Ork Bastion

Taken at Games Workshop, Camberwell (Melbourne, Aust.), this is an orky adaptation of Imperial Ruins, suitable for use as a planetstrike bastion perhaps.  

I like the way that the orkification makes it look like an ork face.

Plaguebearer Orchestra

Whilst I can only imagine that plaguebearers are not the most musically gifted virtuoso creatures of the Warp, a pair of them ringing dread bells together must signal woe to all who hear them.

The front plaguebearer is the new one of the pair (the rear-ward, right hand one can be seen in full here).  For the new, front one, I decided to have a bit of a go at painting some blue slime, to match up with the blue plagueswords that I've painted a number of my other plaguebearers with.  This isn't my first attempt at the blue slime (as can be seen from my standard bearer).  Here, I've base coated the slimy portions with space wolf grey and followed up by using a traditional blue ink -- dark, vibrant and somewhat glossy.  The inking was followed up by selective highlighting in pastel blues to create the final slime-ridden vision. 

The plaguebearer itself was base coated in dwarf flesh and graveyard earth brown blends and then liberally washed with devlan mud.  Highlighting was picked out in muddy colours that progress up to an almost rust-like orange tone (essentially dheneb stone mixed with blazing orange).  As well as picking out the sores and poxes in lighter colours, the cyclopean orb was painted in slightly off-white and the tongue picked out in a strangely healthy-ish colour.

Painting in Warm Weather

(With sincere apologies to my Northern Hemisphere friends, some of whom I know have endured a bitter winter).

The Australian Summer brings with it a wealth of opportunities to get out and about, and more daylight time in which to paint with natural light filtering in through the windows.  However, there are many times at which the temperature is above 25 deg C.  At night.  And then there are the scorchers: above 30 or 35 deg C by 1PM in the daytime. Ordinarily, I wouldn't be painting with those temperatures.  Frankly, it's usually too hot to do much at all.  But year after year, I find myself painting in those conditions, usually because I have a tournament coming up that I need some extra models to be finished up for, or because I'm just a little bit crazy.

One of the obvious perils of painting in such warm conditions is that the paint dries much faster.  That can be something of a boon though if the intention is to apply lots of washes to a miniature (or batch of miniatures) since it dries off much faster and the next layer can be rapidly applied.  On the other hand, if you're not paying enough attention or painting fast enough, it can readily clog up the bristles of the paint brush.  Hence my first top tip about painting in hot weather is to wash your brushes more frequently than you usually do.

In cooler times and climates, leaving the lid of the paint pots open doesn't cause any dramas.  But they sure can dry out fast if you accidentally forget to close the lid of the pots you're no longer using!  I've done it myself a couple of times and learnt the hard way to only have a couple (i.e. two at maximum!) lids open at any one time.  I also like to try to keep any pots that I will not need for the rest of a painting session to one side so that I have a clear line of sight to the paint pots that have their lids open!

Mixing together colours can be tricky unless you're using a wet sponge technique.  I'd advise to try to steer away from making your own mixes if possible (at least until the Sun dips below the horizon) due to the rapid drying times.

If you enjoy doing a little wet blending (e.g. the bloodletter's hellblade sword picture above), then this is one that you might like to leave altogether unless absolutely necessary.  I'd suggest having practice at using wet blending techniques in cooler conditions before having to speed up in hotter conditions since celerity is exactly what is needed to pull wet blends off in hotter weather.  One really needs to race through applying the colours and blending them together before they dry out.

Let me know if you have any further tips for painting in hot weather...?

Painted Bloodcrusher

This is the painted version of the bloodcrusher that was built at the start of the year.  The paint scheme follows my herald of Khorne, with the reds, blacks and bronzes being prominent, combined with wet-blending of the hell-blade's colours as per my bloodletter troops.

The highlighting of the bloodcrusher required some work, with lighter glints of the metalic hell-blade hilt, and around the gold / bronze metal bits (on the head, upper forelegs, and around the bronze edging just above the chainmail on the legs).  Additionally, orange highlights were applied to the red parts of the juggernaut and attention was paid to the scratch marks around the body of the juggernaut.

The base meanwhile, was painted in a modestly simple fashion -- drybrushing of metallic colours and bleached bone plus dheneb stone.  I decided not to add any grass to the base, but I might add just one clump to break up the urban decay feel.

Boon of Mutation vs. Soul Devourer

The ability to turn enemy combatants in to jibbering chaos spawn must be one of the most annoying (for the enemy) and fun (for the chaos player) ability that there is.

I've been thinking about Boon of Mutation in relation to Heralds of Tzeentch as a defensive measure.  The main choice as a defensive measure is either the Boon of Mutation, or the Soul Devourer (power weapon with a Ld test imposed for each unsaved wound that can cause instant death).  Which is better though?

The Boon has a 3+ chance of hitting (conducted during the shooting phase, even if the herald and target are engaged in combat!), and then the target needs to pass a Toughness test.  Let's assume for the moment that the target has T=4.  This means a 5+ is required to turn the target in to a chaos spawn.  Hence the probability is 0.22 for success (or 1 in 4.5).  This takes care of the target full stop - no invulnerable (or other) saves apply as no wounds have been caused.  In contrast, for soul devourer, the Herald will get 4 attacks during the combat phase (assuming it is on a chariot for the moment) and will hit of 4+ (against WS=4) and wound on 5+.  That means a 1 in 6 chance of a power weapon wound per attack, or a total of 0.67 unsaved wounds per combat round.  Against Ld=10, there will be a chance of 0.05583 (about 1 in 18 chance) of the target getting its soul devoured if it has more than one wound.

That needs some interpretation though.  Against space marines, the soul devourer is going to hurt regular marines most turns.  Except for commanders and those other miniatures that possess invulnerable saves, of course.  It could make regular squads think twice before charging in ... but what do terminators with a 3+ invulnerable save care?  Probably very little.  Moreover, the chances of inflicting instant death against a pesky three wound space marine character with an invulnerable save is incredibly slim.  A quick analysis shows that the herald stands the same chance of turning a 3+ invulnerable save terminator in to a spawn as causing a wound with a power weapon from 4 attacks! (i.e. the probability of killing a regular storm shield terminator with a power weapon is 0.22 for the herald!).  But with Boon of Mutation, if it is successful, not only does the herald kill the terminator, the team also gains a chaos spawn miniature.

But when faced with a T=3 Dark Eldar Archon (or Lelith Hesperax even), the herald has a probability of 0.33 (1 in 3 chance) of working per turn.  That's got to be worth considering given that the herald may not survive a several rounds of combat with Lelith (etc.).  Combined with some other powers, it could be an effective block against webway incursions.

Here's one such build:
Herald of Tzeentch with Chariot, Bolt of Tzeentch, Daemonic Gaze, Boon of Mutation and Master of Sorcery -- 130 points.

With 2 or 4 of them on the field, they could be very efficient at producing a chaos spawn per turn, or pummelling down multi-wound characters if that fails.  I know that others may consider Breath of Chaos better value that the Boon for the same amount of points (in all likelihood it is!), but Boon of Mutation is much more satisfying in its own chaotic way and can be used defensively whilst in combat, unlike Breath.

Finally, I'll note that the chaos space marine Gift of Chaos psychic ability (same thing as Boon of Mutation, but a different name) and the daemons version is worded slightly differently.  If the target is hit, they must make a toughness test immediately or be turned in to a spawn, but in the chaos space marine version, a roll of a 6 is explicitly noted as always being a failure, but the daemons ability is not.  It is worth noting that on page 8 of the 40k rulebook, it explicitly notes that all rolls of a 6 on a characteristic test always fail.  Therefore there is no difference between Gift and Boon in this regard, despite the different wording. Hence both of them have a chance even against Mawlocks (etc.).  

Winner of Jan 2011 Army List Challenge

The winner of the Jan 2011 Army List Challenge is: AbusePuppy!

Congratulations!  The dark eldar list was, in the words of Anton, pure filth!

The final percentages were as follows:
1. AbusePuppy: 35%
=2. Gundog8324: 17%
=2. GDNMW: 17%
=4. Aleksi: 11%
=4. schuelerliu: 11%
6. Ctreleheb: 5%

Finally, if anyone has any suggestions for future challenges, then please send me an email or leave a comment.  (Ideally, the challenges should be themed and able to be tackled by any codex -- see previous challenges for a broad spread of ideas!)