I picked up the new Deathstorm box set this weekend. First, you get a nice tiny rulebook, second, you get a ton of minis, including the new character model. To celebrate, I got in a game with my buddy Chris and broke out my Death Company army. My 1,850 point list looks like this: Reclusiarch 25 Death Company - 5 power fists, 10 power swords, 10 CC/bolt pistols - 25 jump packs 5 Scouts with sniper rifles, camo cloaks 2 Dreads with MM, heavy flamers, drop pods 1 Level 2 Librarian (hoping to get invisibility) That's it. Chris knew what I was bringing and stacked the deck. He brough Space Wolves, with 6 rune priests and all of the plasma weapons he could proxy. Despite taking some serious wounds the first turn, I was nearly pulled it off, but in the end I couldn't shrug off so many plasma shots that have precience. It was a lot of fun though. I think I enjoy the, "WTF?" comments the most. One of the fun parts of tournament play is the creative names that peo...

The cover from the upcoming White Dwarf 44, featuring the new Blood Angels Captain from the Shield of Baal campaign box set. Space Vampires: now with fangs! I've pre-ordered my box set and the Tyranids will be hitting the secondary market shortly after arrival. This is still my favorite Blood Angel photo though.

GW FAQs and Eratta on the Black Library site Chaos Daemons and Dark Angels have a couple of things cleared up. Tomorrow I'm playing in a 2,000 point 40k tournament with my White Scars. The tourney is the grand finale to our 12 week on league (or just a regular tournament if you haven't played in the league.) Here's my list: mono White Scars Captain - Bike, thunder hammer, storm shield, digital weapons, Strategic Warlord Trait Command Squad: Bikes, 4 storm shields, 2 grav guns, 2 melta guns, apothecary Librarian - Level 2 (taking telepathy.) 7 Bikes - 2 grav guns, melta bomb 7 Bikes - 2 grav guns, melta bomb 7 Bikes - 2 grav guns, melta bomb 10 Tactical Squad - plasma gun, lascannon, melta bomb 1 Dreadnought - Multi-melta, heavy flamer, Drop Pod Land Speeder - Typhoon missile launcher, heavy bolter Land Speeder - Typhoon missile launcher, heavy bolter 5 Devastator Squad - 4 missile launchers, 4 flack missiles 3 Devastator Centurions - Grav-cannons, Mi...

It looks like there's a new book in the Horus Heresy line from Forgeworld for Warhammer 30k: Conquest Rumors say there will be rules for most of the Legions/Chapters, Imperial armies,  Mechanicus, and judging by the video, Imperial Knights. I don't know if the Xenos will get any love though. I think a few armies like Eldar and Orks deserve to get a 30K list.

Games Workshop released a couple of new FAQs the other day, including the main rule books for Warhammer 40k and Warhammer Fantasy Battles, as well as a number of codexes and the Wood Elf army book. Link to Black Library Imperial Knight players should be happy. I still need to glue mine together.

Combining these kits to make a single Eldar Exodite Wave Serpent could be my most creative modeling idea ever, or it could be my most expensive mistake... But I love the idea of having Wood Elar riding around on dinosaurs, so it's worth the risk. I'll post my results later.

Tomorrow I'm playing in a 1,500 point Warhammer 40k tournament with my White Scars. Here's my list: Chapter Master - Bike, thunder hammer, storm shield Kahn on Moondrakkan 7 Bikers - with 2 grav guns 7 Bikers - with 2 grav guns 7 Bikers - with 2 grav guns 10 Tactical Squad - Las Cannon, plasma gun Landspeeder Typhoon Landspeeder Typhoon Landspeeder Typhoon Devastator Squad - 4 missiles with flack missile upgrades A bit spammy, but I like it on paper. Let's hope it does well tomorrow!

Here are a couple of my White Scars works in progress shots from my desk. I'm adding a few new weapons to some old metal oop land speeders. These big blocks of lead came with flamers and multi-meltas, but I find the higher volume of firepower is often more effective so I've decided to use missile launchers and heavy bolters. These guys also have a 3+ jink thanks to the White Scars chapter affiliation making them tougher to shoot down. These will be my custom objective markers for my motor pool. I still haven't come up with a clever pun to use as a name, but "Motor Pool" seems to be what I've been calling the army in my head. 

There's a new Warhammer 40k League starting soon at my local game shop and it's motivated me to continue work on my growing White Scar army. Since I have about 3 dozen bikes to assemble, I was experimenting with new ways to fill those pesky gaps you see on a lot of Space Marine bikes. The process is pretty simple and I thought I'd share my technique that helps save some time glueing models together so you can get to the painting table, then gaming table even faster. You won't need any pastes, expensive green stuff, or putty. After I assemble the bike with plastic glue, I give the gaps and good standing so the edges are flush. Next, I use more plastic glue as a "weld" and run a line of glue over the seams. Since the plastic glue melts the model to create a bond, the halves of the bike are fused together and the glue runs into the seams, filling any gaps. Make sure to let the model dry completely before moving onto the next step. Next, I re-sa...

I picked up another blister pack of Early War British troops to add to my growing army. Normally, the models are well inspected before being sent off to market with just a little flash that needs to be sanded off. However, this blister had two models with some filled in neck holes. The Early War Brit BA models come with separate heads on a sprue that have long neck stalks that allow gamers to select from 10 different heads and have them face in a variety of directions. A couple of models in this blister had filled in neck holes that required a bit of extra trimming and sanding to get the head to sit properly on the models shoulders. It's not that big of a deal, except that I managed to glue my fingers to the model while holding it in place and waiting for the glue to set. Yar.

Here are some homemade objective markers I made for 40k (or any other mini game I happen to be playing.) I found mosaic glass tiles at Michael's craft store and thought they would make awesome obelisk tokens in the style of 2001: A Space Odyssey. I shouldn't say, "homemade" because  I simply glued them to 40mm Games Workshop bases and added a little bit of flock. It's a simple idea and I think they look great. A few of them even have a bit of metallic sheen. The "2001" theme pretty much gives me license to sci-fi up any game. They could be energy portals, power stones, warp stones that randomly happen to rectangular-cubes, fuel cells, or just mysterious obelisks that appear to confound those who find them.

Here's my lone painted figure from Bolt Action. Hopefully I'll have more troops painted soon for him to boss about.

Somehow, I managed to lose my round, needle file. It was my favorite file and I used it on just about every model I own to clean away flash and sand down mold lines. The sharp tip and round body could reach any nook and cranny on a model and it worked great on plastic, metal, and resin. It could fix anything and I really miss it. To replace it, I purchased a three-pack of angled files from Army Painter. The store didn't have any needle files on hand, but I thought I might give these a try. As you can see in the photo, the files are "L" shaped and I've never used a file like this before. There was a "flat" two sided file, a sharp wedge-shaped file, and a wide-angled file. On the same shopping trip, I also picked up a blister pack of metal British Combat Engineers and Flame Thrower from Bolt Action and thought they would make a good test subjects for my new files. After fumbling around quite a bit trying to figure out how to hold these correctly, I hav...

There are a handful useful Bolt Action Web sites out there, but here are a couple I enjoy reading. First is the  the Demo Gamers.  They have an infectious way of writing battle reports and blog entries that makes me want to play more and write more about my games. Another useful site is  boltaction.easyarmy.com  There you can build just about any Bolt Action army list you need to play a game. It uses simple check boxes to generate an army list, with all of the options so don't have to do any math, and it creates an easy to read army list. I haven't tried it on my phone yet, but that would be super handy for casual play and pick up games (not that Bolt Action lists are difficult to assemble.) Even though my army was not painted, I couldn't wait any longer to play with my early war Brits so my buddy Russ and I duked it out on the field of battle this past weekend. As you can see in the picture, I used the cool battle mat from Frontline Gaming to cover our 6x...

Recently, I've been working on my Bolt Action British early war "Tommies" and getting them ready for war. I'm very close to getting my models on the table for a game and I've been pouring over the rules. (Too many games leaves me with a bunch of mixed-up rule sets in my head...) When we ordered our armies, my pal Russ also put in an order for some MDF bases for us to use instead of trying to track down GW bases or use the flat style Warlord bases. The MDF bases are nice, light, and have a pleasant smell of burned wood from the laser cutting- not to mention inexpensive. Before I even took a model out of the package, I was concerned about the little "hump" the Warlord metal minis might produce from the model's base but I've been pleasantly surprised how little you notice after adding some rock, sand and other materials. The rough battlefield I'd like to put on my troops is a perfect camouflage to hide any raised areas or sharp edges. Af...

I looks like we'll have another edition of Warhammer 40k at the end of the month. It has the appearance of just being a cash grab to inflate the end of year fiscal numbers, probably to increase the likelyhood Games Workshop will be sold. Among the new rules rumors for the new edition, is opening up the force organization chart and playing "unbound." That means you can just play with whatever you want - no restrictions, no rhyme or reason. There are a few bonuses to playing with a regular force org, but this just smacks of a sales pitch to move more models. I already dislike the allies chart in 6th and it looks like I'm going to dislike 7th even more. Jervis Johnson talks about it in this video. Force Org on Youtube

Games Workshop has released a new video preview for the Wood Elves. These little teaser vids are getting better and better, but I think some of the sound effects might have been swiped... <iframe width="560" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/Q_cV6usub0U" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

My first army from any miniature war game was Wood Elves for Warhammer Fantasy Battles. They will always have a special place in my heart, but the poor dirt eating and tree hugging elves of Athel Loren have never been a very good army. I have enjoyed playing and painting them, but there hasn't been an edition of WFB that has really favored a guerrilla style army. However, I'm excited for the chance to get play out of a new army book and perhaps get back to painting my Native American themed army. Recently, some pictures of the new Wood Elves have been popping up online. I can't say that I'm a fan of the color schemes, but the models are a big improvement from the previous edition. The model on the cover of the WD is allegedly the new Druthu model (with a sword?) and perhaps the other model can be built from the same kit.

Games Workshop has thrown their FAQ and Errata section on the Black Library page, instead of the mothership's page. That doesn't make sense to me, but at least they are online. FAQs and Errata There is a nice, "Download All" link this time around.

The new Games Workshop  Web site  is pretty, but clunky. It's like it was written by a computer programmer that is only concerned with lists and filters and not by someone who understands graphic interface and shopping. I'm sure the site is probably very stable, and with the right clicks, can bring you any bit of information you want, but it's not conducive to shopping. I do like that GW is using a white background which syncs well with their excellent photography. You can get nice views of the models with a few clicks and they have much better selection and view of the novels available than their previous site. Noticeably missing is their news feed, blog and forums. Most of which had been done away with years ago but I really think GW is missing a chance to connect with their customers by omitting these features. Forgeworld has recently added a decent blog but the mothership can't seem to figure it out. Also missing is the FAQ section. I've poked around and...

Tonight, I build terrain! I've nearly run out of basswood strips to finish covering an old coffee can and transforming it into a water tower for the various miniature games I play. I plan on painting it an old weathered, grey wood with a metal band around the top, bottom and middle. You can't quite tell in the photo, but added some notches to help break up the planks. A structure like a water tower can be used for just about any game set 1860 through a dystopian future. It wouldn't look out of place in Warhammer 40k, Warzone, Wild West Exodus, or even a fantasy setting like Hoardes, Warmachine or WHFB. I plan on donating this, a few other buildings I'm making to my local game store to help replenish their stock of terrain that gets abused and/or stolen on a regular basis.

Monday night I started assembling my Wild West Exodus (WWX) minis I received from the initial Kickstarter launch a few months back. I've been busy assembling too many Games Workshop models lately and I needed a break so I thought the WWX minis could help cleanse the palate. My first impression of the Outlaw minis is very positive. The quality of the minis is quite good, but boy, the tiny parts are tiny, delicate and perhaps a tad fragile. This model of Walks Looking from the Warrior Nation faction was a lot harder to assemble than I thought. The right arm is glued on near the shoulder, but then the tiny hand is attached to a tiny wrist. The blade on the left hand snapped when I cut it from the sprue and I had to reattach it and I'll probably have to use liquid greenstuff to smooth it out. The hands, in particular, are much smaller and more realistic than GW's "heroic scale." Next up, I tackled a Spirit Beast, which wasn't as difficult to assemble. T...

Last week I ordered an army-sized lot of bases from Secret Weapon miniatures for my Chaos Daemon list and they arrived yesterday and I couldn't be more pleased! They are less expensive than Micro Art's bases and while a few bases had spurs of flash still left along the edges,it was nothing more than you'd find on a regular Games Workshop base. I couldn't make up my mind on which style of bases I wanted, so I just ended up mixing and matching between desert mesa and desert wasteland. Not having purchased any Secret Weapon materials before, I didn't want to blindly order a theme that might be filled with bubbles and flaws and then be forced to spend hours fixing imperfections on a complex design or base. Now that I'm familiar with the quality, I'm seriously considering ordering the Trenchworks or Flagstone sets for my White Scars. Tonight I sanded down most of the biker bases, a couple of others and green stuffed my Fateweaver model. Lucha Domo looks on in...

Of all of the miniature war games that I have played, Warzone is one of my favorites. Based on, "The Mutant Chronicles," Warzone is a skirmish level game set in the future where the nations of the world have developed into plant-spanning corporations - plus, add a religious inquisition, an unaligned technarchy, and corrupted mutant/alien horrors and you have a backdrop for a well designed mini game. Warzone used D20s and unit-by-unit activation that I really liked. For some reason, the D20s made simple math hard and we often found ourselves quickly throwing dice, then trying to add modifiers and figuring out if our role was successful. Also, due to the 20 small faces on the die, sometimes a tricky flick of the wrist could result in a long wait for the outcome of a critical roll as the die spun! I mostly played Mishima, the Japanese themed army, but I also had a slightly smaller Capital army, as well as the British themed Imperials. I'm tempted to start sorting thr...

I'm home sick today with a nasty head cold. Maybe it's my fevered mind, but I've been dreaming up Chaos lists for Warhammer 40k. Here's my current Screamer Star list: 1 Fateweaver 4 Harolds of Tzeentch - disks, Grimoire 3 units of Pink Horrors (10 per unit) 9 Screamers 14 Flesh Hounds 1 Soul Grinder I like the looks of this on paper and have it tweaked to about 1,750 points. I could min/max a few things and squeeze in a Portaglyph but I'm not too fond of spawning new units that always seem to get wiped out and give up more victory points. That's something I'm going to have to just playtest and see if it's worth the risk. I've also been working on my converted Soul Grinder. I used the torso from a Tomb King Warsphinx to make a better looking torso than just mounds of meat. I just need to find a spare missile launcher in my bits box and magnetize it to an arm or the hull.

Today I played in a tourney with my Blood Angels, "Death Star" list. It's been in vogue to label nasty units as "star" units because of the original "Death Star" from Star Wars, an nearly impervious weapon of immeasurable power. You'll find Screamer Star, Biker Star, etc. so, I decided to build a Death Company "star" unit, and "Death Star" is really the best name for it. Here's my army list: 1 Reclusiarch - melta bomb, jump pack 27 Death Company (5 power fists, 12 power swords, jump packs) 5 Scouts with sniper rifles 1 Furioso Dreadnought - Melta, Flamer, Drop pod. The Reclusiarch joins the Death Company to gain even more cheaty rules. In the tournament, I went 2-1, with my only lost being very close Relic game. The first game was with a guy from Kansas City who had maxed out his IG army with heavy weapon squads. I was lucky to get night fight the first turn and ran as fast as I could to his hoard that turt...

Did you buy some crappy painted minis on eBay or Bartertown and want to strip the paint off and start over? Here's my recommendation to get a fresh start on plastic, metal and even resin models!

I haven't bought an issue of White Dwarf in years but with the teaser images and rule rumors of the Imperial Knights I have read online, I had to pick up the latest issue. After a quick glance at the rules and fluff, I placed a pre-order for a giant robot of Gothic mayhem! Not only do the models look amazing, I also like how you can add the Imperial Knights to any army. In fact, they can function as their own army, which I don't think it would fare well, but I love the idea of a titan list with just six models marching across the table, crushing their foes. Normally I build my armies as hoard lists, but it's very tempting to hand over my pay check and scoop up a full "Iron Brotherhood." Maybe the machines will have an insane amount of hull points, like 6 or 8. However, since I play mostly Imperium armies, just one of these big guys can team up with any of my armies. A red, black and white paint job will also coordinate with just about any of my paint sche...

For a small tournament next month, I'm thinking of running this fun Blood Angels list. 1 Reclusiarch - Jump pack - melta bomb 27 Death Company - 10 CC weapon and bolter, 12 Power Sword, 5 Power Fist, Jump Packs 1 Furioso Dreadnought - Heavy Flamer, Drop Pod 5 Scouts with Sniper Rifles It's so crazy it... might... just... work! The idea came from a forum topic of making the most expensive unit. It was either Death Company or a giant IG blob. In all seriousness, I doubt this list will do well, but it'll be fun. I don't think it'll stand up against an Eldar Wave Serpent spam list, but I think I might do some damage to most other lists I see in my area. The dread will have to drop and provide some cover for the DC to jump and run their way across the table. I'll try to get the Command Trait of picking night fighting to help out and get some cover saves on top of the FNP.

As I was putting together my daemon army, I picked up some second-hand Chaos Flesh Hounds online. I thought they were a really good deal but when my package arrived, the models turned out to plain chaos hounds. The Games Workshop Flesh Hounds are now up to about $10 a figure and buying blindly off the Internet to save some cash turned out to cost me more in the end. Then, on CoolMiniorNot.com, I saw their review of Instant Mold. It's a flexible, reusable molding material that sets in hot water and can be infinitely reused to create molds of small metal and plastic parts. I thought this might just be the ticket to making some "collars" to turn my dogs into Flesh Hounds. Following instructions, I made mold of an extra collar (or fins) from an actual Flesh Hound model. After letting it cool, it looked like I had a nice mold to make a few extra fins. I rolled out some Green Stuff into a little ball and pressed it into my fin mold and viola! As you can ...

This weekend I played in a small 1,500 tournament and went 1-1-1. I feel like I did much better than my record indicates. I brought my Imperial Guard because my White Scars and Daemons aren't ready for the table top yet. In my first match up, I faced Marshall, a guy who usually wins most of our local tourneys with his Space Wolves. Instead of his wolves, he brought Tyrnanids that he recently bought from another local gamer. Marshall's dice were hot all game, including spawning the maximum 18 termigants from his Tervigon in the first turn. Despite that, and the fact he went first, I held my own. We played Relic and he quickly swarmed over it, but the gaming time flew by and we only reached the top of turn 3. If I had a chance to take my third turn, I may have been able to pull in a draw, and perhaps even pulled a win in turn 4 or 5 if we had the time to play it out. My second round opponent was Danny and his Dark Eldar. My IG have always given him fits and today I just had h...

On the Bell of Lost Souls forums, someone asked, "If you could change one thing about the game, what would you change." For me, it's tough to pick one thing to change in Warhammer 40k. I think there are a few things that need some tweaks, like the Allies chart (Grey Knights and Necrons?) or Eldar Waveserpents (a troop transport- is one of the best weapons in the game.) However, I think I would add the Squat army back into production and in the fluff. I want the ol' Space Dwarfs back in the game, and not just as some Imperial Guard proxy; I want a real list with their own special rules and abilities. Toughness 4, a standard 4+ armor save, and Leadership 9 sounds about right me, maybe throw in some Terminator style armored units as well. The old models have so much character! It's hard not to like them but I know a few new players who like the Mecha or Chaos armies who think the Squats are just a gag... but I can't help but pick up any models whenever I ...

Today, a new batch of Dwarf models have been released from Games Workshop for Warhammer Fantasy Battles. The new models look great! A hammerer/longbeard dual unit, a giant slayer and a new character, Belegar Irongammer.  I don't care for the dual unit boxes. I think there should be more difference between units than the tip of the weapon and flag top. This just perpetuates the fluff myth that people can't tell one dwarf from another! To spruce up your army, you're going to have to put in some time in the gold mine and mint some coin. The characters are $21 for a single plastic model and the unit is $50 for 10 troops. Traditionally, new models are accompanied by a new army book, but GW has decided to put some special character rules in the revamped White Dwarf and *not* release an army wide update. At least not yet. There are a bunch of rumors flying around to explain this - everything from no army books in 9th edition, to simply releasing new minis when they are re...

For my pre- and post- Heresy White Scars army, I've been refurbishing some old Space Marine Rhinos into other tanks. This Predator was cobbled together from two different out-of-print rhino bodies. I needed a track set that didn't have the doors glued on so I could magnetize the sponsons for a variety of weapons. I had a tan tank with no doors and a grey tank with the proper front hull so I carefully pried the tanks apart with an X-Acto chisel blade; and with a little sanding, I was able to re-purpose the treads and hulls into the configuration I needed. Next, I added some plumbers putty into the tread doors, let it dry, then drilled out a hole for the magnet to rest. I glued on the metal bits to the hull and lined up the magnets for the sponsons. Once the glue is dry, I'll prime most of the tank white and the bolters black and start painting. The second Rhino is being cobbled into an old Whirlwind. Other than gluing on the treads and metal bits, I don't ne...

I've always enjoyed the expression, "Second place is the first loser." However, yesterday I took second place in the small point Warhammer 40k tournament and I'm fairly pleased despite not taking the top slot. We had 8 players show with a wide range of players from tourney veterans to beer-and-pretzel guys, beginners, and old timers who haven't played in a while. In the first game, my IG squared off against Jason's Chaos Warriors. I got to go first and shelled him pretty hard with the Lemann Russ and Basilisk. I also didn't deviate in the first two turns and effectively took him out of the game early and I felt bad that my dice were so hot. Next I faced Michael and his Chaos Warriors with about the same results as Jason. In the third round, I took on Jessie and his nasty Eldar. His general was Illic (I think) who lets his unit deploy an inch away from his opponent. After stealing the initiative, Illic and his 10 wraithguard with flame templates mad...

In just over a week, I'll be playing a small-point Warhammer 40k tournament at the Gatekeeper. My White Scars (Sons of Chogoris) aren't ready for the tabletop yet so I'll likely bring my Russian themed Valhallans or my Praetorians. Here are the lists I'm considering for the 1k point tourney. They are just "back of envelope" calculations. 1 Lord Commissar - power sword, melta bomb 1 Veteran squad - 3 meltaguns 3 Veteran squads - 3 meltas, 1 missile launcher, Chimera 1 Basilisk 1 Aegis Defense line - quad cannon or 1 Company Command Squad - 4 grenade launchers, sword, Chimera 1 Guardsman Marbo 1 Veteran Squad -3 Meltaguns, Chimera 1 Platoon Command Squad - 4 Flamers 2 Infantry Squad -Missile Launchers 1 Vendetta 1 Leman Russ 1 Basilisk The second list was a recommendation from another player online and I'm leaning towards fielding that list. That player actually recommends plasma guns but since neither Valhallans or Praetorians come wi...