Fluff: Why do ships always fight on the same level.

So, I was thinking, in all the fluff ships fly past each other launching broadsides at each other etc but there is no gravity in space. Why don't they fly under each other on their sides launching broadsides and the enemies underside and why don't they warp jump and come out pointing straight up towards the enemy to create a letter T, this would allow the lance batteries to fire at the underside and wreak havoc.

It's just a thought, try and prove me wrong either with a reason why they don't or a time when this happens in the fluff.

Thanks for reading,

Jacob.

Salamanders: Idea for my version of 'Vulkan He'stan'

So, I am planning on doing a Vulkan conversion as well as maybe a lysander conversion for the salamanders (perhaps lysander will be terran hands, my own custom chapter). Now I don't want my He'Stan to actually be Vulkan as that doesn't fit with my fluff, so instead I just want him to be the leader of my force. So, lets break down the important parts needed:

1. Some kind of flame weapon.
2. An amazing cape of scales.
3. A master crafted relic blade.

I think it would be cool to make th flame weapon his mouth and instead of just a cloak, maybe to have his whole armour covered in scales (I would add a cloak too as they are just cool) The master crafted relic blade could be anything.

With that in mind, my guy would be a normal marine with scale texture on his armor and a modified mouth piecu/helmet to launch flame plus some kind of big smash you weapon. His weapon might end up being a thunder hammer becuase that is the chapters siniture CCW, that also fits with the theme of all thunder hammers becoming master crafter when vulkan is in the army. I could also combine the bolt pistol and digital weapons into one thing, This could become part of the chest or hand, not sure yet, maybe I could use one of those new angelus boltguns.

For Lysander I am not sure his main features are:

1. The fist of dawn, a big whopping thunder hammer.
2. Terminator armor.

For Him I was thinking of perhaps Making him kind of like one of the battle knights from mechanicus, kind of like dreadnoughts, I would obviously make him smaller than a dread though. He would be wearing a custom made chapter suit kind of like calgar. So, it would need a big enclosed casing but still with a helmet/ head visible along with a shild arm for the storm shield and a massive hitty thing for the thunder hammer. I mau use an eldar war walker as a base but then have stabliser legs instead of thin ones and obviouly different army. I need to have a bit more of a think about this one.

Oh, yea, over the next 2 days I am a way with a mate so maybe there will be posts maybe not, tell us what you think and if you have any ideas. Thanks for reading,


Jacob.

Discussions: what one rule would you like to add/change to 40K?

So, I was thinking, there are many different game systems but a lot of my reader base are 40K fanatics. The 40K rules are great in my opinion but I have seen some really nice ideas from other game systems.

My question to you is, what one rule would you like to add or change to 40K. I would like to see squad coherency changed to radio coherency. What I mean is that instead of models having to stay within 2" of each other everybody has to stay within say 8" of the sergeant and if he dies you just nominate another model to become sergeant. This encourages the idea of all the men piling in and not spreading out along the entire board.

So, what would you change. Thanks for reading,

Jacob.

Tutorial: 3 Minute a model way to paint nidz

So, i had a couple of nid models left over and decided to experiment. They came out quite nice so I thought I'd do a little tutorial. The pics are in order so watch the slideshow from the beginning for step by step. The method is


Step 1: prime white (no pics).
Step 2: wash 'flesh' with any colour, I used green on one and red on the other.
Step 3: Paint shell grey (or another neutral colour).
Step 4: wash whole model devlan mud.
Step 5: Paint recesses in 'flesh', teeth, claws, edge of shells etc bleached bone and tongue purple.
Step 6: On bigger models add a few highlights (optional)
Step 7: Do any extra details (optional)

If you don't do step 6 and 7 then a normal gaunt with take around 3 minutes. Remember that a spray gun would be dead useful for stp 1, 2 and 4.





Go to ImageShack® to Create your own Slideshow

Thanks for reading,

Jacob

40K: Mech Vs Gunline/shield wall Vs re-deployer.

So, I have a couple of tutorials done but I am struggling to up-load pictures to blogger as I don't use Picasa so I though I'd talk about how lists have been changing recently.

Mech- this has ruled the roost over the past couple of years and it is quite easy to play but recently their has been quite a few books that can deal with mech.

Gunline/shieldwall: Gunlines involve an awful lot of shooting and speed bumps for the enemy a shieldwall is similar but it advances slowly with super tough things and leaves behind it a trail of objective holders. these have been holding a monopoly since guard came out but many new books have plenty of melta/lascannon. They can be hard to play because you have to protect your tanks but not to hard.

re-deployer/super-speed-dash-objective-grab-ultra-army-saim-hann: These armies rely very fast troops that can dash about to where they are needed, a great example is saim-hann who have lots of clever tricks. this is a lifetime to learn, an age to master army. Very hard to play but they are very good at what they do.

So, I have missed out 3 more armies which are the counters to the 3 above but often the counter armies are the above ones with a little variation. At the moment the anti-tank maneuverable re-deployer is best in my opinion but if mech and gunline take a turn for the worse then perhaps it may create a new army style or maybe it will bring back an old style. We don't know yet.

Thanks for reading,

Jacob.

Tuesday Gaming: Dark heresy and Movie marines campaign!

So, tonight we played dark heresy and me and one of the wizards were punished for being bad (remember we were in jail) we both had this necron item placed in our cell and he lost his powers (not permanently) and I lost my see in the dark ability (permanently) then we were both tortured which costs no hit points but he got his teeth and tongue ripped out do he can't talk (he may respawn them later). We were then told to go on this dark eldar mission but we would have to lose a fight and get taken as slaves by the dark eldar, the thing is we had to lose by enough to get knocked out but not killed. We did not get to the drop though just told about the mission. We were also all given retractable big claws and our leader (he already had mini claws) had massive ones. the guy who had been with me was stupid and lost his claws and movie marine game with James. We both had 10 normal movie marines and there were loads of orcs (more I tried practising on a wall and one of my claws broke off oh well). then I went on to have a special keep coming on and ones we kill respawn. the idea was for us to kill each other but to get better weapons we had to kill orcs. it cost 3 orcs to upgrade 1 marine to a sergeant, 4 for a missile launcher or flamer. all orcs killed respawned in a building complex and d6 orcs very 2 turns came on. Nobz were worth 2 orcs and war bosses 6. A new marine was 10 points. It was a great warm up game for a campaign w will be starting.

Thanks for reading,

Jacob.

Overviews: an outsiders perspective, Blood angels and Nidz.

I thought I'd give my opinions on the rumors and the new book for these armies, remember I don't look at rumors that regularly but I have picked up bits here and there:

NIDZ

The nidz seem to be a really game changing army that need some serious thought, my wolves will be ok because of all the monstorous creature hunting things and I hope that my marines can cope with manouverabilty and high strength weapons. The book seems like it really works together and I think it may be an antidote to guard with all the deepstriking high strength monstrocities. Whether that will make them overpowered is yet to be seen.

BLOOD ANGELS

These bad boys seem ike they could be on par with if not better than the space wolves, some of the stuff sounds cool especialy the assault cannon raider and it sounds interesting to have succesor chapters included. I don't think I will be getting an army of these but I may get one or two bits just to paint up.

So, do you like this style of overview, thanks for reading,

Jacob.

Terrain: home made Fantasy/40k stepped 2-tier hill.

Hi, the other day I made this hill, the next one will probably come with a tutorial, suffice to say we learned a lot of tips and the next one should be a breeze. I will be painting it in a greyey brown moonscape-mordor type thing hopefully with sand mixed in to make it a rough coat.

It was made out of insulation board (high-density polystyrene), all we did was cut the bottom piece roughly then cut a little detail before using a candle to burn bits away, remember, less = more with this. If you want the odd deeper gash then first cut a rough hole then burn. Next we cut the top piece and did the same thing before sticking it carefully ontop of the larger piece with PVA glue (elmers white glue if your in the USA). Then we textured the surface via burning again and finally I stuck together and burned some random bit of 'rock' then stuck them on.

The idea of the hill was to provide a useable piece of terrain for both 40k and Fantasy, I think it has worked but the painting will make a big difference as it decides where it is. There is plenty of open space to put movement trays etc on without it being too bare. I think it looks pretty good, how about you? Anyway, here are the pics:

So, tell us what you think, thanks for reading,

Jacob.