A Tale of Four Santas: The Finished Article

 Welcome back to Santa's Grotto! Today's post is a brief update show the final images The Four Santa's model, the Omega Guardians Ancient.

Pestilential Painting: Foul Blightspawn

 Welcome back to the Vectorium! This week has been interesting for Death Guard news; the Codex is delayed until the New Year, but GW have been previewing some of the updated rules. I won't go through these in detail as there's plenty of analysis on the Web. In the main these look pretty good aside from the disappointing changes to Disgustingly Resilient. I'll have a minor vent about that at the bottom of the post so feel free to give that an ignoring if you wish*.

I have finished painting the Foul Blightspawn model, and I'm pretty pleased with the end results.

Pestilential Painting: Foul Blightspawn Work in Progress

 Welcome back to the Vectorium! Hobby time has been scant recently but I have managed to slap some paint onto a couple of models. I've been focusing on the "Elite" entry of my Death Guard Combat Patrol, the particularly vile Foul Blightspawn,

Doh! Bad lighting and washed out colours

A Tale of Four Santas: Part Two

 Welcome back to the Vault! I've been making more progress on the Omega Guardians Standard Bearer I've been working on for the Four Santas Challenge.

In this week's hobby session I've managed to complete the Banner itself and applied decals.

A Tale of Four Santas: Part One

 Welcome back to the Vault my little helpers! I've laid down a challenge to the members of one of the group chats I belong to. Whilst we can't meet to play games we are all working on various painting projects and four of us have agreed to build, paint, and gift a model to someone else in the challenge.

An infantry model is ideal (something like a Tactical Marine or Ork Boy), and preferably it should be something the recipient can use as a reinforcement to one of their own forces.

Names were picked out of the hat, and I've drawn Neil from Table Standard. This gives me a great deal of choice in terms of factions to pick from as Neil has a great collection of painted armies including:

• Orks
• Crimson Fists
• Dark Angels
• Crimson Slaughter
• Catachans
• Craftworld Eldar

However I've decided to paint a model for the Omega Guardians! I want to build a character model of some sort so it can fit into an army list regardless of other unit selections.

Pestilential Painting: Some Rancid Reinforcements

 Welcome back to the Vault once more.  I should warn you that today's post is a bit of a ramble; it's not the usual "Varchilde slowly paints another model affair", and there might be a moan or two.

Games Workshop has been dabbling over the last couple of years with products outside of their bread and butter model kits, paints and rulebooks. I'm thinking of the child-friendly novels, Funko Space Marines, and the Blind Pack "Heroes" ranges. Whilst a lot of these items don't particularly interest me, I think providing more "cool stuff" for hobbyists and fans who do like these product types is great.

One sort of merch I usually avoid are the "lucky dip" types. I don't understand the appeal of Loot Crates; yes you may end up with items worth more than you've spent on the purchase, but if it's a load of stuff I don't want then it's worth to me is zero. I'd rather buy the items I want with certainty than gamble.  

Recent posts have covered my initial forays into painting Death Guard, and I've fallen in love with the detail and individuality of the Plague Marine models. So when GW announced the UK release of the Death Guard "Space Marine Heroes" series my interest was suitably piqued.

Morslug

Pestilential Painting: Malignant Plaguecaster

 Welcome back to the Vault! This week's hobby time has been spent on the Death Guard Combat Patrol; specifically the Malignant Plaguecaster who will lead this Nurgley force. I'm really enjoying this project, and the models are a joy to paint.

Pestilential Painting: The Lazy Person's Guide to painting Plague Marines

 Welcome back to the Vault! I've spent my recent hobby time completing the first unit of Plague Marines for my burgeoning Death Guard force! I'm pleased with how they've turned out and so I thought I'd capture the paint scheme down for future reference. It's pretty straight forward to follow and unusually there isn't an edge highlight in sight! 

None of your treasure is safe!

 Welcome back to the Vault! I had intended to start painting some Plague Marines over the weekend, but the weather conspired against me and I was unable to prime the models.  Not to be undone I decided to chip away at one of the myriad of other projects; in this case my D&D bestiary.

I had been very kindly gifted some Wiz Kids pre-primed miniatures for my birthday and so some of these jumped to the top of the painting queue. First up is Rusty the Rust Monster.

Pestilential Painting: First Outbreak

 Welcome back to the Vault. Usually at this point in the blogging year I would have been working towards Octoberfest and writing about the process, culminating in the Punditry Posts and Tournament Report. Alas the tournament has been cancelled and with the local area heading into Tier 2 lockdown even games with friends at home are not possible.

So this means my hobby focus will continue on modelling and painting, and I've written my first Death Guard list to guide my efforts.

Pestilential Painting: Myphitic Blight-Hauler

 Welcome to the Vectorium! This week's hobby time has been spent in further dalliance with the Death Guard. Having previously painted a test Plague Marine I thought I'd try the colour scheme on a vehicle. I decided to paint up one of the Easy To Build Myphitic Blight-Haulers as these are comparatively small models (for vehicles at least).

Mortarion's Musings

Hello Venturers and welcome back to the Vault! October is normally a busy time on the gaming/hobby calendar with both Octoberfest and SELWG to look forward to. With social distancing in effect this Autumn looks as if it will be a much quieter affair.

I've been thinking about what to share on the Vault going forwards. In the four years I've been blogging I've completed a new 40K army to a respectable point level (the mighty Carcharodons Astra), and added various units to other forces (including my Dark Eldar, Imperial Guard and Grey Knights). I've also completed various smaller painting projects including terrain and kill teams/warbands for skirmish games.

I've never completed a Chaos project; I've dabbled with the odd test model but never committed to a force of Heretics and Daemon Worshippers.  I'd like to change that, and have decided to paint up some Death Guard as my autumn/winter hobby project.

Tales from Titan: Strike Two!

 Welcome back to the Vault my fellow Brother Captains. Today's post is something of a "lessons learnt" piece. I recently played a game of 40K against Lyle, a fellow First Founding club member's Emperors Children list with my old school Tau force. The Fish are not something I've blogged about before; they are an Ebay rescue which need a lot of TLC applied before I'd share photos of them on the Vault.

However we decided to veer away from our usual armies (Lyle is very accomplished Ad Mech Tech Priest) for a different game. How is this relevant to Grey Knights? A good question! My current GK list is very Elite, featuring 4 Terminator Squads, and so playing a Tau list with multiple cheap infantry squads allowed me to try some of the action based mission Secondary objectives.

I've shied away from the action Secondaries as my Terminator squads need to be shooting, casting rather than Raising Banners and so on. However for the price of one Termie squad I can get 2 squads of Strike Marines, and making this one simple swap opens up some interesting opportunities.

Tales from Titan: Warp Shaping

Hail fellow Brother Captains and welcome back to the Vault! This week I've played a game of 40K against James's Deathwatch force resulting in a narrow defeat for the Grey Knights. It was great fun, and I learnt more subtleties of playing the elite Sons of Titan.

In particular the Warp Tides are key to successful play, and understanding when to change the Tide (or not) is an important skill. In this post I'll recap the Tides (and some thoughts on when to use them).

Tales from Titan: A Grey Knights Psychic Phase Primer (Part Two)

 Welcome back to the Vault once more!  Today's post is the second part of my primer to the Grey Knights Psychic Phase. You can find the part one here, where we discussed the probabilities involved in casting the various psychic powers; now we'll talk about the powers themselves.

Please note, like a lot of information on the internet this post contains opinion; your opinions of the powers may be different and you are encouraged to garner your own experience from the table top. Nothing beats playing the game!

Tales from Titan: Raise the Banners

 Welcome back to the Vault! I've been spending some time working on my Grey Knights; and first up is a Brotherhood/Paladin Ancient:

Tales from Titan: Venerable Dreadnought

Hail and welcome to the Vault once again! It's been a wonderful bank holiday weekend which has meant an opportunity to indulge in some painting time. I'm continuing to work through some of my Grey Knight models, and have completed a Venerable Dreadnought to add some long range Anti Tank fire support to my troopers.

 

Tales from Titan: Grand Master Voldus

Greetings my fellow Brother Captains, and welcome back to the Vault. This week's hobby time has been spent painting up some reinforcements for my 40K Grey Knights collection. I'm working on the models I need to complete my first 9th ed army list, namely a Dreadnought and Grand Master Voldus.  

I've finished up Voldus bar basing, and I'm pretty pleased with the results.

 

Tales from Titan: A Grey Knights Psychic Phase Primer (Part One)

 Welcome back to the Vault my fellow Grand Masters and Brother Captains. I'm continuing my exploration of the Grey Knights and how to play them in the new 9th edition.  The Grey Knights are unique among my armies in that they have a lot of Psykers available (pretty much every unit can cast a power), and there are Relics and Stratagems which can modify the psychic casting dice rolls. I've found this to be a bit intimidating and confusing, so I thought I'd write a primer to help myself (and hopefully other Grey Knight players) out.

In this post I will be focusing on the likelihood of casting powers, rather than the powers themselves. I will cover the powers in a future post.

Tales from Titan: First Grey Knights 9th Edition List

 Welcome to back to the Vault fellow Grand Masters! The weather this week has been glorious but detrimental to painting; i.e. far too hot! Undaunted however I have played another "Learning 9th edition" game with Dave G, and I decided to bring the Grey Knights out for a spin across the table top.

This will be something of a rambling post as it will give me an opportunity to capture some thoughts and good ideas for future games. I hope you might get some benefit from the thoughts as well.

Tales from Titan: Grey Knight Apothecary

Welcome to the Vault once more.  Having spent time this holiday painting dreadnoughts and tanks for the Space Sharks I've also painted a new Character for the Grey Knights.  I was quite impressed with the finish of the new GW Grey Knights Steel paint when I used it on the Sicaran Battle Tank as a dry brush over Leadbelcher that I wanted to try it out on one of the Heroes of Titan.

Long term readers may recall I'd picked up my Grey Knights for some games just before lock down and I'd actually built a few new models to use alongside my existing force. Time to get one of these chaps painted then!

 

Power Armoured Paint: Carcharodon Sicaran Battle Tank

Welcome back to the Vault my fellow Commanders! My summer holiday has afforded me another couple of painting sessions and I've turned my attention to a more serious project.  This time last year some friends and I visited Warhammer World and I indulged in some Forge World Armour; the venerated Relics of the Chapter.

I've really enjoyed painting the Sicaran Battle Tank; it looks menacing and is a hefty beast, being made entirely of resin.

Power Armoured Paint: More Space Shark Reinforcements

Welcome back to the Vault.  I mentioned in my last post that I'm currently enjoying some well earned holiday time, and I've spent a few hours painting up some more additions to the Carcharadons Astra. 

First up is a Forge World Legion Praetor:

Power Armoured Paint: Completed Redemptor Dreadnought

Welcome back to the Vault! This week's hobby time has been spent completing the Redemptor Dreadnought destined to reinforce the Carcharodons Astra.  This has been a relatively simple, but fun project culminating in lots of free hand markings across the Sarcophogus and shoulders.

Power Armoured Paint: Redemptor Work In Progress #1

Welcome to the Vault once more! I've spent my hobby time this week working on my Redemptor Dreadnought.  I've no idea how this model will perform in the new edition of 40K, but I have been enjoying time spent slapping paint about!

Power Armoured Paint: DIY Redemptor Dreadnought Base

Welcome back to the Vault! It's been a while since I've written about Warhammer 40,000 but fear not as the hobby butterfly has alighted upon my backlog of unpainted Space Shark models.

I have started applying the base coats to a Redemptor Dreadnought. This is one of the "easy build" kits which I've modified to a different weapon fit with the addition of a mini chain gun and missile pod.

Long term readers will know that my Carcharodons are all based on the lovely Sector Mechanicus bases, but this range does not cover the massive 100 mm based used for the Dreadnought.

What's a hobbyist to do? Well, one dip into the bitz box and hobby supplies later and I was suitably furnished with materials to fashion my own:

Tales from Benchleydale: Anders Freesword

Welcome to the Vault once more!  My studies at the Benchleydale Academy have continued with a fun interactive character generation systems via Zoom and I've rolled my "back up" character. 

Our erstwhile DM has also provided us with insight into various locales within the realm as we've all rolled up "current events" for our character's home locations via a series of random tables.  This is quite a fun addition to character generation and something I'll consider adding to my own campaigns.

So let's introduce; Anders Freesword

Half Orc for hire by Conquistador (Deviant Art) (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0) 

Father's Day Loot: RBC Spell Tracker

Welcome back to the Vault!  As I've indicated in recent posts I'm participating in several online RPGs to get my gaming fix and that includes a weekly 5th edition D&D campaign.

I'm really enjoying the adventures of Immerel the druid as he and his comrades battle a force of giants and the ogre-ish allies.  5th edition uses a different magic system compared to my more familiar "go to" 3rd edition.  In essence Immerel "prepares" a number of spells from his possible selection each day and can then cast any combination using his spell slots of different levels.

My daughters are obviously aware of my enjoyment of this game as they've given me the perfect present for Father's Day; a spell tracker peg board!

Tales from Benchleydale: Torvik Quicksilver

Welcome back to the Vault once more my fellow Adventurers.  The primary source of my gaming fix over lock down (apart from the family board games) has come by playing D&D online with friends from the First Founding club. I'm enjoying playing Immerel the Druid in a 5th edition game (my first real exposure to this version), and running an introductory adventure using Swords and Wizardry Light.

I've also been very lucky to be invited to participate in a gaming experience over the summer called the Benchleydale Academy.  The Academy is focused on a 1st edition Advanced Dungeons and Dragons sandbox setting called Benchleydale and Beyond comprising over 100 classic adventures set in a campaign backdrop created in part by the collaboration of Academy participants.

 

Simple Online Fantasy Role Playing Game Guide

Welcome back to the Vault my fellow Venturers! One of the joys of the smart phone age is the Group Chat, and like a lot of gamers/hobbyists I belong to a number of such groups dedicated to various gaming and modelling topics.

One of the smaller 40k group chats was lamenting the lack of face to face gaming due to lock down and social distancing, and the suggestion of running an online role playing game came up.  Most of the players are relative novices to RPGs so I volunteered to organise a very simple introductory game using easily accessibly materials.

First up was the choice of rule set; this was an easy decision to make as I've had Swords and Wizardry Light (S&WL) in mind to try out for a while.  S&WL is a free product (well technically Pay What You Want), and provides a stripped back D&D-like system over  an easy to digest 4 pages. For me the rules have a very Basic D&D vibe to them, and preparing the adventure was something of a nostalgia trip for me.

The Dead Shall Rise

I see you have ventured back to the Vault once more. Whilst the warm summer sun tempts us away from the painting desks, there is dread chill in the crypts.  I've spent a couple of hours applying more paint to my Wraith diorama, and the model is now at a point I'm happy to call it done.

The Dead Shall Rise: Work In Progess

Welcome back to the Vault! The hobby butterfly seems to have settled in the fantasy realms as I've started on another "terrain" project.  This is a little different as it's an entry for the Frostgrave Facebook group's monthly hobby competition under the theme of "Wraith".  The brief is deliberately vague to allow the creative juices to flow!

I purchased the first issue of the Age of Sigmar "Mortal Realms" magazine when it appeared as two quid for a dozen or so miniatures was just too much of a bargain to pass up. And luckily a bunch of those were wraiths.

A number of other people on the group have made the same purchase so I've decided to do something a little bit different and incorporate some of the spectres into a diorama/terrain piece.  A quick dive into the bitz box and the hobby supplies found some useful pieces allowing me to knock this up:

Ruined Wizards Tower

Welcome back to the Vault!  Even though we are still in lock down I've been lucky to get some gaming in over the last week or so, having played in an online Dark Suns-esque D&D session, and my eldest daughter and I took on the Writhing Fumes solo Frostgrave scenario running a Warband between us.

Hobby wise I'm still firmly in the thrall of painting models for my fantasy based games, and I've been tackling a more significant project; the forgotten Wizard's Tower, now fallen into ruin.

Frostgrave: The Chronomatic Cogs

Welcome back to the Vault! I'm continuing to work through the Malign Sorcery models, and this time it's the turn of the Chronomatic Cogs.

The Cogs are a manifestation of Chronomancy; a device with the power to manipulate time itself!

Frostgrave: Lightning Elementals

Welcome back to the Vault once more.  I'm really enjoying working through the back log of fantasy models and the next project on the painting desk has been the Malign Sorcery Geminids.

In the Age of Sigmar fluff these living spells are a pair of light and dark entities, but I decided to paint them as a form of Ball Lightning.

Frostgrave: The Scuttletide

Welcome back to the Vault! I've been continuing to work through the back log of fantasy gaming models, and in this post I'd like to share the Scuttletide which I've recently completed.

Frostgrave: The Skull Throne

Welcome back to the Vault! We are coming out of the Easter weekend so that must mean its time for a bonus post.  I had the indulgence of another painting session on the Bank Holiday Monday and spent it on another piece of half finished fantasy terrain which has been languishing for far too long.

So here is the GW Magewrath Throne, aka the Skull Throne!

Frostgrave: The Arcane Ruins

Welcome back to the Vault once more! Today's post is a brief interlude from the Living Spells as I've been spending some of my lock down time revisiting old fantasy gaming material; D&D modules, miniatures and so on.  In doing so I've come across a half finished terrain project that I thought would be fun to complete; the venerable Arcane Ruin kit.

Frostgrave: Wall of Ice

Welcome back to the Vault, somewhere outside your front door it's safe to visit!  This week I've continued the lock down theme of (i) board games, (ii) Discord D&D and (iii) painting up some more fantasy gaming models.

I've completed a couple more of the Malign Sorcery pieces, and first up is the Wall of Ice:

Frostgrave: The Umbral Portals

Welcome back to the Vault once more my fellow Venturers, and I hope you are all keeping yourselves safe and well during these uncertain times.  Gaming wise I've been playing various board games with the family, and participated in the First Founding Dark Sun D&D campaign session over Discord which was a lot of fun.

I had also planned to play a solo Frostgrave scenario, but my eldest daughter decided she'd like to play so we had an impromptu rumble across the ruins of Felstad; this was a great way to spend a couple of hours!

All the fantasy gaming has put me in the mood to paint some related model, so I decided to pick up my Malign Sorcery project.  I've been painting up some of the wonderful Age of Sigmar Endless Spells models and coming up for some rules for them in Frostgrave.  Next on the list are the Umbral Spell Portals.

Frostgrave: Vapour Snakes

Welcome back to the Vault my fellow Venturers. In these uncertain times it seems frivolous to be writing about toy soldiers and board games, but whilst we practice social distancing and self isolation at a physical level we can still maintain connections about the hobbies we love through the gift of the internet.

So I hope you are all keeping yourselves safe and well, and taking time to indulge in your hobbies to keep rooted to a level of normality.

Gamers always seem to be able to adapt to changing situations; we just happen to be in moving in a new cross system, global meta, and I know friends and family are already adopting new approaches to their gaming.  The First Founding D&D group are investigating Discord, and my family are enjoying regular evening board games sessions.

I want to explore Frostgrave's solo play expansion,  Perilous Dark in more depth.  I've had a trial run of the first scenario ("Writhing Fumes") which did not end well, but I'm planning a second run through. The scenario calls for the use of some specialist monsters called Vapour Snakes and I came across a The Tabletop Engineer's excellent tutorial for scratch building some.

So how did my efforts turn out?

Tales from Titan: Scratching beneath the surface

Welcome back to the Vault! I've had a productive hobby session this week working on my Van Saar gang in advance of the club's Necromunda campaign and continuing to slap paint on the pile of unpainted fantasy monsters.

I've also been digging deeper into the Grey Knights rules in the Ritual of the Damned supplement, and I'm quite excited by some of the tricks on offer!  Let's have a look at some of the tricks I've spotted.

Tales from Titan: Legend Has It

Welcome back to the Vault once more! Long term readers will know I'm pretty casual with my competitive 40K; meaning that I rarely enter events beyond those organised at my local club and store, and I tend to play lists I find fun rather than cut throat "meta" lists.

That's not to say I don't indulge in more competitive games on occasion.  Several of my play group are keen tournament players and will happily travel long distances to throw dice and move models. Recently I was asked by Marcus our resident Eldar player for a game against my Grey Knights (specifically the double Paladin bomb list that's been doing well at a number of large tournaments in the wake of the Rituals of the Damned book). 

New Games and New Projects

Welcome back to the Vault! Regular readers will know that I'm lucky to belong to a local club called First Founding which has a lot of different systems and games on offer.  Last year I hardly strayed out of my 40K comfort zone on club nights with a rare foray into Kill Team. 

At the start of this year I made a resolution to actively seek out and play some different games, and I've dived in head first.

First up is a Necromunda campaign, where in player controls a gang of thugs and scummers to control the lawless regions of the Underhive. I've never played this sci fi skirmish game before, but it seems very well regarded, and so I've thrown my hat in the ring to fight leading the high tech goons of House Van Saar.

I've assembled my gang according to the rule of cool (i.e. chucked the coolest looking guns onto the models), and painted the first Mook!

Power Armoured Paint: The Terminator Thought Experiment

This week's post has been lost in the Warp for a time!  I played my Carcharodons Astra in a game of 40K over the weekend with a list full of heavy infantry; Aggressors, Devestator Centurions and Tactical Terminators.

Terminators have been my favourite models ever since I started playing 40K and I thought it would be an interesting idea to compare the Terminator to the closest Primaris equivalent, the mighty Aggressor.

Power Armoured Paint: The Report Card

Welcome back to the Vault my fellow Frater.  The First Founding Doubles Tournament feels like a long time ago, even though it's only been a week, and I've been thinking a lot about what worked well, and not so well, within my list.  I'd like to expand on the list for Mayhem, so it's worth writing a school report for the various units to see if they get benched for future events.

Power Armoured Paint: First Founding Doubles Report

It's time to venture into the Vault once more. I recently attended First Founding's Warhammer 40,000 tournament, where my Carcharodons Astra took to the battle field partnered with force of Deathwatch Space Marines.  How did we fare? Well let's find out!

Power Armoured Paint: Reading the Emperor's Tarot

Welcome back to the Vault! The list submission date for next weekend's First Founding Doubles Tournament has now passed, and all the pairings have been announced.  As is traditional before the club events I like to indulge in a bit of Chart Hammer, pretend I know something about 40K and make some predictions about who will do well on the day.  Let the punditry begin!

Xenos and Heretics incoming. Lock and Load!

Power Armoured Paint: Carcharodons Astra prepare for battle

Welcome back to the Vault my fellow Frater.  First Founding's Doubles 40K tournament will be here very soon and so I'm happy to present the traditional pre-event Army List and picture post.

I'm taking the Carcharodons Astra to their very first event, and I've decided to take a variety of the units I've painted up over the last couple of years.  Whilst it's not the most optimised Space Marine list it does have some (shark) teeth, and is a lot of fun to play.

Power Armoured Paint: It's all about the Base

Welcome back to the Vault once more my fellow Frater.  I've been busily finishing off the last few items on my painting list for next months Doubles tournament at First Founding (bar any last minute changes of mind of course; such things have happened before).

I've had a single model left to paint from scratch; an Armorium Cherub to fetch and carry for my Devestator Squad: