Elysian 205th

High Exemplar Kreos

2012-02-13T12:08:00.000-08:00

High there

Just thought I'd post a picky to say I'm not dead.

I've spent the weekend building myself a soft box for photographing models. Made with an office filing box and tracing paper. I was really pleased with the result.

As for the model it's one I started painting quite awhile ago, but never finished. I made a few progressions with my painting whilst doing this.

C&C welcome

A New Year and a new me

2012-02-01T01:44:00.000-08:00

So I'm back, however, not with a vengeance, I'm still not that driven...yet.

So after an eventful January with the birth of my first child, Florence Lily - she's a little cutie! However, she is managing to sap my sleep and energy from me. Not only has she brought me only the joy fatherhood can bring, she has made me put Battlefield 3 down long enough to remember I have another hobby.

My plan for 2012 was to see the 205th take to the skies once more as a fully completed army, however when I sat down to actual do that, I wasn't inspired. I've not fallen out of love with them, but I think I can do a better job of painting them now... especially if I take my time and not rush them.

So I've decided to raise another small, elite but hard hitting force again - Logan Wing. I'm going to go about this differently though. I've already played Logan Wing (unsuccessfully) and I'm keen to use some different rules for variety of my life - rather than cheese. I will get called cheddar or stilton with my codex choice - I plan to create them using the Grey Knights Codex and make a Draigo wing. I think all of the war gear etc can easily be linked to SW wargear with names etc. It will mean I have to produce a crib sheet for my opponents. Which is no big issue and means I can crack out some artwork etc.

So I've actually started and I've started producing my Logan (Draigo). SO without further ado... onto the pics:

There's still a lot of work to do, he needs a cape (all big characters need a cape) and most important a beard of immense power! The Axe of Morkai still needs some work doing to it with some pipes etc adding to it, but I don't think it's too far off.

As you can see, I'm aiming to combine both the Space Wolf Terminators with the Grey Knight Terminators - creating, what I hope is a unique look. It's not something I have seen done before - if you have, maybe you could post some links.

Thanks for looking

Krom

On Hiatus - The 205th hit the battlefield in 2012

2011-10-25T06:04:00.000-07:00

As you will have noticed I have been absent without leave from the 205th... Generally from gaming as a whole. It's been great, I've had more time for me, saved money and had time to play some console games. The mojo is starting to return - but will be halted this Friday by the oncoming Battlefield 3 on PS3...

But you guys don't want to hear about that, you want to find out when I'm going to get moving with the Elysians!

My plan is to give myself until Christmas for playing BF3 as much as possible, then in the new year to get back on the wagon. Starting with finishing my Valkyries so they are all up to a finalised standard.

Once the Valks are done I'll be aiming to paint up my second Tauros Venator and the 2 / 3 Tauros I have. Whilst browsing the usual pages (forge world) I took a fancy to the camp pattern they have on the Tauros.

Seeing as these guys are the fast moving scouts, the camp scheme makes perfect sense. The next big challenge is to decide if I build them with the heavy flamer or the grenade launcher... decisions decisions.

In between all of that I have some more drop troopers to get painted and the original guys to get finished off... And my Protectorate of Menoth force to paint.

So until next year... unless I get the urge to slip into the garage in the meantime ;)

Krom

Gaming weekend

2011-07-01T16:17:00.000-07:00

So I have a gaming weekend coming up... or at least a gaming day drinking night and possible gaming morning...

I have my freshly painted realm of battle board... pics to come, my menoth army for warmachine ready (starter set) and my Elysian army 1500pts per my previous post I'm having to proxy to of the tauros venators with tauros... but I know the guys won't mind :D

I also picked up this week a new pack of elysian troopers and the elysian hq command set. Interestingly I think they made a boob with so e of the content, as I received two copies of a few of the sprues. This may be intentional... but I'm unsure, maybe someone else has had the same with this pack?

Hopefully by the end of the weekend, ill have managed to have tested my army and find any weaknesses that might be there.. such as the loss of the vulture!

In addition I have seen I missed some comments made on some previous posts that had been marked for moderation for some reason. so if I have not replied, I'm sorry and if there was a specific question, I will come round and answer them all in a single post for ease! :)

1500pts Elysians IA8

2011-06-27T05:33:00.000-07:00

So I've not done an army list on here before, hut I though I'd post this up and source some critique on it before I go too far with buying more elysians.

HQ

Command Squad 55pts
Master of the fleet 30pts

TROOPS

1 infantry platoon

Platoon command squad with grenade launcher 40 pts
Dedicated Valkyrie with multiple rocket pods and heavy bolters 140pts

Infantry squad with grenade launcher 65pts
Dedicated Valkyrie with multiple rocket pods and heavy bolters 140pts

Infantry squad with grenade launcher 65pts
Dedicated Valkyrie with multiple rocket pods and heavy bolters 140pts

Drop sentinel with multi melta 50pts

Drop sentinel with multi melta 50pts

Veterans 3 meltas 110 pts
Dedicated Valkyrie with multiple rocket pods and heavy bolters 140pts

FAST ATTACK
Vendetta 130 pts

Vendetta 130 pts

Tauros Venator Squadron 210pts
3 Tauros venators with twin linked lascannons
2 with hunter killer missiles

for a grand total of 1500pts

So what do you all think?

Tauros Venator Diorama

2011-06-26T08:03:00.000-07:00

Well I finished the diorama on Saturday and went and entered it at the local GW store. I wasn't completely happy as I painted the guys on Friday night / Saturday, but hey I did all this in to weeks.

the pictures aren't perfect and when I receive the model back I'll take some better ones. I took a couple before these where the lighting was even worse, but I loved the way it add quite a bit of drama with the shadows.

So I'm generally pleased with it all however, I felt I rushed the two troopers and I think it shows... I also think that effected the results of the competition as well as I came second out of three of us. And this is the winner. It is excellenty executed however something about it rings of something I've seen before by Keith Robertson (Heavy Metal painter) though I can't find pictures. None the less it was very well produced and a worthy winner.

Oh well better luck next time... and must try harder!

Elysian Diorama to date

2011-06-22T14:43:00.000-07:00

So rather than post too much waffle... I did that earlier today I'll just post some pics of the diorama to date.

These are WiP, such as the image #4 has a wheel raised off the floor :( This will always be difficult as I'm aiming to be able to use this model for gaming as well.

Thanks for looking and if you have any questions, please fire away!

Day whatever in the diorama building house

2011-06-22T05:20:00.000-07:00

Soooo, this regular posting I was going to do whilst doing this diorama seems to have gone out the window!

I have been working on it pretty much every single evening and trying some new techniques... I even bought myself another airbrush for the heady cost of... £20. It's become my new staple airbrush now. Its a simple dual action gravity feed airbrush, no adjustments can be made to it, so it's free of all the usual baggage and weight. I simply control air pressure with my air valve (connects the airbrush onto the hose) and amount of paint by how far I pull my finger back.

It looks a little like this, but with a smaller capacity paint chamber (about 2cc I believe) and a red housing at the back.

So onto my diorama stuff. In the image attached the tauros venator is almost complete, I need to just add pigments and oil effects.

I'm quite pleased with where I'm at, I tried applying rust staining with acrylics. This worked much better than expected, normally I would use enamel and oil paints for this as they can be feathered and adjusted with thinners easily. With the acrylics I added a whole bunch of drying retarder to the paint, this enabled me to do similar as I would previously, but create the feathering and effects with just water! Always a bonus.

I also applied a heat damage style effect to the lascannon muzzle. I tried this before with my valkyries, but it failed. I could never work out why... until last night when it all worked, due to the lascannon muzzles being matt this time and gloss previously.

To explain a little further, the technique is achieved by airbrushing layers of inks (red, purple, blue and black - in that order) to achieve a banded spectrum look about it... similar to how a stainless steel exhaust looks on a motorbike. The reason it failed before was I tried applying the ink onto a gloss surface and it immediately beaded away from the surface. This time as the surface was matt, it stayed in control and where i placed it.

So onto to tonight when I'm going to stay priming the models that are going on the base, I should also have mentioned I've changed the theme from roadside checkpoint to roadside IED.

Thanks and feel free to ask away :D

Day Three in the diorama building house

2011-06-16T04:50:00.000-07:00

So I got back into the garage last night to continue working on the diorama. I didn't get too much done as I spent a good 30 mins cleaning and reassembling my airbrush after a really big deep clean.

Once that was done I lay done a dust layer to the tarmac section and more of a colouring layer to the earth. Utilising lighter shades to add dusting to the sand. I then made a different earth works mix, made out of plaster, gulf war sand, beach sand, light dust, a smidgen of europe dust, a splosh of some VMA sand shades, a splash of VMA white and lashings of vallejo matt varnish. I made this into a real putty like mix and smeared and tapped it all over my sand area.

Once this was one, I threw done a few different shades with the airbrush in the troughs that have ben created by wheels. Just to add a little more shape and texture to the base.

Obviously once that was done I got far too excited with myself and mocked up the venator onto the base.

And here's a few close ups of the decals on the venator.

This is quite an exciting project for me and I hope your enjoying following along. Any questions regarding the techniques etc, I'm more than happy to help.

Laters Krom

Day two of building my first diorama

2011-06-14T14:20:00.000-07:00

Wowser... so soon I here you say???? Well the posting boob was all my fault and I apologise for that.

So onto the ultra cool and exciting stuff :D I received a package in the post today containg a few new cool items: Mig Acrylic Resin, Mig Thinners for washes, Mig Pigment fixer: Some great sanding boards, Tamiya putty and some Mig brown for desert filter.

So I've applied some filter to the chassis and parts of the Tauros Venator, but I didn't take pics as the difference isn't too noticeable by camera. Basically th filter works very similar to a glaze and is applied to alter the hue of the model, rather than shade it.

I also got onto doing the ground works for the base as well. Using a mix of plaster, Mig acrylic resin, matt varnish, Mig Gulf war sand,beach sand, light dust and europe dust I made a sickly looking paste/mix

Yeah, don't worry, it does look like I've had a botty accident in the plastic cup, but I do assure you it is the mix from above... Oh I also added tamiya buff paint and some model scenics medium buff ballast.

Then using an old paint brush I painted / stabbed this onto the base.

Looks like cool wet mud at the moment, but it is drying a nice colour. Tomorrow I plan to lay a dust coat down with the airbrush before adding another small amount of mix with a litter colour to it and alternative mix formula.

In addition to this I also applied gulf sand pigment to the wheel before applying pigment fixer in a circular motion towards the centre of the wheel hub. I'll take phtos of this tomorrow so that the full effect can be seen.

Until tomorrow night.

Krom

My first steps into diorama buildng

2011-06-14T13:52:00.000-07:00

Well it's been ages since I posted last... Again! I'm really starting a theme here for this blog. So, why've I bothered posting? Well Pottered into my local GW this Saturday to spend a gift voucher (thanks mart)... I got a sky shield incidentally.

After having a chat with the staff, I found out they do a monthly painting comp. Turns out this month is dioramas.

My first reaction was to not bother, but after going and eating some scran (corned beef pasty!) I decided I would join in. I raced to the nearest trophy store so that I could get a plinth.... With that bought I went to the model shop and grab some more supplies.

I realised I better go and check for rules and deadlines. Eek, the only rule was... There are no rules and the deadline was 2 weeks!

So, I got on with the task in hand. I've already developed a partial name / theme: roadside check point.

So here are a few wip pics.

Wooden plinth base with Das modelling clay added for structure and also Tamiya diorama texture paint (pavement effect dark grey) painted on for the road.

The beast to be the feature of the diorama. Been meaning to get one of these painted for ages, I've got another one to build and the lesser Tauros (Big thanks to blueronin and his crew for this beauty :D)

The awesome wheels! prior to weathering... this is rather experimental as I've never created rubber wheels before

And here is a little detailing added to the tarmac. A simple addition of Iyanden darksun foundation paint applied between a set of masks.

I'll be posting another set straight after these were meant to be last nights images... but i had an incident where I left my laptop in the middle of the street for an hour before I realised... Mart from Marts Warhammer Blog went and collected it for me.

Any comments and questions please fire away, and I'll be more than happy to help/answer where possible.

Krom

2011-05-14T01:36:00.001-07:00

So.... I better do an update before I lapse into my old self huh?

Well in my last post I discussed I'd been building a new work bench for my hobby zone (or garage to a non hobbyist!).

I basically built a large bench using Formica (kitchen worktop), smooth timber, screws, blood, sweat, a cel power8 workshop and some google sketch up.

And this is my current state of affairs.

Fairly swish I must say. It needs some more work such as wall brackets for the speakers and some sort of hanging shelf underneath for the amp. You may also note that within that shot there is also a rather "slick" bookcase... You'd be right if you guessed it had been crafted by my own hand and the nifty power8 workshop in the left of the image.

Here it is

Ok there might be a slight angle to it... But it was built from my last gaming board. A fitting end to an old friend, after years of having dice, models and rules thrown down on it, it is now a perfect storage facility for all my rulebooks and gaming aid paraphernalia.

So onto the new kid on the block... The Realms of Battle Board! Basically it's going to be a desert board and have some cool as monkey poo terrain on it!

I've textured with sand so far... And the pics to prove that fact!

Since these pics have been taken I've also started laying down the undercoat of grey primer for the sand sections and black for the rocky bits.

And a little tease of one of my Grey Kinghts

I'm currently planning and working out how I can get a really cool textured and detailed base to represent a marble mausoleum type effect.

Hopefully results will appear once I've done some more testing!

thanks for reading

Location:New workspace and board

Where the have I been...

2011-05-06T15:17:00.001-07:00

Wowser it's been far too long since I last posted! In fact I was on a strange mission to re-learnt paint. What's worse the results looked turd!

However it did teach me to be more careful with my painting and that I desperately needed glasses and a magnifier for painting. Since the escapades of the ultra smurfs... That results in 3 part painted minis, I jumped at the GKs as a force to try and make look fantastic... Dare I say, aiming to trophy status...

The GK are progressing and I'll take pics soon. The elysians are still my "love" force and I plan to kick start them soon enough.

However, the past 2 weeks I've been re-fitting my hobby zone (garage as the wife has banished me... Who am I kidding, I love it!). I've built myself a proper work bench that's solid enough for a fat bloke like me to stand on! It's not finished quite yet. I need to relocate my amp and get myself a/some display cabinets.

I've also chopped up my gaming board and turned it into shelves... With left over sheet material for other projects. Again, it's not the end of the world as I have my realms of battle board to texture and paint.

So many projects and so little time... Harumph!

Well I plan to get some pod sorted of a few things so that I can keep you guys posted of everything that's been done... And to be done.

Until then...

Back to Basics has a reason

2011-03-04T06:41:00.000-08:00

So I just wanted to share the next project I'm working on (fear not the 205th are not dropped and I'll make some updates on them in the next week or two).

Tim (Dezartfox over at The Vanus Temple) and myself had a real hoot getting into the best army nominations and gaming together. So we have started planning our next doubles force. On my behalf I'll be entering with Ultramarines.... I know I know... But I've always enjoyed the crisp cleanliness of them and I want to turn my hand and messing these guys up with some weathering etc etc.

The plan is to go for a desert theme again as it will help the blue "pop" against the base, I have a handful of conversions / mini dioramas planned for my side of the force.

The theme is going to be of two forces joined together to combat the xenos threat of nids.

So onto test colours. I really want to achieve a muted blue, that still manages eye catching, so I've gone into the Vallejo model colour range and also some model air as I'll be aiming to get these guys painted with the airbrush as much as possible. Here are the colours I've selected so far to trial:

VMC Dark Blue, VMC Ultramarine Blue, VMC Royal Blue, VMC Andrea Blue, VMC Deep Sky Blue, VMA French Blue and VMALight Sea Blue.

(VMC = Vallejo Model Colour, VMA = Vallejo Model Air)

So my first port of call was to lay down some Primer. I use grey primer these days from the Vallejo Model Air range. Once the primer was dried I layed a solid base colour down using the airbrush and VMA French Blue. This is a really rich shade of blue, however it does have the "classic" cartoony look to it. Again once dried I then airbrushed a highlight using the VMA Light Sea Blue. This was the result.

For me this was just a tad to "baby blue"... however it may work, once weathered. Though I didn't bother finding out. I reapplied the base colour and this time added a highlight using a 50:50 mix of VMA French Blue and VMA Light Sea Blue. Much better! from here I went a hit an edge highlight on using pure VMA LIght Sea Blue... Big mistake, it ended up looking messy:

It's almost there, but the extra highlight was rather sloppily applied for an edge highlight and looked more of a bad line highlight. However, not one to consider myself a quiter I decided to see what it would look like with a little more colour added - This is messy, so please don't judge... I just wanted to test!

The white is the worst messy bit, but I decided I wasn't going to continue adding another 10 layers to get it smooth whenI could see the colours were just looking too cartoon.

back to the drawing board and to trial some of the other shades I have!

Back to Basics Pt2

2011-03-04T04:31:00.000-08:00

So after finally getting round to finishing this guy or sort of finishing him, I took a few quick snaps.

I didn't go too far with this guy getting into the weathering etc as I know I can achieve that look. I'm relatively happy with this guy, though I think I can definately improve my edge highlighting technique!

Anyway here's a couple of snaps.

Anyway, comments on points to improve would be greatly appreciated :)

Back to Basics

2011-02-24T10:31:00.000-08:00

So after a really successful trip to the 40K Doubles held at Warhammer World, Dezartfox (Tim from no on!) and I have already decided on what we will be doing for our next attempt at the best army title.

What I felt after being in the nominations, was "was I really up to the level required... or do I have a shiny a Forgeworld Army". I think it was a blend of it being 1) Elysians 2) I painted them quite well... but not perfect and finally 3) I was with Tim, a previous best army winner with his Deathwing.

Obviously I have had the thought... Am I really good enough? I think personally the answer is no. Me and Tim have had a good chat about it and come up with a potential screamer of a problem. I currently paint at nearly arms length in an almost comical fashion, as when I hold it closer I struggle to see the model. The answer is possibly glasses. I'm going to try and arrange an eye test if I can this Saturday.

Aside from that, I've ever truly worked on ensuring I have a clean, smart and tidy paint job in my life. So after taking some inspiration from Ron (FTW) and Dave (N++ Wargaming) I decided to go "Back to Basics".

FTW Back to basics
N++ Wargaming Back to basics

So I present efforts so far... Smurf #1

This first image I have applied black undercoat, and base coat of 50:50 black and regal blue and then another layer of 50:50 regal blue and Ultramarines blue.

In this second image I've appled line highlights of ultramarines blue, followed by an edge highlight 0f 50:50 ultramarines blue and space wolf grey. I've also notice I've taken some paint of the toes... Next lesson is painting on a handle.

C&C welcome as this is going to all about improvement.

GW Doubles Nomination and my Army

2011-02-24T06:11:00.000-08:00

Wahooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I recently went to the GW 40K doubles tournament held at Warhammer World. It's a great even, I absolutely love it and will be going back for more. Dezartfox over at the The Vanus Temple and myself took a combined force of Angels of Redemption and the plucky lads from the Elysian 205th Air Corps.

The force really worked well together as the Angels of Redemption were the real hitting power to the force and the guard ran distraction. It worked so well we managed to come 13th place from what I hear... not only that, but we got nominated for Best Army as well.

So here's some pics of our force in the freshly installed cabinets.

And here's a few links to the blogs of the guys I went with:

The Vanus Temple
Marts Warhammer 40K Blog
The Rune of Stone

Nerd Splurge!!!!!

2011-02-06T10:19:00.001-08:00

Wow, I went down to the exhibition held by my local war-games club today. It's an event called Vapnartak. It's a great little event for finding the occasional little gem.

Vapnartak is predominantly a historical war-games event, however games such as 40k and warmachine have been worming their way in. So much so that the 40k tournament being held there, managed to garner the prime spot!

Is was originally going to attend the tournament; a great little 1,000pts compt'd event. However, I had the opportunity to go to a comedy gig the night before.

So I popped down to see how the tourney was progressing and consider buying some Pegasus terrain... If it was there.

That's when what I can only describe as madness hit me. It's something that I think is a dormant beast residing within all gamers. I call it Nerd Splurge!

Basically, the average gamer turns into a spending idiot because they are at an event, with little or no thought of the repercussion.

So what was the result of my Nerd Splurge.

The blue crystal chessex dice.

Incursion - I have considering this for awhile.

Posh static grass... Though thus stuff is awesome

Shot of what you get with a paint pot for scale... It's double sided as well.

And a shot of it on a base.

Vallejo varnishes, matte medium and glaze medium

Vallejo fluro paints and my attempt to find and an alternative to brazen brass

So there we go... Did I need any of it? No! Am I chuffed with the result? Yes. Do I regret it? Partially, but I'll get over that.

So tell me about you Nerd Splurges.

Small update Valk interior weathered

2011-02-01T13:47:00.000-08:00

So here's a quick update. I've been working on getting models up to scratch for going to doubles. My fellow team mate is Dezartfox over at the vanus temple. He's running a blood angel list and taking a storm raven with him.

We've come to the decision that it's not going to be killer all comers list that can handle everything... though we will look cool. Or as cool as nerds with lots of toy planes can be :)

So this was the interior at 10.00pm last night.

After creating a wash using graveyard earth and mig weathring powder made fluid with screen wash concentrate... no water added ;) then apply to where you want the dust to be. I then dried it with a hot air blower. I then use a stiff drybrush to "dust" where the dried paint pigment was, blending it in.

Same again, but with a desert coloured pigment. The key to the weathering is layers, as is always with painting models. Another key point is variation in colours and shades... in my opinion anyway.

I've also added a key bit of bare metal as well. I went to the great expense of sourcing the best weathering pigment in a metal shade... scrapings from a pencil :)

Rub my finger in it and them where I want bare metal applied.

The boys relaxing before they are dropped into battle.

And a token exterior photo.

Elysian Troopers and Valkyrie weathering

2011-01-12T05:12:00.000-08:00

Just wanted to post a quick update of my progress for the GW Doubles Throne of Skulls additions. All I need to do to my force is these 4 snipers ready for the command squad and weather the Valkyries.

So here are the Snipers. finished, but require the addition of a single bipod leg that dropped off during undercoating.

Weathering of the valks. I've taken pictures through the process to try and give you a bit of an idea to my process of weathering.

So far the models have been base coated, panel highlighted, decals, sponge weathered (I'll do a tutorial on this once I'm past doubles :) ) and had Klear (Future) airbrushed over them. Alway 2 coats to begin with as the first layer soaks into the under lying paint. I should also note this is the old formula of Klear I have used.

This is the inside of the valk. I've not gone crazy with painting details in here as most of the time the top will be closed. Again base coat, sponging and varnished with Klear.

So using a wash created with oil paints and white spirits (Lamp Oil Black + Burnt Umber), this wants to be quite thin... but not too thin - (Once you get using it it's quick to understand). Too Thin, colour doesn't show enough but critical it spreads quicker than hot butter. Too thick and the mix won't flow.

What we are looking to achieve is a consistency where if you load your brush and touch a recess you see the paint start flowing through the cracks, crevices and nooks without spreading where you don't want it.

Here's the interior with the wash starting to bee applied. If you look closely you'll see where the mix wasn't quite right. Though it's not the end of the world as we can go back with a cue tip moistened with white spirits.

And the roof of the valk, you gan see around the details at the bottom of the image where the wash has flowed and where I was also a bit sloppy with application.

And here is the start of the exterior. I took a shot of the wing after flowing the wash into all of the details.

And here is a shot of the wing after using a soft flat brush moistened with white spirits and dragged along the wing. After progress times passing from front to back on the wing, I finally got too this position. I'm quite happy with this and I'll replicate across the whole model.

Once I have done that I'll lay down another thin layer of klear with the airbrush to protect this layer before applying small streaks of white paint to do the same streaking effect. After the white, I'll just touch up and of the recesses that might have white paint flowed into them.

So that's it for the time being. I'll get some more shots tonight / tomorrow hopefully.

Help Required: UH-60 Blackhawk rappel kit

2010-12-31T06:16:00.001-08:00

Hi blogosphere

I'm in need of a little assistance, i'm looking for reference as to how the UH-60 Blackhawks or similar mount their rappel lines. I'm adding some detailing to my valks and vendettas such as rappel lines and I cant find anything worth while for me to make an accurate guess at it,

Maybe you know of some great ref pictures... Maybe you took the pictures... Maybe you know of a great kit on the Market place I could plunder for parts (scale permitting). 1/48th I believe is roughly close.

And lastly, have a great new year.

Krom

- Posted using BlogPress

Something to come next year.

2010-12-26T01:47:00.001-08:00

Let's start off with a warm Merry Christmas to one and all.

Let's hope everyone has a great New Year.

So just wanted to post up a quick peak at one of my upcoming projects... A Tauros Venator

See you all in the new year and celebrate it in style!

- Posted using BlogPress

Drop Sentinel WIPS

2010-12-21T09:27:00.000-08:00

So I decided I better show some pictures as I've basically not got onto showing anyone my list I took to ToS or my final battle results or my thoughts on changing the force. I'll get to it, but I just felt like my hobby mojo was running high... so I just jumped aboard and went along for the ride.

As always C&C welcome, I hope you enjoy.

The UK 40kGT

2010-12-08T00:52:00.000-08:00

I just wanted to send out word that the UK 40K GT website is back up and running.

The UK 40K GT

If your going to the event in March... I'll see you there.

If you've never heard of it before here's a little run down. The tournament has been set up in light of the changes at the Throne of Skulls tournament. It is going to be a single event this year (sold out in something daft like 24hrs), with plans for increasing to a heat system in future years.

So follow the site to keep up to date with news and any changes that happen with the tournament.

Throne of Skulls Game 2

2010-12-07T09:41:00.000-08:00

Wow... Real life has been chocka block... So much so I forgot to finish this.

So my second game was one of my best games of the the tournament (even receiving my best of army vote).

The game started with me wondering where the hell my opponent was as he was a little late (after going the safe option and ordering food directly from Bugmans). After the first few moments thinking where my opponent was he arrived. IG... Great, I'd never faced IG before with the air cav. This was going to be fun.

After the obvious introductions I found out my opponent was Alexander 'Sasha' Sawyer. Sasha was rolling with a Catachan list. At first glance I could see two great big siege guns (they turned out to be a colossus and a medusa) and something that I knew would be a pain in the right royal derrière... Hydras... Damn flat out cover saves would be rapidly gone.

So we rolled off for mission and set up and we got pitched battle and annihilation... Again. After receiving a pasting on the last game I wasn't too confident for the one.

So here's a quick run down of Sashas list.

Game 2 - pitched battle, annihilation.
Opponent - Alexander Sawyer
Army - Imperial Guard

Army list:

HQ
Command squad
3 x plasma
Medic
Astropath
Straken
Chimera

Troops

Infantry platoon

Platoon command squad
Chimera
Commissar
Auto cannon heavy weapon team

Infantry squad
Auto cannon heavy weapon team

Infantry squad
Auto cannon heavy weapon team

Vet squad with 3 flamers and demolitions

Vet squad with 3 meltas
Chimera

Fast Attack
Vendetta

Heavy Support
Medusa

Colossus

2x hydras

So the game started and after having spent lunch lamenting my woes Dezartfox. Over at the The Vanus Temple urged me to remember the air cav alpha strikes.

So with this in mind I deployed 2 squadrons on the table both were vendettas if I recall.

However dice rolls didn't go my way and I wasn't going first... However Sasha had already pre emptied this and had deployed his platoon as a single squad in cover... Balls! This meant I only had squish guys to kill... That, I discovered were going to go to ground for the entire game!

So I took the obvious bait and started shooting them... I should have done some flat out moves to gain some cover saves.

Sasha took his turn and started deploying some of his units. Colossus and medusa came on along with some chimeras. Everything popped smoke, apart from the big guns which fired direct shots. Thankfully nothing down... Phew!

My turn... Ok this big boys were mine... Or not as the case may be. My dice rolls were appalling. I managed ti immobilise the colossus and stop the medusa shooting.

Sashas go. Hydras came on, but one got immobilised giving it to the wreck gods. The shooting was good and true which resulted in downed Valkyries and Vendettas. This meant when my turn arrived my firepower was diminished. And so the cycle continued... Until I was removed completely from okay by turn 6.

Managed to knock out a few units but nothing substantial enough to curb Sashas onslaught.

I've managed to be in contact with Sasha (BlueRonin) since the tournament. So after very little coaxing Sasha agreed to add his side of the match as well... So over to the air cav killer!

I had a look through the list (although my first impression of your actual army made me want to grab a coffee and go through your actual army instead - it was beautiful!).

However, back to the business of killing. I decided that my best bet would have to be to get the jump on you, so that you didn't get the freedom to line up and alpha strike my heavy support before I could start grounding some of your Vendetta/Valkyries.

Knowing the resilience of a blob of 31 guardsmen in dispersed formation in area terrain, I deployed them all as a combined unit in a convenient piece of rocky outcroppings (area terrain) more or less in the middle of my deployment zone. I wanted to deploy them in one of the area terrain pieces off to a side (in order to bait you out to a flank), but - as you pointed out to me - I couldn't set up deeper than 12" in and so the blob wouldn't be able to claim cover without bunching up too much. Everything else was kept in reserve, so the Infantry Blob's job was to bait you onto the table in order to start shooting at them - hopefully mistaking them for a soft target. Fortunately for me, you deployed both Vendetta squadrons to do just that.

However, if you do the math once the blob has gone to ground each squadron would only cause 3 casualties (and the more dice you roll, the more reliable statistics become) per turn against the blob.

With your Vendettas in the open shooting at my blob, my Astropath made sure the majority of my army came on in turn two and unleashed on your skimmers. With my heavies having the initiative (i.e. I was taking anti-tank shots at your skimmers before you were taking your anti-tanks hots at my tanks), and focusing fire on your weak flank; it pretty much came down to the Penetration Rolls and I was lucky enough to pop a couple of your skimmers out of the sky (of course, the squadron rule helps my luck a bit here).

Getting the initiative on this cycle was critical, because in the war of attrition anti-tank fire inevitably becomes, the one who shoots first will typically lead the race by constantly reducing enemy forces, thus enemy shots back at himself.

With my good fortune of downing two birds, I had managed to half the amount of incoming Lascannon fire, as well as disembark soft targets for my flamers and lasguns.

From this point on I worked on collapsing the army from the right flank towards the left, sustaining fire on your birds and cleaning up forces so that you didn't have any good opportunities to return fire (the building that was planted in the middle of the gameboard was pivotal to this tactic, literally).

Apart from that, the dice were on my side so I simply stuck to my guns, as it were, and tried not to be a dick about it. I believe I managed to down your last model on your left in turn 6?

Back to me again... Thanks Sasha, very well put.

So wiped out again... But hey... I had an absolute blast so I couldn't give a hoot. Sasha was a fantastic opponent and very gracious.

I'd also like to direct you all over to Sashas blogs (grab a coffee as there's some great reading to be had)

Here and here

Next few games are going to be quick round ups as I wanna get onto reviewing my force and planning the next steps... And showing you some new pics of the army and what's coming.

Throne of Skulls Game 1

2010-11-24T11:57:00.000-08:00

So the ToS event was different from previous years in that you didn't receive an overall ranking unless you were the best of your codex or best of the tournament.

I was dubious going into the event as I had previously enjoyed the usual Swiss format tournament. However, I will say that this tourney was still great fun - just different.

The format was 5 games over two days with random missions. It was random table and opponent selection all weekend until Sunday when the top boys all started facing off.

So back to the important stuff, my tournament.

Game 1 - pitched battle, annihilation.
Opponent - Andrew Turnbuck
Army - Chaos Space marines.

Quick run down of my opponents force:

daemon prince with lash
2 oblits
Vindicator
Chaos lord in terminator armour
Chaos terminators with combi weapons
Land raider
Rhino
1 squad 10 csm with a lascannon
1 squad cam with melta

The game started off Andrew got the first turn, so I did flat out scout moves to gain the 4+ cover save.

Andrew fired everything at the Valkyrie and vendettas, he was very unlucky and didn't damage anything.

My first turn, I launched a torrade of lascannon, heavy bolter, multi laser and missile fire at him. This ended with and immobilised land raider and vindicator.

From there on in Andrew blasted me off the table... Quite literally. I managed to destroy his vindicator.

It was a great game and Andrew was a great opponent. Lessons had been learnt and discussed over the ensuing lunch.

You'll notice as this is my first time doing post game reports these are very short and poorly images as I failed to take photos.

I'll aim to post 2 reports from Thursday onwards.

2010-11-23T01:08:00.000-08:00

So here I am on the Tuesday after ToS and I've got to throw a very grateful thanks to Dezartfox over at The Vanus Temple for the great pics of my force he got.

So with no further ado, pics of the army displayed ready for best army judging!

So that was what I believe to be the sugar... especially considering they are not completed yet and the army went as a PiP.

Tomorrows post will be a quick round up of each of the games I played over the 2 days.

Throne of Skulls Winter 2010

2010-11-22T05:13:00.000-08:00

Wow what a weekend, another fun enjoyable tournament with the usual great bunch of folk and the inevitable loud "I'm a idiot" nerds in attendance.

The tournament in question was Games Workshops Winter Throne of Skulls 2010. This was the tournament I have been working the elysians towards over he past few months and also the reason why I've not been posting recently as I have put my hobby focus 99% on painting and getting complete and the last 1% on Halo Reach.

I attended with my brother Mart from Marts Warhammer Blog and Tim from The Vanus Temple.

Halo Reach was an unfortunate delay to the whole project, resulting in the not so desirable effect of not being 100% complete.

So over this week I'm aiming to post a series of posts tat are rounding up the tournament and finally posting some pictures (I hope Tim got some decent photos). I'm also going to have a run down of my list, what I thought worked well and what I thought sucked monkey nuts. Also, future plans for the force will be included in both list and modelling forms.

So to appease the baying masses (If your out there somewhere) a PiP I took a couple of weeks ago and never got round to posting.

The elysians have finally received an update

2010-10-15T12:45:00.000-07:00

Wow... I've not posted in ages. Or at least it seems that way.

However, the looming deadline of the November UK Throne of Skulls. So what have I been up to then?

Well all but the command squad are in base colours, requiring just some basic highlights and some work on the weapons.

I've completed the master of the fleet, basting through the valkyries and vendettas. What I do think is that I may not complete the target :( and may end up as a min colours kind of guy for the tourney. However, I'm still pushing to meet the deadline.

So onto some pics

WiP

Useful hobby kit... if airbrushing

WiP

WiP

The completed Master of the fleet

I've also picked up a new game to me. I heard about it from the guys at the The D6 Generation, the game is called Munchkin and is created by Steve Jackson Games. Not sure the gaming group will enjoy it, but it sounds great and here's hoping we all love it!

Also if you want to see how my fellow gaming group are going with the build up to Throne of Skulls see them at their sites:

Marts Warhammer 40K blog and The Vanus Temple

Until next time....

Space Marine Statue

2010-08-26T10:29:00.000-07:00

So Just wanted to share my latest terrain purchases.

The Space Marine Statue.

For £15 this set is fantastic, the join lines on it are awful. I even started to put some ever trusted squadron green putty (neat) to fill the gaps. It would have been a monster job so I gave up and decided that they would be part of the construction by the imperials.

I decided on a weathered brass statue... boring I know, but I wanted to trial a technique I saw over at massive voodoo using polished metal and oil paints. Find it here. Obviously this is a plastic model, but I decided the technique would work just as well.

The process was:
Black Undercoat
3-4 coats of thinned brazen brass
Drybrush of Brazen brass / chainmail mix (1:1)
Gloss varnish
Oil wash/paint W& Lamp Oil black all over (touch of burnt umber added to the mix as well)
Allowed white spirits to evaporate
Drybrush the model with a clean dry flat brush (never wash brush during process, just wipe on toilet roll or a rag)
Leave to dry
Matt Varnish and apply a verdigis mix of Hawk Turquoise, Orkhide, Skull white (8:1:1)
Varnish again.

And here is the finished result

Let me know what you think or any questions about the process.

Progress on the Elysians

2010-08-26T09:55:00.000-07:00

Thought I better do a post and let everyone know I'm alive.

So I've been pretty busy with everything... Including having a smashing holiday in Devon, if you discount it raining. Then it wouldn't be a UK holiday without rain.

So enough of my life and onto the items you want to be seeing. I'm close to completing another squad, the third of my four veteran units. Converted my master of the fleet, built the first command squad, made more objectives, started attending a wargames club and got some more games in. WooT

Gaming Wise, I attended the York Wargames Society and played a couple of games against a now seemingly regular opponent (Neil Kerr or more likely known to most as Skuzzlebum). Really enjoyed it, got beaten both times and started to see where I could improve my force. So the getting beaten bit, I'm not fussed as he is the third best demon player... in the world according to rankings HQ.

So the changes I've noted and need to look into is the snipers must go. They have done nothing for me. The options I have and need to look into is all flamers or more potently all plasma weapons with a medic... Plan would be to drop in, shoot lots and kill lots. The medic would be there to give me the all important back up should I get the inevitable overheating weapons... Oh well just some more resin crack to buy :D

I'll work on a new 1000pts list, but also importantly get onto that critical 1500pts as I need to get gaming with it.

Time for pics, me thinks...

Company Commander

Master of the Fleet

Third Squad Trooper PiPs

Objective WIPs

Vendetta Pilots PiP

Thanks for looking and add your comments and feedback as there are always welcome.

Elysian Vet sergeant - PiP

2010-08-03T00:52:00.000-07:00

So here I am, making another post... however this time with a little reservation for the Elysians / Air cav route.

I held a gaming weekend over the weekend inviting Mart, Dezartfox and Skuzzlebum. I played 4 games over Saturday evening and Sunday. 3 losses and a draw. We were playing 1000pts on 4x4 boards.

I was running:

Company Command Squad
4 x sniper rifles
1 x master of the fleet

Veteran squad
3 meltas
demolitions

Veteran squad
3 meltas
Shotguns
demolitions

Veteran squad
3 meltas

2 vendettas

1 vendetta
heavy bolters

1 vendetta
heavy bolters

Total 1000pts.

So the list wasn't too bad, I could maybe switch the snipers to flamers for a little more aggressive flushing tactics. Use these in co-op with the shotgun squad.

I really liked the vendettas with the 2 5pt heavy bolters. They were able to unleash a fusilade of fire that was a real treat.

So with this being my very first outting, I don't feel I did too bad. I've just a lot more to learn with this force and to get myself playing more to get those rules drummed into my head.

So after gaming I was really motivated to pick up the bristles and get to work with the third squad... and here is a PiP of the squad veteran sergeant.

Picture update, Still PiP

2010-07-16T05:06:00.001-07:00

Right well after a little harassment I took some photos of the two elysian squads I've been working on. They still require a few tweaks, but they are not far off.

Squad 1

Squad 2

Base for 1st squad 3 melta gunner

No painting this eveing as I'm going to frazzle my mind watching inception. Though I aim to fully complete painting these guys on Saturday and Spend part of Sunday painting Valkyrie interiors :)

The blog is coming along

2010-07-12T03:06:00.000-07:00

Hi Everyone

Well I've been busy the last few days. What with sorting the garden with the wife... How I hate trimming the conifer hedge... though I do get to play with my own chainsword (hedge trimmer).

I've also managed to get some painting time in as well. The first squad of vets (using lascutters as meltas) is very nearly done, just need to finish visors, the lens on las cutters helmets, weapons and go in with some devlan mud and badab black for some shading.

Squad 3 (Shotgun vets) are also nearly completed... though I still need to buy some more resin crack to complete the squad (3 meltas and a single cadian FW shotgun vet. Similar items to get these guys finished painting wise.

After these it's onto squad 2, I missed these and went straight to Squad 3 as I fancied a lasgun break :)

I also managed to do some more valkyrie building done. I got Valk 3 & 4 done, they just need some sanding of mold lines on the wing tip jets before they receive a blast of grey primer. I plan to get these two primed and then have a big airbrush and weathering session in between squad 2 and squad 4.

I've also, as you may see from the header made myself a new title banner. I think I'll change it again down the line but it was the first effort and we've all got to start from something so that we can improve upon.

Anyways. I'll get some pictures once these two squads are completed.

Laters

Work and the aftermath

2010-07-09T02:29:00.000-07:00

So we finally have some more pics available. Woo Hoo!

Squad 1

And squad 3

And the prevailing aftermath of some more Valkyrie construction and modelling of bases.

I'm hoping to by the end of Saturday, see squad 1 completed and squad 3 well on the way.... though I still need to go buying some items for them.

Finally some pics...

2010-07-05T07:48:00.000-07:00

So finally I have some images of the Elysians.

First Valkyrie Interior (WIP)

And here is one of my objective markers (WIP)

I'll get some more up-to-date shots of the first 10 man veteran squad this week.

Busy as ever...

2010-06-19T12:44:00.001-07:00

So busy, I've not posted on here for ages... is that busy... or just lazy? The latter I feel.

Well to a degree, I have been up to a few things... one of them being helping fellow blogger, gamer and mate Dezartfox set up a new website called The Sin of Damnation. Which can found here.

In addition to this I have finally been working on the air cav. I've been painting the first ten man vet squad and I've really enjoyed it. It has taken me ages to actually get myself to start... but once I have I don't really want to stop. This first squad is armed with 3 meltas and upgraded to demolitions. For the meltas (within this squad I'm using the Elysian Lascutters), I know when I get to tourneys I may get some stick as the rest of the force will be using standard looking meltas. I just thought the lascutters looked so cool that it would have been rude not to use them.

I've also devised myself my 1000pts list. This is my first target for painting too... It then means I can actually start playing sooner rather than later.

1000pts air cav option 1

Command squad 70pts
Flamers

Guardsman Marbo 65pts

Vet squad 115pts
3xmelta, demolitions

Vet squad 115pts
3xmelta, demolitions

Vet squad 115pts
3xmelta, demolitions

2x Valkyrie 260pts

1x Vendetta 130pts

1x Vendetta 130pts

Marbo won't be in my 1500pts force (I'm aiming to attend the Throne of Skulls tournament in November), but I think at this size of game he will really add a nice little distraction. Seeing as most of my force have demolitions, he won't add much in the way of tank distruction, but he may jut make any back row objective campers think twice.

Pics will come shortly... I promise,..

Feeling removed from the hobby

2010-05-01T06:17:00.000-07:00

Wow, life has been absolutely chocka block these past few months. Work has been busy, home life full of jobs, chores and events... leaving minimal time for the Elysians.

However, I have not totally avoided the hobby completely. I had a gaming weekend a few weeks back, a few buddies came round.

Mart007 brought his Orks, TheApe brought his Mech IG and Dezartfox brought his Sanguinary Guard force round. We hit a 1750pts limit as we have Open War coming at the end of the month of May so practise was in order.

All the games I played were from the Battle missions book, and I've got to say I thoroughly enjoyed every single one of them. I will come back and perform a proper review at a later date.

Anyway, apart from getting some games in I've been painting some more Space Wolves for my wolfwing list.

Enough Jibber Jabber... I've got some painting to finish!

So here we go...

2010-02-18T14:06:00.001-08:00

Well here we go, the first ever post of the Elysian 205th.

So why have I started a blog? Well I've always liked the idea of blogging and I've really got into reading everyone else’s blog’s and I though why the bloody hell shouldn’t I well that could be one route of reason or it could be because I have taken up a real challenge with try to produce as an effective Elysian Drop Trooper force as I can with the new IG codex.

So what’s the plan for the blog?

Well, I really want to be able to try and track my progress with the 205ths and my various other modeling / painting projects. I find that I suffer from serious real life issues that just stop me from doing anything. This is a mix of normal life stuff my family throws at me… and I love to make sure things are sorted and a serious position of laziness.

So who am I, and what’s my background?

Well I started gaming back in the days of Rogue Trader. I was way too young (9yrs old) to understand such a complex game. I started because my brother did (you may know him or heard of him, most notably on minus1modifier – Mart007). We started the game, but didn’t realize how complex it was… I mean a games master to run a game of 40K, so anyone that moans the rules are rubbish now – should have gamed in those days.

After the RT days, which thankfully we joined at the end, we got going with 2^nd Ed and by george was it a much more intuitive game. It truly was the start of the game we know and love today. I played orks, I started with them in RT with the plastic space orks box set… and as Mart007 will happily tell you, I painted a head yellow and black and called the plucky chap “Nuke”…

What a Noob!

My brother had started with the metal guardians, but quickly switched to space wolves when they originally arrived. When 2^nd Ed came he quickly switched to Orks as he fell in love with their crazy out there nature… well naturally I grabbed the opportunity to grab the wolves and that where the love for them started and flourished.

And that is history and this is now! I still very much play the space wolves, though in a slightly different form… I still have normal PA wolves, though they need some adjustments for the new rules… I currently run a wolf wing list. It was relatively successful at GT: H2 2009… considering it was my first ever tournament.

But this is predominantly about what I’m doing now. So I plan to return to GT: H2 2010, but this time with Imperial Guard. Ever since I saw the Forge World Elysian models I wanted a run an air cavalry force of them. However, I bought one of the forge world valkyries and it was a shockingly bad model. Needless to say it put me off. Once GW released their all-plastic valkyrie model I knew the time had come.

So the 205^th were born.

Over the course of this blog I will look at the army lists I’m considering using… and boy do I hope to receive some feedback… painting, modeling, tactics and a host of my other hobbyng antics.

I’m also hoping that I can wrangle in the help of a few of my friends.

So just to finalise I would like to say welcome and put your feet up. And here’s a few sites to read whilst I get things here going.

Minus1modifier.com

The Vanus Temple