News: January release list and Hobbit pics

Here's the list of the upcoming releases for Jan as well as some photos of the new miniatures for the Hobbit game. Got these via Talk Wargaming, enjoy.

WoC: Tzeentch Chariot conversion finished

So this is probably the last finished model this year, and it's the Tzeentch chariot Iv'e shown before but now it has a crew and snow on the base as well. Was really unsure of how this would turn our when I started to do this conversion but it turned out quite well in the end If I may say so.

Really like how it looks with the Screamers pulling the chariot through the air, and I may actually end up doing the same conversion again for a second Tzeentch chariot. The crew consists of an old Chariot crew member with changed right arm holding the whip (I lost the old one :/ ) and a scratch built one of parts from the Chaos Knights kit, Warriors kit and a head from the Chosen models.

Comments is very welcome as always and if you have other suggestions on how to do different marked Chaos chariots feel free to share them.

Review: White Dwarf Dec 2013

First of all this will be a shorter review, this because of two things. One, I got it really late and I haven't put as much time reading it as I usually do. This is partly due the fact I didn't find it that great of a read, but more on this in the rest of the review.

New releases

A lot of releases this month but the major ones are the Hobbit stuff, Two new Wh40k supplement books, Stronghold Assault and Escalation and one for Fantasy which is called Sigmar's Blood. For me there's nothing super exciting here, the Hobbit stuff does not interest me, and it feels like it doesn't interest GW either as I get the feeling that they just want to get it out and be done with it. There's really nothing in here that tries to get me excited for it or the least interested in the game something. This was not the case many years ago with the LOTR releases. 

The books I haven't much interest in either and with 40k I feel there's just much stuff going on with supplements and digital releases and what not that I just feel I don't care any more. That may have more to do with my declining interest for 40k in general though. 

Sigmar's Blood and Fantasy on the other hand I'm more interested in and we get a quite nice battle report based on this book.

The Best

The Battle Report based on Sigmar's Blood is really nice one and finally we get some Battle Reports with a history around it and some kind of narrative in it. What we get here is a campaign with four linked battles. Although I think each game is a little short they are all interesting to read and the pictures of the battlefields is very nice with fog and terrain in the background to makes it more atmospheric. Two really nice armies take the field as well.

This months Army of the Month is a extra long this time around and show us the combined Chaos army (WoC, DoC and Beastmen) of Rob Gogin and Leo Baker. A really beautiful Chaos army with strong bright colours, and with all the different miniatures used and a lot of conversions shows us why Chaos is indeed called Chaos.

Parade Ground shows us some of the Armies on Parade entries from the US. Some really nice looking armies and my favourite must be the Chaos Dwarfs with a lot of cool conversions and striking paint scheme.

Kelly's Column, instead of Jervis we instead get Phil Kelly writing about bursts of inspiration in our dear hobby, really interesting read where I have to agree with the author. 

The not as good

Not having more focus on the actual releases is strangely a let down for me. Especially the Hobbit stuff which just isn't presented in a way to inspire and lure us into buying some kits, and that is from someone who consider himself as a GW fanboy almost and want everything GW produces. I just don't feel GW wanting to push the Hobbit stuff at all, and that makes all the pages in here totally uninteresting for me.

Kit Bash, Dreadnoughts this time. Space Marines yet again with some really easy bitz swaps. Not that interesting. 

Paint Splatter is about a little of everything and is quite easy tutorials as always. Main thing though is the Hobbit elves, and well I must say I hate the design of the Palace guard. And I know GW just sculpt them as they look in the movie and it's no easy task making nice looking miniatures of these. The thing is that they don't look good with Eavy Metal team painting, I just imagine how it will it will look when we try to paint them. 

The rest of the Paint Splatter is better though, I especially like how Adam Troke's Dark Angel Defence Network is shown with little pictures with explanations under them instead of just the usual tutorials we get now, more of this please. 

This month in... Forge World. Nothing new to show us, and it just sucks that we only get 40k stuff all the time now, we want you back Warhammer Forge!

Conclusion

Now when I have written the review it's not just doom and gloom as I may have made it look like in the beginning of the article. But this issues biggest problem is all the different releases and nothing to focus on in my opinion. Some of you may see this as something positive and I normally do as well, but only if the more uninteresting parts for me still is worth to read. I didn't feel that was the case here, but that's just my humble opinion. 

Some nice painting as stuff is to be seen though and some articles is a good read as well, for any games though there's not much to gain from this issue.

Rating: 2 out of 5

Merry Christmas!

Just wanted to say Merry Christmas to all you wargaming fans out there, I did not get any minis this X-mas but I have plenty of miniatures to paint the coming year so that is perfectly okey :) Did get some nice video games though, Zelda: A Link Between Worlds for my 3DS, Assassins Creed 4 for PS4 and Super Mario 3D World for the Wii U. So a lot of gaming for me the coming days but I'm sure I will get something painted as well. Soon we have a new year and I don't know how I'm doing in the Painting Challenge?!

Have to sort out the last months soon so we all know how it went :)

So once again happy holidays from me and the Zombie Zanta.

WoC: Chariot of Tzeentch WIP

The Chariot of Tzeentch is almost finished so I figured I could post some WIP photos of how it looks so far. The actual chariot is pretty much finished so what is left is the crew and the base, hope fully these will be finished soon. One crew member is soon finished and the other one isn't even built yet.

Anyhow, quite liking how this is turning out (sorry for poor quality on the pics, I just took them fast) hopefully you do as well. 

Deadzone is here!

Yeah I got my long awaited package today full with plastic crack, and damn that was a lot of terrain and models. Have just went through everything in my order (this is only the first wave and I will get more goodies in the second one as well) and nothing was missing, good job there Mantic! This took a while but I can recommend using Update #125 and Update #124 on their KS page so you know what should get in this wave.

Great job Mantic and I'm looking forward putting these together (but not removing mold lines :/, will comment this in a review kind of posts later on).

A LOT of stuff

Miniature Monday: First Chaos Troll finished!

It's been a week since my last post!? Well sorry for that, been really busy with everything else being December and all. I have however been painting a little and now I have finally finished the first of my Chaos Trolls and that model always takes some time because I don't know how to exactly paint when I start.

Iv'e actually started on this one and Throgg even earlier and tried different colours, I knew I wanted them to be blue and somewhat similar to the Vortex Beast but I did not know how to paint the bellies (and underarms etc on Throgg) I tried with a purple grey colour at first but I didn't really like it so I tried this combination of 'The Fang', 'Russ Grey', 'Fenrisian Grey'  and some 'Ceramite White' as a final highlight. It worked better with the rest of the skin I think.

Anyhow, I decided to paint this guy up first and see how it looks. And except the vomit (in hindsight I don't really like how it looks on the model) I'm really happy with the result. There's not much converting, I made a "shoulder pad" with an old Chaos Warriors Shield and hanged a skull from it as well. Made some tentacle thingies on is shoulders as well and done. With the colour scheme I think he looks Chaotic enough, or what do you think?

C & C is as always very welcome. 

Miniature Monday: Greatswords Horde

I painting on infantry models for my Empire army and this time I've painted some more Greatswords, and these are the last of my fail(metal)cast models to be painted (badly cast models did exist prior to Finecast and I have whole batch of them). And that is really nice because the new models are so much more fun to paint up. I do need to purchase some more of them though because with the latest finished models this unit is now 26 men strong and I think I have bits for 4-5 goldswords more or so, and I want this unit to be 40 men strong when finished.

As you can see on the first pic here Iv'e also made a new Horde movement tray for them, it's still WIP but it's all magnetized. That's all for today, also planning on some kind of unit filler for these so if any of you have any suggestions for a Greatswords unitfiller in a Garden of Morr'sque setting please let me now.  

Warriors of Chaos: More Tzeentch followers!

As you may have read before I wanted to expand my unit of Tzeentch warriors from 18 to 24. And I'm almost there now, with four new warriors done and a new magnetized movement tray. Two of the new warriors uses some other bits than the standard ones, two heads from the awesome Forsaken kit and a weapon and shield from the Chaos Knights kit. Really liked how they turned out so they belong in the front row from now on.

Just need two more guys, and here I have already started. I will paint up two more Pink Horrors and use as a mini unitfiller together with the ones I already had in the unit. As always comments are very much welcome.

Want to know how I paint my Tzeentch warriors? Go and see my tutorial here.

The Empire: Halberdiers Detachment finished

Twenty more Halberdiers to the army, luckily I did not have to paint these up from scratch as they where quite nicely painted when I bought them. Also I really dig how it's kit bashed with old haldberds, Great Swords bodies and heads from different Empire kits (not a single head is the same in this unit), and even 40k Catachan heads. But I have done some quite extensive repainting, they where Stirland and is now a part of my Ostermark army instead.

I had to repaint the yellow parts of the uniform as well as It was a little sloppy in my opinion. The only thing I haven't done much to is the heads and hands, just some touch ups here and there. All in all I'm very happy with how they turned out and is a great addition to the army, will probably never upgrade this unit to a full 40-50 men unit as I need so many more Great Swords bodies, but a command group would not be impossible to give to them and up them to 25 men. But until then I consider them finished, hope you like them.

Comments and suggestions is always welcome, and sorry for my poor photographing skills on these. Sometimes it just doesn't work out.

Miniature Monday: Chaos Spawn

Finally I got around and painted up this old Chaos Spawn model I had. I don't know why I have waited so long really, despite it being almost done for quite some time I didn't like the look of it. Then I had a greenstuffed big eye and didn't use the mouth bursting out. So I decided to go with the classic look on this guy instead and now I'm glad I did. 

It's a nice model, nothing special but I kind of like and it's also the first Spawn model I owned many years ago. The paint job is doing what is it supposed to I think, nothing spectacular but I like how the blue goes to purple and then to red and on the other side from turquoise to green.

I have been busy painting a lot of other stuff as well and I will show the finished results in the coming week. I have 20 Halberdiers almost finished, four Tzeentch Warriors. And I have also started to paint up my Celestial Hurricanum for my Empire again, it will take a while before that is finished though as there's just so much stuff going on on that model. 

That's all for now, expect more very soon. 

Warriors of Chaos: Nurgle Warrior Unit finished!

Yay, at last I finished painting this unit. Well I will upgrade it into 24 men strong eventually but unit then this 18 men strong unit will do. I must say I'm quite pleased with how the unit turned out in the end, and in my mind they do look Nurgle enough despite having blue armour, or what do you think?

The last three I made, may do some more with the skellie. I quite like skellie heads in bulky Chaos armour.

The Empire: Halberdiers Detachment

Some time ago I bought some models up on Tradera (Swedish eBay) and among some quite nicely painted Halberdiers that was also really nicely converted using only Greatswords bodies and legs. All of them also have a unique head so no head is the same in this unit and I love those little details.

Anyhow, I didn't think I needed to repaint much as as I saw them on the pics they where already nicely painted and also in Stirland colours so I only really needed to change the green to purple. Well so I thought. It was much easier said than done, the models where nicely painted, especially the heads but the uniforms where not my cup of tea. The green I would change anyhow but the yellow where to heavy washed and with a to dark wash as well, so I needed to repaint that. Also the armour and weapons where a little sloppy so I tidied that up as well. I also changed the bases so it matches the rest of army. So the only thing I didn't need to repaint much was the faces which I just made some minor things with.

The unit I bought was twenty men so I will use it as a detachment I think, or mix into my bigger unit (40 men) if needs be. I'm almost done with all of them but here are the first five Iv'e finished, as always comments and suggestions are very welcome.

Review: White Dwarf Nov 2013

Okey what is going on with my WD  subscription? I got this issue two and half week late, so unfortunately when I finally received mine I already knew pretty much everything in it. Which of course makes it less interesting to read, I will try to not having this influence the review to much.

New Releases

We got a quite wide mix this time with the second wave Dark Elves, new special effects paints, a supplement to Warhammer Fantasy called Triumph and Treachery. We also get some new 40k publications, the digital Chaos Space Marine supplement for Black Legion, a collectors ed. Chaos collection (with all Chaos t codexes in it) they also show us a book with all the twelve previous 'Armies of Renown' articles found in the last years White Dwarfs. Nothing that really interests me really, I already got all of those articles in my WD but maybe for those who haven't and like Space Marines this can be interesting (there's mostly marines in there) 40k also get another Apocalypse War Zone expansion called Pandorax, sporting Black Legion against the Imperium with the Dark Angels chapter trying to save the day.

It's not much to say about these really, I'm not overly fond of the green background and lighting on the Dark Elves pictures, but there is also plenty of 'on the battlefield' shots as well so nut a huge problem. We get to see some quick tips on how to use the new special effects paint, and we later get to see some more in depth in the Paint Splatter section.

The same thing goes for Triumph and Treachery, we get a short explanation in the beginning which felt kinda of short, and it was hard to understand what it really is. But it continues in the Battle report this month and here's you info about how it works.

We also get some new Army deals or army upgrades may be a better word for it. It's just as it sounds, you get some unit together in a larger box and get some savings from it as well. They have nine pages showing the different deals here which is a little much in my opinion.

Army of the Month
We get to see Duncan Rhodes Son's of Horus which we have seen bits of quite a lot in the past. It's a really nice looking army, with a lot of ForgeWorld Heresy models of course. All in all it's a really nice army to look at but............it's Space Marines yet again.

Battle report
It was all about Triumph and Treachery this time and it made it an real interesting read. A lot is gooing on in the game with so many players and I felt it had been easier to follow if they wrote which army's turn it was instead of the name of the player, now I had to go back sometimes to see which player had what army. Also there could be bigger pictures of the battlefield and I actually miss the old arrows and markings on the movement of the armies. But other than that this was a good battle report.

Parade Ground
Showing some Armies on Parade from the Fang painting competitions. Some really nice armies in here. In the second Parade ground we see single models from the Design Studios Painting Challange, some truly amazing painting is to be found here.

Blanchitsu
It's back! But this is not the best one though, we see Neil Reed's gaming boards and models in true Blanche style. The second board called Yggdrassillium is really cool though.

Kit Bash
Showing us nice and easy kit bash conversions is nice and all that, but isn't Space Marines kit bashing done to death?

Paint Splatter
For us mere mortals we get some pretty basic tutorials on how to paint Dark Elves, Black Guard and Executioners. We also get more in depth on how to use the new Special Effects paints, and I must say it made me interested in trying at least some of them out for my self in the future.

Jeremy Vetock
His article caught my eye this time, and I actually normally find his articles more interesting than Jervis. Anyhow this is about what I'm doing on my blog, keep track of your army painting progress. An interesting read for me at least who record my painting progress for the same reasons.

This month in.. 
White Dwarf is doing Triumph and Threachery, painting Wh Fantasy models and go to Warhammer World. The Design Studio is about the new Dark Elves and we get an explanation for the one wheel DE chariot, I'm still no fan of that particular part though. At Forgeworld we see the Deimos Pattern Vindicator and Legion Assault Claw, both which we have seen before I believe. Black Library is about the latest HH book Unremembered Empire

Conclusion
Not an awesome issue, but it is more diverse than usual and it does have some quality content in there. Still missing any kind of fluff, or anything useful for gaming like new rules or anything. It's a shame that GW wants to put everything useful in the iBook store to be bought, when many of them would have been perfect additions to White Dwarf.

Rating: 3

Conversions Corner: Chaos Trolls

Can we turn Rat Ogres into Chaos Trolls? Do we need any conversions for O&G River Trolls or do they work as is as Chaos Trolls without? Well I have been trying to build up my unit of eleven Chaos Trolls and Throgg the Troll King. For this I'm using.

Finecast Throgg model (no need for conversions here)

Nine River Trolls (three boxes of three models)

Two Rat Ogres (from the Island of Blood set)

So far I have just built the Rat Ogres and made them into Chaos Trolls and built two of the River Trolls. The Rat Ogres do need some conversions of course, mainly I used two spare Troll heads from the River Trolls kit instead of the Rat Ogres heads. If you want you can pretty much stop here as they look quite nice and is really cheap as well. 

But you need to use some green stuff for the neck to make the new head fit nicely. And when I did that I went on and did some more greenstuffing on the back and under the heads. I then added some bits here and there, fins from the Troll kit, various tentacles from the Spawn kit. On one of them I did something unconventional as well and put little stones into the green stuff I had on the back. This was to add some texture to him as I'm by no means are any expert using green stuff, so this was a nice little short cut.

For the River Trolls you did not need any conversions at all really. But I wanted to something with them, even If I may not do something to all of them. They will be using two hand weapons so I changed one of them who was holding a two-handed weapon into two hand weapons instead. I just cut out the hands and into the weapon and filled with green stuff and added a weapon shaft from the Dragon Ogres kit. I will probably do something more to this model as well before I paint him up.

The next model I just did something small. Some greenstuff and an old Chaos Warrior shield to have it as some kind of shoulder pad. I also added a skull hanging from a chain and some spikes on his shoulder. 

I will of course build up more Trolls and do some more conversions so this unit will look both nice and unique. Also It's quite easy to do because of the models and the fact that you can explain the most strange conversions because of them being warped by Chaos. Really looking forward buidling more models up for this unit and painting the existing ones as well.