Finally, 6th Edition! First Thoughts.

So at long last my Gamer's Edition has arrived. I've finished reading through the rules and they look really solid so far - quite a few rules have been shaken up, but that's to be expected. I think this'll help greatly to get rid of some of the mech stagnation that 5th fell into.

The other thing I like about the rulebook is the VERY extensive background and hobby sections - the rules are only about 1/6 of the book. In the back there are some neat alternate missions, campaign and terrain ideas which are reminiscent of the 4th Edition book - something I found distinctly lacking in the 5th edition one.

The Munitorum Dice are not extra special, but the las-pack they come in is nifty - I'll probably try and snag the Vehicle Damage Dice and Battlefield Objectives when they come out, keep the red Munitorum dice for markers and such. Might refill one of the las-packs with my brass-pipped Chessex dice (because the Gamer's Ed satchel has handy pockets for the las-packs).

Now the only things I've left to do are keep hammering away at getting my Marines painted, and get some games in! With the power weapon changes, might bring the Terminators back off the shelf... and get the Space Hulk ones painted up to augment my First Company detachment.

Weekend Workbench - 20 May

Quick post here this weekend, so I can get back to painting Space Marines. Been a bit skint with the photography of late, but that's due to the in-progress Drop Pods currently inhabiting my photoshoot area (a piece of paper taped to my back wall). My laptop's been temporarily evicted from the workbench for now, to make space for the 1000 point army I'm painting up to take to a tournament next Saturday. Currently I have 8 Tactical Marines, a Drop Pod, a Dreadnought, and a Chaplain finished, 9 Tactical Marines and 1 Assault Marine awaiting details and basing, and 3 Tactical Marines, 9 Assault Marines, and 2 Drop Pods in various stages of PIP.

Weekend Workbench - 13 May

Three words: Drop Pod Assault.

I also built four Honour Guard, five Assault Marines, and a power-armoured Librarian this week - the Assault Marines are visible on the palette in the foreground, and I'll get detail pics of all of those projects up soon. For now, though, my workspace is transitioning into painting-mode! I've entered a tourney at my "local" GW on May 26, so I need to paint up those Assault Marines, those two Drop Pods, and do some finishing touches on my Tactical squads. When I get tired of painting blue-grey Power Armour, I'll take a break and paint some Inquisitorial Henchmen.

Weekend Workbench - 6 May - Special Outdoor Edition

Today was an exquisitely nice day outside, so I dragged myself out into the backyard and got some priming done. The Inquisitorial warband, 2 Sternguard, a missile marine, and a Veteran with Thunder Hammer for my Command Squad - as well as 2 drop pods and a Rhino still on-sprue.

Here's a shot of the backyard, painting backdrop all set up on the left, minis laid out to dry on the bench, and pretty pink petals from the crabapple tree everywhere. On a slight tangent, priming grey plastic minis grey gets kind of frustrating.

Here's my workbench this weekend - freshly primed stack sitting on my stool, and barely visible on the cutting plank are two MkIII Iron-armoured Sternguard Veterans in progress. Going to finish up a couple more minis then clear off the bench for some painting. Until next time!

Weekend Workbench - 29 April

Inspired by Ron over at From The Warp, and to help myself keep up a good flow of content on my own blog, I've decided to do a snapshot of my workbench area every weekend - leaving enough flexibility to work around my schedule. Here's the first one:

Nothing much going on yet, as I've just got back from school. I spent the weekend unboxing my Space Marines and laying out all my tools and brushes again. First on the chopping block are a couple of miscellaneous Marines in mkVI armour - one will be equipped with a missile launcher and I'm not sure what I'm doing with the second.

Update and Rebranding!

Hello readers,

Just a quick heads-up to inform everyone of a slight change - Magnet Addict is now Stormcrow Hobbies. I'm still writing, converting and painting all of the stuff on here, the only thing that's changed is the name and URL.

In future news, I've decided to halt purchases (except of paint and hobby supplies) in the short term and tackle the mountain of unpainted additions to my Space Marine army over the summer, once I'm done with my second year of uni. Slated projects include another Tactical Squad, filling out my five-man Assault Squad, two more Drop Pods and a variety of First Company Veterans.

I'm excited to try out the new Citadel paints, and am going to attempt to post weekly updates/thoughts once I'm back in the swing of things.

RESURGAM

The new Necron Codex comes out tomorrow. As my first army, the 'crons hold a special place in my gamer heart... so, I've decided to set about giving them a nice reboot to go with the new rules. New colour scheme, and probably a couple of shiny new units to go with them.

Step 1: picking up the new Codex at the Kingston Gaming Nexus tomorrow!
Step 2: do some colour scheme proofs in my sketchbook, in preparation for repainting old minis as tests over the Christmas holidays.

The Return

Coming back to this blog after over a year away... mainly due to spending the fall, winter, and spring in Europe for my first year of uni.

Anyway, I find myself back at home in Canada for the foreseeable future, and getting right back into the hobby swing of things.

A bit of thinking and looking at my collection have prompted the following thoughts:

• I'm through with building armies around army lists. I want to collect and paint models I want to collect and paint and maybe even play with.


• My Space Marines will be my main gaming army. That means my other armies (Imperial Guard, Necrons, Eldar) are more free to focus on theme and showiness, and less on game legality.

Currently I am about to dive into a wave of plastic power armour, utilising the new Grey Knight plastics to bolster the Revilers' Librarium and First Company, as well as assembling the MkIII Marines I bought in England at Warhammer World. Also two more drop pods!

My other main hobby project at the moment is a set of Inquisitorial Henchmen, attached Inquisitor, and Rhino transport for my friend Jeff who recently started Grey Knights.

In the further future (all the grim darkness of it) I plan to pick up some Dark Eldar models because they're bloody amazing. But that will wait until a little while later, probably.

Watch this space for imminent pics of my current works in progress, taken with my slick (and thoroughly field tested) DSLR camera.

And trust me, there will be magnets. Oh, there will be.

Guardsmen and Veterans

Got around to some kitbashing today. Here are the results:

First up are the plasmagunner and Sergeant for the first squad of my outflanking infantry platoon. The plasmagunner uses legs and a head from the Catachan command sprue, a Cadian torso, and the plasma gun from the Forge World Renegade weapon sprue. The Sergeant uses Catachan legs, torso and head from the Empire Militia sprue, and arms from the Cadian and Catachan command sprues.

Next up I have the first two members of my premier Veteran squad. On the left in the first picture is Corporal "Moose" Picard, who is based off the classic Cadian Lieutenant, with a head from the Empire General and a plastic Necromunda shotgun. He'll receive a greenstuff toque later; I didn't feel like breaking out the sculpting tools today. On the right is Private "Probie" Ternay, created by sawing Hero from the Last Chancers in half, sticking on a pair of Cadian legs and a Space Marine Scout shotgun in place of a lasgun.

Finally, a parting shot of the tray that I am slowly assembling and shuffling the completed Guardsmen around on. If you can make out the scribbling on the paper, it's a record of which models I still need to build. I've got a ways to go.

Squeaky Clean and Ready To Build

Just finished thoroughly washing my pile of Forge World conversion pieces. Two sets of Cadian Veteran bitz, a Cadian Upgrade Pack, a Renegade Weapon pack and a Thunderbolt Pilot now join the bitz pile (well, not the Thunderbolt Pilot - he's fine just on his own).

Off to build up a few more guardsmen! Pictures later/on the morrow.

The Sound Of Booted Feet

Well, I'm still here.

An excellent ski season and a particularly hectic period at school are drawing to a close, and the men and women of the 157th Aeshaettar Light Infantry are beginning to line up on my workbench. With excess Guardsmen drafted from my Vigilanti army, as well as more OOP Guardsmen bought on eBay, I've got a good foundation going - now I can lay into the massive pile of sprues and Forge World bitz bags I've assembled for the sole purpose of constructing my 1500 point all-infantry Imperial Guard army.

So, once I've settled back into a routine of free weekends... time to crack open a fresh bottle of plastic glue.

Four Days To Go - Painting Update

Four days until the Planetstrike throwdown! My paintbrushes have been working hard overtime (between hobby and school!) and progress is coming along nicely. Currently on the bench are four Space Hulk termies, which will join my 6 AoBR termies, and my Librarian converted from the AoBR Captain.

Attacker
Librarian - Primed
Venerable Dreadnought – Painted - Needs Detailing
Drop Pod – Painted
Terminator Squad – 6 Painted, 4 Unpainted
Tactical Squad – Painted - Needs Detailing
Tactical Squad – Painted - Needs Detailing

Defender
Librarian – Partially Painted
Sternguard Veteran Squad – 6 Painted, 1 Partially Painted, 3 Unpainted
Tactical Squad – Painted - Needs Detailing
Scout Squad – Painted
Devastator Squad (Missile Launchers)– Painted - Needs Detailing
Devastator Squad (Lascannons)– Painted - Needs Detailing

I'll post pics of my finished units/armies (!) when I find the time. Life is hectic and jam-packed with stuff to do at the moment.

Quick Painting Update

Got some good painting done today. Will post pictures tomorrow-ish, but for now, here's what the army painting progress looks like.

Attacker
Librarian - Unassembled, Unpainted
Venerable Dreadnought – Mostly Painted - Needs Detailing
Drop Pod – Fully Painted
Terminator Squad – 6 Fully Painted, 4 Unpainted
Tactical Squad – Mostly Painted - Needs Detailing
Tactical Squad – Mostly Painted - Needs Detailing

Defender
Librarian – Partially Painted
Sternguard Veteran Squad – 6 Fully Painted, 1 Partially Painted, 3 Unpainted
Tactical Squad – Partially Painted
Scout Squad – Painted - Need Magnets for Bases
Devastator Squad (Missile Launchers)– Mostly Painted - Needs Detailing
Devastator Squad (Lascannons)– Primed - Unpainted

I'm going to try and get my Termie Librarian primed tomorrow or the day after, while it's still nice out. Pics of the missile Devastators and the Drop Pod are forthcoming... along with whatever else I get done between now and then. Next in line is the Tactical Squad from the Defender list, a mongrel crew headed up by Sergeant Koros. After that, I'll revisit Valdis and Dymius' Tactical squads, and Ancient Gaheris.

Magnetizing Space Hulk Termies - and some changes...

Howdy, folks, I'm back... in the midst of a busy grade 12 year, I've once again found time to devote to my beloved hobby. First off - a few changes 'round the blog. Having noticed that my hobby adventures have a tendency to turn magnetic, I've renamed the blog Magnet Addict - because I do love me some magnets. Preferably the rare-earth kind. I've also gotten bored of the rather plain "The Workbench". The blog can now be reached at http://magnetaddict.blogspot.com. And now, to the post! More fun with magnets - and Space Hulk Terminators!

So, a friend of mine and I split the Space Hulk box back in September when it was released - I got the Termies, and am currently holding on to the floor tiles and counters, he got the Genestealers. Now, I was just as excited at the prospect of including these beautiful Terminators in my Revilers army - so I promptly filed off all the obvious Blood Angels insignia. This, however, left me with the problem of basing. Simply gluing them to 40mm bases wouldn't do, because then they wouldn't fit next to each other on the Space Hulk board. My solution was to take two small rare earth magnets and put one in the terminator, and one in a blank 40mm base - like so.



This allows me to have them legally based for 40k, as well as maintaining the ease of movement for Space Hulk. The magnets fit flush to each other, and hold on well enough to stand up to the rigours of tabletop play.



That's one down - now I have the other eleven to base, and paint. They'll join the rest of my Revilers on the painting table. I hope to get most (if not all!) of them finished for the 28-29 of November, when my local(ish) GW is running a 500+ point escalation tournament, and a 1250 pt Planetstrike tourney - with a Fortress of Redemption up for grabs! So, back to painting - Tactical marines, Devastators, and a Termie Librarian... or two...

Until next time.

A Very Convenient Box

Went paintballing with some friends today. Needless to say, it was great. And guess what? The bags of paintballs come in these great cardboard boxes.

At first I was just going to hang on to a couple because a) they're cool, b) I like boxes, and c) I need a couple of boxes to store some stuff anyway. But one I got home, it hit me. The boxes are the perfect size for holding...

...drop pods. Yes, drop pods. So when I am finally able to field an entirely drop pod-mounted Space Marine army, I will have space to safely and (relatively) easily transport twelve whole drop pods!

Now, all I have to do is acquire eleven more drop pods!

Quick Update - Brother Behemiel PIP

The annual Artificer Cup painting comp at the Toronto Bunker is tomorrow, and I'm currently tidying up my entries. First up is Brother Behemiel, my all-plastic Chaplain with jump pack... he's pretty much done, I just have to highlight the pack and do a few more highlights on his ribbons & purity seals. Pics aren't great... I'll take some better ones (as well as some pics of the Deffkopta I'm entering) tomorrow after the competition.

Plastic Reinforcements

In preparation for the (hopefully) imminent arrival of my many, many Imperial Guard bitz, I dug through the current pile of Space Marine sprues occupying my workspace to see what could be done with them. After a solid three days of clipping, gluing, and converting, I've managed to bolster the ranks of the Revilers 3rd Company with the following:


First up, three sergeants... the guy on the left (who's yet to be named) will lead Squad IX, a rocket-launcher armed Devastator squad. The one in the middle, Segomaros, is the leader of Squad II, a flamer/heavy bolter armed Tactical squad. The third sergeant is Osmium, recently retasked as leader of an auxiliary contingent of 9th Company Devastators armed with plasma cannons.


Some extra weapons for various squads in the army. From right to left, the flamer marine from the AoBR box, with some arm repositioning; the heavy bolter for Squad II, the multimelta for squad III, the multimelta for squad I, and a spare heavy bolter for when I face armies like Orks.

These two chaps will fill out my Sternguard Veteran squad, making it an even ten. The guy on the left has pulled out a silenced bolt pistol while he reloads his bolter (I trimmed the clip off), and the guy on the right has some extra shiny bits on his shoulderpad, made from a High Elf shield icon. He's headless because I am waiting for some of the Mk3-esque Crusader heads from the Black Templar Sprue to come in the mail.



Front and back of the first combat squad of Squad IV, a tactical squad armed with a meltagun and multimelta. The Sergeant is armed with a power weapon and meltabombs. He also uses a filed-down Chaos Space Marine helmet, for a bit of variety. Also of note is the marine in Mk6 armour next to him, blasting away with two bolt pistols.


The second half of Squad IV, all armed with bolters, and some awaiting heads.

Squad V, unofficially designated "Death Squad" for the moment; a 5-man combat squad led by a Sergeant with powerfist and storm bolter.

And, last but certainly not least...

Front, back, and side of Brother-Reclusiarch Gavin Behemiel, the Chaplain for my army. Kitbashed entirely from plastic, making use of Tactical legs and torso, a Chaos Space Marine head that looks suitably skull-like, Assault Marine pistol and power axe arms (the axe was converted into a crozius with a bit off of some scenery and an old Chaos Warrior skull), a cloth with some bones stuck in it from the Kroot Carnivore sprue, and various purity seals and bling. Once finished and painted, he'll get a jump pack.

A close-up of the crozius.

Well, that's all for now... as of this writing, I've got all the aforementioned models primed, and now get to sit down for some quality time with my brushes! My hope is to get all my Revilers fully or at least mostly painted before I start serious assembly and conversion work on my Imperial Guard.

Landspeeder Magnetized & Assembled

Finally got my Landspeeder all magnetized and put together... most often, I plan to field it as a Typhoon, but for flexibility (and because I love magnets) I decided to magnetize the Typhoon launchers and the Tornado-mount assault cannon.





In these two pics you can see the magnets in the access-flappies (for the Typhoon launchers) and a smaller magnet in the front "compartment" for the Tornado mount. The third picture shows the metal pins I put into the Typhoon launchers to make them stick to the magnets behind the access hatches. Also note the purple stripes on the crew's helmets; different than the red stripes normally sported by my Marines, because these chaps are Tactical Reserves from the 7th Company, who normally take to the field in Landspeeders to provide light vehicle support for the Chapter's Battle Companies.



The fully assembled speeder with all its options laid out in front of it. I decided not to magnetize the heavy bolter as my army has pretty adequate anti-tank provided by other units; so I felt the multimelta wasn't necessary.



Here it is as a Tornado with underslung assault cannon.



Here, as a Typhoon with the eponymous missile launchers.



To prove that it's the same model, all the options stuck on at once.
That's all for now, upcoming are pics of my all-plastic scratchbuilt Chaplain, as well as my second painted tactical squad and my scouts with fedoras.

Yes, I said fedoras.

New Flamers for the Vigilanti

So I was recently reviewing the ranks of the 219th Vigilanti Honour Guard (the fully painted mongrel Imperial Guard army I picked up secondhand from a family friend) and organizing them into a codex-legal army in their own right. End result, I need to build 4 sergeants for the infantry squads, a full command squad to lead the 2nd platoon, and a standard bearer and medic for Capt. Tellap's company command squad.

I also noticed the classic flamers that two of the special weapon troopers in the infantry squads were armed with. While I do bear a hefty amount of respect for classic models (especially the metal Cadians), I'm not a fan of the old-style flamers and they had to go. Don't worry though, I kept one un-converted for archival purposes.



This shot shows the archival trooper on the left, and on the right, the flame-trooper prepped for conversion; I've trimmed and filed away the conical flamer nozzle, and cut the nozzle and pipes off of a plasic Catachan flamer.



As this pic shows, it's pretty much a perfect fit!



All that was left to do was drill holes in the larger pipe and the main bit of the flamer, and pin them together. The pic above is the finished flame-trooper. Job's a good'un! I have one more of these guys to do, and many Revilers still to paint, so pics of those are upcoming. In other news, I'm still waiting on a bitz shipment from Nebraska, so work on the supplementary Vigilanti and the entirety of the 524th Aeshaettar is on hold until then.

Heavy Weapon Team Bases - Step by Step

With the advent of the new Imperial Guard codex, Heavy Weapon teams are now a single two-wound model mounted on a 60mm round base. Since the standard giant tripod-mounted heavy weapons don't really fit in with the "light infantry" theme of my 157th Aeshaettar, I plan to convert man-portable versions from Space Marine Devastator heavy weapons. This means that my gunners and loaders can both be mounted on 25mm bases for ease of storage and transport. But how, then, would I mount them on a 60mm base to make them codex-legal?
Using this:




It's an Infantry movement tray for War of the Ring... with conveniently shaped depressions for infantry based on 25mm bases. Since I only need 2 models to fit on each base, I cut the movement tray into conveniently sized sections. Like so:






I then trimmed it to fit within the perimeter of a 60mm round base, and cut a corresponding hole in the base.






The section of movement tray was then glued into the middle. I'll fill any unsightly gaps with greenstuff later.



A view from the side... it's perfectly flat, so my support troopers will stand at the same height as my other Guardsmen.



And finally, for illustrative purposes, two of my Revilers pretending to be a Heavy Weapons team. This shows how the models fit into the tray, allowing me to remove them for transport or remove the loader to track wounds.



Now I just have to make 14 more.