Tuesday 18 March 2014

Deadzone work in progress

Hi All

Here at the code we've recently invested in Mantics new skirmish game; Deadzone. We're all busy painting up strike teams and scenery for a fully painted day of deadzone we're planning in a couple of months.
I'm just over half way through my scenery set which is designed to be assembled and disassembled repeatedly so that each game is different, I tried a few test runs as soon as I'd opened the box to see how it worked and found that there were a couple of issues;
1st, the connectors are slightly variable in there dimensions due to the mould lines as are the wall/floor sections so they don't always fit and would all require work to get them to be the same and thus universally fit each other (there are hundreds of potential joints!)
2nd, the plastic is a little on the brittle side and I broke 2 of the connectors during my test runs (you don't get enough connectors in the set, but a connector sprue is only a couple of quid from mantic so no biggie)
In all this led me to decide to permanently build the scenery as I wanted it, I bought the gamers edition which contained 2 scenery sets anyway so I will have a wider range available for games and a scenery set isn't expensive at about £25 so more will be on the cards in the future too.
Here's a few piccies of the stuff I've painted so far....








As you can see I've tried for a verdigris effect on all the brass/bronze metal to simulate a corrosive element in the atmosphere of this plague infected world. The effect is duplicated on the strike teams bases too as seen here...








I'll post more in the coming weeks as it gets done.

Bluddtoof

Saturday 8 March 2014

Hobby Butterfly - The joys of being unfocussed

Good Morning All,

Today's post is a little bit of everything as the title suggests.  Today folks I'm going to talk about having way too many models and way too little focus.  So as many of you will know we at Code40k recently ran our second event Worcester War 2.  This event became my obsession for a little while and I was determined to ensure everyone had a good time.  The feedback we received was positive and I think moving forward we shall hold many more successful events.  Having run two events and built masses of terrain with Inner Mech, I really began to feel what am I doing with my own hobby here!  Answer = Not a lot.


Sunday 23 February 2014

Worcester War 2 review part 2

After a strong start I knew my next opponent would have had an equally strong result in the first round. It turned out to be LUKODAKKA.

His list was:
Grandmaster
10 terminators
5 terminators
2 psi dakka dreads
Dreadknight

This was a close combat knightmare, 2+ saves and power weapons. I knew I had to keep away from him and use my better maneuverability to my advantage.

The mission we got was 6 objectives with different values with the hammer and anvil setup.

This game went to and fro throughout. In my turn I was able to shoot his units and in his turn he assaulted in and got me. Eventually my extra numbers just held out and by turn 5 I had wiped him out. All I had left was khan, 1 biker, and my 2 talons. The result did not show how close the game was.

With 2 wins, both very strong I knew the last game would be against an equally tough opponent and we would be playing for the title!

The game was against Dale. I played him first last year. That was a close game then, as I was losing at the end of turn 5 but luckily it went to turn 7 where I had enough bodies to wipe him out. He was playing a similar lists to last year. 

He took:

Grandmaster
5 terms
2x5 strike squads 
Land raider
2 dreadknights

We played 5 objectives with a vanguard assault setup. 1st turn night fighting.

I went first and had a complete blood rush and piled everything forward and shot at the knights......FAIL. Not a wound caused and I ended up wishing charge range of his deadly stuff.
His turn and he assaulted in and wiped out the grav gun squad and khan!
Big trouble!
I needed a rethink of how to get out of this mess. So melta gums turned towards the land raider and blew it sky high. Then everything else focused everything on a knight. 
Another stroke of luck this turn was that a strike squad mishapped and were taken by the warp. Less guns to aim at me! The next few turns I was able to take more wounds off the big stuff from shooting and eventually by turn 5 he only had 2 strikes left where I had a few bikes and the talons left.

The game ended with another solid win for me.

3 out of 3 and my title defended



I was impressed with the marine bikes. They had resilience and great firepower. In combat they were very weak even with khan and a librarian. Against the grey knights these 2 guys were unable to cut the mustard.

I do like bikes and they looked great. I still have another full squad to make up.

Up next though I have a few inquisitor retinue models to complete and a new squad of sternguard to paint. I also must crack on and get some scenery done. Paula and mike have inspired me with what they have done for the the event.

Tuesday 18 February 2014

Worcester War 2 review part 1

This was the first event in a while where I had the army ready a few days before. There was no need for late night painting!
Here is the army I took.


It consisted of:

Khan on Moondakken
Librarian on a bike
8 bikes vet sarg power fist 2 grav guns and an attack bike with multimelta

8 bikes vet sarg power fist 2 melta guns and an attack bike with multimelta

8 bikes sarg combi plasma 2 plasma guns and an attack bike with multimelta

5 bikes sarg combi flamer 2 flamer and an attack bike with heavy bolter

2 stormtalons a one with lascannons and one with sky hammer missiles

I felt it was pretty balanced and would give me plenty of mobility, but I would have to be careful about not being bogged down or caught by any monstrous creatures.

Game 1: against Tau! Double riptide trouble and a load of broadsides! This was a game against Lian who had posted a video about his preparation to the event.

I was really worried about facing something like this. Marker lights to remove cover, big nasties and lots of guns.

2 bits of luck occurred before turn 1, I got enfeeble as a power and I stole the initiative. This combined with my initial scout move allowed all my bikers to get in range and take a lot of stuff out. First to go was the path finders, 3 flamer templates made short work of them. Grav guns and melta shots took out a squad of broad sides while enfeeble on the riptide a made my bolter shots twice as effective.
One side of his line was starting to collapse and as I had concentrated over one side on his turn one he was not able to get clear shots on my guys during his shooting. In my turn 2 enfeeble combine with S5 hammer of wrath attacks was very potent. One bit of bad luck was a talon being intercepted and shot down.
By the end if this turn his commander had failed to turn up from reserve and he only had a riptide with 2 wounds left and 3 fire warriors. My shooting phase on turn 3 finished these off and I claimed the win.

A solid start to this event...more to follow.

Thursday 6 February 2014

Da Bosses Shiny New Ride

Hey All

Yippee! I've finished all the painting for my Ork army for Worcester War II this weekend.
Boss Bluddtoof has a shiny new ride, a big mean warbike, the lovely Forgeworld one. It's a really nice model and I'm well pleased with the finished look, I've gone a bit brighter on the red and he's got more pure white teef than usual cos I want him to really stand out on the table, I may go back at a later date to add some weathering and bring more in line with the rest of the army.
The red's been a little tricky since the release of the newest paint range from GW, as I started painting my Orks back in '98 or '99 and the colours have changed markedly since then, but hey who ever said Orks should be ooniform?
Anyway I look forward to seeing you all and your armies at WWII on Saturday if you're going.
In the meantime here's a few piccies of the new Bluddtoof.........







That's it for now,

Bluddtoof

Wednesday 5 February 2014

Worcester War 2 is just around the corner.......

Hi All,

So firstly I get the express satisfaction in stating everything is ready for the War...  I really hope everyone has a great time.

This as it happens is not the real reason for my post, tonight one of the attendees of WW2 has posted a video blog about his preparations for WW2, his thoughts on army selection, rules pack and painting.  To put it simply I thought it was great and insightful on the mindset.  As although I have run tournaments I haven't really played in that many.  To be honest I prefer the campaign weekend feel.  Also with my medical issues I tend to run out of steam towards the end of the day or weekend.

Anyway I digress and actually feel the urge to digress further,  Lians video amongst other things has made me think about the content I often post here on code40k.  I often just post up pictures of completed models and scenery.  Whilst that is nice it doesn't necessarily have content that others find useful.  I guess what I vow to do is maybe have a real look at how I post and the effort I put into it.  I still morn the loss of Ron "From The Warp" his was a truly interactive blog backed up with a higher level of talent than what I possess I might add.

After the war it will allow me the option of pursuing some of my own hobby objectives and I think today I might just have set a new one.  A simple to say improve your content DOC!  Anyway digress over...  Lians video is a good watch and he will be covering the event also.  So please watch it here.  Also to state for players at the event with a good camera.  I will be setting up a flickr group which allow everyone to upload to after the event.

Thats All Folks

DOC out




Tuesday 4 February 2014

Four Little Red Tanks (and their Bigger Brother!)

Hey Everyone,

I've been busy getting my Orks ready for Worcester War 2 over the last few weeks, not much left to do now. The most recent additions to my Space Orks are a small sqwodrun of Grot Tanks and a Grot Mega Tank.
Here's a few pics......












Just a new warboss to finish off now and a minor conversion on a kan. See you all at the weekend!

Bluddtoof

Sunday 2 February 2014

Worcester War 2 - The Scenery

Good Evening All,

Worcester War 2 is next Saturday and myself and Inner Mech have been very busy with the terrain.  For my part I'm now all finished.  The rest of this post will be simply a few photos of the new scenery pieces put together for WW2:










This is just the tip of the iceberg of the new scenery we have done, post event lots of pictures will be shown.

Signing off

DOC.........................................

Saturday 11 January 2014

Worcester War preparation

4 weeks today I will be driving over to Worcester to defend my title I won at WW1.
Since then a new marine codex has been released. Additionally forgeworld have released chapter traits for all their chapters. So much choice to choose from.
So which do I choose?
Well I have had a good think and I am going to go with a bike army. The new codex has significantly reduced the cost of bikes, so much so that compared to the 5th edition list I can get 4 squads of bikes rather than 3.
I have already got painted 3 squads and a captain. I have enough bits to make 2 further squads of bike, but I did not have enough bits so that they would fit in with a ravenwing theme like the others. The joy Of collecting marines is that they can be used in multiple ways.
So a quick purchase on eBay for loads of  ravenwing bits and I was ready..... Until I remembered grav guns. I needed 2 for a squad so 2 boxes of sternguard were bought too!
Here is the fourth squad built up. Some are still waiting for their bolters

And here are the grav gunners converted from DV plasma gunners

Finally my initial list is still a few points short, what could I use to fill it......scouts seemed a but boring and not sure how I would use them but a librarian on a bike....
Here is the guy I would base the model around

And in half

And finally on a bike

So I have a bit of painting to do but nothing as much as previous years. One final point is that I am basing all my attack bikes on 60mm bases.

Thursday 9 January 2014

Worcester War 2 - Only 4 Weeks To Go........

Hi All,



So at time of writing we have 4 spots remaining at Worecster War 2.  That means 26 players bearing down on Whittington Village Hall on the 8th Feb for geek fun.   I'm excited for our second event.  I think some of the lessons learned from the first event will now bear fruit and I'm looking forward to Inner Mech joining me in the organising stakes.  So with 4 weeks to go what does that mean.....

Well the players will be frantically finishing the painting and army lists.  I look forward to seeing those a good week before the event wink wink nudge nudge!  As for the organisers Me and IMech will be playing with a big saw at the weekend whilst we make some additional boards for the event.  We are also working very hard on some new scenery which I look forward to showcasing in the run up to the event.

The rules pack for the event is available here.

More coming soon

DOC out

Tuesday 7 January 2014

Dreadful December the voting

Hi All,

I hope you have enjoyed the code's event Dreadful December.  Now on to the voting.....  We would like you to help us judge who the winner of our best painted dread will be.  Yes code guys you can vote but not for your own.  Please put a comment with the name of the dread you think looks best out of the following dreads.  One lucky winner chosen at random will receive some codedesigns bases as a thank you.

I have chosen the best of the entries and have concluded the entry must be fully complete in order to be entered.  That of course means I'm an epic failure for my own idea (I've snuck an old dread in no one will notice!). 

First off Toonboy78's Grey Knight Dreadnought:



Full post details and further pictures can be found here.  Other work in progress posts can also be viewed.

Next up Boss Bludtoofs Contemptor Dreadnought:



Full post details and further pictures can be found here and here.

Next Boss Bludtoof's Second Entry The Mega Dread:

 
Full details and further pictures can be found here.  There is also a number of posts explaining the build and painting of this model.

Next up Luko Dakkas Nurgle Hellbrute:

 
Full details and further pictures can be found here
 
Next up another Boss Bludtoof Entry Wrecking Ball Dread:
 
Full details and further pictures can be found here
 
Next up DOC's converted Space Wolves Dread from back in the day:
 
 
Full details on the conversion / paint job can be found here, here and here
 
That's it for the entries to the codes Dreadful December please vote for your favourite by adding a comment.
 
Thanks and Happy New Year to All
 
DOC