Beginners Day 7

Another great day at Games Workshop with quite a few new folk turning up.  Maybe this was the glorious UK raining summer or maybe a lot of new folk getting into tabletop gaming, was good to see some new faces attending.  Due to this we had a large battle with two groups of five a side, each with squad each, ranging from Tau, Orks, Necrons, Space Marines and Chaos Space Marines.  The battle was going well with us Orks doing some great damage to the enemy, by turn 3 we thought we were into a good position with our Necron allies covering the range attacks.  In the last few turns though it went to wall and we lost badly, particularly down to me be able to consistently rolls ones.  It seems I need to learn some skill in rolling that small size sided object called a die.

New Necrons Inbound Q2 2012

Whilst scouring the latest news on sites I came across a post on Warseer of some new Necrons in an upcoming White Dwarf magazine.  Some snippets from the grabs below, but check the full details over at Warseer and BeastsofWar.

The new Tomb Raider with selection of weaponry looks pretty cool to, but for now I will stay with my Orks.  Less money spent that way.

Beginners Day 6

Another good Beginners Day this week with a plan to purchase some of the new Citadel Paints to make good the feedback I received on my recent Ork Boyz images. The feedback was around the boots being the same colour as the leather pants of the Ork, which to be honest I never really liked them all the same colour. So I read came up with using Rinox Hide as a base with Doombull Brown for the mid tones, highlighting with be a mix of both with some Bleach Bone to lighten. Back to the beginners day and the big Ork battle which ensued with 20 Ork Boyz and Space Marines challenging the another 20 Orks and Chaos Marines. The main aim here was to further teach us to start to remember the stats of our models and weapons. Something which seem to be taking me longer, but I put that down to old age :)

Black Reach Painting - Day 7

After a good initial read through my new book I felt it time I based up my first 10x Ork Boyz and take some decent photos of the most recent trio finished, to highlight all I have learnt from the initial ones.  I decided to go for Calthan Brown base edges with mainly sand base and a few tuffs of grass.

I then proceeded to setup my Nikon D300, lightbox and flashes to to attempt to get some decent images to better show them off, below is the result.  Feel free to comment on thoughts or critic on how to improve further.

Beginners Day 5

I have been looking forward to this weeks beginners day for a couple of reasons, firstly I get to pick-up my pre-order of Citadels latest How to Paint Miniatures Book (inc. DVD).  It has a hefty 135 page guide to painting miniatures with clear step by step guides on cleaning/prepping models before painting and airbrushing, layering techniques, colour schemes to try out using the new paints, full army painting guides for different areas such as skin, fur, face, hair and cloaks.  The second reason was because I have been reading far to much on planning my Ork army and tactics when playing with Orks, starting with the Orks Codex, DakkaDakka forums and various other blogs . So much information I needed to discuss with Dean at Games Workshop who runs the day, to clarify my understanding of benefits each unit I had come up with and a technique to help me plan my army.


This led to other half of my time of the beginners day playing a game against Orks to get a better feel for the gaming rules and using the codex to review the stats during play.  This helped a lot to understand in practice how the Orks play out and what units will benefit my army for the style of play I was trying.  One of the nicest parts of this game was being able to use my first 10x Orks Boyz I completed (images coming soon).

Black Reach Painting - Day 6

Spent a few hours this evening finishing of 9/10th pair of Ork Boyz with their highlighting and battle damage.  Really liking the new rust technique I tried on the weapons with these guys, maybe a touch to much on the guns, but the axe really came out better than expected.  I'm still not keeping my hand as steady as would like when highlighting and in particular the battle damage but I'm hoping it will improve over time.  Hope to base the first 10 Orks Boyz tomorrow and setup my light-box using my photography experience and get some much better images to show progress through the pairs I have painted.

Beginners Day 4

This weeks beginners day was interesting in that I went excited to pick-up the new How to Paint Miniatures by Games Workshop which now includes a DVD which mirrors the book, but I forgot it was Easter Sunday and hence arrived to a closed shop. Since I was in the mood for some hours of painting I spent the day completing my 7/8th Ork Boyz and tried the new line highlighted technique.  Sadly the new highlighting felt to bright on the edges for Orks so I added a Devlun Mud wash to specific areas to lower the tone of the highlights. I then proceeded to add the new war damage technique I started with my previous pair to proceed with the battle torn army.  Once I was happy with the 7/8th pair of moved on to the new pair of Ork Boyz, bumping up to 8 completed and 12 to go.  With this pair I also continued my new approach to base painting Orks as follows:

• Ork base colours Knarlock Green, Iyaden Darksun, Mechrite Red and Calthan Brown to corresponding areas
• Weapon base metal colours Boltgun Metal, Tin Bits and touches of Iyaden Darksun to mirror the armour on the Ork Boyz
• Jewellery colours of Chainmail for rings or hoops through noses/ears and Tin Bits for buckles
• Completed the base painting with a Devlun Mud wash carefully moving the wash to key locations such as the bolts, teeth gaps, gun metal join points and cracks in armour

Black Reach Painting - Day 4/5

Spent the last few days researching better techniques for my gun painting such as wearing, rust and chipped paint.  This led me to a number of new tutorials and the find of a couple of great sites The Painting Corps (TPC) and From The Warp (FTW) which both have extensive list of tutorials for particular techniques.  FTW quick and easy soot effect for guns is proving useful for my Orks Boyz guns, as now starting to apply a spent ammo wear to the end of the barrels.  TPC have a number of good tutorials for weathering and battle damage of which I found the Rust in Two Colors and Painting Battle Damage for tanks.

I also spent some time learning about highlighting and come across FTW tutorial for teaching how to complete Line Highlighting which is something I have yet to master, but slowly improving on.  TPC have a nice simple technique for Eldar Tank Armour Lining for creating clean lines in those armour plate creases.

Warhammer 40k: Dark Millennium no longer an MMO

I have been checking my daily news sites and today found this post by THQ stating the upcoming Warhammer 40k: Dark Millennium will no longer be and MMO title.  THQ should off its latest trailer at E3 last year and it showed real promise.  However this is no longer to be as the new plans are to make the game a single player game with multi-player.

New Citadel Paint Conversion charts

Whilst looking around the various blogs for new techniques of painting I came across a great post on From the Warp blog for converting the new Citadel Paints to various others including the old Citadel Paints, Vallejo, Racham and hex codes for each.

Beginners Day 4

Attended our 4th beginners day today, with only daughter son illness.  I took the opportunity to discuss some techniques with Dean the store manager, covering brushes and why Citadel range are not numbered like other art brushes. I also asked Dean to confirm I was not getting confused with fantasy Orks with Space Orks gear, such as the Azhag the Slaughterer which Dean confirmed I was and it from the fantasy gear.  The Space Orks boss like vehicles are such items as the Ork Trukk and the Ork Battlewagon.  What was also interesting was our discussion around the ForgeWorld Orks gear which is made with Game-Workshop approval but only certain items have the seal of having valid attributes for use in the table top games.
As for painting I managed to complete my next pair of Ork Boyz and also finally took the risk of adding battle damage I learnt from Girl Paintings tutorial video at 4m 49s by use of three simple colours.  Base of the highlight colour, Undercoat Black inner leaving thin outline of the highlight colour and finally a Chainmail inner leaving thin outline of the black.