Insomnia + Looney Tunes = This

I couldn't sleep so I decided to make another one of my gnoblar traps.  This one is a little Looney Tunes but whatever.

Wrap a paperclip around a chopstick till it comes out looking like a spring.

Cut a piece of wood.

Add the Red X.

Apply a brown wash, glue and base.   Voila!  Something that Wile E. Coyote would be proud of.  

I think this one may be my favorite one so far.  Probably should try to sleep now or else I'll start another one and be awake till morning.

From Chinese to Gnoblars

So I got to thinking today about more gnoblars.  After some discussions on OgreStronghold about a gnoblar only army, I got to thinking about doing some "unit filler" for my gnoblars.  1. As cheap way of getting more of them, and 2. To make them a little more interesting.

While I LOVE the gnoblar trappers models that GW makes, they're freaking EXPENSIVE.  

Finecast or not, I'm not paying 20.00 for 10 points worth of guys.

However, what about making the traps and using THOSE as unit filler.  I can get twenty 20mm square bases, twelve 25mm square bases, five 25x50mm bases and five 40mm square bases for $8.25.

I've got a few ideas for traps, and tonight I hammered out a couple of them on the cheap.  The first is just a simple sharpened stick in the ground.  I started off with a chopstick I had from ordering Chinese food the other day.  

Then using my Dremel, I cut off the end at an angle.

Then I roughed up the wood a bit and gave it a point.  Deliberately making gashes in the wood so that later the brown wash will have places to soak into. 

 After that a little super glue to the base.

Now through the magic of television, here is one that I finished earlier.  

My next idea was just a simple deadfall trap.  So a trip to the driveway later, I got a rock.  I drilled a little hole in the base so I could put my stick(more chopstick) into. 

I painted the base and applied the little rocks ahead of time, then allowed that to dry.  

Now the finished product, in retrospect I think I could find a better rock, but I was a roll and didn't want to spend any more time out in the cold driveway.

I have a few more ideas for cheap... I mean interesting... traps to do, but that's all for tonight.  I want to figure out how many different traps I can do, then spread out what they are.  I could hammer out a crap-ton of the pointy sticks in a short amount of time, but then it would get overplayed.

Warhawk Rider update... breaking out the big gun

I started trying to put the warhawk riders back together today.  The pieces were quiet fitting together as they should (mostly due to all the breaking and reglueing I did on them in the past.)

The pieces actually did fit a little better than this, but it was tough holding that and taking the picture.

So I grabbed the tool box to get my file when it hit me... Hey I got that new Dremel for Christmas.  I could clean up this joint in a second flat.

It does seem a little wrong to use a power tool on Wood Elves.

Very quickly cleaned up the joint.

Shiny

Much better.

Then I took my hobby drill out and drilled 2 holes to pin the wing back on.  I probably could have used the dremel on this, but I don't know that I trust it(or myself for that matter) not to drill through to the other side... even on the lowest speed setting.

The old flying base broke off inside the warhawk's butthole, so I had to drill that out as well as drilling a hole into the new square base that I have to put these on.  

Prepare the warhawk enema

And now the final product.  I tried to repose him a little so he looks a little more vicious, I also think it will help when I have to try to rank these guys up.

The more I work on these guys, the more I want to put some extra time into them... then I remind myself how badly I'll lose with them.... maybe they'll get a new book one day....................................................

Wood Elves... that right... I said Wood Elves

  I feel really bad right now.  Why you ask?  Because I didn't realize I owned a wood elf army.

  How does one go about not knowing they own a wood elf army you might ask?  Well I knew I owned SOME wood elves.  I bought them from a friend back in the day of 5th/6th edition(or traded for them.. we're talking about the year 2000)  

  So today I was like, hey I wonder how many points worth of wood elves I have.  Well it turns out, alot. 

Time and moving has not been kind to the little hippies (neither has the Games Workshop rules... am I right... am I right...) But with a little dab of superglue, I hope to have them back to playable.  Even if I took the time to fix their paint jobs and whatnot, they're not a tournament army.  MAYBE if GW decides to ever give them a new rulebook, I'd be willing to put some extra time into them, but for now, they'll be something I pull out on a rainy day.

So to break down what I got...

Treeman

I love the old style Treemen.  I think I'll be playing him as a Treeman Ancient (Lord Character) because I have too many points into rares for a 2000 point army.  Fielding him a Lord makes him stronger and allows me to field all of these guys....  

Waywatchers

A full 10 man unit of Waywatchers.  I LOVE these guys.  WS 5, Killing Blow, Scouts, and you get an addition -1 to shoot at them.  To me, this is what it means to be a Wood Elf.  

Warhawk Riders

These guys require the most work.  6 Warhawk Riders.  I need to get some more Monsterous Infantry bases to put them on so they are on the correct bases to be fielded.  One of the guys was originally fielded as a character on warhawk so that's an option to make them a little more stabby.  Games Workshop charges 20 dollars a model for these things now a days so technically that's an expensive unit.

Wardancers

13 Wardancers.  Some of them are very nicely painted(by the previous owner) others are very poorly painted by someone(not me) who was REALLY bored.  If anyone were to get a touch up on paint it would be that half of the unit.  

If you've noticed that some of these guys are based in white with snow, it's because I used them as Duellists in my Dogs of War army.  

Glade Riders

6-7 Glade Riders.  One of them is a lord on horseback. They were moonlighting as "Light Cav" in the 6th edition rules for Dogs of War.

Glade Guard

26 Glade Guard (or Wood Elf Bowmen as they were called in my day)  Arrows, arrows and more arrows.  Probably will break these up into 2 or 3 units.  

Characters. Standards and Musicians

3 unit standards (the guy on the far right has a broken standard), 1 musician, 2 characters, and 1 mage.  I'll probably play one of the standards as the BSB, and unless I need to pad some point using Hero level characters, I'll use the rest as command models for the archers.(MORE ARROWS!)  

I know with magic items I can do at least a 2000 point army.  Maybe even get it up to 22 or 24 hundred if I max out everyone with magic items.  

I doubt this army is very winnable in a tournament setting, but it certainly will play differently than my Ogres.

-Edit:  I'm a moron. I was calling the Warhawk Rider Eagle Riders.  

Taking a crack at making some feathers

So today I decided to take a stab at making some feathers out of green stuff. I figure if I start now, I can come up with a good repeatable method sometime between now and the next century.  Also it will give me a chance to use my carving kit.

After I had all the trouble making the fire for my Fire Butcher, I figured having the right tools would help.  After an hour or so of making, remaking, swearing, and proclaiming that I'd never do this shit again.

I ended up with 2.  I want them to dry so I can prime and paint them before I officially pass judgement.  I know that I can do better, but I think these 2 will paint up to tabletop quality... or trashcan quality.  

I'll admit they look a little like leaves, but I'm pretty sure that's because of the green color.  

My first piece of Space Marine Goodness...

I haven't assembled the marines yet, because I was gonna wait for the heads to arrive.  (Someday my precious... someday.....)

The Land Speeder Storm sprues only have a Heavy Bolter on them, but I think with the regular land speeder you get the heavy flamer, assault cannon, and multi-meltas. Since I'll be running the Typhoon Missile Launchers on those, I'll have more than enough.  It won't require magnetization, but I might do it anyways, just to keep them from falling off.

I've saw this article today and I think I'm going to steal (well I guess it's not stealing since I gave credit right?) this idea of magnetizing the Scouts that come with it so that I get 5 more Scouts for free.   

Bowie 2k Tourney Aftermath

  Just got back in from doing the 2k Fantasy Tournament.  I considered playing coy for a bit, but since I doubt anyone is actually going to read all of this, I'll cut to the chase.

I WON BEST PAINTED ARMY!

I promise I will only say this once. 

My "Award Winning Army"

Let's let that sink in for second... *deep breath*  I'm sure at this point a certain reader of this blog has just cut his wrist having played against my awful Chaos army for all those years.   Right after I got there and set things up, the flood of people coming over and going "OMG LOOK AT THOSE AWESOME MANEATERS!"  then coming back with their friends to show them too started.  I think I counted at least 20 people throughout the day who came over and said something to that effect. 

The prize was a 35.00 box of my choice so I got a Land Speeder Storm for the space marine army.  

Everything is better when it's free.

Back to the tournament, I went 1-2 for the day, but ended up top 5 overall.  

First game was against a dwarf player.  Interesting list, 2 cannons, a unit of longbeards with 4 characters in it, and a gigantic horde of miners.  Having seen this unit as he put it on a movement tray, I knew that I wanted to make sure that he couldn't get to the flank of me with their scout deployment, so I put 1 sabretusk on each flank as far out as I could.  

My maneaters tore into the first cannon and and wiped it out first turn.  This is where my opponent made the fatal mistake of this game.  He turned his unit of longbeards around to deal with the maneaters in the corner. My unit of ironguts and unit of bull ogres chased off and overran the miners, while the sabretusks had closed in on the final cannon and destroyed it.  At this point, I knew his character bunker was so far out of position, I could just avoid fighting him (Movement 3 dwarfs vs Movement 6 Ogres)  and I'd win.  I spent the next 4 turns just firing magic spells and leadbelcher rounds into the unit.  My Ironblaster eventually blew itself up turn 2.

Victory me!

Round 2 was awful.  I forget the name of it(I wanna say surprise engagement.....)  was the scenario.  Basically divide the table into 6 blocks and take turns placing units in the blocks will there is 1 unit in each block, the rest of your units have to walk from the table edge.  My opponent was playing an extremely shooty Dark Elf list (I believe he was the eventual tournament winner.) 

Because the crazy deployment rules, my maneaters weren't allowed to use their scout special rule.  They aren't designed to walk across the field into combat, they are supposed to be in the shit by turn 2. Dark elves basically picked me apart with shooting and magic.  

Loss for me.

Round 3 was against a Lizardman army.  A Slaan-less Lizardmen army.. I didn't even know people did that.   His list was 2 hordes, (one 30 man and one 40 man) of saurus, Saurus lord on Carnifex, Stegadon w/ skink priest and a Salamander.  Because of the way VP are calculated, I got my ass handed to me.  I don't want to take away from anything my opponent did because he certainly won, but I killed all but 3 of the guys in 1 of the hordes, wore down the other just a few, and killed the carinifex but not the lord, so even though all those points worth of stuff was dead, I got 0 points for it. (Take that back, I got 25 points for taking the standard bearer of one of the hordes.)   I did get points for killing the Stegadon and skink priest, but he did lost of damage to full units.  

Another Loss for me.

I feel like I performed better than my win/loss record indicates, but I had fun and I can now say that I have won something at a Warhammer tournament.

When I got home, the sample axe from The Assault Group came.  I'll do a seperate post about that later.

I won Best Painted Army!.............. nope still doesn't sound right.