Friday, 28 November 2014

Update before Forgemas.


November has been a busy month for me. A lot is going on in life and so I am spending less time than I would like on the hobby.

Luckily on one of the forums the tale of painters is helping me crack on and keep up with what I have to do.

First up this month is Azrael. As usual he follows the colours for my army. Being in the Chapter Council he wears deep gold armour rather than the black. This should make him stand out a little more from the normal guys.


I was going to try and put him and the helmet bearer on a single base. However when I was positioning them they didn’t look right together on a 40mm base. I didn’t have any other size bases to try out so stuck with the standard 25mm base.

Next up I have 2 Crusaders for my Inquisitors. I used alternate colour schemes for them, while keeping the same pallet of colours.



Finally I have finished my 2nd Drop Pod. I have a further 5 of them to do and may need a few more to bring them up to company strength.





I got these pods a while ago from a guy selling his stuff off. I got them very cheap, about 50% retail value. I am still on the lookout for a few more (another 2-4 should be ok and I need some of the fancy Forgeworld dread ones)

Now that November’s tasks have been completed I can now focus on the BLOG task for December, FORGEMAS.

I had to think long and hard about what I would like to get from Forgeworld. I had a large list:

  1. BRAY'ARTH ASHMANTLE 
  2. LAND RAIDER ACHILLES 
  3. Contemptor Dread 
  4. A Horus Heresy Character 
  5. Sevrin Loth 

Bray and Contemptor were out as I have just painted a dread and we did dreads last year.
The Horus characters I do not feel confident enough to do a good job on these guys yet.
The Land raider I would need the air brush and understanding December is going to be busy I expect little time to paint. This left Sevrin and his Honour Guard




In preparation I have already cleaned and washed all the resin parts. Come the 1st I will assemble and start the process of painting these up. regular updates ahoy!

Sunday, 23 November 2014

Imperial Knight Freeblade, WIP, work on the left arm

Hi All

Bluddtoof here with an update on progress so far on my 1st Imperial Knight Freeblade.
I've got most of the left arm done now, the Reaper Chainsword, just the 2 coloured panels to go.
I've got the hang of the cream and the red now and I can finish it much quicker.
Hopefully this model will be done in 2 weeks time so I can crack on with my Forgemas entry, for details of Forgemas; our December painting event see here.

Back to the wip, here's a few pics of the current state of play....






Very happy so far, a little more painting to go then some weathering on the complete model to finish, if anyone has tips for modelling/painting icicles I'd like some ideas....

Bluddtoof

Saturday, 22 November 2014

Code40K's & Worcester Wargames Forgemas 2014

Morning All,

DOC here to announce this years December event.  Last year we had Dreadfull December a month of us painting up Dreadnoughts.  Look up the Dreadfull December label if you want to see what we got up to last year.

So after a little debate.... this year we are going for FORGEMAS


Basically CODE40k members have agreed to paint up Forgeworld models and showcase them on here.  The rules of the game are simple any single forgeworld model from a single character up to lords of war.   At the end of December we will have a vote to see which model is best in the opinion of blogosphere.

But thats not all....This year our local games store Worcester Wargames have also joined in on the action. On the 27th December we invite painters local to Worcester to bring down there painted forgeworld model to compete for the forgemas title.  We will be asking everyone to vote for their favourite model.  We will run two categories amateur and pro meaning painters of all abilities can enter. Voting will kick off at midday.  

As always with these events its just another tool to help us all paint them models we spend so much of our hard earned cash on.

Let the painting commence

DOC Out

Monday, 10 November 2014

Imperial Knight Freeblade, W.I.P, carapace on.

Hi All

Bluddtoof here with an update on the WIP of my Imperial Knight Freeblade.
As you can see I've now completed the upper carapace with lots of lovely thorny vines.
Here's a few piccies....








I'm now working on the arms and attempting to magnetise the shoulder pads so I can keep the arms removable. Tricky tho as the magnets I have are a bit large, I'll be sourcing some smaller ones.

That's it for now, more to come later...

Bluddtoof.

Tuesday, 4 November 2014

Venerable Dreadnought




I am back from my holidays and I am feeling refreshed and ready for more painting.

First up is a Venerable dreadnought I have been painting. It is the older metal one, which I like more than the current plastic kit. I had been looking around for the model for a while and seen a few on eBay for silly prices (£40+). I spotted this one and I got it for £18. It was missing a finger, but a bit of green-stuff and I don’t think you can notice the difference.

It has been painted in a similar scheme to that of my Masters of the Chapter and other high ranking officials of the chapter. A nice deep dark gold for the armour makes the model look a little more important!




I also added some more details to one of my grey knight banners.


As well as adding some symbols to a company standard.


Next up is Azrael and 2 crusader henchmen.



And finally the code guy are planning special event for December, I will let MAD-DOK explain later but it will involve lots of nice models…….

Saturday, 1 November 2014

Imperial Knight WIP, torso done and in place.

Hi All

I've finished the torso of the Knight and it's now fixed in place, after a little dry run to get the positioning right. Whilst doing the dry run with arms and shoulder pads in place I discovered that the arms cannot be removed if the shoulder pads are fixed in place as the overhang at front and back stops the arm assembly from fully rotating. So, once I get to the arms I'm going to have to decide if pinning the pads in place onto the shoulder frame will work, as that's the only way I'll be able to have removable arms. I like the idea of removable arms for purposes of packing and moving and also to represent weapon destroyed results.
Anyway enough of that for now, here's a few piccies of the Knight so far....








The next step is the top carapace, more on that to come soon....

Bluddtoof.

Sunday, 19 October 2014

Imperial Knight Freeblade, some more WIP.

Hi All

Bluddtoof here after a bit of a break to plan and run Worcester War III, which I must say went really well! A big thanks to everyone who came and made it such a great day, Worcester War IV "The Assault on The Code" is now in the preliminary planning stage and will be held Spring 2015, more to come on that in future posts.

Now on to the Knight; I started this a couple of months ago, you can see the previous posts hereherehere and here.

I'm well on the way to finishing the torso and head now, the upper carapace will be painted as a separate sub assembly for ease.

Here's a couple of pics of the torso so far,




more to come soon.

Bluddtoof

Saturday, 18 October 2014

Warhammer Fest

Hey guys and girls, Mike has kindly asked me to contribute to this blog so I thought I'd offer up a few words on what's been going on in my hobby world lately!

Firstly, let me introduce myself, my name is Tom Baker (no, not that one...) and I'm the guy behind the Battered Bristles Facebook page - although hopefully some of you know me better from the fabulous Worcester War tournaments I've attended the over the last couple of years. If I've had the fortune to play any of you in a game then that's excellent, if not, then hopefully I'll be able to throw some dice down with you at another tournament soon!

Anyway - what I want to say a few words about is Games Workshops newly repackaged Gamesday - now called Warhammer Fest - held this year at the Ricoh Arean in Coventry. (On a side note, I wonder if the event renaming has anything todo with the trialed renaming of 3 Games Workshop stores across the UK now being simply called Warhammer?) 

I confess it was with some trepidation I booked for this event as whilst I enjoyed last years, I was not blind to some of the (quite fairly) abuse levelled at it. I've not been back into the hobby for that long and the 2013 event was the first my friend and I had attended in a long long time and as such, it was with wide eyes and almost childlike awe we spent the first few hours walking around looking at all the pretty things! But then it dawned on us there wasn't actually much to do or see and with over half of the main floor given over to sales, the event quickly began to feel more like a giant sales pitch. 

Allow me to just intercede here for one moment to clarify a quick point - I love GW. I love the models they make and the game systems they create to push thier product. I'm also acutely aware that they are first and foremost a business and their prime directive is to sell products to stay profitable and remain in business feeding me lots of shiny toys. 




Anyhow. Fast forward to 2014 and wow. It almost appears that GW have been guilty of that Cardinal sin - they appear to have listened to their customers! Warhammer Fest sort of appeared out of the warp with very little fuss, quietly appearing as if from nowhere with everybody asking "what is this Warhammer Fest of wich you speak?". The event was completely unrecognisable to that of the previous year! Firstly - it's was calm, ther was space to move, sit and take a moment. With the event split over 3 floors, the first floor allowed you to enter the area, be gifted a program and ticket badge before heading to grab a coffe and a (nicely cooked, fairly priced) burger and grab a seat after driving for over an hour as my friend had done. Then - if you wished - you could enter the 'sales' part of the event. Behind doors, out of immediate sight, with no pressure to enter unless you wished there was a huge room dedicated to GW / the Black Library and Forge World. I snagged myself a nice limited print of Vulkan for my hobby room and even a (supposedly sold out) pack of limited edition data cards for the Dark Eldar for a friend. Hell, there were even about 5 or 6 gaming tablesset up, free for people to use if they so wished! 

The middle floor was given over to the guys and girls behind White Dwarf, showing fantastic artwork from upcoming books and magazines whilst also having many of the writers on hand with their armies more than happy to have a chat and talk through pretty much anything you cared to level at them. Again, no queuing per say, just people moving freely around taking their own time. Great. 

The top floor was however all about Forgeworld and boy did these guys steal the show. Fantastic dioramas showing the battle of Calth and a ship battle showing the Iron Hands batteling off Imperial Fist boarders really got the imagination running! There where staff on hand again all over the floor to talk about the new releases being previewed in the cabinets or holding demenstration pods to sit and explain how to do such things as 'weathering vehicles' or 'painting an army quickly'. Very quick, easy to watch videos with the actual forge world artists talking you through the steps in person. Beautifully done. 

Then there was the Golden Demon event itself. The standard this year was just phenomenal - I can only assume with no other Golden Demon events running in any other country (Warhammer Fest was a UK only show) that the best of the best from around the world must have all come together on the one day because the level of entries was just outstanding. I entered a couple of models myself but against the completion I came away completely empty handed - but with a burning fire inside to create something special for next year! 

All told a fantastic day and I'm very much excited by next years prospects!
But that's enough from me for now, if you've managed to read this far then I thank you for reading my first post in its entirety - I shall endeavour to brush up on my writing skills and post again in the near future with a sneak peek at something special I'm working on at the moment! 

Thanks again - until next time. 

Tom 

Wednesday, 1 October 2014

Midweek Snidbit - Objective Markers and Servo Skulls

Hi All,

Doc back with a little post to show my new objective markers for Maelstrom games of 40K.  These were inspired by Dales over on Realm of 40K here.



Nice and simple barrels numbered 1-6.  That should make the game easier.  Using dice never works somebody always picks one up!

The next thing I needed were some servo skull markers to go with my Inquisitor so I bashed these up out of the bits box and boshed them on code designs industrial bases.  Shameless plug time the bases can be purchased from Worcester Wargames.




Short and sweet that's all folks.  Next post Ill show off some of the armies from Worcester War 3.

Doc Out......

Saturday, 27 September 2014

Worcester War 3 - Nearly Ready... The Characters: Inquisitor, Rune Priest, Thunderwolf Lord

Evening All,

Doc here...  Haven't been on here for a while and in my absence I have been quite busy preparing for Worcester War 3 and working on my pre heresy death guard.   Ill save the death guard for another day.  So today's post is about characters in my army for the upcoming Worcester War 3.

Originally I had intended to go with the Death Guard but white takes so long to paint and I realised I wasn't going to make it.  So I have reverted to my space wolves.  Although the army is far off my current standards (in terms of painting quality) I wanted to add some new elements to go in it along with the fact the codex is also quite new.

I have been working of my Thunderbear (alternative thunderwolf) Lord.  If you want to read more about him please go here and here.  He's not quite finished but has progressed and will be finished by the end of the week.  It has to be finished the event is next weekend!


I have also converted up a new Rune Priest using the Dark Angel librarian from Dark Vengeance. Essentially I:

  •  cut off all the DA iconography
  • swapped his arm out
  • used a space wolf shoulder pad
  • used a space wolf back pack
  • added a space wolf knife
  • added a wolf pelt to the right arm
He's painted to match the rest of the army and was bashed out quite quick but I'm happy he will match in with the other space wolves





Next up I decided to make use of the inquisitor codex for the first time and my fellow code player Red Mist hooked me up with this Inquisitor (Thanks buddy).  I've gone for the classic inquisitor colours of red and black.  Again painted quickly  but a good result for the amount of time and I wanted him on the table.




All this leaves me to be ready for next weekend is to finish the thunderbear and convert up 3 servo skull markers.  I may also make myself some 1-6 markers for maelstrom missions.  As always comments and constructive criticism is welcome.

Thats all folks

Doc out...

Tuesday, 16 September 2014

Chapter on its way to full strength

Another month has flown by but at least I have been painting.

Two important events have happened that should improve my blog posting regularity:


  1. I have signed up to this years Tale of Painters on the Warseer forums
  2. I have new phone which hopefully takes better pictures



the aim of the tale of painters is top paint about 2000pts over the course of 12 months. that is 200pts a month with 2 joker months in case you are a bit busy.

As ever I will be expanding my Marines towards Chapter strength along with a little bit of inquisition to keep an eye on them.

currently this month I have been painting:

Tactical Squad
Venerable Dreadnought
Landspeeder (9th one!)
3 servo skulls
Drop Pod


This month I am doing far more than the 200pts because next month I am in the States for over half of it and won't be getting much done and I don't want to use my jokers just yet.

Photos:






most have these have had their base coats done and most of their highlighting. I am currently working on the details and will be ready for the 1st months entry in the tale.

and finally some better pictures of the Inquisitor that will be keeping an eye on the Marines



Wednesday, 20 August 2014

August Annihilation - Worcester Wargames

Hi All,

Doc here to talk about an event I helped run for Worcester Wargames August Annihilation a 1500pt Swiss System 40k tournament.  This was the first event I had been involved in since 7th came in.  We decided to let everything in and follow the rules laid down by GW.  This meant we had knights, a titan and forgeworld galore.  Overall I think it worked on the whole.  I think the titan is a different matter and maybe still overpowered.  Most of knights across the tables seemed to be handled.

Before I get onto the results I want to talk about the rules pack a little.  Over the years I have tried many different methods of getting a fair overall result.  In this event we used a simple scoring system of 10pts for a win, 3pts for a draw and 0 for a loss.  We then used the total sum of the vp's to decide ties.  As you will see in the results we had a couple of ties which the VP's sorted.  The element that really decided however, was the painting points....

Points
Requirement
0
No Models are painted within the army.
1
At least two units are fully painted to 3 colour minimum standard and based
2
The whole Army is painted to 3 colour minimum standard
3
As above, plus bases are themed. Units markings and transfers applied.
4
As above, painting standard includes clear shading and highlighting.  Includes at least one conversion
5
As above, Blows our mind.  Includes extra techniques such as freehand, weathering and Object Source Lighting

The table above shows the scoring system we used to decide painting points.  Myself and Andy scored every army based on the table above and agreed on every army except one.  An average of the two scores was then added to the players overall score.  This granted up to an extra 5 gamer points meaning players could then score between 0 - 35 pts and then Vp's would be used to decide ties.  I the end the painting points decided the event.  Player 1 and 2 both won all 3 games.  However player 1 scored a 5 for painting and player 2 a 3.  I'm not sure if I am comfortable with painting deciding the event.  It is after all a gaming event not Golden Demon.  On the other hand it is also a major part of the hobby.

Ok on to the final results:













A downloadable version is available here for those who would like to save it for prosperity.  Next I would like to ask some feedback questions and would ask people to comment below their responses?

1. Titans Yes or No?
2. Painting Points Yes or No?
3. Use Maelstrom Missions Yes or No?

The 40k event held in Worcester will be our own Worcester War 3 and this post wouldn't be complete without a shameless plug.  If you want to read all about it please go the announcement post here.  I am certainly looking forward to it as I come out from the organisers position to take part.


That's all from me folks please comment and help make future events better!

Cheers

DOC


Monday, 28 July 2014

Worcester War III, The Investigation of The Code. A 40k Campaign Day

Hi All

Bluddtoof here to invite one and all, (well 24 of you anyway) to join us for another instalment of Worcester War, our periodic 1 Day 40k event!
Some of you may have been to WW1 or WW2 over the last year and if so I hope you enjoyed it and will consider joining for our 3rd day. This one will be slightly different in that it's not a straight forward tournament; we're going to try starting a story line to hopefully, with your help, carry on into future events to create a living and changing plot line and history for our little sector of the war torn future.
Cue poster....