Planned Holiday Project

Well the holidays are coming up and I plan on using them wisely here in Japan by building and painting terrain and my army. I made more progress on the terrain from my previous post before going underway, but have been on hiatus since leaving my home.

So the plan is to place a large FW order here shortly. Mostly heresy variant marines, but I am also going to get some heavy mortars for my Genswick, as well as some more green stuff so I can continue assembling them. So look forward for more to come on that.

To splash up some of my influx I am going to use some items from Chapter House Studios, such as the spartan helmets and combi-weapons (Mk III Iron Armour Sternguard Vets with Combi-Meltas anyone?)

I should have ample time to get a large chunk done as I will be working very light days and have less things to occupy myself with in Japan (other than X-Box).

I will probably post again tomorrow, but I have to head out for now.

Terrain WIP- Scratch Bastion

Hey Internets! Today I share some of the terrain I managed to start. I am further than this post presents, but just wanted to share some with you. I decided to start with a scratch built bastion of sorts.

To get in the mood for AWESOMENESS, I popped in a movie. Good for hobby work like this which cna be tedious at times. My movie of choice- Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark.

Get them Nazis!

So I was able to procure Plasticard while in the states at the Newport Hobby House in Newport RI. I also managed to procure some more once I returned to Japan at a local model hobby store (tons of Gundams).
I then went and raided the Japanese equivalent of Lowes and got some MDF and Insulation foam, as well as assorted glues to try out.

First I cut my basic shape seen here. Seven inches at the base, 4 at top, and I honestly forget how tall. Then I glued them together along the edges, 2 pieces inset and 2 resting on them.

To make the floor/ceiling I figured out how deep I wanted it and then just marked how wide that was and cut a square. Glued the edges and dropped it in the dried pyramid.

Now for the base I had to cut the insulation foam to match the MDF board.

Then I drew out where the hill will round out at. Inside the line is shallow, outside the line is steep.

I then outlined the bastion itself to make sure that I wouldn't cut away the base of my structure when it came time to shape my terrain.

Next would be to shape it using a foam cutter and then glue it to the MDF with my super awesome glues!

I will share more when possible. As well here is a cool thing I went and saw in Japan. Kumamoto Castle. Really has me inspired for more terrain and I think come December I will attempt some Asian inspired works as well. And to boot I had the idea of using some of the Gundam models (much cheaper here is you are familiar with them in the states) as wrecks on the terrain, as if humanity fought an advanced race on the battlefield, or possibly ancient wrecks to represent some strain of humanity defeated in the Great Crusade.

How to fix SM, CSM and revitalize WD and the Website in ONE SWOOP

First of all, sorry for the LONG hiatus. The 3 guys I got to contribute pretty much stopped apparently and the Navy keeps me busy, plus the hobby scene in SW Japan is DEAD. Or rather non existent. I have built some terrain which I will share soon BUT in the mean time let me throw up a post.

Now I know what you are saying "Sure CSM needs work, but Codex Space Marine isn't broken really."
Well, you are right. BUT it does need to be fixed. "But you don't fix what isn't broken." True. I guess the word I am looking for is correct. "Huh?" Well you correct what is wrong, don't you. "Well...yeah... but how is SM wrong." Ah, well let me tell you.

CHARACTER DRIVEN ARMIES. This has been my biggest issue with SM and IG since they came out- removal of the traits/doctrine system for the implementation of the Character based codex variants. I never liked how to play Salamanders I HAD to take Vulkan Hestan or Pedro Kantor for Crimson Fists. These characters are some of the greatest heroes to walk the stars of the 41st millennium. Why are they fighting in 1500 point battles ALL THE TIME. From the fluff I remember, the Chapter master typically only deploys when at least one whole company is on the field and typically MUCH MORE. Plus from a rules standpoint, they can be over kill. You are talking about combat beasts that necessarily don't fit the army. Kantor for instance. If I have a lot of Sternguard vets, say supplemented with some devastators, I am playing a ranged SM army, where all of Kantor's extra umph counts for nill, nada, zilch. Just his storm bolter. Or say Vulkan, who twin links flamers, meltas, and master crafts thunder hammers. But if I am not taking Assault Terminators in my army, that is 1/3 of his benefits I am not utilizing, and I am paying a lot for it.

Good thing the fluff covers this. There is one unit that can fix this. That is right. Just one. The Space Marine Captain. This is the guy that is supposed to be leading large forces of Space Marines most often. Now what to do with him. WELL, say you take a SM captain and in doing so you unlock a variety SM Tactics, just like the characters do. These are just simpler versions of what their liege lord does, or you are sacrificing the combat prowess for their relative simplicity or flexibility. Take the Salamanders for instance. Their captain could twin link flamers and melta's, but not Thunder Hammers. Or say a Crimson Fist. Maybe instead of ALL Sternguard being scoring, just one unit. This way you get a flavour of your army of choice without having to take grand characters. Further more it will bring one of the most fundamental characters back to the game. Just make sure that the Captain has the widest selection of wargear (ie opposite of the Blood Angels captain) in the army as well and you will be set.

Now where does CSM fit into this? Well you could do the same thing with Chaos Lords to allow for legions to be played. Say you and to do World Eaters. When you take a Lord and give him the favouritism of Khorne, it makes the MoK more robust than it currently is and bans the taking of the MoN, MoS, MoT (you can still have unmarked CSM). You could also do things separate of the Marks for things like Iron Warriors. Say you make a lord a Warsmith and gives your army Tank Hunters USR or you can get +1BS. Stuff like that. Can also be an option (limited) for daemon princes or at least a character DP or two.

Now where does making White Dwarf and the Website viable hobby resources once more come into this. WELL it is quite simple actually. I remember a day when there were chapter approved articles with supplemental units and characters and cooooool game stuff. Well this can happen once more. Say that 6 months after a new Codex SM drops with my above proposal someone comes up with cool ideas on how to play Howling Griffons, Storm Giants and Celestial Lions chapters. So they write up 3 new Space Marine Tactics and they put these into the next WD as a supplement of the Codex and make them available on the website shortly there after. Same for CSM. And furthermore they could take it to the next step buy creating an awesome character from each of these chapters with expanded versions of these new powers. IE Howling Griffons Chapter Tactic- Masters of All Trades- You may make one Assault or Devastator Squad Scoring. Character Chapter Tactic- You may take up to 3 Assault Squads or Devastator squads as Troop choices. See how it works. This is just a quick and dirty example but I think it gets my point across.

Re-designing your list by getting a NEW ONE

Recently I started writing up several lists for Ardboys. First I started by looking at my normal 2000 point list and seeing without changing them what I could add. It then occurred to me this might not be the best approach. Why? Because army list should be something that flows together and is built for its role. If you build it with sections that look like additions or subtractions, you might be passing up units that help your army for units that simply just fit. I know simple right, but you'd be surprised at how many players I see playing the same thing over and over again especially myself. At a certain point its ends up feeling like a elaborate game of connect four.

So delete everything you have and look at what models you actually own, sadly in my case that appears to be a lot (I really wish I didn't have so many models that barely see the light of day or paint). And if you take the time to create a list and play it, I think it really adds to your enjoyment and your opponents. Especially if you play in a small group that are stuck in their ways.

So Finecast

So Games Workshop has moved into using a resin like substance. I know the news about this has been out for awhile, but since my local store finally got some in stock I figured I'd say something about it.

The only models I got to see where a box of Dark Eldar Incubi and a Archon. The Archon was very well done minus a huge about of cleaning up of the flash that needed to be done. Unfortunately the Incubi didn't fair to well, both their weapons and heads where sadly warped. The heads almost to a point that they might not be salvageable.

The material itself is very light and very soft. Which for me means it can be easily converted using basic hobby tools, but will not stand up to well any of the slightest man handling or occasional stray dice. Also make sure your very sure where you wanna glue things.

On the plus side the material unlike forge-world stuff, doesn't need you towash all the crap off of it before you prime it. Its better compared to Privateer Press's material but a little more on the lighter side. It is really good for the smaller detail stuff but I dont expect them to start making the larger vehicles anytime soon with them because they really don't require that much detail and probably wouldn't be very sturdy.

As for the models choices I am kind of irritated at the fact that they decided to start off producing models that already exist. I guess it was easy for them to just reuse their old molds, but I would have liked them to have started off making some stuff that doesn't exist yet. I know there weren't wracks and grotesgues yet, but im sure their would have been plenty of people looking forward to some tyranid kits and some Space Wolfs riding other Space Wolfs.

P.S. Thankfully only few tau stuff has been done and by the time a actual new codex comes out for my beloved little guys, any problems they might have had with this new material are taken care of so their wont be any crappy model kits hiding on the shelves.