Hobby Diary 23/10/2016

AL:

So this week I aimed to continue what I had begun (i'm sick of having half painted models) before moving onto something else. In this case its three busts from Relic,the Fantasy Flight Board Game. I finished the Callidus first, there wasn't much to do the kit on the back needed a quick bit of painting on the displays and the Coal Black needed toning down a bit which was achieved with some Chaos Black and Lahmian Medium.

A gloss varnish was absolutely essential next. This was a gaming piece and would be handled a lot. I discovered Vallejo varnishes a while ago and haven't looked back since. After the gloss had dried i used matt, the synth skin was looking a bit shiny for my liking. The Matt still has a lustre to it, but its not as shiny as the gloss. I did go back over the eye lenses with gloss, that looks nice. Shiny.

So Callidus done, it was back to the Ratling. First things first, I know what I said last week but I wanted to bring the face out a little, so I added some Cadian Flesh to the mix, another bit of ruddy glaze on the features and another highlight and i'm calling it done.

Next was a bit of camo on the vest, I already had a dark olive colour so some Coat D'Arms Dark Leather brown and P3 Ordic Olive finished the scheme, Nowhere as near as nice as I would have liked but good enough, an ink wash would hide a multitude of sins. The sleeves were recoated and highlighted, the pouches and bags were painted brown with a highlight-cum-weathering of that same brown and Cadian Flesh.

At this stage it's not far off done but I wanted to move onto the Ultramarine. Due to the large size of this and buoyed by my success with the leather look on the Ratling's pouches i decided to push my luck and experiment somewhat with texture on the Ultramarine. I laid a few washes of Gulliman Blue over the Prussian Blue armour and some Mephiston Red Mixed with Vallejo Scaly Green on the helmet. I then started building the blue back up with Prussian blue but used a stippling effect to try to get some texture into the armour, Tinny Tin and Brassy Brass were used on the shoulder pad edges.
The next couple of days I really wasn't up to painting, got home very late and settled for assembly in front of the telly.

I had ordered some stuff from Triple Helix and although I was missing an upgrade sprue from the Armoured Claw box I started assembling some Cadian neophyte hybrids. I then lost a kneeling set of legs so jumped onto Bitz Box to grab a spare and a few bits that would enable me to build a few of the other heavy weapons in the box, I was very impressed as I ordered on a Thursday evening and had them by Saturday.

Taking off the Imperial eagles was easy enough with a knife and the Citadel Mould line Remover tool, although outrageously expensive does its job superbly. I'm glad I forked out for it. I'm working on a colour scheme in my head for them, something pretty drab to contrast with the brighter proper hybrids i think, maybe a grey urban camo

Speaking of proper hybrids  my hobby week in general took a big swing towards the assembly way of things as I got stuck into my mass of Genestealer Cult sprues. As I assembled them I was impressed all over again with the quality of the Overkill models which is easily the equal of the miniatures in the separate kits. In particular I was impressed by the Aberrants which have actually been designed to fit no matter which arms you use with which body. Given that there are only two designs of Aberrant and they are not easily convertible this allows me a tiny bit more variety in my unit.

Elsewhere I used the Acolyte box to build all the heavy weapons options. Oddly the body sections of the acolytes have to be matched up, perhaps to allow for the right number of arms on either side. The Demolition Charges in particular look great as does the Rocksaw. I was left with a large number of bits left over on the sprue and decided to use some Metamorph bits on the overkill models. A bit of cutting here and there and I had a unit in no time. And I still have bits left over to use, this is good as as great as the Overkill models are, multiple sets will have quite a few of the same models knocking about,.

Actually a quick word about the myriad of bits on the Cult sprues, we all know that GW prices have gone up and squads are much more expensive than they used to be but one look at the Neophyte sprue compared to the Cadian one kind of illustrated why. Take a look at the Cadian sprue, produced quite some time ago now,

and compare it with the cultist one.

Quite a difference, I cant wait for GW to revisit some of these older kits.

So yes, mostly getting the cult together this week. Still, I have at least enough for a Killteam game and a few more evenings assembly should see a decent sized force, especially when I get the tanks built.

Prospero is also on the horizon and though you can rest assured that the Conclave will be reviewing that in due course, I am more excited about getting my mitts on some MkIII armour, I popped in to Wayland Southend to grab some nice deep Vallejo blues and will be cracking on with the XIII legion very soon. With my new airbrush booth now all I need to do is decide how im going to do them! I think in order to honour (Courage and Honour always) our commitment to do something for our Heresy armies each month i'm going to grab a character from the Calth box set and try to use that to get my scheme

sorted. I have spares should it all go horribly wrong.

Now, where is that Airbrush?

Lee:

Given the buzz around the Horus Heresy with the Burning of Prospero set coming out this week all my hobby time these past seven days has been devoted to my first five Ashen Circle marines and I am 85% done. I have some detail work to do on the various pieces of parchment attached to their plate and some tidying to do but after that I just need to highlight the armour and I am done.

I've not been able to spend as much time on each model as I did with Zardu Layak but that's fine, if I want to get things painted they cannot all be to that level. I'm happy with how they have turned out though I need to dig out one of my regular Word Bearers that is completed as I think the silver trim was a lot darker than it has turned out on these. There isn't much to go over if that is the case so shouldn't prevent me from completing these before next week.

Even though I shall be drowning in more plastic Heresy miniatures by the end of the week I have already decided that my next Heresy model to finish will be my Sicaran. I want to paint something red and this will be good practise with my airbrush. It was a close run thing choosing though, I have also been looking at the colours of Legio Mortis and their knightly allies.

I have been tempted by including a unit of Thousand Sons to accompany Ahriman as he isn't good for much else than representing himself. Despite them also being red I would paint them in the style that Forge World adopted by painting them metal then airbrushing them clear red with metal to highlight. Other than that the rest of the models will be folded into my Word Bearers which bumps up my force considerably. Those Sisters of Silence and Custodes will be enjoyable to paint as I do like painting gold.

As well as this I want to crack on with some Scourge ships as both Allen and I will be receiving our Dropfleet Commander pledges on Tuesday. Quite a few people in the office have already started building their fleets from our retail stock so it will be good to start catching up. Having a battleship for every faction I already outgun everyone else.

I notice that Allen has been putting a lot of Genetealer cultists together which leads me to want to put together an obscure army of my own so will be digging out some Squats. I will most likely proxy them but will need to give some thought to what codex to use.

So below is how November is looking painting wise.

Definite

Word Bearers Sicaran

Emperor's Children Marine

Queen Khalida

Planned

Scourge ships

Squats

I stuck Khalida in there as I had been planning to paint her since before we moved as I really want to make progress on an 8th edition army. Maybe next month I will assemble a unit to be painted a rank at a time? Overall it is a lot to be getting on with but all three of my definite choices are single models so here's hoping. 

Lee.

Mobile Game Review: Snotling Fling

Just like a sneaky goblin this game completely slipped under my radar. I was actually looking for the Horus Heresy Talisman game (review of that in the works) and just happened upon this inoccuous looking title. At a paltry 68 pence, it seemed worth the punt and so I gave it a download. I've been playing it most of this week and have had my ups and downs and now I feel i'm in a position to write a review. So here we go.

Snotling Fling is a game that pretty much does what the title suggests.Flinging Snotlings from a Doomdiver catapult in an effort to kill Empire troops occupying buildings of varying stability . Think of it as a 3D angry birds and you wont go too far wrong. Your view is from behind the catapult and this can make it a little difficult to judge the distance at first but you'll soon get the hang of it. In fact it's fairly intuitive and after a brief tutorial for the first few levels the game is happy to just let you get on with it.

So  there is no no extensive hand holding which is nice and unlike Freeblade it's not constantly throwing adverts at you and trying to hawk you resources. In fact aside from briefly introducing you to the idea of using the games currency (Teef of course) to power up your shots it will leave you alone and although the shopping cart is always there I have encountered no paywalls as of yet though a couple of levels have proved most challenging.

Another thing I must mention is the attention to character that has been paid. Everything is spot on, Very Orky, from the character models to the little bit of text that precedes each mission, some of which certainly bought a grin to my face. When you pull the Snotling towards you it will pull faces and stick its tongue at out at you. Should you leave any Empire Troops standing they will taunt you, and waggle their arses at you.  Its all quite a lot of fun and made me very nostalgic for the Old World as this tongue in cheek approach is something I just couldn't imagine in Age Of Sigmar's ultra serious sci-fantasy universe.

So you pull back the Snotling and let fly aiming for the Empire buildings to try to bring them down. The stacks of building are fairly unimaginative, certainly nothing approaching the strategy and variety of the Angry Birds game, this means that the game is pretty straightforward. A simple knowledge of physics will have you toppling the Imperial cottages in short order. Of course things do not stay that simple.

As the game progresses throughout its levels the Imperials will learn to build better structures and your standard Snotlings will just not cut it (though they do continue to feature) and you will need something with a touch more punch. Enter the Fanatics, Tap a Fanatic mid flight and he will cast free his balls (oo-er) for added destruction. During my brief time with the game i have also encountered Fat Snotlings that smash through blocks a fair bit easier than the standard ones, Exploding Squigs (tap screen to explode them like a bomb) and of course the inimitable Doomdiver which launches over the battlefield till you tap the screen sending it diving down to explode, it can be a bit hard to judge but you wont mind restarting a few times. It loads fairly quickly too, which is essential if the game is to provoke the 'one more go' feeling.

Further adding strategy and challenge to the game are the golden skulls, one hidden on each level, hitting this and completing the level will grant you additional Teef if you are running a bit low (not that i ever did) As an aside the result of the game is an Ork glyph, ranging in completion and Colour (a simple bronze, silver, and gold). Trust me it will take some time to get Gold on all levels. There is plenty of gameplay here There are also explosive barrels dotted about and wizards on Hippogriffs that will destroy entire buildings if you hit them.

I had played just under sixty levels when the game decided to delete all my data. This was probably partly my own fault as i neglected to connect to my Google Account but it was still frustrating. Still it is testament to the game that i didn't really mind playing the levels again and I am already up to level forty after a short amount of time. I believe there are around eighty levels all in and from what i have seen the developers (Wicked Witch) are going to be adding more. Even if they don't there is a fair bit of replayability to be had.

So that is Snotling Fling. Worth every penny of its tiny cost and a cracking way to kill ten minutes It's fairly short lived, albeit with a decent amount of replay value and more importantly although it does support in game purchases I have found it quite possible to play through the game without spending any additional money at all. Its characterful, fun, and very accessible with a decent amount of challenge and a dash of that 'one more go' element. Although it is by no means as accomplished as Angry Birds and graphically rather basic. Worth your time even if it is only in short bursts.

7/10

Flying high:
Cheap, with no hidden costs
Bags of character
Easy to play
Doesn't keep selling you things
Great for short bursts
FUN

Crash and Burn: 
Graphically Basic
Not as strategically deep or sophisticated as Angry Birds
Pretty short

In summary: Short blast of cheap fun,It will take ages to get all the gold skulls and glyphs and i forsee a fair bit of play out of it yet. Recommended.

Al

We're Not Done Here

Nope, not necessarily...

Alas poor Fantasy, we knew it well. Not the game, never actually played the game much but the world, the characters, the history, we knew them. We read the army books, the novels, played the video games even collected the miniatures but as players who were weaned on 40K we could never get the hang of Fantasy. 

Fiddliest goddamn models ever

It wasn't for lack of trying. Every edition I would buy the new starter set, consequently I have starter forces for Dwarves, Goblins, Elves and Skaven to hand. I must have played at least one game each edition just to try it out; usually with my Undead army which I have had since 4th edition, the edition when it went 'mainstream' with the first starter of Goblins versus High Elves. Yep, always aspired to be a fantasy player but never got deep enough into it to be truly committed.

Now it is gone though, there is a deep need to finally have armies of deeply ranked infantry marching alongside huge monsters as sorcerers and wizards unleash magical fury against each other. Maybe I'm an unconsciously channelling a need to be an outsider by only playing versions of games that people consider dead.  

Plus bonus Dark Eldar conversion bits

Whatever the reason I've been building up some fantasy armies on the sly. Easiest to get to gaming standard are my Undead, which I have had forever and my Orcs and (predominantly) Goblins force. Along with these I have the beginnings of Dwarf, Skaven and High Elf armies which are now more than just the starter set forces plus I have gathered together enough Dark Elves to play a small game. 

Once that is all sorted I have to decide which edition I want to play. Having lots of cards laying around is a draw for playing the earlier editions but for a more diverse selection of units then the later editions would be the way to go. As we always say at the Conclave, because an edition was superseded doesn’t mean its unplayable and if it needs tweaking or new rules writing we can do it.

Tempted to draw that magical orb like a chibi octopus

Of late whilst I crack on with unpacking I have been getting my hobby fix by cleaning up and prepping my Horus Heresy resins and building Fantasy miniatures. Here you can see some of my efforts. This Loremaster of Hoeth will be added to my Island of Blood Swordmaster unit to give them a bit of magical punch. That unit needs bumping up by another 10 models so next on the list for High Elves is the models needed to complete this unit.

Score!

Whilst out in town with Allen this week we found a Warhammer stand in the local art store which had a box of recalled High Elf Warriors so I snapped that up. These guys will form one of the core units for the High Elf army. As I write I have won an auction for 25 Archers which combined with the Archer command I am in negotiations with on Facebook gives me two additional core units.

Weep oh yee new age Sigmarite purists!

If any more proof were needed of my regimented ambitions gaze upon my works and tremble as I place the Silver Tower's new Age of Sigmar miniatures on square bases! Okay I am not putting all the miniatures on square bases, only the ones that I think would fit into my existing armies which at the moment is the Skaven and Scutters. 

So I got Gotrek, Felix, Nagash, Thanquol, Grom the Paunch and a whole host of other characters to play with and that's without including Christopher's Lizardmen. Just need to start slapping some paint on.

Lee.