A Bit of Photography

I was gaming this past Saturday with a local club I joined and one of the members decided to bring along his DSLR camera and snap some photos.  Since I’ve been lacking on actual hobby updates I figured I’d share the above photo, which in my opinion is quite fantastic.

Thanks goes out to Jordan G. for this great photo of a lone marine holding The Temple of Skulls from the vile forces of Chaos.

And another of my Predator tank stalking a Daemon Price of Chaos.  Just in case you’re wondering how the battle ended, the setup was Seize Ground (5 objective) with a Spearhead deployment.  The went five turns…  Final results: Space Marines - 1, Chaos Space Marines - 0.  Glory be to the Emperor!

Thanks for stopping.  Cheers!

Assault Tactica – Space Marine Captain

I’ve never posted anything about tactics before, but I’ve been mulling over how to load out my Space Marine captain and with GW’s recent post on their What’s New Today blog, I thought I’d share my thoughts and get some feedback.

The current load out I have is: Storm Bolter, Relic Blade and Artificer Armour.

The captains role as I see it, is to be an assault unit and one to be noticed no doubt.  Further more, as an Independent Character he can join other units to aid them with things such as Leadership and/or boost their effectiveness in assault.  For these reasons and after much deliberation, this is the best point for point load out I came up with and here’s why…

Storm Bolter – This was chosen over a boltgun or combi-weapon simply because a rapid fire weapon is useless in an assault unit.  A boltpistol is perfectly fine, but for 3 points you gain an additional S4 shot, can shoot up to 24” and are able to assault after using it.  The Storm Bolter was also chosen because of my next option which renders any pistol as an assault weapon useless.

Relic Blade – Yea, I know, it’s damn expensive and you’re probably thinking, Why not take a Power Fist, it’s cheaper and doubles your strength?  And you’d be absolutely right, however using a Power Fist negates that nice I5.  With a Relic Blade, I’m still increasing my S to 6, still negating armour saves, still have the same draw back of loosing +1A, but… I get to keep my I5.  With an Independent Character that can be singled out during combat as well as fall to Instant Death, striking first can mean everything.  The Relic Blade was also chosen over the other options because of that increase to S6.  Let’s face it, S4 doesn’t cut it most of the time if you’re facing-off with another Independent Character or Monstrous Creature.

Artificer Armour – Point for point this is much better than Terminator armour and obviously better than Power Armour.  It’s not a necessety, but I like to protect my investments if you catch what I mean.  Opting for Terminator armour gets you a Storm Bolter, Power Weapon and a 2+ save for 40 points.  Artificer Armour plus the cost of the Storm Bolter and Relic Blade above comes to 48 points.  So for 8 points, you get a better close combat weapon and keep your abilities to ride in a Rhino/Razorback as well as do a Sweeping Advance.  What about teleporting in?  Whose to say he’ll arrive when and where you need him.

Comments welcome and as always, thanks for stopping by.  Cheers!

 

Back In The Saddle

It’s been awhile, but now that the thunderstorm looming over my head is finally gone I can get some hobby done and some blog posts up.  If you’re wondering where I’ve been… I’ve been dealing with a preverbal shit-storm of bad fortune.

To sum it up as quickly as I can… Both the wife piece and myself wrecked both of our cars two weeks apart, no one was injured.  She needed to buy a new vehicle because hers was deemed totaled. I then bought a new one because I wanted to.  Thanksgiving came and went, much travelling was done.  After the holidays the wife piece and I both became ill.  Thankfully none of that H1N1 crap going around.  A month later we’re well and I’m back in the saddle and ready to go.

I just finished up my one set of Urban Barricades after leaving them only primed for months.  I kept them simple, but made sure to do enough that they wouldn’t be bland.  Each piece was first primed black and then given a base coat of Chardon Granite by means of heavy over brushing.

The door in this barricade was first painted with Camo Green and then given a liberal coating of Devlan Mud.  The rusty grate was done using the technique described in this months White Dwarf.  (Painting The Coach Inn p.86)  I started with with a base coat of Dark Flesh, then stippled on some Bestial Brown followed by a tiny bit of Blazing Orange.  I have to admit the new GW Stippling Brush was the VIP here.  I’ve used old worn out, cut off brushes to stipple before, but the new GW brush is designed for the technique and really does do a better job.

On this barricade you can see the lite dry brushing of Graveyard Earth around the very bottom to give the effect of dust and dirt being kicked up onto the wall.

  The gold on this was done very simply by dry brushing on Shinning Gold followed by a highlight of Chainmail and washed with Devlan Mud.

Take note to the fallen statue in front.  To make this barricade have bit more personality I focused on making the statue a lighter color.  I started with a base coat of Dessert Yellow followed by a highlight of Bleached Bone and then finished it by painting a small amount of Devlan Mud into the deepest recesses.

Here’s another example of the rust technique.  This one would have been pretty boring without some additional contrasting colors in the mix.

Lastly the wrecked bike.  The gold is done exactly as described above, but the body of the bike started with a base of Modian Blue, washed with Badab Black and then highlighted with Mordian Blue.

That’s all for now.  Thanks for stopping.  Cheers!

New Army Sheet, The Best One Yet

First I want to thank everyone who has downloaded my other army sheets and also thank those who gave feedback on them.  I’ve listened to your comments and emails and have revised my most popular army sheet to give it what the community has asked for.

What has changed?  There are now four HQ rows for all you Space Wolves players and with the Imperial Guard now being able to field more tanks than ever before, I upped the vehicle section to nine rows.  Additionally some non Imperial players wanted a sheet that was a little more Xenos friendly.  So I changed the background to the most neutral Warhammer 40,000 image I could think of… The 5th Edition Rulebook cover.

This sheet still has all of the great features of the previous one: Automatic text sizing,  fully sequential form fields, automatic points totaling, files savable using Adobe Reader and all on an intuitive and dare I say attractive layout.

Follow the jump to download my newest army sheet…

- Army Sheet Download -

You can see all of my other army sheets and downloads by clicking… here.

Enjoy and thanks for stopping.  Cheers!

Imperial Bastion Stage-by-Stage

Great looking Imperial Bastions in just four easy steps…

I picked up the Imperial Strongpoint the other day and was so excited I jumped right into it. I have to say that this set is amazing, both the bastions and the defense lines. You get tons of stuff and the detail on all of the pieces is incredible.

Step 1: After assembly and priming the bastion Chaos Black I used the Citadel spray gun to spray the entire bastion Catachan Green.

Step 2: Once dry I used the Large Flat Drybrush and went over the entire bastion with Camo Green. TIP: In this step when drybrushing the bastion make sure to get almost all of the paint off the bristles and use a circular motion to drybrush. Using a circular motion will eliminate streaks and really brings out the detail.

Step 3: Again, using my Large Flat Drybrush I picked out only the most prominent features of the bastion with Rotting Flesh.

Step 4: This last stage is two parts. I used my Large Drybrush (not the Large Flat Drybrush) to bring out the detail on the Heavy Bolter’s, as well as some of the other metal bits, with Boltgun Metal. Lastly I stippled some Chaos Black into the battle scars and called it finished.

I hope this little tutorial helps you get those bastions painted up and ready for games of Planetstrike. Comments and constructive criticism welcome as always. Thanks for stopping by and reading. Cheers!

Another Year Older, Another Year Wiser

Today celebrates the one year birthday of Pit of the Oni.  I can’t believe it’s already been a year.  To celebrate Pit of the Oni turning one year old, I’ve decided to hold a friendly painting competition.  What’s in it for you?  How about a $50.00 Games Workshop gift certificate!

That’s right, $50.00, you didn’t read it wrong, I really mean $50.00 to spend on anything you want from the Games Workshop online store.  What do you have to do?  Here’s the details…

Paint any single special character from any Warhammer 40,000 race better than the competition then get everyone you know to vote for you and WIN!

Submit to me via email: Your name, your website if you have one and the special character you’re going to be submitting.  I will be accepting entries up until July 6th, after that all entries will be turned away.  I will then post all entrants and the character chosen to be submited to the contest.  After one (1) week all entrants will be required to submit a photo of their progress which in tern will be posted.  After one (1) more week all entrants will need to submit their final photo of their model and voting will commence.  Finally after one (1) last week of voting a victor will be determined.

That’s a week to get your entry in, two weeks to get you entry painted and then a week of voting.  I will reply to emails to verify entry, if you have any questions please email me.  My email address can be found in my blogger profile, but here it is just in case: cmontis@gmail.com

Entry deadline = July 6th | Progress photo submission = July 13th | Final Submission and Voting beings July 20th | Winner Announced July 27th

This competition is on the honor system so please don’t submit photos of already painted models.  I encourage everyone to enter and best of luck to you all.

They Just Keep Getting Better and Better

- Download Large Roster Sheet -

I think you guys are really going to like this one.  It’s a two page roster sheet large enough to fit the full Force Organization Chart plus space to fit six walkers, six vehicles and loads of weapons.  IT GETS BETTER… as I have fixed all the bugs of past roster sheets – No more tabbing to the next box and ending up 3 lines down.  BETTER STILL… the form allows for self fitting text – If there’s not enough room in the box just keep typing and the text will automatically resize itself to fit instead of scrolling to the right.  Plus the second page has a Total Points box that will automatically add up your entries, saving you the hassle of figuring out what your points are at once everything is filled in.

Please let me know what you think and if you have any comments on how I can make it better.  Duplex color  laser printing really makes this Roster Sheet shine, but it is not necessary.  Thank you stopping by.

- See and get other roster sheets here -

Realm of Battle Gameboard - Final!

Cue the music from Rocky and crack open the beers, my RoBG is complete. In this final stage I finished up all of the skull pits by doing an overbrush of Bleached Bone followed by a Badab Black wash and lastly a very light dry brushing of Skull White. I then laid down some of the scorched static grass from the GW scenery pack in small patches to try and compliment some of the existing terrain features.

Now all the board is lacking is some scenery; which will be remedied soon enough as you can see in the picture below as well as see what projects are to come.

New and Improved Roster Sheet

- Download the New Army Roster -

OK everyone, I have a real treat for you today. I decided to give the old Army Roster a face lift along with some much needed improvements. In this revision I added a place for walkers, increased the space for 'weapon type' and removed the 'points' column under weapons. I also made it an editable PDF Form so you can type in all your stuff before you print it out. I did have to make some sacrifices to fit in the new walker section, but I don't think it's anything that will be missed... mainly I took out some weapons lines. Please feel free to give me suggestions on improving it. Enjoy!

Update: The issue of not being able to save the file using Adobe Reader has been resolved.

- See and get other roster sheets here -

Realm of Battle Gameboard - Stage Three

I'm heading down the home stretch getting ready to cross the finish line.

In this stage I drybrushed Fortress Grey onto all of the rocks and cliffs, but only on the edges and on the top, leaving the edge up against the brown darker. Using the 2" brush from the scenery painting pack I proceeded to drybrush the entire table less the rocks and cliffs Ochre until my back hurt. Seriously! Once finished I went back with a large flat dry brush and did some further highlighting around the rocky areas and skull pits. I then overbrushed Bleached Bone on all of the skulls and followed it up with a wash of Badab Black.

What's left? Well... I'm going to give the skull pits one last highlight and then lay down some patches of the scorched static grass from the scenery painting pack. The excitement is killing me... and so is my back so I'm gonna go lay down. Cheers!

Realm of Battle Gameboard - Stage Two

Almost there! The second stage of my RoBG is complete. I must say, this thing takes a load of work. I never thought I'd have to put so much into it, but no matter, it will all be worth my efforts in the end.

In this stage I did a heavy over brushing of Codex Grey on all of the rocky parts and payed close attention to the flatter more rock like rocks... if that even makes sense. The tile in the bottom middle and the features like it to the right and left of it are what I'm referring to. Anyway... After over brushing the rocks I then went back with the Brown paint found in the Citadel Scenery Painting Pack and went around the edges of the rocks to cover up where the grey had gone just a bit too far.

I Got Mail!

Yeah! My order from Gail Force Nine was waiting for me when I got home from work. As you can plainly see what I got in the picture to the left, I won't bother telling you.

First let me say that I am thoroughly impressed at the quality of these products. They exceeded my expectations ten fold, even the packaging is nice.

The dice are a little bigger than what I expected, but no matter they're quite awesome. The six is replaced by a skull to make them extra killy - though my girlfriend of all people pointed out that the skull doesn't make sense for saving throws. I'm so proud of her. The T.A.C. Template is just freekin' sweet in every regard. Now that I own one I can see why every 40K player should have one. Lastly, the fire markers - I bought these because they make the Vehicle Destroyed result more 'cinematic' and I like that.

My conclusion is that GF9 is awesome and will most definitely be purchasing more product from them.

Fully Customizable Force Organization Chart

Do you make your own missions and scenarios? If you do then you should have a look at my fully customizable Force Organization Chart. The chart was done in MS Visio 2007 and does require Visio to fully take advantage of the customization, but I've also made a small pack of pre made FOC's that you can download as well. The Story: I was sitting at my computer last night after scheduling a game with a friend, (who just jumped back into the hobby) making up a list that would be appropriate for a small 500 pts. game. Not that it really matters, but I wanted to make up a customized FOC just for the fun of it. I did and it turned out even better then I imagined so now I'm sharing it with everyone.

- Download Warhammer 40,000 FOC - Visio File -

- Download Warhammer 40,000 FOC Pack - Premade FOC's -

Update: I have ported the chart over to MS Publisher (.pub) for those that may not have MS Visio.

- Download Warhammer 40,000 FOC - Publisher File -

Realm of Battle Gameboard - Stage One

It's a new year and I'm kicking it off by getting things going on my Realm of Battle Gameboard. In this stage I first sprayed the rocky areas and skull pits using Chaos Black spray primer. Using the brown paint and the two inch brush from the GW Scenery Painting Pack I then painted all of the flat areas and stippled the paint around the rocky outcrops and skull pits. This stippling effect will help in adding depth around the rocks and pits so it's not just a straight border of colour. In this stage it's very important that I get a healthy amount of paint onto the gameboard as there's a good deal of detail that needs covered, plus a good base coat will help to hide any of the grey plastic that might try to sneak through thin areas of paint. In the next stage I'll be completing the rocks and skull pits so keep an eye out for Stage Two.

Warhammer 40,000 Large Army Roster

- Download Army Roster -

Ok everyone, I've worked really hard on this one. Well... not really, but if you think I did so much the better. This time around I have for you a complete Army Roster. This thing is seven pages long, divided up by HQ, Troops, Elites, Fast Attack and Heavy Support. One of the nicest things about this one is that the PDF is a 'form' so that you can type in all your stats and information before you print it out. Fancy isn't it? That one's for all you people out there that write like chicken scratch. Now keep in mind this is a first draft. I need feedback to make it better. If you want to see something changed like have more fields or a different background, leave a comment. In the meantime, enjoy!

- See and get other roster sheets here -

Warhammer 40,000 Roster Sheet

- Download Roster Sheet -

So after making the 5E Combat Patrol PDF I thought "How nice would it be to have a roster sheet." So after a brief scouring of the intarwebs the only one I found was the ugly pile of rubbish offered by GW. Seriously GW... That thing is ugly. You can do way better! Anyway... I decided to make my own. I hope you enjoy.

- See and get other roster sheets here -

Combat Patrol - Updated for 5th Edition

- Download Combat Patrol -

If you love Combat Patrol as much as I do than this is exactly what you've been waiting for. If you're not familiar with Combat Patrol let me give you a short run down. Combat Patrol, also known as 40K in 40 Minutes and Patrol Clash was originally the creation of one Tim Eagling published in White Dwarf #274. It was later published in the 4th edition Warhammer 40,000 rulebook where it took on the name of Combat Patrol. The Combat Patrol 'guide lines' make it possible to play fast games of 40K when time is a restriction. Recently, with the release of the 5th edition Warhammer 40,000 rulebook, Games Workshop for one reason or another decided to exclude Combat Patrol. I've taken it upon myself to create this small PDF with very minor revisions to bring Combat Patrol in to the realm of 5th edition 40K. I hope you enjoy.