Iron Hands

Hi


Ive been away for awhile but i thought i would share some current WIP. I have been using an airbrush in order to do the undercoats and abit of weathering. Going for a very simple scheme and using the chipped metal effect for the marines as i hate highlighting black!


Anyway Enjoy!!

Storm Talon



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Vindicator

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Space Marines

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Anvil Industries Review

So for those of you who haven't seen, Anvil Industries are a small company making resin minis and conversion bits. While these arent listed as 'games workshop' compatible. The marine size ones are a excellent fit for marine models. The following bits ive used are the bionic arms, legs and chainswords. There are a host of other bits but ill leave a link for you to all look at!

The Bits -

I have to say that the quality of casting from Anvil Industries is second to none. There are hardly any model lines and no bubbles at all. Kromlech are the only other company ive seen with this quality of casting. Certainly puts forgeworld to shame, but thats what you get for going mass production on resin. The legs either come in a pack of 5 or you can buy the multi part legs which come in 2's. The only issue i have is repeating of poses but you get that with anything.



Marines -

So here are some pics of the bionic legs on a marine torso for size comparison. The only problem i had was that the ball joint is perhaps slightly too big and the resin doesn't take to super glue very well. That really the only downside i can say, otherwise really nice parts and go very well with my Iron Hand marines!



Pricing and Shipping -

Pricing is quite reasonable for some top quality bits and it was £4 for the legs and £2.25 for the multi part legs (this is only one set of legs with different thighs) and £3.50 for the arms. I had alittle issue with a torso being missing. But uber customer service from Joel there has sent me a replacement out in no time! So overall im very happy with the quality and pricing!

I do recommend if your after any aftermarket bits. Plus there are loads of gun conversions and other bits of bionics for other models.


Anvil Industries Website

Little bits

Sooo I'm sorta been upto stuff, trying to do my iron hands army and some vampire counts. Here some pics anyway!

Big cannon

Converted Storm Talon

Vampire Counts

Etheral Zombies!

Well ive been painting here are the first ten done and i went mad with the blood effect but i like it. Nice quick easy scheme which i think suits the models quite well

The Undead Cometh

So then my arch nemsis Mr Fischer from a taste of choas blog has been pestering to get me to do a fantasy army. So i have, vamps all the way, so this along with my 40k stuff will be appearing on here along with a few battle reports. Ive been quite slow due to work and having to study for an exam so im now hopefully going to be updating every other week. Anyway here is some WIP stuff for you

Here are some of the test schemes. Im using the LOTR army of the dead as etheral zombies as i prefer these models to the current zombies!

More to come!

Its been awhile

Im not dead I think this photo will explain all.

But ive got some new toys

Choas Day

Okey dokey, ive been quite, new job hasnt left me alot of time for hobby and after the last two tournaments and stuff with the podcast ive had abit of hobby burn out! So having now been paid im off to nottingham and wawrhammer world for a weekend of drinking and probably not soo much gaming photos to come!

(Ps ill sort out the length of the wayland games banner, ive been lazy!)

Termi Love!

Ive been quite and i really should of done the battle reports but its hard when you have no pictures! Anyway here are some photos of some terminators ive finished for my flesh tearers to keep you all happy!




I really should of got some shoulder pads done but i had to speed paint these for a tournament, took about 2 days work to get them to a tabletop standard!

New Year, New Tourney Season - Caledonian Uprising Game 1

Allo all

Sorry for my slackness, ive been busy painting, gaming and trying to find a new job. Its been a busy old time here in 2011 for me, ive already been to my first big tournament in over a year! Anyway here are some battle reports for your enjoyment


Caledonian Uprising -

Held at maelstorm games and run by the scottish ETC team, it was an event to help pick the scottish ETC team, raise money for them and in short to play games and drink beer! The tournament was 6 games over two days using a ETC scoring system at 1750 points with no special characters. I also decided to bring along my podcasting equipment so expect in the next two weeks or so to see a new 40k uk podcast!



Anyway here is my list, thought id give dual land raider flesh tearers (blood angels) ago.


Libby (Shield and Bloodlance)

Chaplain

Assault Terminators (3 thunder hammers)

Land Raider Redemeer (multimelta)

3 x Assault Squads with Razorbacks (twin linked las)

Death Company Dread (pod and blood talons)

9 Death Company (1 powerfist)

Land Raider


So on the sat i rocked up and played a game against a buddy of mines daemons (not neils as his daemons kicked me) and proceeded to give it a good kicking (17-3), though he claims alcohol was to blame!



Seems all my luck was to be in this game as saturday was certainly alittle soul destroying! Also please forgive the lack of photos, i was quite lazy over the weekend.
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Game 1 (Seize Ground, dawn of war, 5 objectives) - Adam Calver (imperial guard)

So i rock up on the table and im greated by quite a nice covereted grot army which he is using as a guard army. Some very nice converisions and quite a nice chap. Anyway i believe he had 2 hydras a manticore, hellhound, banewolf, vendetta and then a assortment of vets with melta and plasma spam. Luckily not the leafblower guard though cant say i particularly wanted guard first thing in the morning. So the objectives where mainly scattered around the right hand side of the table. Adam deployed and put a vets squad in the middle with everything else off the board. I put my death company and transport hidding behind a building.

Adam went first and moved everything on setting up the firing lanes and not having really anything to fire at. I moved the land raider with the termis on the far right and hid behind some terrain but near enough to assault the nearest to objectives if he got close. The razorbacks came on the left and tried shooting at the manticore but couldnt see. The next turn involves adam blowing and stunning a razorback while the land raiders take little shooting. While my drop dread comes down on the left and stuns a vets transport before being blown up by the vets inside. Adam has also moved two vets squads quite close to the objectives and near the threat range of the land raider with the termis, so i sprang them out hoping with the shooting to blow the squad up. Instead i fail to blow the tank up and end up charging and only managed to stun it. Alot of plasma and melta was about to appear and nuke the terminators!

Turn 3 rocks on and the vendetta appears behing me and takes out the multimelta on the land raider redemeer and the manticore blows it up while the termis get reduced to 2 due to lasguns to the face from the vets. Adam moves some more vets into the middle in range of the death company. On the right another razorback goes up to hydra fire and the squad hides in the wreckage. I reply by moving up the land raider with the death company and using my last two termis to try and assault a another vets chrimera. While on the left i manage to stun, immoblise and remove the flame cannon from the hellhound with the last razor back and libbys bloodlance. I try to assault it with one squad in order to finish it off and fail to kill it.

Turn 4 turns into adam shooting one of my 5 man squads on my objective and blasts them away. The termis land raider gets taken out by the vendetta and the last termis die to bolt and las pistol fire (annoying to die to flash lights). Now this is where i make my epic mistake, id taken out a chrimera vets squad in front of the land raider and i thought id be able to assault them with the death company. Turns out as i get them out of a land raider in two nice lines that i couldnt get there due to difficult terrain caused by wreckage from the exploding chrimera. I hadnt noticed the lovely bane wolf to the right and the nice arrangement of marines id left for him to kill and i get sorely punished for it in turn 5. I managed to stun the manticore and still fail to kill the hellhound with the libby and 5 man assault squad.

Turn 5 - death company die a flamey, melta death from the banewolf, two left and a chaplain, who proceed to get shot by everyone and then charged by the vets in order to stop me killin. I fail to kill the three guardsmen while losing one of the death company marines. But take the banewolf out with the land raider. AT this point i believe we had one objective each and the rest where contested but went to turn 6 where i proceed to kill the guardsmen in combat and get shot to peices by the remaining guard.

Turned into a 17-3 win to adam. Victory points where 680 to me and 1035 to adam. Looking back i should of put most of my army in the middle as more bodies would of been useful. Also not looking at the banewolf which killed most of the death company i believe cost me the game as if they got into assault they would of run amock in the back of adams lines.

Good game but need to be more careful with my two deathstar units and the drop dread.

Warhammer World Gaming

This weekend im down at GW central, having a weekend of wargaming, pics and tweets to follow! You can follow me at 40kbunny at twitter!

If you fancy a game come on down!

Can anyone recommend a FLGS in New York (the island bit!)

Im currently doing alittle bit of travelling in america and im in new york soon, thing is i have no idea what the gaming stores are like? Can anyone throw me any recommendations on places to go, comic book stores as well????


Cheers

Max

Dull Coat Vs Army Painter Matt Varnish

So today, i thought i do alittle comparison, the dull coat vs army matt antishine varnish. Ive used both know quite abit and i thought id pass on some knowledge to those that are interested in using.


Dull Coat -


So now they have reformulated it, still smells like crap and has a lovely warning from the state of calforina stating there is stuff in it that may give you cancer. Lovely. It comes in quite a small can and is roughly the same price or abit cheaper than a can of GW spray depending on where you get it. When spraying i advise using a mask and some gloves due to the nasty nature of the stuff and always make sure you are up wind of it. Ive been using it to take down the shine on my flesh tearers which were gloss varnished in the GW ardcoat stuff from the pots. The varnish needs two thin coats to properly get into all the bits and cracks of a model and provides a nice matt finish that makes it looks like you just freshly painted it. My orginal worries was that it would effect the look of the GW matt washes, but i can safely say it does not. If anything it helps improve them! I was most impressed! If you want photos of these just look at my last post and you can see for yourself.





Army Painter Anti Shine Varnish -


So i have previously used this on some dipped items when i was doing an imperial guard army last year. It was my first real foray into varnishing models as i had never previously done anything. Id heard some interesting things about the cans and had watched the video about shaking them for about 2 minutes and making sure the cans became nice and warm. The anti shine varnish certainly did take the shine out but i find the quality not great and i was getting tiny white flecks from the spray. It also gives a interesting matt finish, not quite a true finish bringing back the orginal colours in the same way the dull coat does. A can is again about the same price as a GW spray can but you get a whole load more spray in the can. Here are some before and after photos so you can make you own mind up


Before (a dipped model)



After (After army painter varnish)





Overall Judgement -

Overall despite the dull coats nasty smell and rather toxic appearance, it for me is the better product mainly because it gives a nice truer matt finish than the army painter varnish. The downsides are certainly the smaller can and nasty smell but for the finish you can beat it. The army painter cans have been plagued by problems and the flecks of white are a common occurance no matter how much you shake or warm. Ive dull coated while it was damp outside (i live in a rain forest!) and ive had no problems!

Both are good products and do the job but as a choice id take the dullcoat anyday!

More Flesh Tearers

Ive been abit quite, here is a unit ready for varnishing ans basing! Im just waiting on some models ive sent to a commission painter and some armour plates sent to america to be cast.






Let me know what you think?

A New Army and New look to the Blog

So i saw a cool looking blog from another blog and have shameless stolen the template in order to vamp up my blog along with my army of flesh tearers, so please bare with me while i get everything running. Ive got to remember how to code stuff again, i havent been near coding since uni!

Painting a Marine a day will keep the doctor away!

So Ive not been the most active of bloggers mainly due to my inactivity of not painting. Id built my flesh tearers army about 2 months ago but have been been in two minds if i should of got a commission painter to do it rather than myself (review on some commission painters to come!). I finally decided to do it all myself bar two models (two sang priests, lazy i know)and the reason i decided against it was that i think personally i am quite capable of painting an army to a good table top standard. I think anyone is! My next army shall be dipped and maybe sqaure based.


So then here in lies the next question, whats good enough for table top? Now for those who listen to Heelanhammer (if not check it out) and have heard the sounds of dan 'the porridge eater' heelan and wayne 'the game' you would know these guys are always at painting armies or at least wayne is. Both the guys have alot of talent and some very pretty armies. But even these guys have said that as a painter you never really happy with your painting as you painted it and know all the little short comings that annoy you but wouldnt be apparent to others.

I find this very true and the guys on the latest podcast have said that this could even prevent you doing your hobby. I totally agree and i think ive had abit of hobby fear with painting, which has stopped me from painting. Im a gamer at heart and my problem with painting is that my painting ideas never really come out how ive wanted with other armies. This is down to a lack of painting progression on my part because of my hobby fear.

My other problem is that i find painting infantry in large amounts (well 30 is large enough for me), soul destroying, so in away to get this army done by jan and overcome my hobby fear. Ive decided to paint one marine a day. So then this should take 30 days in order to finish the 20 assault marines and 10 normal marines for my army.

So hear is my challenge to you! Paint a marine aday!

More progress pictures to come!

Flesh Tearers Army

So ive been fairly quite for the last month or so, busy working and travelling still, anyway ive finally managed to sit down and do some painting. Im doing my 1750 points worth of tourney army ready for the 2011 tournament season in the uk, opening with the Caledonian Uprising singles tourney at maelstorm games. Im hoping of doing enough tourneys etc to try and get on an ETC team, if not ill have fun doing it.

So far im working my way through the troops. Here is my colour scheme, nice and dark and easy, perfect for tabletop quality -

Finished Sarg - Just need to do the eyes, but have run out of green paint!



Some WIP




My lists consist of the following for 1750

HQ

Libby with jump pack

Elites

2 x Sang Priests with jump packs and power weapons

Troops

2 x 10 Man assault squads with power fists and 2 meltas per squad

2 x 5 Man Assault squads with lascannon razorbacks

Fast Attack

2 x Baal Predators (heavy bolters and assault cannons)


Heavy Support

1 x Vindicator

2 x Predator with autocannon and lascannon sponsors


More Progress to come, ive also got a couple of reviews coming up!

Super Blog Give Away! Winner!

So we had a winner howard from http://howardvauxworkshop.blogspot.com/
and a nids codex and dragon forge base are flying over to him now! Howards is now running his own blog give away, so i thought id show abit of support and link him! Go visit and take part and you could win some nice new 40k cities of death terrain!

Go Look!!!!

Dragon Forge Base Review

So I have been looking for a new set of bases for my Flesh Tearers army. So after some hunting around I finally settled on dragon forge. Id only heard good things from them and the price was fairly good. Also the major point was the inter changeability of two of the ranges, parched earth and broken wasteland. The reason i choose these two sets is they look similar and with abit of sand it was easy to mass produce 40 to 50 bases without having any repeats. A problem i find with alot of companies doing resin bases is the fact they only do batches of 10 when peoples armies generally have more than 10 models in them! But anyway I had contacted Jeff about doing a commission for the lost empire range instead, however as its a one man operation and due to other reasons he was unable to do it. But was quick to respond to my e-mails and a nice guy to chat with, so kudos to Jeff!




Shipping and Price:

So I order 30 bases and got a free large 60mm base for my troubles (again awesome deal from Jeff) which cost me 35 US dollars or 24 GBP including postage (30 for bases and 5 for postage). Not bad really for 30 bases. To do a comparison micro art studios would charge me 30 GBP for 30 bases and they also do some lovely bases as well which I’ve built armies with. It took 8 days to travel to myself in New Zealand from America to the middle of nowhere (i literally live in a rainforest) and the postage actually cost 6 US dollars, so i saved 1 dollar! So again can’t fault that service.


Quality:

The bases came in a box in their own plastic bags, on first inspection there weren’t any noticeable defections bar some flash around the bottom of the bases. Couple of small air bubbles on the bottom of the bases but that doesn’t matter. So I set them aside for washing and cleaning up. The bases didn’t really have any release agent on them and only required alight scrub. These are pressure cast bases and done by a one man operation, the casting quality is good but not as good as micro art studios but I think that’s reflected in the price. From the photo below you can see the air bubbles that have affected some of the bases, this isn’t really an issue as sand and paint will cover these but something to consider. It’s not an issue for me but when comparing to micro art studio bases, you won’t find this sort of things at all with their bases. But again price reflects this i think, its really my only criticism of dragon forge.




Mounting them was easy enough, however not all the surfaces are flat which is really down to the design meaning I had to file some bits down to get a flush mounting for my marines. But again not a issue for me.



Conclusion:

So I’m quite happy with these bases, the quality, price and shipping are great, Jeff is a friendly guy to deal with and quite a busy chap! The only negative point is the small air bubbles from the pressure casting which could be down the mould itself, its hard to tell without looking at the moulds themselves as it seems to be them rather than air bubbles in the casting. However again not an issue for me. All together a good product and well priced, id certainly recommend them to anyone.

Therefore i give them a 4/5, the only minus coming from the air bubbles in the casting.

"http://dragonforge.com"

Super Blog Give Away!

So this was started by the guys at Santa Cruz, and basically involves giving free stuff away! So i recently entered but lost, however im going to give some stuff away anyway as a kind of mini birthday for 40k bunny ( i cant rmember how long this blog has been going, not that long!).


So basically here is the deal, im going to give away a brand new copy of the tyranid codex plus a 60mm wasteland base from dragon forge designs and post it for free to the lucky winner.


Want to participate?
If you want to win a prize of your own and join this Give-Away, go comment on this blog. The rules of the give-away are as follows:

1. you must have a blog.
2. you must have something worthwhile to offer up to give away for free.
3. if you win, you must hold your own blogsite give away using the same rules to pay it forward.
4. you must contact us with a link to your give away so we can send bloggers to your site.
5. you may only enter once per give away.

To Enter:

1. leave a comment to this post as follows.
2. Answer the question below correctly (giving estimatation).
3. State what you will give away on your blog to pay it forward.

I will choose the winner based on how convincing they are and what they offer to the next winner.


Question -


So i recently purcahsed aload of dragon forge bases (review coming soon) it took them 8 days to travel 13434.10 km (1679.26 km per day and 69.96km per hour). But in which country did they end up in? For bonus points, which town did they end up in? Person with the closet answer wins?

Failing that ill invent a tie breaker question or the person with the most correct answer to the question wins!

Ill give everyone 1 week, so this time next week ill annonce the winner!


Good Luck!

My dirty Secrets out. Im a wargamer!

Soo the story started when i ordered some stuff some gamesworkshop in new zealand for my flesh tearers army. Fast forward a week and im at working cleaning away in the kitchen (i work on the west coast in a hostel in the middle of nowhere)and a box arrives with my stuff. My boss comes in and loudly asks me, 'so you play with toy soliders aye?'.



Im looking abit shocked at this point and ask why she thinks i play with to soldiers at which point she shows me the box. Now GW in new zealand when you do mail orders get it shipped over from Australia. On the custom slip in quite large letters it says to my slight horror 'TOY SOLIDERS' which was infact my marine jump packs and shoulder pads. At which point the piss taking starts. Now i can take that im just horrified at GW for destroying my closet gaming secret!

So i wonder if anybody else has been caught out by being a closet gamer???