Adepticon Recap

Adepticon has come and gone and I'm in detox mode!  Making things up to the wife for being away so much and cleaning up the wake of my mad hobby cramming.  It was a blast.  I wish I had the chance to practice with my army, but in the end I had a great time.

Started off with the 40k champs.  I got smoked and got very minimal battle points, but it seemed like whenever I needed the game to go on, it didn't and whenever I needed it to end it kept going!  I won't use those as excuses, had 3 out of 4 games were a ton of fun. 

I didn't expect it, but my army ended up placing 2nd for appearance points.  For something I finished up late the night before (and had to take some shortcuts), I was really happy with the results. I'm thinking I should keep on the chaos kick and paint the miniatures I wasn't able to get to. Might as well while I'm still into the army even though I'm a bit burnt out. 

Friday was the 40k Friendly. Jeff and I did the Blues Battle Brothers as a theme this year and everyone seemed to have a good time. Unfortunately we were a little short staffed so I was stuck behind the computer most of the tournament.  Next year we'll rectify that... and we're very close to having a theme for 2017.

Then the team tournament.  The display board turned out great, and didn't get damaged as we assembled it on site.  Whether or not it's OK now is another story, as I have yet to reassemble it as parts are in my garage awaiting it's permanent stay in my basement.

We did pretty average on the games, I won big or lost big and ended up getting three max scores and two zeroes for battle points.  One of the losses we were in it to the end, it was close to being a tie had I played a little bit smarter. 

Here's some pictures from my camera on how the base turned out, I wish I would have taken better shots.  The lighting didn't seem to come through.

We were so trying for best heretical team.  As the awards ceremony went on, we were bummed we missed that and best display... when we got totally surprised and our team won best theme.  It's the ultimate for us, and everyone's hard work paid off. 

Over the next few days I'll post more of the miniatures I painted up over the week.  I think I've decided on my next few 40k projects. 

- Add some necrons for a few fun builds
- Work on a marine gladius list, flush out my marines
- Finally tackle the death korps of krieg. I've had these miniatures ever since they came out.  I've been dying to get some paint on them.  It might even be my big project for Adepticon next year.

Now on to cleaning the house!

Chaos Display Boards - Painting

I'm so scrambling to get things done before Adepticon.  I have about 60 figures that are 95% done.  As soon as I add the finishing touches I'll post some unit pictures. 

In between painting my wife helped me a bit more on the two display boards I'll use throughout the year and the Adepticon Championship.  After carving, I put a layer of latex paint down to help seal the boards.  Then did a few layers of greys to get a base down and some browns around the sand. 

We then started with painting random individual stones slightly lighter or darker colors.  Thanks again to my wife with the help on this!

I then put a few layers of a gloss coat on to assist with some oil washing.  I prepared a stinky batch of black/brown oil wash to line the cracks of the stone and darken some of the stones and sand. 

To add some random elements of terrain I created some more brazier "fires" and picked up a couple of fish tank aquarium decorations and painted them. The Mayan looking one will eventually have simulated fire coming out the sides that are open.  The big mouth sculpture will go over the blood river on the back of the base. 

I then sealed them with a matte coat to lock in the oils and taped off the top so I could apply a spray lacquer to the frame.  All of these coats and sprays spanned about a week of work between dry times.  The fun part was next.  Blood splatters in random places and I filled the river with the first coat of the blood.  I also did some green/brown water for the areas on the side. 

I need to wait until things are completely dry before I put the static grass on, that will probably be the night before the tournament.  There they are!  I'll get some completed pictures done at the tournament.  I'm still debating on whether I go with the large or smaller base.  We'll have to see how the miniatures fit. It'll be a long couple of late nights as I try to get as many painted as possible.

Goredrinker Kill Tally Counter

If you know me, or kept up with my blog you know I love counters and tokens (as shown by my Khorne counter).  I've created another tracker to help remind me of things.  I created this guy to keep track of the number of kills my chaos lord with Goredrinker racks up.  Since each result means a different thing, I don't want to forget!

I figure if and when I ever run the Hell forged Hunting Pack, I can use it for that as well. I found some metal skull beads, they work perfect!

The crunch is here.  Almost finished with a bunch of models.  I'm close to getting my requried ones done for the team tournament and singles, but I'm not sure how many summoned models I'll get to.  My wife helped me more with the display board, more on that shortly!

Chaos Display Boards - Carving

I figured, why not throw two big projects in while I'm scrambling to get everything painted for Adepticon.  Depending on whether I run a big or small army, I like to do two size display boards.  One is 18 x 24, and the other is 24 x 30. 

My friend was able to hook me up with some additional sheets of the high density foam.  I bought some wooden trim and framed the foam and glued/nailed it in place.  Luckily my same friend was able to make some stencils for me to knock out some chaos symbols.  I'm going to integrate some of the Dragon Forge tiles into it to give it the cool Mayan headhunter temple theme.

My wife (and cat) helped me out coming up with the pattern for each.  I have a Mayan statue that will be in the middle of the board where the river of blood will flow from.  On one side will be a path on the small board.  The big board will have two paths flanking the river.

The central Khorne symbol will be brass with rivets.  I'm debating on whether the chaos symbols should be done in metal or look like they're just carved out of the stone.  On each board I'll have a dirt area like the temple is going up against the "forest".  Plus it disguises where I screwed up the trim and had to put filler in since I didn't cut the trim to a perfect match of the foam.

 

I then went about doing super carving with the dremel in the garage to not kick up so much dust.  I carved out areas for each of the tiles so they can be set in the foam.  Since we already found out that this foam eats spray/primer, I'm going to put a heavy layer of laytex paint on to seal before I work my spray paint. 

Tonight I'll cut up some rivets and finish up my cultists.  Here's what I have to finish... all in like 8 days!

- final painting of the 20 cultists
- final painting of the soul grinder
- 14 khorne dogs
- 8 "biker" chaos Calvary
- Angroth (super thirster)

Summoned stuff I want to paint
- Skull Cannon
- 2 daemon princes
- More blood letters and dogs

Cool Khorne Counter!

If you've ever gotten the chance to play against me, I'm a sucker for game play aides.  There is a lot going on in a game, and I like to make sure I don't forget things and make sure my opponent knows exactly what is going on.  Since Khorne Daemonkin have the whole blood tithe going on, I figured it would be cool to create a tracker!

I made one for each of my team members in my group, so 4 in total.  I took my drill press out and drilled 8 5/8" holes.  A little dremmel work cutting out the khorne symbol and painted away.  I was able to pick up 1/2" red marbles and a cool goblet to hold them in.  Any time the tithe stacks up I drop a marble in. 

Since I'm pretty forgetful, I did a cheat sheet laminated on the side and glued to the top so I know what each affect does.  I'll probably come up with some counters to declare the affect to the army. 

Now back to painting!

Chaos Rhino and Tons 'O Bases

I'm running out of time, only two weeks left of painting.  We're almost complete with our display board.  I wrapped up my chaos rhino in a pretty simple scheme.  A little bit of free hand work but mostly just straight painted.

Additionally I wrapped up all the rest of the bases I'll potentially need to do.  Here they are in their painted glory sans static grass!

I'm so behind on painting, especially since I had to sneak in some business travel.  I'm almost done with the soul grinder and am trying to crank out two squads of cultists this week.  argh!!!!

Chaos Juggerlord

The big boss is ready to take some skulls.  I figured I'll try different weapon options so I magnetized his arms so I can run all kinds of choppy goodness.

Since I'll more then likely run the goredrinker, I'll use the glowing axe paired with a lightning claw.  I have some ideas on how to remember what his kill tally is up to, I'm all about cool markers and reminders so I don't forget things. 

Here's my progress list for Khorne for the singles and team tournament.  I'd love to be able to paint extra summoned models.

Painted:
D-Thirster
Juggerlord
11 khorne-dogs
Hellturkey
1 chaos cavalry biker
Maulerfiend
Spawn

On the Painting Table:
Soulgrinder
Rhino
tons of bases for miniatures
Void Shield Generator

Yet to Paint:
20 cultists
objective markers
Angrath (summoned thirster)
5 chaos cavalry bikers
14 khorne-dogs

Summoned Stuff I want to Paint:
Another summoned thirster
2 daemon princes
8 bloodletters
skull cannon
more khorne-dogs

Additionally I need to keep working on the team display base and I'd like to knock out a bunch of extra khorne scenery!  Two and a half weeks to go....

TT Khorne Display Update 3 - Laying on the Details

Another successful Sunday was in the books and luckily my supplies arrived in time!  We started the phase of laying on base colors of spray paints and started to detail the parts of the board.  Unfortunately I didn't snap pictures of all of the activity going on, my hands were covered in glue and paint.

I went out to home depot with a pallet of colors in hand.  Makes it easier then guessing on the fly.  20 spray paint cans later and a bag full of craft paint and we were ready to rock.

The spraying commenced.  Got a bunch of plastic chain and jewelers chain to hold the support sections and crashed pillars.  We hand painted on some sections too where we planned on laying down grating. 

Greg designed and printed up the backdrop.  We wanted to add some painting elements so I started to hand paint on the portal opening up in bright greens.  Danny worked on some decorative pillars as scatter terrain to break up the flat areas.

Here's the first couple layers as it stands now. Greg was a champ and cut a ridiculous amount of rivets out of plastic rod.  I started applying them across any of the brass accents.   Greg and Jeff are going the distance this week and detail painting all of the rock surfaces so we can start with the oil washes this weekend. 

I'm going to pick up some craft paint metallic colors so we can work on all the brass and silver areas.  I love GW paints, but the cost is a little too high for projects this big.

Hellturkey!

I'm busily painting as fast as  possible and knocked out the Hellturkey over the weekend.  I figured I might as well run khorne for the singles tournament so I can get more practice for the team tournament.  Nobody seems to run flyers anymore, but this always was a beautiful model.

I'm working on a big batch of bases (this one's included) so that is yet to come. We're scrambling doing little things for the team tournament, only a few weeks until Adepticon!