Tau Superheavy Walker from Chapterhouse

That is right, a new Tau Super-Heavy from Chapterhouse .... sigh .... I really hope they haven't sunk a ton of money into this. I normally really like Chapterhouse's work (except for the boneswords) and I even own a small collection of their stuff for that Salamanders army that will some day see the modelling table.

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This however is not something I (A) ever expected to see, (B) ever would have thought I'd see done by a Indy Company. I wish the best for these guys as I do for all the indy companies and as a former Tau player I can sympathise with all you slit-headed, blue guys out there, but even in my time on Advanced Tau Tactica I never heard very much of a warm response to the idea of Tau titans AND I cannot imagine the demand being high for these guys ... at least not $285 high.

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Sorry if this sounds like I am bashing this kit, but I just hope they didn't put a whole lot of investment into its creation not because I think it is terrible, but because most Indy Companies thrive off of making models to fit rules that GW made for models THAT EXIST. This not only doesn't exist, but applies to a small market that might not even be interested or might not be able to afford it if they are.

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That being said, if your interests are even peeked in the tinyest way, check this out for yourself here and for the sake of the greater good, buy one! Now all you need is rules, so I have two questions for the readers:

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(A) What do you think of this model?

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(B) What kind of statline and rules would you give this giant Tau Titan (Bonus Points for giving it a fish name)?

Memorial Day

I just wanted to give a quick thanks from DFG to all the men and women in the service. While you're out eating a picnic, watching a parade or opening your pool don't forget how much you owe to them. Since DFG is run by a servicemen, Old School Terminator, Memorial Day holds a special place here. Big thanks from the rest of us to you and Capt Obvious for your dedication and protection of our country. We might play fake war, but you guys do it for real and lay your lives down to make sure we can! Thanks to you and all your brothers and sisters in arms!

Librarian Dread WIP ... Very WIP, Super Blog Chain Give-away

Old School here with another update for the winning prizes from my Super Blog Chain Give-away. This time, I want to touch on the progress being made with the Librarian Dreadnought for Damian at Tales from the Warzone. This Libby is for his renegadish chapter, the Knights of Blood and right now this model is in the "Ackward teenage years" of it's paintjob, where it still looks rather odd and ungainly! First up is the view from the front and as you can see this model is soaking with Badab Black!
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Here is the view from the back. There is really only one reason I have washed the entire model this way and it is because this method with make the model fit seemlessly into his army, much like the methods used for the Ironclad fit the paint-theme of Chosen1's army. Even though these are essentially free commissions, it is important that the paintjob and the feel of the model does not look off from the rest of the force. To get things going in the right direction in this method, I based the model and then washed. I left the detail work out as that will be done last and those bits will recieve their own seperate treatment. The weapon will also be saved for last - the key here was to tone down the mettallics in the undercarraige and to create the grity effect needed for this army.

Here it is from another angle. I really am happy that he likes the weapon and that he chose the color green for the force effects of his current libby's weapon because that was what I wanted to do for it! The greenstuff scrollwork covering the handle of the weapon looks good to me and to make it more Librarianish (here I go making up more words!), I plan to paint writing down the entire legnth of it like a giant scroll - as if the weapon is super-arcane!

Here is one last look before we really get into the meat and potatoes of painting this model.

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And now, here are a couple of photos of a model I tested a theme on while I was waiting for paint to dry.

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Soon, I will be taking on a Legion of the Damned Project (20+!!!) and I also am quite happy with the flames from the recent Salamanders Ironclad, so I went for the Bleak Brotherhood look from the CSM codex on this CSM and I think I like the way it looks on black armour and I might do up a squad of them in my spare time. I would then just have to figure out how I want to do the trim and accents.

Comments and feedback on anything in this post are always welcome!

Finished Salamanders Ironclad for Super Blog Chain Give Away! +Video!

Old School here with the first finished Dreadnought from my Super Blog Chain Give Away! This Dreadnought is for Chosen1 at Team Snake Eyes and is full of Ironclad Goodness!
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On the front of the dread, hopefully the first thing that sticks out is the free-handed flames, which I made in order to match the flames he has on one of his current dreads. I was pretty happy with the way it turned out and it almost makes me want to just start cranking out the legion of the damned!
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I went for the extreme line highlighting nd it turned out much better looking than I first thought it would. The Ironclad kit is the best dread for this style due to all the panels and lines across its torso without losing the broad open spaces that make this style pop. I wanted the dread to look clean because most of his army looks pretty clean, so only a minimal amount of weathering went into this project as opposed to my normal weathering madness on vehicles. Chosen1 does have a lava base waiting for this model when he gets it though, so I opted to blacken the feet to a degree.

For the undercarraige parts, I used a chunky metallic paint from the old Wal Mart brand-Folk Art, which made a really gritty finish when washed with Badab Black and gave the appearance to the undercarraige of an oily, gritty, well-used set of machine parts. I then highlighted the higher points with boltgun metal.
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The Mechanicus symbol was painted the way I have seen it in the rule book before with a half black/white skull and a half gold/silver cog.

All of the flames were painted the same way: Three varying colors of orange, three more colors of yellow and then white.

The hammer is from the video tutorial I did on Dreadnought Thunderhammers and I think it works pretty well without going over-the-top and fits the forgefather-built dread idea.

The Drakeskin was rough on me. No matter how I did it, I couldn't get it to match his color scheme for the scale-work he already has in his army, so I just went with the colors that seemed to contrast with the dread. The pink/fleshier colored area is where the skin has turned over reveiling the underside.

That was it, here is the last view of the close combat arm, which I chose to do this way because it looks much more threatening and with the hammer, makes him look like a giant robot blacksmith.

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Last but not least, if you would like to see what this looks like in motion, here is a little vieo I put together for it: enjoy!

In two weeks... what list?

Hello fellow gamers and welcome to hobbyists, I have with me a dilemma and I want your opinion!

I am unsure what list I should take with me to the 'Ard Boyz Semi Finals.

As some of you might know I took second in the Prelims... but that does not mean my list was perfect, you can check it out in the battle report article (click link) I wrote about my experience. However with some feedback from my fellow gamers at my FLGS I have had some doubts about it, currently I am thinking of changing up the list a little bit by taking away a squad of Storm Troopers, the squad of Ratlings, the squad of Multi-laser Sentinals. What I would be adding is a Inquisitor Lord, with a psychic hood, 2 mystics and an Acolyte in a Land Raider and adding a Multi-laser sentinal to the 2 auto cannon sentinals. So the list would be the following:

HQ 1
Comp. Comm. Squad - 290
Creed
Kell
Autocannon
Chimera

HQ 2
Inquisitor Lord - 355
1x psychic hood
2x mystic
1x acolyte
1x Land Raider

Troop 1
Vet Squad - 200
Grenadiers
3x Plas Gun
Chimera

Troop 2
Vet Squad - 155
2x Sniper Rifle
Lascannon
Chimera

Troop 3
Infantry Platoon - 490
Platoon Command Squad
(no upgrades)
Infantry Squad
Grenade Launcher
Heavy Bolter
Infantry Squad
Grenade Launcher
Heavy Bolter
Heavy Weapons Team
3x Mortars
Heavy Weapons Team
3x Heavy Bolters
Heavy Weapons Team
3x Missile Launchers
Heavy Weapons Team
3x Lascannons

Elite 1
Storm Trooper Squad - 185
5x additional Storm Troopers
2x Meltaguns

Fast 1
Hellhound Squadron - 130
1x Hellhound

Fast 2
Scout Sentinal Squadron - 115
2x additional Sentinal
2x Autocannon

Heavy 1
Leman Russ Squadron - 170
1x Leman Russ Battle Tank
1x Heavy Bolter side sponsons

Heavy 2
Leman Russ Squadron - 170
1x Leman Russ Battle Tank
1x Heavy Bolter side sponsons

Heavy 3
Leman Russ Squadron - 260
1x Leman Russ Vanquisher
1x Knight Commander Pask
1x Plasma Cannon side sponsons
1x Hull mounted Lascannon


The real problem is I feel like i am copying every other damned IG player as of late, (minus the Land Raider... but comon... its a land raiders... who doesn't want one?) and that makes me feel quite crappy, but how else am I going to get protection against psionic powers? Since this is the only way, I might as well take the extra bonus of being able to shoot at deep strikers... anyhow...

Let me know what you think.

Until next time, burn some heretics, kill some mutants, and do it as always...

FOR THE EMPEROR!

Keep following the Super Blog Chain Give-Away!

Old School here just to remind everyone that the Super Blog Chain Give-Away is still going strong. Right now you can win a Lictor and a Zoanthrope over at http://hivezero.blogspot.com

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I am a former winner of this chain and you can be as well. Just follow the link to free stuff!

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By the way, look out here this Saturday for video and photos of a finished Salamanders Ironclad and the progress on the Librarian Dread that the winners of my give-away won!

They Came ... from the BITS BOX!

(AHHHH!) Bitz trading on Wednesday was outstanding and was even more fun than the trading on the floor at Adepticon. There was a lot of crazy stuff running around, including these guys which I picked up from Farseer Rerolls - That's right, 5 Old School Tyranid Warriors (I would change my name to that, but I think Old School Terminator is already too long!) 4 of them with double Bone Swords. I have to admit it made me more exited than an a male beagle in a room full of trouserlegs just to see these ridiculous looking old models in the flesh! I cannot for the life of me remember what I traded for them, but I now have them and I am contimplating defiling Hive Fleet Kraken with these Warriors.
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Perhaps they could finally be done justice in this new codex ... could they be ressurected to a state of glory that no turkey-headed reject from GW's heyday could ever dream or should they be doomed to a life a recirculation through Ebay? Could they be Frankensteined together into the new bits to make some sort of "missing link" warrior or should they hang back like the abused toys from Toy Story quietly plotting their vengence?
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I think I will add them to the army and playtest with them for fun and see what becomes of them. From there, if they gain enough notoriety for their old school charm and that face only a brood mother could love, they might find a home in the Hive.
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Have you got some crazy stuff in a bits trade? Do you have some bastard models like this? Either post some comments here about it ... or post your own "IT CAME FROM THE BITS BOX" post. (AHHHHHHH!)

Battle Report: Nids vs Daemons w/ the Nurgle Deathstar!

Alright, since we recently had the usermail concerning tyranids vs Daemons, I figured it would be appropriate to post a battle report from my battle against Big Poppa Nurgle's (BPN) Plague Host!
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The battle was 1850 and it went back and forth to the bitter end. Here are the details. Since my Nid army is just starting and BPN was using some stuff he'd never tried before, we have a bit of bare metal and primer on the table, but I am sure you all can stomach it.

W rolled Dawn of War with 2 objectives. I won the dice roll, but let him go first. I elected to just stay off the table in order to come in from my edge in one giant wave. The photo above is his group one fully deployed nearly in my deployment zone. His group involved a Daemon Prince of Nurgle, A herald with plague bearers, a soul grinder and Epidemus in a squad of 7 Beasts of Nurgle, which made my jaw drop when I saw it and took me by total suprise. If the web has not named this yet, then I shall call it the Nurgle Deathstar!

I then deployed my full army minus the Doom in drop pod. I realized that I would not make the charge even with fleet so I hung back and hoped for the best. His grinder put a wound on a trygon prime and killed a couple stealers but then ...

his plague bearers with the herald were not so slow, but were totally purposeful and managed to move 6, pop three gaunts with the wind of Chaos and then roll a 6 to charge me - killing the whole squad and giving the tallyman his full tally of 20 kills, making his FNP a 3+, his weapons powered and wounding on a 2+ ... this mistake almost was enough to scare me into conceding and was a good move on his part capitalizing on my stupidity! He then ran his Nurgle Deathstar into cover to make my life even more miserable!

Though Nids have no grenades, I do have a borrowed Tyrant with Lash whip and Bone Sword (and Paroxysm). I flew him into base to base with as many of his beasts as I could, then chargd in with a Trygon, Trygon Prime and 2 squads of stealers. He put the hurt on the 1st squad of stealers, a wound on the trygon prime and two wounds on the tyrant, but took a fair number of wounds as well. Over the course of the next three turn, I whittled him down, managing to kill the death star, a nurgle daemon prince and the soul grinder. I was down some wounds on the big bugs, but I still had them all. I had most of a squad of stealers and a 2 man squad left. I ran the 2 man squad and a squad of spawned guants toward his objective, while everything else moved to secure mine.

Now his Great Unclean One (played by Mammon here) has to face off with the big snakes and a tyrant ... with no help from the Tallyman! Honestly at this point in the game I wasn't completely scared of losing for the first time since turn 1 (this game honestly had me sweating due to the crazy Tallyman boost!) I still had to free my objective and also deal with the fact that he deep struck near his objective with a squad of Plague bearers. I figured on a draw at this point.

My idea here was to shoot the crap out of the GUO and then charge him with a gang of MCs and charge the plague bearers nearest my units with a trygon and a squad of genestealers. Before any of that could happen though, he killed on of my trygon primes ... just more biomass for the hordes! He also managed to deepstrike another squad onto my objective and I was chalking this game up to a loss.

The charge against the GUO was successful, though it cost me the Tyrant. The wave of Gaunts here and the trygon prime, along with the Trygon from the other assault and the genestealers (also successful in killing their marks) moved in to close the noose on the remaining plague bearers. Turn five was upon us and the eyes of both the Hive Mind and the Dark Gods were upon us, each hungry for victory!

In the end, the mass assault from the genestealers and big snakes carried a turn five assault victory against his remaining plague bearers on my objective, securing it for the Nids. The two genestealers managed to pull up on the objective to contest it on BPN's side of the board. They crossed their rending claws praying to the Bug Gods that there would be no turn 6 ... and there was not and the Nids carried a minor victory from a very tough Nurgle army!

Here is a photo of the Nurgle Death Star which is still pretty much just being tested. I am sure now that BPN has seen what it can do, it will find a home amounst his thousands of painted miniatures in his twisted demi-plane (or apartment).

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The best thing about this game was the big drama. I really almost scooped in the beginning because I thought there would be no way to win, but I stuck to my guns and played it out. It really came down to dice, though because if there would have been a turn 6, we would have had a tie. if I would have rolled less than a 6 in turn 5 for the 2 stealers, it would have been a tie.

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I also have to say that if my army wasn't so heavily invested in assault, I wouldn't have been able to do what I did to the deathstar and would have probably lost due to the sheer volume of powered, poisoned attacks coming from it ... SM beware the tallyman and his hounds!

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My VIP was a tie between my big snakes and my Tyrant. The tyrant saved a lot of lives by helping to even the field with Lash Whips and to give me the advantage with his use of paroxysm. He was a very good support unit and would have never been able to do it without wings. My flyrant stays in this list! The snakes were great due to their high WS and the Scything talons. It just really helped to have that reliable volume of damage every turn and also to have fleet to help get me from combat to combat each turn.

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Once again, it was a great and fun game as always against BPN! I had a lot of fun and if BPN is reading this, I'd love for you to add your side of this battle to the comments. Everyone else, feedback a always is welcome!

Commission Painting; Your Thoughts

Old School here with a question for the blogosphere. What are your thoughts, opinions and experiences on commisiion painting and conversions.
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As time goes on, the members of Dark Future Games have picked up more and more conversion work around the FLGS and to a lesser extend other areas and all the the folks we do jobs for seem pretty happy. We don't charge the prices that you see on the internet, so we were wondering what folks out here thought of commission painting in general. Have you had good or bad experiences? Has price prohibited you in the past? What kind of work would you (have you) have done and what would you just paint yourself? Do you prefer when comission sites offer prices up front? We are looking for any and all feedback as all of the combined experience out here is greater than what anyone could ever muster alone, so please post away.

Usermail - Trouble beating Daemons with Nids

HH Wrote: "Hi, I'm not sure if you take usermail or if you offer list help, but I saw you were running Nids and I saw your bug list last week and I was wondering if you could help me. I cannot win with my tyranids to save my life! It doesn't amtter who I play, but I really have problems with daemons. My buddy who I play a lot uses Khorne and Tzeench units with Plague zombies as troops (bearers?). I always try to do the 3+ deepstrike trick from my Tyrant to counter his deploymet, but it seems like he just stomps me with fire from his units and then assaults me with Juggernaughts and a Bloodthirster as I come on. I don't know if people normally think demons are overpowered, but they seem to be more than a match for my tyranids. I usually run the same list no matter what and tend to play at 1750-1850. I always bring 2 groups of 3 hive guard, 2 trygons and a bunch of genestealers, a tyrant with wings and the heavy barbed strangler and fill the rest of my points in from there. I have been using carnifexes as tervigons, but no longer like them because they get killed very early. I also always run venomthropes because I like the save they give me. How would you beat the demons with YOUR nids since we seem to run similar lists? Thanks in advance, HH."

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Reply: I have not played very many games with my Nids, but I am always happy to reply to mail from our followers and I will try to help you as best I can. I think you might be running into a little problem in the deployment. A while ago we did an article called "Just because you can, doesn't mean you should" and the Hive Commander deployment in this case is just that.

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Daemons have the advantage and disadvantage of coming in via deep strike, whether this is an advantage against you is completely up to you. Since you said he fills his troops in with Plague Bearers and then runs a Bloodthirster and Bloodcrushers, i am assuming his Tzeentch units are coming in the form of Princes, maybe heralds or flamers - all pretty mean units when tooled out right and in this reply I will assume he is using the nastiest ones.

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I take Hive Commander in take all comers because there are times when it gives me a very useful ability and there are times when I only use it for the Doom's pod - you don't use doom, so sometimes it is just going to be a less useful ability to you, but I would keep it. Against daemons I recommend you start everything on the board - he cannot assault you out of deepstrike and shouldn't be able to put enough of your units down in the turn he arrives to make a real dent in your force.

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You are going to want to deploy in a spearhead type formation (all together with the fastest and most assault oriented units out front. Keep your venomthropes in the middle to give what scant protection you can get from them available. He will then either deploy in a way that will enable him to gun you down (bad move on his part here) with CC units ready to counter assault OR he will put his big nasties out front and try to box you in and make you make bad decisions about who you should assault first. Either way, your plan should be the same - mass assault what you can first and make sure your units are able to mutually support each other.

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Since you asked how I would do it with my army, I will use units and tactics from my list to show you how I would do it. I would corner up in my spearhead with my two trygon primes out front with the regular trygon. My genestealers would be in behind them followed by the winged tyrant and the hive guard. I will say I am bringing two venomthropes instead of my Doom just for your benefit. If he deploys within reach, I would make my fleeting 5 units move out and assault what they can reach. If he splits his deepstrike so he has units within reach in two direction, push the majority of your forces towrd the most threatening target. I would go with trygon prime/ trygon and a unit of stealers toward the dangerous threats and a trygon prime and stealers toward anything else you can reach.

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Remember that your Tyrant is a support MC and he is most useful using paroxysm and assisting your assaults with his lash whip if need be.

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Now if your opponent has set up for your inititial charge to be countered by his bloodthirter of Bloodcrushers, you now know where the tyrant needs to be supporting.

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You should crush whatever you charge turn 1 and hopefully get a good consolidation result. If you have popped his shooters or have dented his shooting ability badly then consolidate back toward your starting point to make him bring his CC units to you and to disable him from dropping into your units. If you are playing objectives, just keep them in mind, but there is no hurry to get there right now.

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If you get stuck in that first combat, then you are just going to have to sit there.

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Now when the big nasties come and they will, keep in mind that they are going to do some serious damage and you will likey lose your big snakes or at least one-two of them. Keep the venomthropes near to help lower the amount of attacks you are taking if you can. Remember also that while you should never attempt to paroxysm the Bloodthirster, your lashwhip works on him just fine - if you can manage a counter assault or a regular assault on him with the tyrant and stealers, he will go down fast. The bloodcrushers can suffer from paroxysm and can get nerfed by the lashwhip, but with their high number of attacks you will have to be a little more careful about how you attack them and you may want to dump more into that fight - be weary of how he is set up with them and think 2-3 turn ahead on how they might assault you to prevent yourself from being caught with you pants down.

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All this while, the massive amounts of CC madness on the board ought to be allowing your other units to move pretty freely. In my case, if the tervi is spitting out gaunts, they can either move towrd objective that are not held or they can become bubble wrap to prevent his units from counter assaulting my Trygons and stealers - or to provide cover for the stealers at least.

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This will not be a simple fight and you will not come out clean, but with massed assaults coming from you with fleet units, supported by the tyrant you should have control of the momentum of the game. You should also be able to at least deal with the worst of his Tzeentch and Khorne units. The game should pretty much be decided by turn 3 in terms of who has the most deadliest units left and at that point, you should be playing for objectives supporting your gaunts and what is left of your stealers with whatever trygons you have left or with your tyrant, which is hopefully enough to play through his Plague Bearers. If there are no objectives, the game can get a little crazy, but I think with a ground deployment, you will be on top of the momentum and on top of the game.

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I hope this has helped. Like I said, I am still pretyy new with the Nids and am trying to make them work myself. Whenever you play your next game please send me a battle report and I will gladly post it. You may even get some great feedback on this from the blog since I am also posting this response!

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- Old School Terminator.

The Judge's Painboy

I just finished a commission for The Judge's Painboy and thought I'd share the pics with everyone.

A sneek peek at Chosen1's Ironclad from the Giveaway!

Old School here with a painting update on the Super Blog Chain Give-away prizes - well the Ironclad anyway. I decided to start the project off with Chosen1's (from Team Snake Eyes) Ironclad because he was the first winner and painting good guys isn't something I do every day.

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Here is a sneek peek of the work done so far. Most of the hammer arm is done, except for a few items on the hammer and the last touch of scorpion green highlighting. In terms of highlighting, I saw that Chosen1's Vulcan Hestan Conversion (I don't even wat to know what Ron charged for that awesome model) had extreme highlighting and since I have never done it, I wanted to teach myself (thank god it seems to be working so far). I know it is a little much right now, but once the scorpion goes on and a coat or two of thinned thrakka go on, it will provide a much smoother transition. The flames and the symbol turn out very well so far and I am now debating adding scorch marks around it. I originally was going to make it look like an icon, but I could not resist the flame effect painting!

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Anyway folks, plenty of work to do, but it should be done Thursday or Friday and then it is time to paint the Libby dread for Damien! Let me know what you all think! Hope you are happy so far Chosen1!

Dark Future Games First Tournament! End of Times Team Tourney!

Old School here with a special team tournament announcement for 40k players in the Mid West! Evolution Games in Lansing Michigan is hosting the first ever tournament organized by Dark Future Games; The END of Days Team Tournament!
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I know most folks from the blogosphere could care less about a tourney in Michigan, but we do have a decent audience from our local area and it is rather exiting that the blog is hosting its first tourney!
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The rules are a little crazy and the idea is to get folks exited to play and to give tham a tourney where that they can talk about for months to follow! The rules are as follows:
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Each Team member brings 1000 points to the team (you pick your team mate before the tourney) and both lists have to be from seperate codexes (no guard + guard teams ect). The End Times are desperate times where you seldom get to choose who fights beside you as Alien, Imperial and Sevants of the Dark Gods heed the call to destruction!
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Each team mate must have 1 HQ and 1 troop choice filled from their codex.
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This is where it gets nuts! Each Team member may choose 1 unit to fill an appropriate FOC chart that is from any codex BESIDES the ones composing their team - so you might see Space Marines fighting beside Orks with a unit of Bloodthirster and Sly Marbo ON THE SAME TEAM! (ALL MUST HEED THE CALL TO WAR!)
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There will be no non-battle related comp scores, though good sportsmanship and paintjobs are encouraged.
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All lists must be submitted to DarkFutureGames(at)gmail.com (just replace the (at) with @ - or in person at Evolution Games no later than Wednesday August 18.
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The tournament will be held Saturday, August 21 at Noon. Each team's entry will be $10 and entry fees will go toward prize support - so the more folks show up, the bigger the booty!
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The fate of the End Times are at Stake, so grab a team mate, make some list, playtest and come on in for the brawl of a lifetime!
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If there are any tournament questions from potential participants, e-mail them to Dark Future Games and we will develop a small, non-intrusive FAQ by June 30.
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All feedback from the Blog Community is welcome, so lets hear it!

Photos of the New Daemon Models!

Old School here with some photos I beleive to be the new Daemons models. The new wave appears to be the much anticipated Daemon Prince, FateWeaver, Changeling, Seekers, plastic horrors, ans a new variant of the bloodcrusher. The photos are below and can also be found here.

Pretty crazy, but being that they appear on a GW site is pretty much gospel that these are it! What are your thoughts on these models?

New Leman Russ BT kit magnetized!

I got the new Leman Russ kit on loan to put together for the FLGS and figured I'd share my how-to for magnetizing the turret with bonus Pask option! Enjoy!

Librarian, Ironclad Dreadnought Giveaway Progress! Tons of converting!

Old School here with an update on the dreadnoughts from my part in the Super Blog Chain Give-away. I have been hard at work putting my converting skills to the test for the Iron clad for Chosen1 at Team Snake Eyes and the librarian dread for Damien on Tales from the Warzone. So far I am happy with the results and I wanted to share these progress photos with you. The first 4 photos, including the one above are of the Librarian Dreadnought for Damien's Knights of Blood!

Here is a shot of the dreadnought from above. I wanted it to have a larger than life feel and wanted it to look like it has been armoured with the reverence that would fit a former HQ choice for a chapter. The shoulder pads are from the Defiler kit and have been cut down to fit the dread. They are a little big, but I did that to balance out the large Force halberd he is carrying.

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The shoulderpads have been decorated to fir a librarian. The right pad has the book from the Dark Angels upgrade kit chained down with jewelers chain and the other on is decorated with a shoulder pad from the Chaos Lord kit, which fits well for the librarian symbol.

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The head is from the old death company metal models and since this photo was taken, I gave him a psychic hood. Also, if you look at the position of the arms, I have taken cut down parts from the defiler close combat flail to add some cabling for extra detail and to help hide some of the actual construction work.

Here is another look at the shoulderpads from the back.

The force weapon is made from the bottom fin from a landspeeder, the large powercell looking part beneath that is from the Battle for macragge kit and the handle and blade are made from plastic card. The handle was then wrapped in a long strip of green stuff to give it the appearance of a more ornate, man sized weapon.

This is the Ironclad I have been making for Chosen1. This model is much more about function than the heavy form concentration in the Libby build. I want Chosen to be able to switch weapon arms if need be and I want it to fit the style of his army.

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The hammer was made in the way I showed in my recent dreadnought thunderhammer tutorial. The close combat arm is made from the original close combat arm and I really think it looks deadly and like something that may be weilded by a much more tech-inclined dreadnought.

The details I added include the Salamander symbol from an extra Vulcan kit I had in my bitz box and the other arm is decorated with a pelt of dragon skin and some small fetishes from the Lizardmen saurus kit. This badboy goes on the painting table tomorrow and if you are reading Chosen1, What colors of green do you use for your Sallies ... I could guess ... but I want to make sure.

This last photo is from a recent commission project I picked up from a member of the FLGS. He wants me to paint Vulcan and I threw in a free conversion to reposition the spear so that he is holding it straight up and down. The botton did not survive the drilling, so I replaced it with plastic, caped it with a bit and I will make it look good with some green stuff later.

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All in all, each of these projects are being treated like a commission and I am really using this chance to learn something new with each model. I am teaching myself more about using plastic card with the librarian dread. I am teaching myself to make large items and to produce scratch skins and such from green stuff with the Ironclad and I am taking those skills and applying them to a smaller model with the Vulcan project - So we will see where that goes.

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Keep your eyes open for the painting WIPs and please shoot me some feedback either via comments or through our new "Contact Us" tab. Comments and critism can only help improve future works. If Damien and Chosen1 are reading this, by all means, please send me your feedback!