piranha: COMPLETED

OK, so after some wailing an gnashing of teeth I pretty much just sucked it up and went back to the Piranha, and finished it off as best I could. I think it's fine overall, but I still feel slightly annoyed with not being able to realise the original plan. Also, you don't half get bored of painting drones quickly.

Anyway, pics after the cut.