Getting on with the World Eaters

Well I'm now free from any commission work so will be getting on with my World Eaters (WE) that I'll be using for the next few months at least, anybody who knows me knows that I tend to sell armys after a few months use, not sure if this one will go but then again I say that about almost every army I do (any offers :) ).

My initial thoughts for the WE were that I'd use the Space Wolf codex however having looked a little more at the latest Chaos book I don't think it's a coincidence it was released at the same time as the HH Betrayal book, with a few exceptions, Contemptor Dreadnoughts being one :( , the books seem to work well for building an army for use with both. I'm glad alot of the events I go to now allow the use of the FW "40k Approved" units, Chaos Contemptors aint that bad when you look into them :D

So with that in mind the first event I'll be going to in the new year is a one day event ran by Tony at Core Games, the points level for the event is an unusual 1250. The army I'm planning on taking will consist of roughly the following; Deamon Prince (Angron) although this might change, 5 Terminators (Cataphracti), 1 Chaos Contemptor, 2 squads of tooled up Chaos Marines and a 5 man Havoc Squad with Autocannons, so it's not all that big an army.

The one thing that's letting me down at the minute is that I'm just not getting enough gaming in at all, I've just not had enough time, or motivation if I'm honest, to get out and play enough, I've still not really played enough 6th ed 40k so really just don't know what's good and what's not, can't honestly remember that last time I actually had a game. Hopefully I'll be able to remedy that over the next month or so prior to actually going to the one day event.








In other news the Fire Hawks were featured on the Death or Glory Blog they've got alot of varied articles from painting to hard tournament gaming definately worth a look if you want to know what's going on on the UK tournament scene.

Anyway, as you may have noticed, I've finished the Cataphracti squad, think they came out ok, I'm moving on to a Contemptor next and will hopefully have it done by the end of this weekend just in time for the new year so pics of it will be in my next blog post.



 
Until then I'll leave you all with some more pics of the terminators from different angles so you can get a better feel for what they actually look like. As always comments and feedback is always welcome.

Merry Christmas everyone!

Sorry it's been a few weeks, real life does get in the way sometimes. So what's coming in this post, as promised I'll do a short write up on my feeling after the "Eavy Metal Masterclass, Space Marine Commander" event I went to a couple of months ago and show some of the other bits I've been painting over the last few weeks, really starting to get my mojo working again :D

So, here it is.

Eavy Metal Masterclass

Decided to go to the Space Marine Commander masterclass when it was first advertised, can't remember when exactly. The main reason for going was to try and spark a bit of development in my painting as I've been stuck in a rut for far to long now with no real progression to my standard, if I'm honest I feel I've got a bit worse since my Mentors and Ultramarine days, if I'm honest mainly due to the pressure I put on myself to get things done quickly. So this was an ideal opportunity to try and gleam a few development tips. Oh, and I managed to drag my mate John along as well.

So the day arrived and after a night in Nottingham we arrived at Warhammer World (WHW) bright and early at around 0930 on a Sunday morning, we were guided into the bottom floor of what I believe is the Forge World (FW) building, where they had a class/lecture room set up ready for the event, the room was well laid out with lots of space and individual paint stations with strip lights laid out for everyone. Each station had the paints, brushes and miniature we were going to use set up and ready to go, there was also complimentary drinks (tea/coffee) laid on as well.

We sat around and chatted to the other folks there for a bit prior to the Eavy Metal guys (EM)  arriving at around 1000. So with the arrival of the EM a quick brief and we were set, initially there was a bit of confusion as the minis we had were modelled with an Ultramarine shoulder pad so the initial painter was going to start with blue, a colour we didn't have on our paint station, they quickly realised that they were meant to be doing red armour, quick re-set and we set off getting a nice even red colour painted on the mini and gradually went through the process of doing the armour from start to finish up until lunch at 1300. We were asked during the hour leading up to lunch what we would like from a set menu as this was also part of the ticket price which meant there was little faffing about during lunchtime ordering etc.

After an hour long lunch break spent in WHW spending yet more money on FW stuff we then went back into the classroom and began doing some of the other bits, over the course of the next 4 hours we covered Gold, Cloaks, Faces and electric effect on Power Weapons (you can see a bit of a try on my WE Sgts power weapon, still more work needed). Throughout the whole day there was a camera above where the EM were painting allowing us to see what they were doing throughout. Finally there was a Q&A session which after all questions were answered they wrapped up and informed us that all the paints and brushes we used we could take home with us, not to bad!

So, what are my thought's on the day as a whole I hear you ask? I'll try and list them all below.

Initial impression, good but then, wtf!? these guys don't even know what colours they're meant to be using, here we go......best give them a chance though.
Initially both myself and John were thinking we were going to come away with a complete painted mini as we painted the whole of the armour.
We spent 3 hours painting the whole of the armour and then took 4 hours to cover 4 other subjects which lead to them rushing things in the latter part of the day.
The above lead to at least one person leaving an hour early and another commenting (when I met him at the services on the way home) that alot of it went straight over his head.

So really, the day could have been so much better, just to try and justify my comments a bit, I've done alot and I mean alot (it's pretty much been my job for the last 10+ years) of instruction, so I have a rough idea of how to put info acoss to people.

Initial setup, Good, however, if you're instructing people in a practical skill, at least know what you're meant to be doing.
An actual brief of what we were aiming to achieve during the day would also have been good.
Structure, the day had little to no structure, which isn't always a bad thing, however a bit more time appreciation would probably have lead to more people understanding what was going on and not leaving early.
Why didn't they just do the marine arm (enough different armour plates, power weapon, gold etc.) would have made a bit more sense and probably lead to being able to give more detailed explanations during each stage.
Planning, on the set-up side of life, would have been much easier to follow if they had maybe employed the use of power point with descriptions of each stage, would also have meant people wouldn't have constantly been asking for colour recipes and stuff.

Overall, the event wasn't that bad, and yes I would go again as I now understand where I could gleam the info I need, but going in blind means you may not always get what you want. Did I get what I wanted, not really but I'm more aware of my abilities now and know what I need to do to improve. I really feel it could have been done so much better, marks out of 10, I'd give it a 4. Just not sure if GW think that giving you the amount of paints etc. you get from the event justifies the mediocreness (is that even a word) of the day?.........

I'd like to hear your thoughts on the above, I feel quite passionate about the whole thing, anyway, what have I been doing over the last few weeks, well apart from the usuall drinking and merryness that come with this time of the year I've managed to get a fair bit of painting done, I've got the following completed, 10 Sniper Scouts, 1 Chaplain Dread, the mkIV and a mkIII squads for the WEs and also built Autocannon and Cataphracti squads and 2 contemptors again for the WEs, so a few pics below.

 

So that's it for this (slightly drunk) blog post, as you can see above I have painted the first of the Cataphracti, hopefully I'll have the whole of the squad done by the start of 2013.

 

Hope you've all had a great Christmas and a Happy New Year to everyone, as always thanks for reading.

 

James

Well, another week and another post!

I'll be aiming to try and keep the blog ticking over with regular painting updates and also include the occasional write up of events and stuff I've been to, so for this week it's another painting update.

I've managed to get a fair bit done this week, I say a fair bit, that roughly translates into 5 marines which isn't actually that bad considering I work full time as well. First up are a few more Sternguard for the Fire Hawks, that's the squad up to ten now. If you're wondering where the bits come from, here you go, the Crests, Tabbards and weapon parts are all from Anvil Industry and the Fire Hawk shoulder pads are from my friend Ben over at Master Crafted, really pleased with the shoulder pads the accuracy and detail is some of the best independant stuff I've used, easily up to FW standard if not better, and he can produce any symbol you want, within reason.

I've also painted another couple of World Eaters, I've added a bit more blood to these guys, I want to try and ensure each one is a bit more individual than just a marine in white and blue armour, so they'll each have varying amounts of battle damage and blood etc. It might be quite a task though as the army list I'm currently building to has 40 marines in it.

For game play due to the fact I tend to play the majority of my games at tournaments the World Eaters are going to be played using the Space Wolves Codex, I will however try and ensure that it can be broken down to fit into the Legion army list for club play.

 

 

 

 

With the first of the pair I tried to capture a little bit of brutality in the blood, he's obviously smashed somebody in the face with his head aswell as placing his bolter in some unfortunates mouth prior to pulling the trigger. Hopefully that translates and I've got the blood in the right place.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

With the next guy I just wanted  to add a bit more gore overall, hopefully I've managed to capture the brutality of the World Eaters, this will probably be the largest amount of blood that will be applied to an individual, I will be working to try and make sure blood will be placed in appropriate places as the army progresses.

I've got the rest of this squad ready to start and I'm currently in the process of building the rest. At the minute I've got a mkIII squad built, some Cataphracti terminators and a jetbike waiting to be based along with a Contemptor Dreadnought and Demios Rhino still sitting in their bags along with a few other bits. That leads me on to the army list, as I mentioned earlier in the post, it'll be based on the Space Wolf codex for general game play as I think it suits the theme pretty well, it looks something like this;

HQ

• Rune Priest

Elites

• 5 Wolf Guard, all terminators, 2 combi plasma, assault cannon, wolf claws, frost axes etc.
• Venerable Dreadnought, assault cannon

Troops

• 10 Grey Hunters, powerfist, 2 plasma, wolf standard
• 10 Grey Hunters, power weapon, 2 plasma, wolf standard
• 10 Grey Hunters, power weapon, 2 melta, wolf standard, rhino
• 10 Grey Hunters, power weapon, 1 flamer, 1 plasma, wolf standard

Fast Attack

• 2 Land Speeders, multi meltas
• 2 Land Speeders, multi meltas

That's the basic 1500 point list, not sure how effective it'll be as I've had no chance to platy test it, it will have to grow for the Indy GT final though. Any hints tips or pointers I'll be more than happy to hear them.

So that's all for this weeks post, I'll do the review of the Eavy Metal Masterclass I attended for next week.

James

 

 
 

 

Well, I bet you didn't think it would take that long! I'm not very good at this blogging malarky, I will try and make a bit more effort to start adding to the blog more often as I'm starting to lose a bit of interest in forums on the whole.

Since the last post I've done a fair bit of painting and we've seen 6th ed 40k arrive which from the small amount I've played is a fairly different, but much more enjoyable IMO, a game. Oh, and my Space Wolves are featured in the big rulebook as well  :D

As far as painting goes I've done bits for Space Wolves, Mentors and Ultramarines, a Fire Hawks (Space Marine) army and I'm just starting on some Heresy era World Eaters after the release of the Forge World(FW) book Betrayal. So alot of power armour. I've also done my first Dark Eldar mini, really fancy painting an army of these guys and am slowly building up bits to do so, once I've got an idea of what I want to have in the force I'll get organised and let you know what's going to be added, always happy to recieve hints and tips, not really got any idea how to make an effective xenos army?!

On that point, I'm still at odds with what I actually need to have in an army for 6th ed,  I really don't know what to put in my SW army. I've played a couple of tournaments so far with the Fire Hawks which have gone fairly well but I've been using regular marines with a few FW extras, I love Contemptor Dreadnoughts,

especially if they have all the guns, got to love 12 assault cannon and 2 missile launcher shots every turn of shooting especially if they have Skyfire and Interceptor. Which leads me on to a rather amusing situation in one of the games I played at heat 2 of the independant grand tournament, I was going second, my opponent had a drop pod full of Wolf Guard, he decided to drop it in front of both Contemptors! I'm sure you can imagine what happened next, I did warn my opponent as we were both fairly new to 6th ed at that time but he still decided to drop it where he placed it, 5 Wolf Guard and a Drop pod later, first blood to me in my opponents first turn whilst I was going 2nd!

 

Anyway that's a bit of a ramble, just wanted to re-introduce the blog a bit. I'll aim to post about specific things in the future as opposed to general stuff, so you can expect posts about the Eavy Metal Masterclass I attended recently, a step by step World Eater and more than likely a few of the tournaments I attend. I'll also put together my thoughts and theory's on how I build my armies along with some more general painting updates.

 

So, that's it for now, if anybody know's any good DE blogs etc. please pass them on, really want to get an army of them done.

 

James