New Games Workshop Undead releases.

Once again the new sculpts coming out are insanely detailed and characterful. The details are stunning and they fill in all those key models that needed a refresh. Check out these sneak peeks before this weekends unveil.

Ngash the first Necromancer. Destroyer of Nehekhara.

 Neferata, Queen of Lahmia. 

 Arkhan the black, Liche King.

New Spirit Host model.

Equinox 2013 Placings

We had epic clashes all tournament amongst the contenders at the top of the table. Even with 40+ competitors the top dogs of the tournament had no where to hide and there was no dodging each other. I think everyone in the top five played each other. Ogres fought Bretonnians and Chaos Dwarfs battled Warriors. After all the dust had settled the soft scores and a tiebreak decided the tournament.

Army Adj Batt Sports Paint Tie Break Total Tim Joss Chaos Dwarves 43 20 20 0.1 83.1 Ross H Warriors 43 20 20 83 Dan Butler Warriors 47 20 12 79 John w Bretonnains 38 20 20 78 Simon Kwok Daemons 36.5 20 20 0.1 76.6 Richard B Chaos Dwarves 36.5 20 20 76.5 Ryan Warriors 34.5 20 20 0.1 74.6 James Brown Ogres 34.5 20 20 74.5 Paul Clark Tomb Kings 34 20 20 0.1 74.1 Glen Warriors 34 20 20 74 Rob Sadler Warriors 33.5 20 20 73.5 Henry O&G 33 20 20 73 James C Wood Elves 32.5 20 20 0.1 72.6 Rory Skaven 32.5 20 20 72.5 Mike Youngs Dark Elves 32 20 20 0.2 72.2 Nick munn Skaven 32 20 20 0.1 72.1 Tom Ogres 32 20 20 0 72 Sean Robertson Dark Elves 31 20 20 71 Aaron P Daemons 30.5 20 20 0.2 70.7 Brian Dark Elves 30.5 20 20 0.1 70.6 Blair Empire 30.5 20 20 70.5 Sam O&G 30 20 20 70 Paul Dalton Ogres 28.5 20 20 68.5 Russ Vampires 28 20 20 68 Damon Lizardmen 27.5 20 20 67.5 Stephen Skaven 27 20 20 0.2 67.2 Dave Hart O&G 27 20 20 0.1 67.1 Graeme Warriors 27 20 20 67 Michael C Lizardmen 26.5 20 20 66.5 Mike S Empire 26 20 20 66 Ross Clark Warriors 25.5 20 20 0.1 65.6 Mike Vercoe Ogres 25.5 20 20 65.5 Noel  High Elves 26 20 19 65 George High Elves 23.5 20 20 63.5 Aaron C Vampires 25 20 18 63 Nick I Wood Elves 22.5 20 20 62.5 Dan Blomfield O&G 21 20 19 0.1 60.1 Bobby Beastmen 20 20 20 60 Dean W O&G 13 20 20 53 Ron golds Beastmen 9.5 20 20 49.5 Chris E Wood Elves 5 20 10 35 Geoff High Elves 5 20 10 35 Phil Ormond Daemons 5 20 10 35

Best Painted: Dave Hart

There was one vote in it and two clear leaders in the painting field. The standard in painting overall was exceptionally high. It was a pleasure to have such well painted armies at the tournament, keep it up tournament goers.

Best Sport: Sam whitt

Another perfect tournament for sports and the level of good generalship and behaviour made me proud to host you guys . It reflects how the game should be played in a friendly but competitive manner. Just remember that if your opponent makes a mistake or his ruler is a little on the stretchy side, it's curtesy for you to mention it to him politely. He may not even know that he's doing it. Good friendly conversation goes a long way to making it both an enjoyable experience and game for you both. The last thing is if your opponent is beating you, that's not enough to mark your opponent down in sports points, you just have to play better next time.

Just a Quick note that I still have a Island of Blood set or a Dark Vengeance set to give to one luck person who has purchased or will purchase something with their 20% off GW RRP discount from VAGABONDS TAKAPUNA. Please contact Doug on : dosainsbury@gmail.com. This offer goes on until the end of the week (March 23rd) and I will draw the winning big or little spender for the win.

A tournament is all about its players. Equinox this year had plenty of people getting their game on. Having maximum fun playing and puching around the hobby that we all love.

In the thick of battle..

 Club mates face off...

 First tournament is the best...

Win the tournament 3 times you keep the trophy...

A little bit later this happened. Necrons feast on some Eldar.

More photo's to come and the 40K results.

Kalida List WIP July round up.

Here are the painted characters I've got so far for the fast growing undead collection. Have it in mind to have a Kalida style type of list for the army which means that there will be a few archers involved. I'm still astounded at the great detail the Tomb Kings have. Quite a bit done over the week with some careful time management.

Few bits of repair work needed but a good solid base.

I wanted to mix it up so the Skellie horses and chariots have been repositioned. Still awaiting some tiles for the bases to match the existing bases. Trying to get some ideas for a brand or a mixture of paints to get a good sand colour, so if anyone has a good recipe please share your knowledge.

Amazing details on the Casket and it's given me inspirational ideas to sculpt my own bases of skeletal remains for future projects. Big thanks to Nikola for helping me out with the miniature (just missing the middle bit of the casket dude). It does feel good that the model is solid metal as I was facing up to getting this as a finecast... saved!

So here is the current terrain project which is taking ages but hopefully will be ultimately rewarding. Bet no one can guess what it is, hint: it's not a chilly bin. The blue styrofoam is fantastic for shaping and I can thoroughly recommend it for quick terrain building. I've used poly filler to reinforce any bits that need strength and durability.

Start of my first display base for 40k and it'll have a planned command squad of Cadian Imperial Guard.

Board games of the week:

This week I got to play properly two games I had a fleeting go at a few years back. They are oldies but goodies and are really enjoyable with a group of mates, not so much with the win at all cost crowd. 

Shadows over Camelot: Coop game which really takes me back to the good ol childhood sword and fantasy tales of Camelot. Plays up to 7 players who all take up roles as Knights of the round table to ward off the forces of evil and amongst the gathered heroes there is one traitor. With multiple quests to earn points for the forces of good or evil it's a great conversation game and good solid card game dynamics.

Check out this big modelled gaming board for the game. Definitely something special and if I only had the time to build.

 A little dated, but comes with a mass of highly detailed components which makes the game very good value.

It has very universal appeal as we had a mixed table playing this game and everyone enjoyed it, so it gets 3&1/2 stars out of 5.

Puerto Rico:

A perennial favourite, and has been around for a while. Good staple German economic type board games. I'm surprised that I haven't struck this game more often but I tend towards the sword and fantasy types. Great for the whole family so if you're looking around for your first few in your collection you shouldn't go past this. Really liked how it plays and we were all beginners and we were all capable after the second turn.

4 out of 5 stars.

Inspiration for more Undead

Lots more to do after having a look at the Tomb Kings. Got the imagination going and made some filler models for the eventual plethora of archers that's going to be in the eventual finished product.

So from left to right we have, Where's Wally, Mehrten's double victory salute, Marino of the Dead and yet unfinished short-less Michida. Thanks Chris for the skelly models from the beginning of time.

Needed a Shotgun for a band of mercenaries I'm working on and found a very cool conversion on another blog here. Great use of all those bits out of the bits box.

You can see the Finished Shotgun on the left, accompanied with the rest of the squad that I will be designing a game for.

With all the work on the miniatures, I still managed to fit in some games into the week. So after round 4 where I got massacred by a bunch of Lead belching Ogres ( 5-15 loss) it looks like my high Elves are topping the table going into the play offs. Pizza and Wargaming this weekend scheduled for the club so should be a huge gathering of wargamers and lotsa fun, can't wait. 

Boardgames this week:

John always manages to bring some good bunch of games to the club and this week we had a go at the new release 'Dragon Rampage'. A poker dice based mechanic fitted into the classic dungeon creep board game. You each take on a tried and tested D&D persona and collect treasure, have a bash at the Dragon or high tail it outta the dungeon. With weighting on vps depending on how you've pl;aced your adventurer in the game at the end. I was the Dwarf and went for the middling role to see if it would work. A few swipes of the Ax at the Dragon, collected some treasure and relied on a turbo boost of the stumpy legs at the finish to end up mid way out of the dungeon at the end placing 2nd. An enjoyable game which gave plenty of time to have a chat and be sociable with your fellow group of players. I did feel that it lacked a slight bit of substance for the 2 hrs it took. 3stars outta 5.

We had a bit of time left at the end of the night and brought out 'Coloretto', for a roll. Simple dynamics and a fast pace game and I learnt it and played it in 10mins. Not long enough to be a solid filler but great for a bit of icing on the cake.

4 outta 5 Stars.

Mid July Hobby Round up

So many projects and so little time it seems. The Tomb Kings are definitely taking up the work space the last couple of weeks and with most of the army fixed to a good standard it was time to fill out the list so first up Bone Giant (Necrolith Colossus).

 This bad boy had to have his elbow joint resculpted as it was damaged but good old greenstuff and a half dozen pins and he's looking the part. Went with the head with the head dress to match the armies detail.

The Army is still needing a mass of archers which I'll remedy soon from fellow gamers or Trademe. In the mean time the Skellie Bowmen are filled out by a TK heavy weapons platform. Having a rummage through the bits box is always fun and some times even useful.

 Heavy weapons platform gets any skellie excited and enough so that he loses his hand...

Some more fix it jobs which took less time than I originally thought. I managed to find a very reasonable terrain stockist and after sourcing some good sand flock I managed to get these two beasties fixed up. Good lesson is to buy the professional flocking material as I've done here as it's very easy to both work with and to glue. If you really need to I suppose you can just use normal beach sand but expect it to clump up and be the consistency of sand paper.

Show down, Flappy rotting bird or giant undead lobster.

I've managed to locate some of that blue polystyrene which is fantastic for terrain making. So to start with I've been inspired to make a less than ordinary forest for the gaming table. I thought I'd go for a Goblin giant mushroom forest. So in the next few weeks I've got some more terrain projects to put up but for now here's just a couple of WIP's. 

So with this many projects on the go Prince Tyrion gets no love. Oh did I mention that I managed to pick up one of the most iconic High Elf characters again and he'll be a painting project soon, yuss.

I used to own this figure and unwittingly sold him in a cupboard clean up. Great to be able to grab him back and in metal too.

Board Game of the Week: Merchants & Marauders.

If you into a bit of Rum and Pirating on the high seas then this game is for you. It comes with a impressive looking map and some fantastic Naval models which really captures the feel of trading and privateering amongst it in the Caribbean of old. Grab a couple or three mates and have a go either as a trader or a pirate and don't worry if you get a feeling that you'd rather be a pirate when you're trading it's easy enough to give the nearest merchant ship a broadside and hoist up the jolly roger. Just a word of warning it does take a while to play if you're just starting out.

 Good quality components and a really well designed board.

Really enjoyable game and very replayable with a large selection of available Captains you can play and assortment of missions and rumours to complete.

4 out of 5 stars.

GW rolls out 6th Edition  this month and here's a video to celebrate some 40K fun.

Tomb King Army WIP

Had a splurg just recently and brought a new army for the collection. They are the TK desert dwellers of yee olde undead. Never have been too much into the fluff or the army for that matter but the paint job it came with and the exceptional kind price from a friend was enough for me to nod yes emphatically to the deal. It was in disrepair sure and was scattered into boxes without foam which meant a few hours of repair and a lot more needed in restorative painting but the pictures show for themselves that they were a exceptional piece once. So like the Tomb Kings themselves they will one day reclaim the glory that they once knew very very soon...

 Usbhati, and the old metal models. I've always wanted a set...

 Not sure if Skeletal fast cav exist in current meta but they sure look damn good.

 Rising from the dust but missing a banner so need to do something about that.

 The Carrion have taken a battering and will need extensive repair but they are pretty cool.

 Skeletal horde with diorama which is hella cool. Shame that the effectiveness of the unit is inversely proportional to their cool factor.

 Ninja-ring from the village well to skelli-stomp...yuss!

Arising from the never-dead, Harold the Tomb king howls his curse of revenge...

So friends who have various TK units that you may want to sell to me to contribute on this epic quest please get in contact. The army looks like its a 6th edition army with all the units that were good then but not so flash at the moment. If you have Sphinx's, caskets, skelli bowman and various bits it'll be mighty helpful and I'll be greatly appreciative. 

Have spent a few hours fixing it to the standard so far and really look forward to getting the project rushing forward. I need some dark flesh paint and also to do some research on washes vs inks and the results of devlan mud equivalents and chestnut ink. Keep tuned to your local antiquities restoration class in the next few issues.