The Blessings of Papa Nurgle

I'm a gadget freak - tablets, smartphones, handheld gaming systems, GPS's, you name it, I've probably got two of 'em.  As such, it's usually easier just to buy a bunch of extra charging cables & adapters and leave them where I need them (in the bedroom, at work, in the car, at my painting desk, etc) than to remember to take one with me.  The good part of this is that you can usually get spare cables & USB adapters on eBay for pennies (as long as you're willing to wait for them to get here on a slow boat from China).  The bad part?  They're pretty flimsy - so  I've taken to patching them up several times before calling it quits.  I recently patched up a cable for my tablet with some red "gasket maker" silicone I had laying around:

Good Lord, that looks digusting - I've never had a desire to build a Chaos army before, but I know what I'm using if I do...

I Might Have My Work Cut Out For Me...

...so, we bought a house last fall.  After blowing through our "home improvement" budget putting up a fence for the dog and taking the yard from "overgrown industrial dumping ground" to "doesn't make me twitch every time I look at it", we're finally starting to rummage through the massive piles of boxes residing in the basement & garage, in preparation for building the "man cave".  I decided to sort out all my unbuilt/partially finished models, and organize them by type so I could see what I'm dealing with.  So far this is where I'm at:

Yeah.  That's... a lot of stuff.  And I haven't even found the fantasy Orcs, or the Forge World vehicle kits, or the Dreadball teams... or the DreamForge Levithan...

Adepticon 2013!

...okay, back to it - after moving, having surgery, and dealing with numerous issues for the better part of the past year, I've got a hankerin' for some hobbyin'.  We might as well get back into the swing of things with an Adepticon recap!

Funderhammer and I set out for Chicago on Thursday.  He was in charge of the reservations this year, and I have to say he did an outstanding job - as a former hotel employee, he knew enough to get us an upgrade to a junior suite:

This room was freakin' huge - king size bed, TWO sleeper sofas, and a kitchenette.  We're planning on booking one of these next year and just trying to find four other people to split it...

One of the things we talked about on the car ride was Hordes, and while I have an incredible backlog already, I think I'd like to give it a try.  Look what I just happened to get in my swag bag:

...after looking into it, I think this would even be my preferred faction, so it's definitely going into the "build" pile.

On Friday, we hit the dealer room early.  I was hoping to get a Conquest at the show, but nobody had one available.  I had been using a too-small, discontinued Reaper bag for my Warmachine army, and had been plagued by broken models - I decided to step up at the Battlefoam booth and by a new Warmachine bag, a P3 bag for my most-used paints & tools, and some extra trays.

(...and no, I'm not going to address all the recent drama regarding Battlefoam in this post.  Suffice it to say, the staff at the booth was very helpful, and I like to bag a lot).

Next up was the Forge World booth.  They implemented some screwy system this year where they stored pre-orders somewhere else in the building - you had to got to the booth and tell them you were ready to pick up your pre-order, then they would tell you to come back in an hour, and in the meantime a runner would go pick up your order.  I was a little miffed about this on my first trip to the booth, but it did seem to put an end to the 3- and 4-hour waits of past years - I was only in line for ten minutes or so each time.  I did a pretty small order this year - just some psycannons & Land Raider doors for my Grey Knights, and the new Model Masterclass book:

(I will go into detail about the book in a future post).  The rest of Friday was pretty much hanging out, meeting people and seeing what was going on in general.

On Saturday I had a class with Les Bursley from Awesome Paint Job:

This was a very cool class, and I learned a lot.  Needless to say, Les has a real talent for making things seem less intimidating, and it comes across in person as well as it does in his videos.

Les was also demoing stuff at the Badger booth during the con, and he gave us a "code word" to give to Ken at the booth - I dropped by and talked with Ken, and the code word got me a free set of Ghost Tints from their new Minitaire paint line:

Funderhammer & I were both trying to keep the food budget under control this year, but that night we headed out for dinner at Claim Jumper:

...and of course Funderhammer harassed the staff until they gave him a bib & crayons:

We headed back to the hotel after dinner - we were both stuffed, so we just hung out in the room for a bit.  Funderhammer headed downstairs for a while to check things out, and returned with a birthday gift - a set of Great Bears of Gallowswood:

Later that night, we tried out Bodgermania:

This was actually a lot more fun than I expected - it's a pretty standard "trick-taking" -type of card game, with Privateer Press' kid-friendly "Bodger" theme hung on it, but I actually really liked it.

Another thing we picked up was Dreadball:

I was seriously considering backing the Kickstarter, but never took the plunge - Funderhammer was a huge Blood Bowl fan back in the day, so he was on board.  I grabbed the Kick Off box and he grabbed some expansion teams, the Trontek 29'ers & the Void Sirens.  Mantic threw in some goodies with purchase at the convention, I'm looking forward to getting them painted up and trying it out.

Sunday was mostly spent packing and making one last lap through the hotel - overall a pretty low-key Adepticon this year, which I think Funderhammer & I both needed.  But we're already planning a group outing for next year, with a possible team-tournament appearance...

Interesting News...

...so, I've never actually visited an "official" GW store - there aren't any in my state, only independent retailers.  But while catching up on blogs last night, the guys at 40K Origins mentioned that there will soon be a GW store in my town.  While I'm interested, my main concerns are that this store is on the extreme opposite side of town from me (probably a ~40 minute drive), and that this location is tiny - there's no way there's gonna be more than 1 or 2 tables there.  I'm also concerned with how this is going to affect GW's support of the independent stores that I frequent.  Still, I'm sure I'll check it out when it opens...

ChapterHouse Studios Conversion Bits

I got an order in from ChapterHouse Studios the other day:

...this is a set of their Gun-Halberd Weapons and a couple of the Imperial/Eagle Storm Shields.  The halberds will be used for my Grey Knights - I just thought the shields were cool, I don't necessarily have a plan for them yet.  This is the first time I've ordered anything from ChapterHouse.  I've looked at their stuff before, but never pulled the trigger - I heard an interview with Nick from ChapterHouse on Episode 8 of the Screaming Heretic podcast, and decided to give it a shot.  Their stuff looks good, and it's nice to not have to wait for parts to get here from the UK or Poland for once!

First FailCast FineCost FailCost FineCast Model

(LOL, the title is just having some fun w/ the haters).
 
I picked up my first FineCast model the other day:

...Inquisitor Karamazov on the Throne of Judgement - the last model I needed to build my Grey Knights list.  I was looking for one of these for quite a while, but nobody had it in stock (I even scoured all the cons I went to this summer) and all the ones that were showing up on eBay were either in sad shape or so-called "pro painted" (yeah right) and they wanted a fortune for them - I actually kept back a little bit of the spending money that I took to GenCon, and as soon as they released the FineCast version I snapped one up.  (This was actually the first time I've bought anything direct from GW's website, now that I think about it - I always had my local shop order stuff from Direct for me).  I haven't built it yet, so I can't speak to what the FineCast is like to work with, but I examined it pretty closely, and it doesn't appear to have any bubbles or other problems  like I've heard about on the Intarwebs.  My Grey Knights are at least 3rd in line to be built behind other armies that are sitting on the shelf, but I might have to go ahead and build this model early - it's one that I've always thought was extremely cool ever since I got into 40K, and I'm kinda chomping at the bit to paint it...

Book Review: Legion

I just finished the seventh book in the Horus Heresy series, Legion by Dan Abnett.  Previously I'd heard a few people on different blogs & podcasts say that this book was the stinker of the series - maybe I was just ready for a change of pace, but I loved it.  I can see where some people wouldn't like it, as it has much less of the cinematic action sequences that some of the other books have, and the majority of the book doesn't show that much of the Astartes at all - what it does do much better than many of the other books, however, is show some truly three- dimensional characters.  The book is mainly centered on John Grammaticus, a powerful psyker working for The Cabal.  The Cabal is an organization that is many thousands of years old, made up of myriad different xenos races, whose ultimate goal is to defeat the powers of Chaos - it turns out that the Alpha Legion plays a pivotal role in this battle.  I won't give away the story, but I did not see the ending coming at all - it really expands the scope of the Heresy, and the choices some of the characters have to make really illustrate just how big the conflict is.  I found John Grammaticus extremely interesting, and think he's compelling enough that Abnett could easily spin the character off into a dedicated series of his own.  I also found the Alpha Legion fascinating, and would love to read another book that gave move detail about the way the operate.  Overall I enjoyed the book tremendously, and I'd have to say it's one of the standouts of the series for me so far, along with Fulgrim and The Flight of the Eisenstein.

Terminator Librarian

I was on a side of town that I don't usually get to today, so I stopped by the hobby shop over there.  I wound up picking up a Terminator Librarian for my Grey Knights:

...I was actually somewhat interested in picking up one of these in "Finecast", since it's really the only GW model that's definitely been on my shopping list for a while.  But, this store apparently didn't get the memo about Finecast - they only had one Finecast model in stock (an Emperor's Champion, which I already have in metal) and everything was still at the old prices, so I grabbed it.  (It's primarily a train/RC model-oriented shop, so I wasn't entirely surprised...)

Salt & Hairspray Weathering Tutorial

For the past year or so, I've seen a lot more people talk about using salt & hairspray to achieve a weathered/aged look for their vehicles - since I had a whole mess o' Ork vehicles waiting to be painted for my Freebootas, I decided to give it a shot.

To start with, you paint your model with what you want the "weathered" color to be (a rust color, in my case):

I used a can of Krylon "Ruddy Brown" primer - I think it was around $4 at Wal-Mart.  The label says it's for "Metal - Wood - Wicker - More".  Unfortunately it doesn't say anything specifically about whether or not it's safe for plastic.  I've never had a problem with Krylon in the past, but to be sure, I grabbed a model that I wasn't particularly attached to (a Warbuggy I got in a Craigslist lot):

After spraying it & waiting for it to dry, I didn't notice any adverse effects - so I grabbed the rest of my models and let 'er rip:

I sprayed them from several angles to get good coverage:

After they dried, I was ready for the next step:

This was the cheapest can of hairspray I could find - I actually had to dig around to find a can that wasn't four dollars or more.  I finally found this one at the store on the very bottom shelf, in the corner, for 97 cents.

Then I grabbed some salt:

This was free, 'cause I grabbed it out of our pantry.  IMPORTANT: YOU MUST USE KOSHER SALT FOR THIS TECHNIQUE.   Regular table salt (AKA "iodized" salt) will not work.  Why?  Well, if you look at "iodized" salt under a magnifying glass, it looks like this:

...it's almost a perfect cube.  The shape of the salt is going to determine the pattern of the weathering - unless you live in a world where rust spots form in perfect geometric squares, it's gonna look terrible if you use iodized salt.

This is what "kosher" salt looks like:

...it's irregular, random-sized, broken pieces (this is due to how it's manufactured).  That's what we want.

I dumped some of the salt into a bowl to make it easier to work with:

Then I sprayed my models with the hairspray:

...and sprinkled the salt over them:

I worked in sections - I would do the tops of the models first, then after that dried, I did the sides, etc.

Then I gave the models a coat of GW Chaos Black:

...about this time, I heard something going on outside my patio: lawnmowers!  Crap!  The gardeners for my complex had come to mow the grass - threatening to get grass clippings all over my wet models!  I stood by until I was pretty sure the first coat of black had dried, then I rounded up the models and stashed them in my kitchen:

Later that afternoon after the gardeners had left, I took the models outside and finished spraying them black.  Again, I sprayed them from several angles to get complete coverage:

After the paint had completely dried, I took the models inside, held them under lukewarm water, and scrubbed the salt off with an old toothbrush:

It will take a while for the salt to come off - it seems to be easier once the model gets thoroughly "saturated" with water.  (I have a suspicion that submerging the whole model in a bucket of lukewarm water would be effective, but I wasn't willing to try it).

Here's the result after the salt is scrubbed off:

(click to embiggen)

...you can see that the rust-colored paint shows through where the salt was covering the model, leaving a "flaky rust" effect.

Some random thoughts on the process:

-It uses a lot of paint - I used two cans of primer & two cans of Chaos Black (of course, I did five Battlewagons, three Trukks, five bikers, three Deffkoptas & a Warbuggy).

-Getting all the salt off can be a pain - I scrubbed until I thought it was all off, let the model air dry, then had to go back again to get some spots I missed, and to get rid of the white, salty "film" that was left in some spots.

I wish I had used more salt - I read through several tutorials on the Internet beforehand, and a common mistake on the first attempt was using way too much salt, so I used it sparingly.  Unfortunately, I think I underestimated how much salt fell off while I was turning the model during painting, as well as their unscheduled trip back into the house, even with the hairspray holding it on.  There was one model where I was afraid that I used way too much salt, and it came out the best out of all of them.

-This is not a "one-step" solution to weathering; the model is going to need some traditional weathering done before I wam completely happy with it.

-This method can be kind of rough on your models - three or four of my vehicles needs parts re-attached that broke off in the scrubbing.

So would I do it again?  Probably, although this method is usually presented as a time-saving method, and if you're doing seventeen vehicles at once, it still takes a lot of time - pretty much my entire day off...

Armorcast Cinematic Effects

...one item I became aware of a while ago were the Cinematic Effects from Armorcast.  Basically, these are sculpted muzzle flashes, smoke plumes, etc., that make your model's wargear look like it's actually functioning.  While it's kind of a neat idea, I wasn't really sold on them because 1.) the larger effects can get kinda pricey, and 2.) I'm an obsessive completest - if I started buying these things and liked 'em, I wouldn't stop until every model in all of my armies had them, and every single one of my models would have fifty dollars worth of accessories attached. :-)

But, one of the units I got in a Craigslist lot was an old unit of metal Stormboyz - and the models were boring.  I really liked the look of the ScrapTech Jump Rocket Blast, and thought it might be a good way to spice up the appearance of the models.  One of the first stops I made in the Adepticon dealer room was the Armorcast booth - I had written down the SKU number and asked for them.  "Sold out", they told me,  "we brought a dozen of 'em, and one guy came and cleaned us out".  That bummed me out, but when I got home I ordered them off the web site and had them a few day later:

As I said, they're kinda pricey ($10.00 per three-pack), but they do look really cool - I don't know how the sculptor was able to get such an "organic" look to these, but they nailed it.

Of course these all needed to be pinned:

I waited until after I had the rocket blasts mounted to attach the models to their bases, since the blasts are long enough that if I mounted the models to their bases flat-footed, they would sit funny.

Last of the Nobz

I got the last of my Freeboota Nobz finished the other day:

To be honest, these really felt like a chore by the time I was finished - partially because they're not the Elites, so I wasn't as inclined to do anything special with 'em, and partially because they are Orks #50 - 60 that I've painted, and I'm just tired.  The good news: all that's left are a unit of Stormboyz & the HQ models, then I can start on the vehicles!

Ork Boyz w/ Big Shootas

I finished up a pair of Ork Boyz with Big Shootas for my Freebootas the other day:

I gave them Imperial Arquebuses from Freeboota Miniatures (appropriate, no?) for their Big Shootas.  Since these models were originally 'Eavy Weapons Boyz, they had a big "socket" molded on the front of the torso for the originally included machine gun to snap into.  I had to disguise this somehow, so I used some barrels from a Fantasy Ogre Kingdoms sprue.  I figure it can represent a powder keg, and I think it works pretty well with the backpack...