Burning Eye Commission- Terminator Librarian

Today I have photos of a painting commission carried out by Nick at the Burning Eye. This model was completed ages ago, but I've only just gotten round to taking photos and getting it up on the blog. 

Last year when Nick was first looking to foray into the world of commission painting, he was looking for volunteers to send him models and give feedback on the process. Being the utterly selfless soul that I am, I decided to take advantage of his offer of free painting to get a nice character model completed for my various Marine armies. I had seen the work that Nick had done on his own Librarian models and was very impressed, so this made it a natural choice to send. 

Summer Massacre Tournament- Armies on Display

There were some great armies at the Summer Massacre tournament at the weekend. Here are some of the photos of the armies on display. 

First up, we have Graham's Death army. Graham has some fantastic armies, you can find more of them at his twitter page, @PaintedbyG . Graham was judging the painting competition, so was unable to win it (which he would likely have done given the standard of his force). 

Battle Report 102- 8th Edition, Deathwatch vs Black Templars

This week's battle report is my first game from the brand new 8th edition. This game took place at Heaton gaming club and sees my Deathwatch army facing off against Kyle's Black Templars. 

After checking out the 8th edition rules, I was eager to give them a shot in an actual game. I made up a 1000 pts list for my Deathwatch using a number of different unit types. Once I had my army made up, I calculated the power level of my army and Kyle matched it with his army. 

My army consisted of:

Chaplain- Crozius Arcanum, Bolt Pistol, Rosarius (C)

Kill Team 1- 5 Veterans with Stalker Pattern Bolters, Terminator with Power Fist, Storm Bolter and Cyclone Missile Launcher (KT1)

Kill Team 2- 5 Veterans. 2 Heavy Thunder Hammers, Black Shield with Power Sword, Sergeant. (KT2)

Kill Team 3- 2 Frag Cannons, Vanguard Veteran with two Lightning Claws (KT3)

Rhino- Storm Bolter (R)

6 Bikers- 4 Power Swords, Power Maul, Power Axe, Teleport Homer (DB)
Dreadnought- Assault Cannon and Heavy Flamer (D)

Summer Massacre Tournament Photos (Pic Heavy)

The Newcastle Warlords gaming club recently hosted Summer Massacre, an Age of Sigmar tournament for 22 players. 

They were after some to cook the barbeque lunch for the tournament, so I volunteered to help out. Fortunately, it was a really nice day, so I got to enjoy the sunshine while I cooked. I was also able to take some photos of the event that I can share now. Hope you enjoy. 

8th Edition Rules Review: Part 1- Core Rules

Welcome to the first part of my review on the new 8th edition rules for 40k. In this part, I will be taking a look at the core rules and my initial thoughts on them. 

Rule Length

One of the huge differences between 7th and 8th edition is the length of the core rules for the game. Seventh edition featured a huge number of rules, so many at times that they were hard to keep track of despite having played the game for years (does anyone know what Soul Blaze did even now?).

In 8th edition, the core rules are condensed into 8 pages, making it really simple to read through them and learn them quickly. Now, I know that much of the USR-type rules and intricacies will be covered in the datasheets for units, so there is not such a huge reduction in the number of rules, but it is nice to be able to learn the rules for the main game in under 10 minutes.

I picked up the Dark Imperium boxed set and was very happy to see a small booklet containing the core rules of the game. Great for referencing during a game or if you don't want to take the main rulebook with you all the time. Overall, I am a fan of this new format. I would love to see GW release a smaller rulebook with just the core rules and rules for the different scenarios in it. As much as I like the background section, I don't really need it in the rulebook and would much prefer a smaller book to take with me to games.

Hobby Sunday 18/06/17- Deathwatch Terminators and Genestealer Cult Neophytes

This week, I have been working on some Deathwatch Terminators, as well as finally making a start on some of my Genestealer Cults models. 

I managed to paint up two of my Terminators for the Deathwatch army; one standard Terminator and one with a Cyclone Missile Launcher. I was planning to get these done anyway in 7th edition, but after reading the new 8th edition rules I am glad that I have got them completed. 

Hobby Update 16/06/17- Deathwatch Dreadnought

This week's Hobby progress sees my Deathwatch Dreadnought finally get painted up. 

With 8th edition now released, I wanted to get my Deathwatch Dreadnought completed to try out his new awesomeness on the tabletop. 

On a side note, the blog has been a bit sparse of content recently. Don't worry, with the release of 8th edition, expect that to change. I have plans to get reviews up on the new rules for my different armies, as well as a whole host of battle reports in 8th edition with my various forces. I'll initially be focusing on my Deathwatch, as I will be attending Caledonian Revolution in a couple of weeks. They will be using 8th edition, so I'll need to try and learn the army quickly and get a few practice games in before I go.

Warhammer Fest- Tournament Game photos

At Warhammer Fest, I was able to observe a number of other tournament games. Here are some of the photos of the games for your enjoyment. 

Battle Report 101- 1500 pts Ravenwing vs Space Wolves

During my time at Warhammer Fest, I was able to observe some of the Grand Tournament games and write them up as battle reports. The first game that I observed was Ben's Ravenwing taking on Lewis' Space Wolves.
I'd met Ben at the Birthday Bash, where his Ravenwing army had done rather well in the maelstrom missions. It was great to catch up again and see him use a force very similar to one I would normally field.

The first mission was Crusade with 3 objectives, using Hammer and Anvil deployment.

Ben's army consisted of:
Ravenwing Strike Force
Interrogator-Chaplain- Bike, Mace of Redemption. (with CS)
Librarian- Level 2 Psyker, Bike, Conversion Field. (with CS)
Librarian- Level 2 Psyker, Bike, Conversion Field. (with CS)
5 Ravenwing Bikers- 2 Grav Guns, Combi-Grav, Meltabombs (RB1)
5 Ravenwing Bikers- 2 Grav Guns, Combi-Grav, Meltabombs (RB2)
5 Black Knights- Grenade Launcher, Meltabombs (BK)
5 Ravenwing Command Squad- Apothecary, Grenade Launcher (CS)
Ravenwing Support Squadron- Darkshroud with Heavy Bolter, 3 Landspeeders with Heavy Bolters and Typhoon Missile Launchers. (SS)

Ben's warlord was the Chaplain, who got Furious Charge for his Warlord Trait. One Librarian rolled on Telepathy, getting Invisibility, Terrify and Psychic Shriek. The other rolled on Divination and got Perfect Timing, Prescience and Forewarning.
As I said above, a very similar army to one that I would field with my Ravenwing. I was interested to see how the support squadron would perform with the Heavy Bolters and Typhoon Missile Launchers (I normally go for Heavy Bolters and Assault Cannons). Ben also got a good range of powers on his Librarians and could seriously buff the Command Squad.

Better Know A Blogger: Part 40- Rob Hawkins Hobby

This week's Better Know A Blogger features Rob Hawkins (@RobHawkinsHobby) from Rob Hawkins Hobby. 

I first came across Rob's blog when I was getting back into Warhammer Fantasy. I was searching for information on Undead and Vampire Counts armies and Rob Hawkins Hobby was one of the first blogs that I found. After just a few minutes on the blog, I was a big fan and have been ever since. It is easy to see why. 

As can be guessed from the title, Rob's blog is primarily focused on the painting and modelling side of the hobby. 

Without a doubt, my favourite articles are his gaming board posts. Rob is fortunate enough to make a living from this hobby of ours, and builds commission gaming boards and dioramas for a wide range of games and companies. The majority of these he posts on his blog, along with some great work in progress shots and details of how he created them. To me, these boards look absolutely fantastic (you will see some of them in the article below, but be sure to check out the blog for a lot more). The WIP and details make them look so simple to make, though all with stunning end results, that I would love to try my hand at a few of them in the future. 

Rob also posts a number of great terrain tutorials, showing you how to build and paint a number of great projects, including; swamp grass, candles, graveyard hills, a swamp board and an awesome tutorial for making neon signs. 

Along with his terrain projects, Rob also has a whole host of great hobby content for his various armies. These include his Undead army, Legion of the Infernal Skull, as well as some 40k content, most recently his work towards assembling a Sisters of Battle Kill Team for Shadow War: Armageddon. Most of his hobby posts will feature some form of converting and sculpting new parts for the models, as well as some fantastic paint jobs on the finished conversions. 

Not only that, but Rob has recently started selling his own resin terrain kits at Skull Forge Scenics. These are all terrain pieces that Rob designs and sculpts. While initially focused on terrain that would fit with an army of the undead (skulls, tombstones, graveyard walls), the range has started to expand into other areas. I hope we will get to see some great terrain and accessories that would fit in with a 40k battlefield at some point in the future. 

If you haven't checked out Rob Hawkins Hobby yet, do yourself a favour and add it to your blog list now. 

Here are Rob's answers to my questions:

1. What age did you get into gaming and what started it off?

I got into gaming when I was in about fifth grade. Some of the older kids in my Boy Scouts troop were playing Dungeons & Dragons, so we all made characters and played through an adventure. I was immediately hooked, and continued playing D&D through middle school. When I went to high school, I made a new group of friends who were into all kinds of role-playing games– James Bond, Robotech, Call of Cthulu.

I was a huge Star Wars fan, and when West End Games released their Star Wars RPG, I immediately grabbed it, and that became our group's main focus throughout high school and college. As the resident artist, I drew pictures of all our characters, and even started chronicling the adventures in comic book form. West End also had a miniatures expansion, and I picked that up, planning to use Micro Machine Star Wars figures and tiny army men painted like our characters to play out larger battles. I started building hex tiles, textured with sand and lichen shrubbery. Our campaign never made the transition into a full miniatures game, but I had been bitten by the miniatures bug, and that love of building and painting models and scenery would stay with me forever. My friends and I had also dabbled in Blood Bowl during that time, but I saw it as more of a board game with neat figures than a proper miniatures game. I didn't even know what a "Games Workshop" was...yet.

In 1997, my friend John returned from his tour in the Army, and introduced me to Warhammer, which was in its 5th Edition at the time. That love of models and scenery took hold, and I was all-in. I picked up a box of skeletons, and the rest is history!