Last weekend I played in a 40k tournament with my Space Wolves.
I wanted to do well so I built just about the nastiest army that I could. I spent the better part of a week prepping my models and gluing together the components that I would need for the tourney. I made things harder on myself by choosing to re-paint my army.
I've always wanted an air brush so I could mimic some of the better paint jobs I've seen on the web. After looking at a lot of other well-painted models, I found a really cool army that used a much darker shade of gray than most Space Wolf armies used. My army had actually been a much lighter shade of gray and I thought an air brush would be the ticket to getting an army done fast.
After some research, I found that air brush compressors for hobbyists are expensive. The most basic models appeared to start at $150 and quickly skyrocketed from there. I did some more digging and found that there are other kinds of air brushes offered, not to hobbyists but to cake decorators and nail salons. These air brushes came with complete kits and started around $45. Not only did you get a low-end compressor, but a dual-action brush as well... Now, some of these compressors were in the shape of hearts or were colored pink, but it was the same piece of equipment sold to masculine hobbyists, but marketed to a completely different audience. I imagine that the air brush manufacturers had done a lot of market research and found the maximum price point that each type of painter would pay and adjusted their prices accordingly. Kind of like the shoe industry, but I digress.
I looked around town at the hobby stores along with some online shopping and found a nice silver compressor with a dual-action brush for less than $60. Shipping took a lot longer than I expected but it arrived on Wednesday and gave me three days to re-paint my army...
After running home to paint models over my lunch hour and hurriedly in the evenings when I wasn't with Kristin, I got about a quarter of my army re-colored and re-glued to their bases. It was a lot less than I wanted but I would be able to get my army on the table for the 5th Edition send-off tournament.
We had a fairly good turnout for the event with lots of our regular players and few new faces showing up as well. My first opponent was Jason P. and his Crimson Fist Space Marines. He doesn't play very often and certainly isn't a cutthroat player so my tooled-up list probably wasn't much fun for him to face. Despite all of my dirty tricks, we had a good time though and I walked away with a very solid victory.
I played Jason F. and his Tyranids next. His list gave me some more problems but my wolves were able to pick apart his bugs and my dice were giving me average rolls so I scored another solid victory.
In the championship round I faced Marshall, another Wolf player who usually wins most of our tourneys. I made a critical error and placed one of my "tricksy" units poorly early in the game which disrupted my game plan. Then I had a turn of really bad dice and lost my scouting unit when I should have mathematically won the battle; but that's why we roll the dice. I made a pretty good run in the last few turns, but Marshall outplayed me and I lost the game. Because of the scoring system, I actually placed third but I was quite happy with the turnout.
I wanted to do well so I built just about the nastiest army that I could. I spent the better part of a week prepping my models and gluing together the components that I would need for the tourney. I made things harder on myself by choosing to re-paint my army.
I've always wanted an air brush so I could mimic some of the better paint jobs I've seen on the web. After looking at a lot of other well-painted models, I found a really cool army that used a much darker shade of gray than most Space Wolf armies used. My army had actually been a much lighter shade of gray and I thought an air brush would be the ticket to getting an army done fast.
After some research, I found that air brush compressors for hobbyists are expensive. The most basic models appeared to start at $150 and quickly skyrocketed from there. I did some more digging and found that there are other kinds of air brushes offered, not to hobbyists but to cake decorators and nail salons. These air brushes came with complete kits and started around $45. Not only did you get a low-end compressor, but a dual-action brush as well... Now, some of these compressors were in the shape of hearts or were colored pink, but it was the same piece of equipment sold to masculine hobbyists, but marketed to a completely different audience. I imagine that the air brush manufacturers had done a lot of market research and found the maximum price point that each type of painter would pay and adjusted their prices accordingly. Kind of like the shoe industry, but I digress.
I looked around town at the hobby stores along with some online shopping and found a nice silver compressor with a dual-action brush for less than $60. Shipping took a lot longer than I expected but it arrived on Wednesday and gave me three days to re-paint my army...
After running home to paint models over my lunch hour and hurriedly in the evenings when I wasn't with Kristin, I got about a quarter of my army re-colored and re-glued to their bases. It was a lot less than I wanted but I would be able to get my army on the table for the 5th Edition send-off tournament.
We had a fairly good turnout for the event with lots of our regular players and few new faces showing up as well. My first opponent was Jason P. and his Crimson Fist Space Marines. He doesn't play very often and certainly isn't a cutthroat player so my tooled-up list probably wasn't much fun for him to face. Despite all of my dirty tricks, we had a good time though and I walked away with a very solid victory.
I played Jason F. and his Tyranids next. His list gave me some more problems but my wolves were able to pick apart his bugs and my dice were giving me average rolls so I scored another solid victory.
In the championship round I faced Marshall, another Wolf player who usually wins most of our tourneys. I made a critical error and placed one of my "tricksy" units poorly early in the game which disrupted my game plan. Then I had a turn of really bad dice and lost my scouting unit when I should have mathematically won the battle; but that's why we roll the dice. I made a pretty good run in the last few turns, but Marshall outplayed me and I lost the game. Because of the scoring system, I actually placed third but I was quite happy with the turnout.
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