A Case Of The Squats

Back in the "good old days" there was an army of space dwarfs. They promptly got "eaten by Tyranids" and retroactively removed from all fluff, had the model moulds destroyed and now so much as mentioning them on workshop sites gets you a perma-ban. They also had a stupid name. I am referring of course to the Squats.

I happen to LIKE the idea that in the 41st millenium, there are still a race of engineers who actually KNOW what they're doing, and are busily inventing new tech to throw back the Tyranid and Ork invasions that are threatening thier race with extinction. I happen to LIKE the idea that these embittered and now sadly depleted strongholds are still stubbornly refusing to give up the ghost and keel over. I also happen to LIKE the fact that other companies are not as short sighted (pardon the pun) as GW and still produce some pretty cool Space Dwarf models.

What I don't like is the fact that i have to use a substitute codex or write one myself.

Infestation

Scenery is a vital part of every battlefield, and as a club we have talked about making themed terrain pieces for our armies. With Tyranids this poses a few interesting challenges, what does a Bug-infested world look like?

Having had a long think about it (and watched Aliens a few times) I figure i'm going to try and attempt 5 distinct pieces of scenery. These are as follows:

1: A Spore Funnel

2: Digestion Pool

3: Egg Cluster

4: Hatchery

5: "Hived" facility

These will likely increase in complexity the further down the list I work.

So, Brainstorming time!

Operation SHED: I Think We Have A Winner?

Having decided that I want a shed the task was now to actually look at which one to get...

The internet is a wonderful place and gave me many possible sheds to choose from, however it looks like the winner may be good old Homebase, simply because they have a sale on, an 8 by 10 shed for under £500 reduced from £700, why thank you, don’t mind if I do!

I think a trip to the shops to have a proper look at it is in order...

Once the final decision is made as to which shed I’m going to get I can then actually start the whole planning and construction process...

Oh the limitless fun!

The Joy Of Copyright...

I have been researching copyright rules and regs, what an interesting find!

I, like many others, may have heard misconceptions or been given false advice.

I first of all looked at the first website on a google search. Naturally its professional appearance and in-depth descriptions, award symbols all over the place, led me too believe that they new exactly what they were talking about, who do i make the cheque payable too??

Do not believe the first website you view, as this stated that the only infallable way too protect your work is through a solicitor for a minimum fee of around £50, and that's the lowest package.

I have since dug deeper and discovered that this is not the case. I have been told that posting yourself a copy of your work is not a legal proof of creation and is a myth. This appears to be, in itself, a myth.

If you read the website for the intellectual property office, you will also discover that you are completely entitled to protect your work, for free, off your own back! woohoo! That is one less cost of production too worry about. But by all means there is a place for paying for legal protection, as it will provide you with much more peace of mind and a piece of paper to tell you "Well done, you invented something", or words too that effect.

It is, however, worth checking the market and regularly checking the published game rules list, just too make sure you haven't sub-consciously copied a game you played 10 years ago with your mum.....................

Colouring In 2: In Which We Use Colour.

So, after waiting for the undercoat to dry thoroughly it's time to grab the Bleached Bone and a tank brush. Slightly thin down the paint and get a slappin', cover all the areas of "flesh" not worrying about getting the bone on the carapace, your fingers, family pets or anything else. Give it a couple of thin coats rather than one thick one, and don't worry too much about getting every last tiny bit of the model. If you can't see it to get a brush to it, it's probably not going to be noticed on the tabletop.

Once the bone is dry (thoroughly) find some Devlan Mud, for some reason this stuff always STINKS. really bad. It's like Old Spice, if by spice you mean "feet".

Resin Ruins - Knock, Knock, Let Me In...

Having spent a bit of time looking at the building I found myself imagining what had happened to it to cause the damage. 

A Door!

The ruin also had a hole where the doorway should have been, this got my thinking this is where there could have been a large calibre weapon strike that literally blew the door from its hinges...

The model kit did come with doors but as with the walls they were only cast one one side, so rather than messing around trying to sculpt the rear of the door I decided to bite the bullet and just make my own!

The door was a fairly simple affair, 4 layers on 1mm plasticard cut to fit the gap I had, rivets were then added (thin slices of round plasticard tubing) and presto, one door.

Destroyed Door!

Once the door was built I then had the job of destroying it. I drilled a hole through to simulate the weapon strike and then using clippers bent the door to show the impact. A few small small arms damage marks courtesy of my pin vice and small drill-bit and one blown in door was finished!

And people say I spend too much time on things!

Outpost XIII - The Picture Made It Look Easy...

Basic Structure

With any large project it’s always best to pick a starting point and have a rough plan in your head on how you’re going to proceed.

With Outpost XIII I decided to build the bastion base first. This would give me a solid foundation to work from both for the upper and lower levels. The base is made from two bastion kits; to make it a bit more solid internal supports were glued in to make it as strong as possible.

That was the easy part, the lower base was a bit more of a challenge. The main wall sections were made from 4 Imperial City ruin sections, however these were shorter than the bastion base so corner sections were needed.

Base Section

The corners were made from the flat parts of Bastion wall sections; these were then glues to the other wall sections to make the lower walls. The main doorway was made in the same way, a city doorway formed the centre with a Bastion wall section on either side, that I also had to do with the door was trim away one side so it all matched up.

The whole process wasn’t overly difficult but was fairly time consuming due to having to cut all the section and then fill the gaps afterwards (this project was going to take a lot of green stuff!!)

Big Blokes on Massive Wolves

So my Thunderwolf Cavalry arrived last week. And of course one of them (Canis Wolfborn) had to be taken back to Games Workshop due to poor casting - he looked like someone off the serious burns unit. Finecast - what a total misnomer...

Anyway, this aside, the other Finecast stuff was great - the Wolf Lord on Thunderwolf and Arjac look incredible and I can't wait to find time to paint them. But now of course I ought to have a little peep in the codex before I crack out the Chaos Black (sorry Sev, I'll buy Poundland own brand next time!).

So, looking at the entry for the Thunderwolves, I'm pondering as to what to tool them up with. As I'm likely to base my army around the Thunderwolves and Bran Redmaw, I feel fairly happy in tooling them up.

I cannot see any reason not to equip all the riders with Storm Shields - 3++ saves on such a savage close combat unit really does make these guys incredibly durable.

There seems little point in changing the standard bolt pistol side arm for the riders - most likely whatever is being charged is in trouble anyway, and bolts are usually enough to damage those races who have high Initiative values anyway, so from a unit of 4 riders charging, say, a unit of Wyches, you can happily expect a Wych to go down to bolt gun fire, maybe even two. Perhaps I will consider it if going up against Chaos Marines. But mainly I'm going to be taking the Storm Shields, so it's all a bit moot really.

Colouring In

As Ice-Dragon has pointed out, motivation to paint can often be the biggest obstacle. Well, as it turns out, writing this blog is an excellent motivator. Last week's painting projects are all done and there's new 'Nids on the table already.

How to paint my 'Nids. Stage by stage. (Just in case i forget :P )

So... Stage 1 - The Undercoat.

GW would lead you to believe that Chaos Black (or Skull White) spray is the only way to undercoat your models. This is in fact a lie! Personally i use any old Matt black spray i can lay my hands on. Usually car body spray from Poundland.

Game Development!

I start this post as not only an aid for me, but also help for other budding developers, and people who enjoy playing new games!!

It seems to me that at an early stage of development, coming up with the idea is the easy part of this process. I  have created one large board game, with expansions and a franchise of smaller card based games. Yet both undertakings have proved to hit the same snag! 


It was easy too mock-up a version too play-test and easy too discuss and amend various rules, yet the current issue is art-work. Looking at various forum discussions, this is pretty much the universal issue.

I have however discussed aspects of production with various companies and have a clearer understanding of what too consider when developing your game. It seems best too consider the components required, as lots of parts will inevitably boost production costs. This is the reason for building the franchise of smaller games, as the component count is considerably lower then my initial large game. Make sure you ask yourself, "is that extra token necessary?" or the general theme of the game will effect the magnitude of art required.

Food for thought until my next post....

Resin Ruins - Measure Twice, Cut Once...

Before tackling the 3 story monster I decided to start off with a small ruin to act as my trial piece.

Trail dry fit

With the dry fit complete it was time to look at the ruins and decide how best to assemble them, the kit itself came with floor sections but I wasn’t really keen on them (they were a bit thin and bendy for my liking).

While I pondered what to do about this the wall sections were glued together, filled (more polyfiller) and sanded, this left me with a good solid building.

For the base I decided on hardboard, yes I know it has a habit of warping but it’s easy to work with and light, plus with the strength of the resin walls I was confident that it’d be fine. The first floor was a job for foambaord (every modeller has to love foamboard!).

Outpost XIII – I Feel A New Project Coming On...

Outpost XIII

Back in White Dwarf 361 there was a battle report with Salamanders vs ‘Nids, the battle itself was fought over Outpost XIII which was a massive terrain piece made from a number of Imperial Bastion kits, after the battle report there was a couple of page article about how the Outpost was put together.

At the time I remember thinking it was a cool piece of terrain then didn’t think much more of it, skip forward a couple of years I and found myself in a terrain making mood, I also flicked through that old issue of WD and thought, Oooo, I can make that...

So, there I was sat at my modelling table surrounded by a massive pile of parts, the question was where to start...

Paints Ready, Figures Ready......Oh Look, It's A TV Programme About Sheds!

Now I've just read Superman Is A Douche... and it also got me thinking (must be that time of the year), how do you motivate your self into painting, modelling etc?

I can spend all day thinking 'when i get home, I'm going to paint my Wraithlord' and I have all the best intentions in the world of doing it, until I sit down to do it, then for some stupid reason I can't seem to be bothered!

Take for example my High Elf army, I've been collecting this army since I first started playing Warhammer (that's over 20 years) and what have I painted from it? The cloak of a mage and the armour of 4 horsemen, that's it, why? because i cant be bothered!

Its not that I can't paint, I can (I think), but just find any motivation.

Any ideas?

Superman Is A Douche...

Funny how a random comment can set the mind to thinking... 

In Matt's last post he mentioned his shed as a "Fortress of Solitude". This got me thinking. Most, if not all of the guys I've spoken to much prefer to paint/model/assemble in the company of others. Chatting over the painting table at GW or just with a mate or two at the dining table.

I know that in the past, ideas have been exchanged about current projects and many potentially disastrous project-stopping problems solved with a cuppa and some glue. So what happens if you haven't got any friends? or if for some unfathomable reason they're not available?

Personally I find that it helps enormously to have some sort of "background noise" while i paint and model. usually a DVD or music. While I'm working on my bugs for example I find that having Starship Troopers or Aliens keeps me focused, when i was painting Orks i listened to a lot of Ramones and Green Day.

So, my question is thus: what do you guys do to keep your attention focused on the job at hand while staving off the boredom of gluing sand to bases?

Operation SHED: The Mission!

I’m a firm believer that every wargamer or model maker needs a shed, well if not a shed but a space of their own.

The sort of shed I'm thinking of...

As such I’ve set my heart of getting myself a modelling shed, my own little fortress of solitude if you will. This will make my sister very happy as the dining room table will be free from modelling equipment.

Luckily for me I’ve been promised some money towards the ‘shed fund’, what I need to do now is plan what shed I want to get, how big, how to insulate, etc...

The issue I’ve got is my garden isn’t very wide, only 12ft to be exact, this somewhat limits the shed size, the other problem is that my garden is also rather long (about 150ft) so getting power to it will probably be a bit of a nightmare...

So, the task is set, get myself a shed, the hopeful completion date for this little project? The end of April...

Wish me luck!

That's Nice, But I'm Not Paying That Price!

That's what I thought, the day I first clapped my eyes on GW's big lead monster, The Thunderhawk Gunship. Then low and behold they released the Forge World one, what was a man to do (a man with 3 kids and not much in the way of spare cash)?

Now I wanted one, but wasn't going to part with the best part of £400 to get one, so like any other good tight wad, I started to hunt the web to see what I could find.

Now their are loads of sites out there, offering many different types of 'Template' designs, but trust me, most of them are crap!

I did find one set that I thought with a bit of chopping and changing I could work with, many moons ago I had built "Bessie", a 40k scale Reaver Titan, made out of foam board and card, she managed to scare the hell out of my opponent before she meet a untimely end under the wife's vacuum cleaner, so the plan was to make Bessie MK2 stronger than her former partner in card.

Resin Ruins - A Project 5 Years In The Making...

Back in 2006 I was at SaluteWargames Show in London, while there I was in the mood to pick up a nice piece of terrain I could use at our games club and that would also be a project for me to work on...

BattleBuild.com at Salute 2011

I was in luck, I stumbled across a company called BattleBuild, they were a brand new company and had a range of multipart ruined resin buildings. Perfect just what I was looking for! £100 and some eyelash flattering later and I had 3 sets of ruins plus a load of cool accessories. (Note: at time of writing it now looks like BattleBuild.com no longer exist which is quite depressing)

Unfortunately as with all best laid plans, I never really started the kits as they were going to be a lot of work and I found that I lacked the time to really get into them, as such they got put in the back of the cupboard...

Skip forward 5 years to late 2011 and I dusted (literally) off the kit and gave them another look...

Ruins, dry fit

The pieces themselves are very nice, they did need a lot of cleaning up but that’s part of the fun. The main downside is that due to how they were cast they were only moulded on one side. To overcome this I resorted to every model makers friends the ever reliable polyfiller! A good coating on the reverse of each piece gave the impression of broken plaster especially once it had been roughly sanded.

Once all the components were cleaned up it was time to plan what I was going to build, the original kit was designed to make up to 3 square single or two story ruins. Feeling a bit adventurous I decided to scrap that plan and make the ruins how I fancied, once the rough fits were done I ended up with 6 different ruins, the largest being 3 stories.

Building Bran Redmaw's Company

Hola! So now that I have clandestinely ordered £130 worth of Space Wolf miniatures without my wife knowing (so keep it schtum...), I am ready to begin building my Bran Redmaw Great Company.

It looks like I will be waiting a while for Forgeworld to release the Bran Redmaw figures (yes, there are TWO - one for him in calmer times, another for his huge Redmaw Wulfen form), although I am bugging them regularly on their Facebook forum - cracking the whip, if you will. 

So being the sneaky chap I am, I have 'acquired' the rule set for Bran Redmaw in the meantime - and there are a few of his special rules which will dictate how I build my army and how it plays.

Sev's Spawning Pool....

Okey dokey, Here goes...

Among my many (many) projects on the go, this week I've been concentrating on Nids. As some of you may remember I said at the start of the year this would be a "Bug" year. I was looking at getting hold of some Chapterhouse Tervigon conversion kits and working from there, a plan that was completely derailed by the release of the Tervigon/Tyrannofex last weekend by GW.

So, the Tervigon (for that is what i built) it's...big. Very big! Literally the thing FILLS one of those large oval bases. It's so tall it's not going to be hidden by any of our current club scenery, no cover saves for this baby.... unless... it turns out a Venomthrope is completely hidden by this beasty's bulk tentacles and all, mutual cover saves ftw!

The kit itself is not to shabby either. All the parts fit together smoothly (new mould's) and the assembly instructions are pretty straight forward. They even (shock horror) have part numbers (mumble mumble Trygon). The sprues are pretty light on extras, all the weapon options are on there and the obligatory scrotum/venom sacs, but would it really have hurt to squeeze a ripper or two on there?

Welcome to the Eagles Nest...

Hello there!


Yes, you guessed it; it’s a welcome post to introduce the blog.

What can you expect? Well, hopefully a selection of posts from different members of the White Eagles Wargames Club on a whole manner of topics including terrain, painting, modelling, gaming and well anything else related to the Wargames and Miniature hobby.

The plan is to have regular posts to show the differing stages of projects that people are working on.

Well, that’s it, an introduction, short, sweet and to the point.

Hopefully you’ll like what we have to say, happy reading!