Learning the rules

After last weekend, I decided that I need to stop relying on my opponent to tell me what I can do and start really learning the rules for myself.

I have been reading through the rule book bit by bit through the week.  With the way that things have went, I have not really had that much time to get far but I plan on doing a lot of reading tomorrow.  Taking the time to re-read it after playing several games I think is being helpful.  The book makes a lot more sense to me than it did before I really had a concept of what a lot of the rules were saying.

Aside from that, I have not had much time to work on modeling or painting this week.  I have my 3rd Rhino together through step 3 in the book...enough to play it, but the big pieces not glued together so that painting will still be easy to do.

Thoughts on today's game

I played a game today against another Chaos player.  I have played him before a few months back when I was stretching it to field 2k points.  This game went better, but in the end I lost.  Here are some points I need to try to remember for next time.

1.  Play to the mission.  We had 6 random, mysterious objectives.  instead of trying to find out which ones were on my side of the board I played very aggressive and that did not work for me.  I ended up losing both of my squads of Plague Marines on the way to kill his guys.  I only held one on my side.  On his side, he held 2.  I sent my heavy hitters at the one worth less points since it was closer instead of staying in the land raider and going for the one further away.

2.  Know what rolls I need.  I am still relying heavily on the other person to tell me what I need to roll to wound or hit in close combat.  I don't think anyone has intentionally led me wrong, but I think I would do better knowing this since I would have an idea of what my odds are before getting involved in a situation.

3.  Don't be afraid to contest rules.  A few times I pushed back on something I was fairly confident about and ended up being right.  No one has been mean about having to look up a rule, so I should keep doing this.  This will also help me to know what the rule is for the future.

4.  Think ahead.  I wasted some of my units by having them move one direction, then another the next turn.  If I try to plan ahead more, I will be able to have a better strategy and maybe anticipate moves.

5.  I need to learn the stats on other models.  Today would have been a lot better if I had known what I have that can hurt specific models of his.  If I am thinking about that, it will also hopefully help me to remember any special equipment that I have that could be effective.

Aside from playing more games, I am not sure of a way to get better.  Maybe reading through the rule book again so I have a better understanding of things would help.

Completed Zombies (Almost...blood soon to come)

After many hours I have finally finished the Plague Zombies.  Last night and today was spent doing the bases for the zombies.  Throughout the week, I was trying out various ideas before deciding on which one I liked the best.  Various attempts...

I was not completely satisfied with any of these.  I was going for some ooze or nasty green stuff that the zombies would be slogging through that would look as nasty and grotesque as they were.  The bottom right and left were the most promising.  Both were created with green, Death World Forest, mixed with regular glue.  Krazy glue was then added to the top.  The one on the left had rocks added and painted which was cool in some ways, but not the look I was going for.  In the end, I decided to go with doing big drops of Krazy glue on the paint glue mix, wait about 5 minutes and then put Krazy glue on the rest of the base with a toothpick to avoid more circles that come from using big drops.

Once it had all dried, I added a green wash, Athonian Camoshade, inside of the circles to create a dried out organic looking nasty thing on the ground.  The rest of the base was covered with Nurgle's Rot to give it a slimy and oozy layer.  I think it turned out pretty good.  The bases were finished with black around the edges.

For the champions, I did mostly the same thing, but I put them on pieces of cork to represent rocks.  They were primed black, painted Skrag Brown, drybrushed Nurgling Green, and a light layer of Typhus Corrosion before covering the feet and tops with more Nurgle's Rot.

Let me know your thoughts.  These guys took a long time from assembly to finish for models that die quickly...but it was fun and I think I learned a lot in the process.

Here is a series of images through several steps of the same model.

Zombies after being washed

Here are pictures of the Plague Zombies after being washed.  There are a few variations in the group where I was trying out different ones to find out which I liked the best.  Most of them are done with Athonian Camoshade covering most of the model with Agrax Earthshade on weapons and Nuln Oil on bone.

Next is basing the models.

Zombie Champions

A before and after wash

Plague Zombies

A lot of my Warhammer time recently has been spent on making Plague Zombies.  These are Chaos Cultists that can become zombies when Typhus is used.  Instead of just having the Cultists models, I wanted to do something that really looked like zombies.

A lot of people use Mantic Zombies and those do look cool, but I wanted these to clearly be from the 40k universe.  So, after some research, I came across this idea and loved it:
http://stephanius40k.blogspot.com/2013/07/plague-zombie-kit-bash.html

I used the same setup, 2x Cadian Shock Troops and 1x Fantasy Zombies.

Unfortunately I did not take pictures of the Zombies as I was cutting and putting them together.  Once they were assembled, I used some Liquid Green Stuff to try to fill the gaps around the waits.  I used a little green stuff when connecting arms and heads to the chest armor pieces of the Shock Troops.

Black Primer, Caliban Green, Gorthor Brown, Ungor Flesh have been the primary colors so far.

Ushabti Bone, Cadian Fleshtone, Leadbelcher have been used on a few spots.

I tried a few washes (Nuln Oil, Agrax Earthshade, and Athonian Camoshade) and I think the camoshade looks best on the zombie skin so far.  I am still trying a few combinations to see what looks best.

Here is where they are right now.  I am going to be working on these today to try to finish all the base coating and washes.  I am not sure if I will be following up with highlights after that or just moving on to the next item to paint.

What have I learned so far

1.  Thinning paint is very important.  These little plastic guys are crazy detailed.  You do not want to cover up any of that with a layer of paint that is so thick the details get lost under it.  I have seen a lot of comments about doing multiple thin layers.  So far, I have mostly doing only base coats and washes over them.  I have not done much with highlights or dry brushing or other techniques.

2.  Plan and research before doing the work.  I have spent probably more time thinking about what I want to do that actually doing it.  This may not be for everyone though.  I like to really research things before following through to make sure it is what I want to do.  Because of this, I do end up changing my mind on things a few times before I actually get to doing the painting or conversion work.

3.  Rinse the paint off of your brush often.  I think I am just now understanding this one.  So far I have been painting assembly line style most of the time.  I pick a color or a part that I am going to paint on a lot of models and do one after the other.  This method is not as exciting since I have a lot of models that are halfway done, but I think I waste less paint that way.  Since I am not changing colors a lot during a painting session, I had not been rinsing out the paint from my brush often.  By the time I was done, the middle section of the brush was a dried mess and the bristles were beginning to splay out from all of the dry paint.  Last night I rinsed off all of the paint after each model of the color I was working on (Leadbelcher).  This resulted in a much cleaner brush by the time I was done for the night.  Additionally, I think the quality of the painting started to suffer the more dried paint that was in the brush.


My next steps:
I am going to take pictures of the other models I am working on and their current status before painting more.  Then I am going to start timing my sessions and count down from 100 hours (Inspired by http://paintandplaywarhammer40k.blogspot.com/search/label/100%20Hours%20-%20Sculpting ) so I can keep an idea of how I am progressing over time.

I plan on doing the same timer based tracking with converting, sculpting, and maybe basing.

My current projects:
The list I am working on right now is a Typhus Chaos Space Marine list.  That means Zombies and Plague Marines.  I have been having a lot of fun with the Zombies (pictures soon) and I have what I hope will be a good idea for the Plague Marines...but you will have to come back for both of those.

First complex painting

After I had gotten a few Chaos Space Marines done, I wanted to try my hand at something more complex.  I decided to work on my Cultists next.  These guys had a lot more going on as far as paint colors I wanted to use and the complexity of the models.  Some of these guys have a ton of detail which was a little worrying...would I be able to get these guys to look good.  I was only able to get 10 of the 20 done before I moved on to painting something else, but I like how these turned out overall.  Looking at these again, there are several areas I want to get around to touching up and making look better.

My first painted models

The Dark Vengeance set includes a starting army for Dark Angels and Chaos Space Marines.  Since the majority of the box can be considered as Chaos, I decided that would be my first army so that I got the most out of my first purchase.  My first lists were using everything exactly as modeled and trying to make the army as big as possible.  I lost all of these matches...some of them pretty badly, but each one would end with me asking questions to the other person and thinking through my strategy and how I could have done things differently.

Before painting anything, I did some research on how I could convert these Dark Angels to Chaos.  I was really nervous about people questioning my models or painting or even army choice, but everyone has been super nice so I was worried about nothing...  Anyway, turns out there is some lore, or fluff, about some Dark Angels that fell to Chaos.  These guys have black power armor so painting would be very quick and easy...so these would be my first models.  Here are 5 Chaos Space Marines...one is still black to show it with just the primer.

I used Citadel Paints.  I believe these colors were in the 40k starter paint set.

Getting started

This blog is an effort to chronicle my new found hobby, Warhammer 40k.

I played some Warhammer fantasy about 10 years ago, but was only casually into it.  Not that many people played where I lived and I did not have the money to really get into this hobby.

So, about 3 months ago I was bored a lot...between video games and did not have much to fill my spare time that I enjoyed.  At the suggestion of my wife, we went to a local game store and looked at Warhammer 40k stuff.  The staff was friendly and I was pretty much hooked off the bat.  Got the Dark Vengeance starters set and began to learn what it was all about.  Watched a few games on Sundays and put everything together.  Started showing up with my very small army and had some very patient people that wanted to help me learn the game.

So, 3 months later I have almost filled out my first complete army list.  I still need a few models to really say it is complete, but it is very close.  I won my first "real" game this past Sunday where the rules were not being loosely applied while learning.

So...what do I want to accomplish here?  Several things in fact:
1.  Chronicle my progress as I learn the modeling aspect of the game to include painting, kit bashing, sculpting, and everything else.
2.  Become a better player of the game.  Have a place to document ideas that I try with lists and make notes of how well everything goes.  What falls apart on the table and what kicks ass.
3.  Hopefully down the road, inspire others that are new to the game or wanting to improve their skills with tips and ideas that I come across along the way.

So...lets see what I have done so far.