Some downtime, but for a good reason

Friday, 3 September, 2010

The blog has been really quiet for some time now, and I haven’t been painting anything for a while. At the moment it seems that this might be the case for some time, although I haven’t quit the hobby I love - things will eventually be painted again!

I just have a good reason, perhaps the greatest reason of all, for this downtime. I become a dad of a baby boy one and a half weeks ago, so painting miniatures have not been on my priority list (or on my mind) for some time now.

But I will be back, I promise. Stay tuned, but do not hold your breath!

Surviving from Ropecon and into a new server

Friday, 6 August, 2010

After some difficulties with my webhotel changing into a new server, all is again working fine. The last post had to be added again, which resulted to a wrong date, but otherwise nothing was lost. Thanks again to Redrum for getting the site back up and working.

So Ropecon and 40k tournament are in the past, with some nice results. My Eldar performed very well, much better than I anticipated. The army list worked really well, and in the end I wouldn’t change anything from the list: even the small unit of Harlequins I had some doubts on worked well in most of the games.

The first game against Santso’s Imperial Guard, with a really nice Napoleonic theme and lots of infantry. I managed to divide the enemy army into two sections, and concentrate my whole force into one section at the time. The game was in the end a close win for me, with some lucky rolls in the end. I had one objective and contested the second one, when the time ran out. Nonetheless, a first victory for my Eldar army in a tournament setting.

The second game was against Lambert’s beautiful Eldar-army. I had taken a beating from his army in a tournament some years ago with my Chaos Marines, so it was a time of retribution for me. The scenario was an Annihilation -mission with a Dawn of War –deployment, and as the enemy got the first turn, I decided to leave most of my army off the table. Lambert made a bold move with his jetbike-mounted Farseer + Warlocks and turbo boosted them to challenge me head on. I got to shoot with my whole army and then assault with some of them, which ended in the jetbikers getting killed. Afterwards my shootier and more mobile army could pick up slower units one at the time, earning me enough kill points for mr.Lambert to call it a day and quit.

The third game was against Frenzy’s alie-nids, an Aliens -based Tyranid-army. The game was really close fought, with me making some well working manoeuvres and good shooting, while the dice worked from time to time against my opponent. I managed to kill most of the army, including 5 monstrous creatures, while still having a couple of Avengers to get the central objective to win. A good and an exciting game all the way!

So after 3 games and 3 victories, I was going to play the last game in the “top table”, which was something I had never achieved before. If I could win, I would be either the winner or the runner up for the whole tournament, so it was really exciting. I got to play against Ishmael’s Space Marines, a really nice and hugely effective (vehicle based) army that has been winning many tournaments. The game started out quite well for me, with a mobile swoop of fast units towards the other flank of enemy army. My opponent countered this and minimized his losses, and bogged my army down while driving a Land Raider and Assault Terminators into my deployment zone (as I couldn’t get the tank down) and slaughtering my units there. In the end, the game could have been a victory with some more luck, but I was playing against a really skilled opponent who was really fun to play against, so losing doesn’t feel so bad after all.

After the points were calculated, I was the 9th out of 51 players in total, with a tied 5th place in tournament points (ties were settled in calculating the VP’s from all the games). Before the tournament I was hoping to be in the top half of the players in the end, so I succeeded much better than I had hoped. All the games and opponents were really nice, so I enjoyed the tournament even more than normally; I also got to play against some of the best looking armies in the tournament.

Of course I had hoped to be noticed in the Best Painted Army -competition as well and had painted some of the models until the day before the tournament. It just wasn’t my turn this time, and I am of course happy to “lose” against the beautiful armies participating. I really think the standard is rising every year, with people putting more effort to their armies, which is really nice for everyone: other players, people coming to see the games and for the hobby as whole. So congratulations to Frenzy for painting those Renegade Marines that won the prize, some bad pics are also posted into this entry for those as well.

Pimp my Eldar Ride, part 3

Wednesday, 4 August, 2010

The tournament is coming all the time closer, with only a week to go. I just finished painting my last tank (Falcon) and repainted my Rangers. Actually I was to only repaint the gems and the weapons on those, but then I ended up adding better highlights and some other details to them to fit them into the rest of my army.

The Falcon was converted with a hull-mounted Shuriken Cannon and also got an Eldar Missile Launcher as a second main weapon. I am not sure if it is a good set of guns, but now the tank can work as a real gunship - provided it doesn’t get blown to pieces early in the game.

Now I only have to get those Harlequins finished and the army is ready in 1750pts. And oh yes, if I have time, I might also make some objective markers to fit the army as well.

Stay tuned!

falcon1.jpg rangers1.jpg

Pimp my Eldar Ride, part 2

Monday, 28 June, 2010

I have finished repainting my Vyper Jetbike into Altansar -theme. The model is quite heavily converted (perhaps even updated) by changing the crew with new guardian bodies, and also cutting the frontal armour and removing canopy. This way the Vyper fits well as a heavier version of Jetbikes I converted earlier. I also changed the main weapon with a Eldar Missile Launcher and added a Shuriken Cannon under the hull.

With painting I left most of the vehicle black (high sharp highlights), and giving it some colour, detail and contrast with a large flaming Altansar Craftworld rune.

The rules for next month’s tournament also arrived, with a points limit of 1750pts (special character allowed, yay!). That means I should quite easily get the required army done, only a Falcon, a couple of Harlequins and the weapons of Rangers to go.

vyper.jpg

Pimp my Eldar Ride, part 1

Thursday, 24 June, 2010

This time I have built and painted a Wave Serpent for my Dire Avengers to drive around. I used to have three Falcons, but managed to trade some bits with Greathin (thanks!): I gave a Falcon turret, and got in return a Wave Serpent -extension to the hull, power field -bits for the sides and a smaller turret, which gave me a chance to convert this tank.

The conversion work was nothing too big, the missile launcher was made from spare launchers of a Dark Reaper Exarch and a Wraithlord glued together. I positioned the launchers a little bit upwards, as if they would be used to launch missiles in a small arc towards the enemies. And oh yes, I also added a Shuriken Cannon in place of just Shuriken Catapults to give me some more firepower.

The tank was in fact much more fun to paint than I feared. The hull has lots of clear space to add some runes, with armour plates being a bit raised to give natural places for sharp highlights. And of course, lots of gems as well. I also decided to paint the cockpit’s glass and add some reflection effects to it, which I thought looked much cooler than just painting the tank’s driver and use clear plastic glass there. This way, the tank looks more menacing, as if it might ride on its own (like a Transformer, yay!) which would be perhaps quite ok for an Eldar tank anyways. Well, not as a big transforming robot, but driving on its own with spirit stones.

Next time (soonish) tank will get a support vehicle in form of a Vyper Jetbike.

waveserpent.jpg

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