Battlefield Birmingham 2012

This weekend I went to the Inaugural Battlefield Birmingham 40K tournament, it was the first tournament I have entered and it was good fun.
I took my Chaos Daemons mono God Tzeentch themed list and ended up 27th out of 38 with 2:2:1 (Win Loss Draw) ratio.
The mixture of list was pretty good although there were a lot of Grey Knights and some nasty spam lists.

I played:

1st: Orks, this was a balanced Kan wall list, it was a pretty brutal game that almost ended in a double KO although I just managed to scrape the win on the last turn.

2nd: Grey Knights, this was a Crowe Purifier list backed up by 3 Psyfleman dreads and a Vindicare assassin, only the assassin survived.
From this game I learnt not to kill Crowe in CC as his sacrifice power is extra nasty against Daemons.

3rd: Grey Knights, this was a Coteaz razorback spam list, less said about this game the better, I lost quite badly.

4th: Blood Angels, this was a heavy mech list taking advantage of the assault squad discount, unfortunately fateweaver screwed me over which ruined my plan, otherwise i think i would have done better in this one.

5th: Orks, this was standard Battlewagons with Ghaz, it was a draw although it could of gone either way on the last turn.

My army was also nominated for best painted and came 3rd overall which I was quite pleased about.

The New Face of Evil

My first GK Terminator is now complete!

Im pretty happy with this guy, one of my better paint jobs so far.

The list Im going with for 1500 points is:

Mordrak
x3 Ghost Knights with Halberds (or Swords?)

Ordo Malleus Inquisitor
Terminator Armour
Psycannon
x3 Servo Skulls

Vindicare Assassin

10 Terminators
x2 Psycannons
x2 Daemon Hammers
x8 Halberds
Psybolt Ammo

10 Terminators
x2 Psycannons
x2 Daemon Hammers
x8 Halberds
Psybolt Ammo

Grey Knights Terminator Colour Scheme

So now my Daemon army has been completed in looking to start a new project.
I have wanted to do a shooty Terminator list for a while but have not been impressed by the shooting options available with either a Deathwing or Loganwing army so I am going to use the Grey Knight codex and do all Terminators with Mordrak as HQ.
I am really looking forward to modelling and painting up the Ghost Knights as i have a good idea of what they will look like in my mind already.
My main colour scheme will not be the traditional Grey Knight colour scheme but use a simlar palete of colours.

The armour is complete on this bar a few details and extreme highlights, I am however a little stuck on how to paint the Bolter and Halberd.

My Opinion of Finecast

My second biggest beef with Finecast after quality must be the lack of perceived value for money over a metal miniature.

A metal miniature has a higher materials cost but that value stays (increases?) with the miniature, a resin miniature is and always will be worthless lump of resin, your only really paying for the craftsmanship and quality used to create said miniature which is already lacking (In my Opinion) over an older metal miniature.

This will in time be reflect in the resale of used miniatures, would you really risk buying a used Finecast miniature from ebay? Imagine how many metal miniatures were sold on ebay in 2011. Examples of which are usually poorly assembled and painted by over enthusiastic teenagers, improperly stored and mistreated for years. Is a Finecast miniature durable enough to survive this and still be in good enough condition to be worth selling?

Is Finecast in part a tool created too control the used miniature market of the future?

Only time will tell...

Ikea gaming table

In this post I am going to explain how i made a (very) simple modular gaming table.

I have been looking for a gaming table solution for a while that takes up very little space but can easily be setup and would not look out of place in my living room.
Fortunately i live close by to an Ikea where they sell a cheep modular table system called the VIKA system.
This being Ikea all measurements are in metric so the table is just shy of 4' deep by about half an inch and the same again for its width, i feel this is acceptable for gaming as long as its taken into consideration for deployment etc, of course if you had boards or a realm of battle board to put on top then its no problem at all.

The table is effectively three VIKA AMON table tops attached by hinges, the center table top has normal legs but the outer table tops just have table leg mounting plates attached to the corners.
The outer table tops act as drop leaves for the main table so the table can easily be configured from a 2' by 2' to 4' by 4' for smaller games all the way up to the 6' by 4' for normal 40k.
The great thing about the legs for this table is that the mounting plate and the leg tube are threaded so when you want to use one of the leaves its as simple as swinging it out and screwing in the legs from underneath, the tops are quite light so this is no problem to do even with such large drop leaves.

Table tops are called VIKA AMON, they come in a bunch of different styles some of which are rather lurid (bright green) which are oddly cheaper than the more normal looking ones.

Table legs are called VIKA CURRY which also come in various colors.

Hinges were picked up from a normal hardware store, the hinges i used also have removable pins so the whole table can be dismantled without tools if necessary.

That's how it all screws together

Table with leaves down looks quite good

A single leaf up

All leaves up for gaming!

The sheet in the last picture was also sourced from Ikea and is quite a reasonable alternative to a GW grass mat or similar product.

Overall i am quite pleased with the table, it looks good and works well.

Bonecrons rise again

With the release of the Necron codex its finally time to bust out my old Bonecrons, fortunately my old favorite unit (Scarabs) is now one of the best in the book however I am annoyed my Monoliths are now pretty rubbish.
Since Scarabs are no longer jetbikes and the little flying stalks they were on are kinda stupid so i have rebased the lot.

The little tufts of grass are the new Mordheim Turf grass tufts from GW, i think they look pretty nice and would recommend them to anyone.

Tufts!

Deffkopta Buzzsaw Conversion

*UPDATE*

I thought I would update this as I was so pleased with the performance of the Buzzsaw Deffkopta I made another three using a different method.

A full squadron

Right side detail

Left side detail

The arm Assembly is from the Ork Trukk kit (wrecking ball arm)
I drilled out one end to attach a rod which is then glued onto the Deffkopta runners with greenstuff welding detail added after.
The Blade is just plasticard.

*Original Post*

For me its been a bit quite month of 40K although i have managed to make some progress on the Orks.
I have added a Buzzsaw to my one painted deffkopta to make what the Internet calls a "Green Baron"
The saw is from the old plastic epic warlord titan kit.
I have also put paint on my battlewagons, just need weathering up with a bit of mud and some details to be complete.