Dark Elves??? Really???

Yeah.... really...

So after collecting and painting something close to 15K points worth of Dwarfs I've decided to do something different. Dark Elves.

So a small group of friends are doing an Escalation league to get our armies assembled and painted for the Indy GT circuit. It should take about 6 months to do and by the time we're done we should have atleast 12 games under our belts to get to know the rules.

Now I need to expand on my theme. My original theme was to do a Beastmaster army, but I wasn't sure how the "world" would look at my Monster heavy list and go "hey that's cool" or "hey that's cheesy". I was looking at a dragon, manticore, 2 hydras and some harpies. Of course I'd include spearmen and such for core.

My second thought is Cold One Knight heavy. They can be the Knights of Karond Kar... or KKK for short ;) heh... yeah need to come up with something better then that ;), but it puts all my heroes and lords on Cold Ones instead of Monsters.

Thoughts?

Astronomi-con Dallas 2010

We've been given a huge opportunity with one of the best 40K Indy GTs to date. I'm sure most of you have heard of Astronomi-con, but you might not of heard they are braving the hot Texas heat and coming to Dallas on June 19th. This is a great chance for those without passports or even with to stay stateside and play in what has been claimed to be THE BEST 40K experience in the hobby. Phil Kelly says so. Gav Thorpe says so. Pete Haines says so. Jervis Johnson says so.

And to entice you further here are some of the trophies available:

Here are a couple shots of the Trophy turned on and off:

So stop by Astronomi-con and sign up. Check out The Gamers Realm for more information on local happenings leading up to Astro-Dallas.

My Escalation League Army Build Up Part 2

BLOGS FOR THE BLOG GOD!!!!

Okay so I've been a bit remiss about keeping up with my plan on the Escalation league. Unfortunately life has been keeping me busy and haven't had the time to keep on track with my army build up plan.

I do have some things to report though and of course some pictures for everyone to ooo and aaah at. Okay maybe complain about it being washed out or blurry.

Let me start off by saying... I hate painting red over white. I used the white so it picks out the detail better but man what a pain. I started out layering up Brick Red as a base for the red bits. This took about 3 to 4 coats on most areas, but some places required 6 layers. It was an interesting color to say the least, kind of had a purple hue to it, but it actually worked in the end.

Here's a mini with the first coat of Brick Red put on it. As you can see one coat allowed quite a bit of the white to show through. The Brick Red seemed to rub off quite easily too on the tips of the model. Just handling them caused a bit to rub off.

My next color I used to layer up was Reaper's Blood Red. It's a more vibrant red then the Brick Red, but not as bright as GW's Blood Red. I didn't get any pictures of the mini in this color but you'll see it on the Rhino below. This is close to a color between GW's Blood Red and Red Gore I think. Not too bad a color over all, but not as vibrant as the Blood Red from GW.


As you can see it's a nice red, I've left the Brick Red in some of the more recessed areas for shading. I really like how this Rhino is turning out, also like how the Berzerkers are turning out.

Unfortunately I didn't take into account the many layers of reds I would need. Even this Blood Red from Reaper still took several coats to cover up the Brick Red completely. I do have to say though I'm pleased overall with it, just wish I could find a short cut to save some time.



I'll have to look into that at a later time. To the right you see the Rhino with the final layer of red. I used Vallejo's Game Color Blood Red as I like their paints a little bit more then GW's.

I also used Brassy Brass from Vallejo and Tarnished Steel from Reaper as base coats for the other bits you see on the Rhino. I'll wash the brass with a brown/black ink wash I use for most of my metallic colors. I will also wash the tarnished steel and then use a chainmail color to highlight those. Same with the Brass color. I'll most likely just use the base color over top the washed brass first layer.

Half finished Berzerker

Below is the top down look on the Rhino from Steps 2 to 3 with the red colors. Second one is a bit blurry, sorry about that, but you can definitely see the color difference. I think an army that looks like this is going to be very sharp on the tabletop indeed.

My Escalation League Army Build up

"BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD!!!!"

"SKULLS FOR THE SKULL THRONE!!!"

I enjoy themed armies like crazy. Always looking for the next theme to throw together. As you seen from elsewhere on my blog my last army was DeathWing. I'm working on an Elysian one next that will be all Airborne Assault even under the normal Codex.

So when The Gamers Realm started up an Escalation League I decided, hey it's time for another new Army. One that can be built and painted up as the League moves forward. With being one of the store owners it means I won't win any prizes, but I'm not really doing this for the prizes. I'm using it as motivation to get a fully painted themed army on the table.

So starting Sunday the 7th of March, we can start playing a modified Combat Patrol. 500 Points, 1 Troop Choice minimum, 0-1 HQ choice. With this in mind I went out and did some purchasing. I picked up two box sets of Khorne Berzerkers, 1 Chaos Rhino, I had 1 Loyalist Rhino I'll convert, and then picked up some ForgeWorld ChainAxes. One of the things I don't like about the Berzerker box set is the lack of ChainAxes. I mean come on, that's the iconic weapon of choice for them.


So off I went and cleaned, filed, cut, clip, etc 8 Berzerkers out. I'm keeping my squads at 8 since that's the Sacred Number for Khorne. The nice thing about 2 boxes of Berzerkers is I can build 3 squads of 8. I need to figure out my Skull Champions weapon choices, but to start out I'm just keeping him base.

Here's one of my standard Berzerkers. ChainAxe is from ForgeWorld, everything else is standard from the box set. I do have to say I really liked the box set overall. It has some decent options and additional bits for your Berzerkers, like the Plasma Pistol and such. I couldn't find a good place to attach the additional Frag Grenades though. Ah well

Below is my plasma pistol Berzerker. He looks righteous enough ;). I intend to get these guys painted up and ready for Sunday. I'm going with a mixture of Reaper Master Paints and Vallejo Game Colors. Going to try out the game color washes as well.

I hope to get the one squad and rhino painted up this week, and the second squad and Rhino Assembled and primed by Sunday. My goal is to have the initial 500 points painted completely before we jump up to the 700 point mark. At that point I'll have a core Troop selection set and ready for any point size game.

And just so you all know, yes the theme is Khorne. Expect to see a lot of Red on this site and on the table. ;) Below is the squad and converted Loyalist Rhino. I got them all primed white last night and touched up this morning.

Yes I went with white as to a) pick out all the detail on the minis and b) easier to build up the red on. I want these mini's to "shine" with the color red. So I want it nice and bright on the minis. Should be interesting to say the least.

Tonight will see base coats on at least the Rhino and the Berzerkers. I'm thinking that I might place an order to ForgeWorld here soon and get some Rhino Doors and possibly the conversion packs for the World Eaters, both normal squads and terminators. Maybe pick up some Brass Etched Khorne Icons as well, although those can be easily made with green stuff.

Here is my assembled first squad:

So stay tuned and we'll walk this road together. Maybe see me fail, maybe see a kick ass themed army come to fruition, or possibly just a neat escalation army.

Primer

Recently someone asked me my opinion on Primers. So I figured I’d go ahead and put my thoughts to paper and actually update the Blogs as well. So here are my thoughts on Primer.

I won’t say that any Primer is superior to any other; I can only tell you what I’ve experienced and what I’ve seen. I used to love GW’s Primer; I had a can of white that lasted eons.

Eventually I ran out, so thinking I would get the same results I went and bought more GW Primer. Granted I was a little sticker shocked at the price that the Primer had risen to, but I was willing to pay it for the quality I got.

So I took my purchase home, walked out into the garage and got ready to spray a Rhino. Boy was I in for a surprise. The spray came out hard and fast which is not a good thing as it tends to push light plastic all over the place. Another thing is it tended to be chalky and grainy. Some people say “Oh you got a bad can”, I thought so as well and returned it for another. Same thing happened with the new can. Sure it could have been a bad batch of cans, but for the price I was paying quality control should be better.

What I needed now was an alternative. I went and tried various sand able Primers from the automotive section in Wal-Mart and such. While the price was right, the primer was too thick and tended to diminish the detail on the minis. Also the fumes of that primer got really bad at times, I continued my search.

That’s when someone told me about Armory’s Primer. I knew about their Primer, it was one of the first one’s I got way back when. When I first used it I wasn’t impressed with it. I didn’t think it was a bad Primer, just not a great Primer. I saw the new can and thought to myself, “Hey cool, they got Kovalic to do their can wrappers.” (For those of you who don’t know Kovalic… shame on you…go here at once www.dorktower.com)

I can say their Primer is better than it used to be and in my opinion better then the new GW Primers. They also have Grey which works well for medium shades of color and to me a little bit easier to get a darker red to work. They also have the traditional White and Black Primers.

I used Armory Primer up to about a year ago. I stumbled across a Primer that I never would of thought would be very good. Rust-oleum’s Painter’s Touch Primer. So far I’ve used the White and Black, but they also have Red and Grey (although I haven’t seen these at the store yet). You can get them at any Lowe’s or Home Depot and it’s about a fifth of the cost from GW’s Primer.

It goes on even and dries quickly. It is a little thicker then GW and Armory Primer so you have to be a little more aware of how much you’re spraying, but not nearly as thick as the automotive Primers. It was a nice middle ground, and since it’s thicker than normal you use less of it overall per mini. So now that can of Primer will go a long way.

I’ve used it on plastic, on metal and even on Resin. It sticks to them all. Leaves a nice even coat when it dries and I haven’t had a grainy can or one that starts spraying like silly string. It’s very resilient as well, I haven’t had it rub off or chip with normal moving of the mini. I feel that it’s well worth the cost and time to learn how to use this primer.

If I had to point out a “bad” thing with it is that sometimes it tends to dry shiny. Not really a big deal since it doesn’t “shine” through the base coats, but if you wanted to base coat a large structure and leave it black it might be dull and shiny in places. So just a heads up.

So there you have it, my thoughts on different Primers that I’ve used. Of course this is all relative as I’m sure others have used the Painter’s Touch Primer and thought it was horrendous, or others that love Armory Primer. To each their own, and it’s why I say there is no absolute perfect primer. A lot of it hinges on personal choice and also personal style.

TGR!

All I gotta say after all the long months, it's every bit as exciting today as it was the day before.

The store is open and running. We had a great first day and our second day looks to be going well also.

If you live in the DFW area stop by The Gamers Realm and step into something different.

I'll be able to start doing more projects here once again.

This is why it's been so quiet

We decided to open a store. Not just any gaming store, but THE gaming store ;)

Check us out at www.thegamersrealm.com. We're opening the 4th so I should be back here with more info and posts after that time. We're pushing hard to get everything configured and set up. We're excited about this and it will be a fun time. (Once open that is, right now it's a lot of work)