KtKC Day 18

Angels beating up on Traitor Marines (the Valkyrie is pretending to be a Nephalim Jetfighter, saving me $75 on a model that I now know sucks in the current rules.)

Crap, how do these rules work again?

Won one, lost one today.

As always, donate to help fund cancer research here!

New Games Workshop Paints

For the whole maybe 2 of you that read my stuff and play with little toy soldiers, you probably know GW put out a new line of paints last week.

The newest issue of White Dwarf, despite being horribly overpriced, actually has some ok content, including (gasp!) actual rules for Deathworld Scenarios.  Also, there is a massive amount of stuff about painting with the new stuff, and there's a little mention of how you can use one of the new shading paints over a white base to knock out Iyanden Eldar guys in minutes, rather than hours.  I'd played around with building an Eldar army for a while, and actually have all the models buried around somewhere.  I like the background for Iyanden and really like the color scheme, but painting them kicked my ass, so the models got shoved to the proverbial back of the painting desk.  Literally a dozen or so layers of thin yellow paints to build up from a deep red-orange to get the effect I wanted.  Somehow I had gotten a tank, a few Guardians and a weapon platform done and that was it.

So I was intrigued, and picked up a couple of the new paints, and dug out a couple sprues and glued together some plastic dudes.  Hit 'em with white primer, and went for it.

The guy on the left was one of the first ones I did two years ago, involving the dozen or so layers for the yellow armor. The guy on the right was done with the new paint system, and I seriously knocked out eight of them in a little longer than it took for the Brewers Game yesterday.  White primer, a heavy coat of Casandora Yellow, and a quick coat of Lamenters Yellow glaze to even it out.  They look almost as good close up, and pretty much the same at "tabletop" distance.  I'm simply amazed honestly.

About Time GW...

About dang time. Thunderwolves!!

Tuesday

Tuesday means wargames.

Old photoshop of one of my models from back in the day... turned out well.

Tuesday

Geekiness

Yay Tuesdays!

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Tiny Sniper Rifle

is Tiny.

It's popped up in a few places around the blogosphere this morning, but it's too cool not to mention.  I mainly like it because my Dark Heresy character has the 40k equivalent.  (Started with a "Roth Pattern Lasgun," which is a bullpup, and payed the Thrones to have it upgraded to a Long-las.  Yes, I'm a geek.)

I'm a Geek...

Because stumbling across these made my day.

Chamelioline Cloaks? For the Realz?

Hardcore 40k fans will have no doubt read Dan Abnett's fantastic Gaunt's Ghosts series, and will know the Tanith First and Only are famous for their scouting and stealth abilities, the later of course being strongly augmented by their use of one of the Imperium's most underused technologies, Chamelioline.  While never really explained, Chamelioline seems to be a sort of fiber interwoven into their camouflage cloaks that changes color and blends with their surrounding environment.  I can only assume it's a type of fiber, as it is only used in cloth uniforms utilized by certain elite Imperial Guard units, some Assassins, and some Astartes chapters for their scouts.

All cool and whatnot for the geeky 40k fan like me, but it turns out that there's a company, Hyperstealth, looking to make what they call SMARTCAMO, an adaptive camouflage material that blends in with the surrounding terrain colors.

Guy Cramer, the CEO of Hyperstealth, gave a presentation at the International Camouflage Symposium in Brussels back in October featuring a video of the stuff.

The video was of an actual camouflage cloth around his arm, which could change colors between Desert and Woodland and anything in-between, the colors also showed the ability to become brighter than the desert colors for use in a late fall climate or even snow. Cramer announced at the end of the presentation that the video was to be released on the HyperStealth web site after the conference.

 Apparently since the presentation he has been asked not to release said video by the US Military.

However the release goes on to mention that the material was developed using "fractals" to create feedback loops in the pattern and nanotechnology.

Some seriously cool stuff being worked out.  They also apparently have developed a system for vehicles that not only works as a visual camo, but stealths it out from a large chunk of the electromagnetic spectrum, something the Imperium apparently never figured out (stupid religious views...)

But if all that isn't Science Fictiony enough for you, SSD is tossing some more conspiracy level fodder into the mix.

Then, we find out that Dr. Joseph Resnick, Lt. Col. Timothy R. O’Neill, Ph.D (U.S. Army, Ret.) and Guy Cramer (of Hyperstealth fame) have owned mineral rights for 95% of the side of the moon that faces Earth, the polar regions and 50% of the far side of the Moon since 2007. And that isn’t to mention their mineral rights onMars!

So this has got to be it, they have found some rare mineral on the Moon that makes SMARTCAMO™ work. Now the question is, how did they get it back to Earth?

Got distracted...

Didn't really get around to blogging today, felt the random motivation to finish off a super-heavy tank for 40k that I've been working on and off on for a year or so.  The Shadowsword has always been my favorite of the Imperial Super-Heavies, so when they finally came out with an affordable plastic one I had to get it.  I painted it in the colors for my Death Korps of Kreig army that never happened, but thankfully it's well within the fluff for a random super-heavy to get attached to another unit from a different home world, so no real problem fielding the green/grey tank alongside my desert tan Velurian Armored Cav.

The pictures are rather meh, since it's getting dark out and I'm too lazy to set up any good lighting.  But the thing is a beast, almost 10 inches long, and occupies enough space on the table to fit four standard battle tanks.  A standard human sized guy can actually fit underneath the sponson.  It's a biggin'!

Just thought I'd share why I slacked off from here today.

Absolute Coolness

Exoskeleton for troops getting closer by the day.

Of course I can help but wonder how long before we can throw some heavy armor and big guns on there... but that's just the Space Marine/Starship Troopers fan in me.  On a serious note, this is one of the most useful things I've seen in development for us grunts.

Nose Art...

So I think I'm going to get crackin' on finishing up the second Valkyrie for my long-term Air Mobil Imperial Guard project, and I need to find some good nose art for it.  I decided a while ago that my Valks will all have pretty girls on them, and the Vultures (fills the Apache roll in the 40k world...) will get sharks teeth.

Here's the piece on my first Valkyrie-

I've been poking around for a bit, but nothing on the interwebs has really jumped out at me like that one did.  Anybody got any ideas for me?

Tankettes

I'm half tempted to start an Ork army just to use these little guys.  They're so cute in a ramshackle sort of way.

For a sense of scale, that little guy's maybe three inches long (the tank, not the Grot popping out the hatch...)

Lonnnnnnng day.

For you 40k fans that occasionally swing by (I'm sure there's a couple of you...)you'll probably know that today was the first round of the 'Ard Boyz tournament. Well, despite my burning hatred of tournaments, the fact that 'Ard Boyz is free, and that the weird missions and massive point limit tend to knock down the competitive lists in favor of "because I can" lists. In theory it's a more "fun" tournament. (Of course there's almost always somebody who just macks out their army list instead of building one that's "fun" and fluffy(fitting in the fiction.) Of course I fought him first game...)

So the Angels of Vengeance made an appearance.

(There's 2500 points of the Emperor's finest to fall from the heavens)

So waking up way too early for a Saturday (reason #1 I hate tournaments... they never start at reasonable hour...) and not expecting to really accomplish much (reason #2, I hate competitive lists and will make fluffy lists, quite often to a fault.  But damn it, it's a game. Fluffy lists are more fun.) and still swimming in glue fumes from slapping together stuff at the last minute (one good point of 'Ard Boyz, stuff doesn't have to be painted) I stumble into the store at 10am and start pulling out stuff.

3 games, do pretty mediocre the first round (remember the uber competitive expletive?) flat out draw the second, and somehow manage to squeeze in a major victory in the third (just barely), pushing nearly 8pm. Long day.

Somehow, I came in 3rd.  Still not sure how.

Hopefully the weather sticks and I can get the boat out tomorrow.

Tuesday

As is their way, the Angels of Vengeance brutally destroyed the enemies of the Imperium, in this case the green Xenos scum known as Orks.  Annihilation, final score 10:5.  I love my Drop Pods when things go right.

As always, there was plenty of talk of the silliness of grown men playing with toys, and I did mention that despite the Imperium's various tank designs' absurdity and horrible lack of suspension, they still look pretty cool.

Angels of Vengeance Land Raider Crusader "Mortis Angelis"

The Inquisitorial party, on the other hand, continued the suck.  Sometimes I wonder how the Inquisition continues to let us live, let alone pay us.

hellinahandbasket posted some Necrons from Iraq the other day, which is cool.  I couldn't find any current players or drum up enough interest in 40k when I was in Afghanistan, but I did get a few Imperial Guardsmen painted in my downtime.

Another 40k vehicle?

Not Sure of where the pic is from, but it would fit right in with some of the bigger Imperium tanks.

40k stuff...

Mentioned the Forgeworld Tauros Venator before.  Still looks cool, but the price is a bit high for something I wouldn't use much in a game.
Forgeworld just released pictures of the Tauros Assault Vehicle, a version with one less axle and either a grenade launcher or heavy flamer from the look of things.

I like the Mk19 style, even though it appears to be a dual feed (which works well for 40k rules) and as usual, Forgeworld packed the sucker with detail.  The gunner even has a strap seat deally along the lines of what the Army's rigged up for humvee gunners.  Hopefully the smaller size brings the price down closer to what I'm willing to pay.

Insomnia and Long Days of Zombie Slaying

Make for no posts marked Tuesday. Although it's still Tuesday in my mind (it's not tomorrow till I go to sleep!).

So with the weather being above freezing for the most part, broke out the single speed with the giant ring (I think it's a 55 tooth ring up front and a 16 on back... glacial outwash plains are flat) and went to school. I was running a bit late, so I was booking it, and am still amazed I was able to make it up to the third floor of the Science Building on campus. Legs do not equal in shape in the least.

And when classes are done, Tuesdays are game day at the shop, so my Angels of Vengeance decimated some traitorous skum, and my Dark Heresy guardsman maintained his "King warp-zombie Slayer" award for another session.

And now it's 2am, the alarm clock will start screaming at me in a little over 5 hours. Screw you daylight savings...

Elysian Tauros Venator

Haven't had a 40k post in a while, but Forgeworld put up the little Elysian wheeled vehicle they teased us with at the UK Games Day (It's like Shot Show for Games Workshop) a few months ago. I like the looks, and it's nice to see some wheels for the Imperium. You can pre-order here and enjoy more pictures here.
Two Hunter-killer missles and a Twin-linked Lascannon turret. That's a cute little air-dropable tank hunter if I ever saw one.

Some pictures of the new Valkyrie model have come out, which is freakin' sweet if you're an Imperial Guard player anyway. I'm excited for it, I've already got "Ride of the Valkyries" on my phone to play during deployment.