Ashes to Ashes, Dust to Dust

Play the below video while remembering the Good times not the End Times

I didn't think Games Workshop would or could do it but they did. They've killed Warhammer Fantasy. I checked my calendar just to make sure it wasn't April 1st but nope, it was July 4 2015 American Independence day, and the day Warhammer Fantasy was put down........

Warhammer Players try not too cry too much

The Age of Sigmar is upon us which if you've been following the end times fluff means the Warhammer World as you and I knew it has been destroyed and replaced with small civilizations escaping through portals to realms elsewhere blah, blah, blah.....What this really is, is a failed attempt at deus ex machina.

Warhammer Fantasy was only accounting for about 13% of sales and the game which generally only appealed to the older wargamer, this is no longer Games Workshops target demographic, GW's target is more likely the children of Fantasy players. Get them in, sell em a boxset, GTFO, Profit. Not exactly a winning business plan, but fuck it, share holders need their dividends.

Enter Warhammer Age of Sigmar, Fantasies brain damaged cousin, firstly it introduces us to a new race of Space Marines as usual GW's pricing puts it out of range of most first time wargamers ,which it looks to be designed for, at $250NZD you get the below toys and the 30K/40K players are really excited about the new mini's.

Sweet Hellbrute bro...

FOR SIGMa......err SANGUINIUS

Now the rules are soo strange there's no points system I'm not going to go deep into it I'm leaving the analysis for better blogs for folks who passed English in high school and know the right place for an oxford comma. But sufficed to say when I heard that player interaction effected game-play beyond rolling dice I called BS lies silly, silly lies but alas they were all true.

Machete don't dance

I'm not sure what was going through their heads while writing this although I suspect someone had access to some high grade warp dust cos motherfuckers gone bananas!

Options: Now asides from the knee-jerk reactions to drop all your toys on Ebay or burning everything and putting it on Youtube. Crying until the pain goes away is another option but it still doesn't get your fantasy fix. Bullet point time bitches....

1. Carry on playing 8th edition make sure you've got that FAQ saved also a fine gentleman has purchased the domain  nethammer.org so in the coming months it'll have the resources needed to survive.
2. Kings of War: One of the fastest growing mass fantasy battle games they've even been kind enough to include the races that are missing from their canon Kings of War . Once described by one of New Zealand's biggest wargaming trolls as "Warhammer with training wheels" oh how times have changed. They release their FREE V2 ruleset on July 10th this year.
3. Hmmm I ran out of ideas but 3 bullet points makes it look more professional I guess, I dunno.

Anyways as always they're your toys and ultimately you decide what you're going to do with your hobby time and money and since GW just gave you a big ol Fuck You you should probably spend it elsewhere.

Thanks for reading I always appreciate feedback so feel free to comment below...

  

Read More

Stripping!

Get you mind out of the gutter we're not talking about shaking our asses for dollars oh no, no, no. This is much simpler article about getting paint off your mini's

No Stripper poles here (or in Iceland apparently)

Anyways moving on, you've probably got a pile of minis that maybe you painted ages ago and are just not happy with your skill at the time or maybe you scored a bargain on those monstrously painted space marines from Ebay. 

What ever it is that you've got you want it back to bare metal/resin and of course undamaged. So you're going to need some easy to acquire tools....

1: Simple Green Concentrate: It's the big Green bottle sometimes it comes attached with a smaller spray bottle (Keep that under the sink for cleaning purposes) it looks like this....

This stuff is great it's non-toxic (they had a little disclaimer on their website that said *This formula is orally non-toxic per The Globally Harmonized System of Classification and Labeling of Chemicals and readily biodegradable per OECD 301D. ) don't drink it though. Never dilute this and never throw it away.

2: Brass wire brush: Similar too a tooth brush but with metal bristles I've used this on both metal and resin mini's it strips paint just fine and does no damage.

3: A suitable equivalent of a Simple Green Rancor pit preferably one with a sealed lit you don't need that pine fresh smell all the time save that assault on the senses until cleaning day.

4: A bucket, some hot water mixed with detergent/dish soap: This is where we are going to clean the abominable paintjobs away. Pro-tip - now you might also want to wear those yellow gloves people use when doing the dishes because that brush pierces skin so easily and that Simple Green stings like a mother f*cker.

WARNING: Next part involves manual labour/going outdoors

Leave your mini's in the Simple Green Concentrate for about a week, although my Flames of War stuff only took 15 mins before the paint was slewing off, pile your stuff in as much as possible and let the goo work it's magic.

The final step use your wire brush to whisk away those bad paintjobs take back your wishes, shine on you crazy diamond.......ahem while you're doing this be sure to dunk your mini's in the hot water/soap mix constantly brushing until there's no paint. I some places you'll need a scalpel blade to remove paint in the those hard to reach gun barrels. Once you're satisfied put your mini's aside to dry.

Now I can airbrush these Grants and give them the attention to detail they deserve and remember what Bob Ross said we don't make mistakes we have happy little accidents fortunately this is 2015 and we have Simple Green :P

For any Painting Commissions or queries please email me kingdan82@gmail.com  

Read More

Making Money from your hobby

So you wanna make some money? There's this old saying "If you're good at something, don't do it for free."
Painting mini's as a hobby is fun but it's an expensive hobby but you can supplement this through painting for others.

As you may or may not know I am a commission painter I make a bit of money here and there and I consider myself an above average artist. Below are some hints and tips to help you get started.

This comes at a cost firstly those toys you painted and made look super awesome they're not yours and you have to let them go.

Next up is a deadline, fail to meet this and you will lose business.

Finally your tools and this is very important you're going to have to invest in quality brushes, paints and maybe even an airbrush so far I've broken 3 airbrushes including my Sotar 20/20 somehow :(

One piece of advice is not  to undersell yourself if you're charging $50 a tank and you think your work is worth $50 a tank stick to your guns maybe be flexible with a big job but don't devalue your work.

 Have credentials? Show it off! Previous work, awards or published work *cough*Hellfire & Back*cough*

Experiment, learn and use new an different techniques discovering AK Interactive washes is one of the best things I ever did.

Get a Paypal account it's essential if you do international work.

Finally don't let the work consume or overwhelm you, right now I have a whole gaggle of 40K stuff to paint but there's no rush on it (according to the owner) but that could change so project and time management may become essential.

Only paint for yourself if you've got the time, you may have to sacrifice a tourney or turn away work but get that job done and DON"T drop your standards I did this once and I felt dirty and to this day it's high quality or no dice.

If you have any helpful hints or tips let me know in the comments below. Also if you want a quote for anything let me know my email is kingdan82@gmail.com.

Happy Wargaming!

Read More

It's TOOL TIME

There's a few things I dislike in real life like waiting, stupid people, children, teenagers, old people,  people in general, messed up coffee order, being stuck in traffic, full trains, religion and atheists, Summer, Winter and a whole bunch of other stuff but as a wargamer the thing that really grinds my gears is paying for the Peripherals.

That's the hobby tools and in this review/rant/comparison we'll compare the prices (in New Zealand Dollars) of the more commonly used modelling tools. I'm also well aware that I could've poped down to the local $2 shop and got craft knives and super glue up the wazoo, but hey, I'm a professional (I'm also aware of the irony).

So here we go Games Workshop VS Gale Force 9

Super Glue

Basically it's the same stuff anywhere you go however being super glue and in a bottle is where the similarity ends the GF9 Glue has more in it 1oz or 28.4gm while the GW stuff 0.17oz or 5gm and the price GF9 $10.00 and GW $15.00

Hobby Knife

A basic hobby knife with a scalpel blade used for cutting things (duh) the GW knife offers and ergonomic rubber handle and is designed to be used in key modelling positions and comes with 12 spare blades by comparison the GF9 hobby knife has much less fanfare it's used for cleaning mould lines and cutting plastic however it only comes with 5 spare blades

price GF9 $15.00 and GW $30.00 

Sprue/Plastic Cutters



These tools are great for chopping through plastic sprue to help hasen your trip to modelling town I'm generally a bit harsher on mine I used the GF9 cutter on the right here to cut heads of metal minis it's not what it was designed for but it works. Once again both similar products in nature although it seems GW have updated theirs to go down to a 1mm point of which the GF9 already has.

price GF9 $20.00 and GW $30.00

Hobby Drill

Mostly used to drill holes in weak points in miniatures for secure pinning or putting on a large base etc GF9 refers to theirs as a Model Pinning System whereas GW still call theirs the Hobby Drill the GW version comes with 6 spare 1mm drill bits (I still have my GW drill from 1998) The GF9 drill has just the one bit a maple wood handle (I'm not sure if this was supposed to impress?) and 3 bits of brass rod to get you pinning although stolen paperclips work just fine.

price GF9 $20 (for an extra $10 you can get 2 different drill bits and 12 rods) and GW  $30

Bone Saw

These bad boys wouldn't look out of place as part of a carpenters tool kit but these are mostly used for big conversion jobs like cutting up Landraiders and taking the limbs of giant monsters not essential but it's one of those things you need just encase also you can't buy the GW one online because "we're not able to sell chunky blades like this online because, without age verification, anyone can get their hands on it - younger children and goblins alike"

 (I haven't taken mine out of the plastic yet)

price GF9 $20.00 and GW $45.00

Tape Measures



The most important tool for any wargamer and you'll go through about 20 in about 10 years of gaming although you can get them at any hardware store the gaming tape must have 2 things on it Centimeters and Inches as we all know proper wargames are played in inches and for some reason a strange few like to play in centimeters. Both of these tapes are 10ft long and have a lock to keep you ranged in the GF9 tape however says it has tensile strength for up to four (4) feet good for faux sword fighting.

price GF9 $10.00 and GW $9.00

So in summing up GF9 is the cheapest however there are other options your local hardware store probably has all these items for less than half of all this it's up to you how you want to spend your money.





Read More

Your hobby dollars? (make coffee before reading)

Hi everyone,

In these tough economic times it's hard to pick and choose it's not  2007 anymore  and we can longer justify purchasing pretty much everything and anything, going from being paid $4,000 a month to $2,800 a month doesn't help either, so what I'm going to do here is help you ,the reader, by directing you in the best way to spend your hobby dollar.

First things first you've got to be open minded this isn't Games Workshop there are loads of other games out there and you no longer have to drop $18 for 100g of sand (totally true) instead of debating alternatives here we're going to look at what you can get for $200NZD in each different system. We will assume you brought the rules a few months back and already have all your modelling supplies so now it's toy soldier time!

http://www.flamesofwar.com
Flames of War 1:100 World War II Miniatures game with a focus on Africa, The Mediterranean and Europe with an Early War 1939-41, Mid War 1942-43 and Late War option 1944-45. Lets select a 1500 point Mid War list and consult our budget.

Ok here we have a bog standard German Grenadier Infantry list

Company HQ                     $17.00
Grenadier Platoon              $34.00
Grenadier Platoon              $34.00   
HMG Platoon                     $17.00
3x Panzer IIIN Tanks         $51.00 
2x StuG F/8 Assault Guns  $34.00 
Priority Stukas JU-87G      $25.00

Total $212, $12 over budget however planes don't always need to be represented. Flames of War is the third most popular gaming system in the World after Warhammer 40K and Warhammer Fantasy it shouldn't be too hard to find a player near you.

http://wyrd-games.net/
Malifaux is a 32mm Heroic Scale Steampunk, Victorian, Horror Skirmish game meaning it's cheap to get into another strange thing about it is that it uses a card based fate deck to twist or even cheat fate. The different factions in this operate in Crews the points of a game are measured in Soulstones so lets go build a 25 point Soul Stone List.

For this I'm going to go with my list that I took to Battlecry

Witch hunters
Sonia Criid
Purifiying Flame 2 points
3 x Witchling Stalkers 12 points
Samael Hopkins 8 Points

This leaves me with 3 extra Soulstones in my cache to help me cheat fate etc as for price well each faction has a starter box

This works out to about $40NZD at current exchange rates and the Purifiying Flame is about $9NZD so you and 3 other friends could easily get started for that $200 budget or you could have 4 Starter sets. Good looking miniatures and and easy to follow ruleset also help out alot.

http://privateerpress.com/

Warmachine is a very fast growing 28mm scale steampunk/magic miniautres game and one of the very few American wargames that's actually working. It combines infantry and Steam and magic powered robots (known as Jacks) and Beasts for the Hordes part of it both fighting to kill the opposing teams caster like Chess once your caster's dead that's game.

 It works similar to most dice games walk forward, murder people however the Jacks and Beasts need orders so you have Focus and Fury both work very differently. Jacks get allocated Focus by your Warcaster and Beasts generate Fury by doing things I've heard it discribed as risk management versus resource management anyways lets build a 25 point starter list that seems to be a good start

Lets go with Khador they're red and they seem grumpy

The Butcher of Khardov $22.05

Decimator $45.40

Destroyer $45.40
War dog $13.00
Man-o-war Demolition Corps (Leader and 2 Grunts) $58.40 (this is a box of 5)
Winter Guard Rifle Corps (Leader and 9 Grunts) $65.00

Total $249.25 ok so that's well over budget so you might want to purchase it in parts I'm going to pop over to Wayland games and just do a comparison $223.81 not a bad saving their link is at the top on this blog.

http://www.spartangames.co.uk/

I lumped Dystopian Wars & Firestorm Armarda togerther as they're both played in a very similar fashion albeit one is a futuristic Sci-Fi Space ship game and Dystopian Wars is a Victorian Steam-punk Air, land and sea game. The miniatures are made of high quality resin and the game play is an I go you go system with an exploding dice component, roll 6's, it's good fun once you've figured it all out.

Ok lets see what we can get for our budget I'm not sure how points should work but I've been told one box contains everything you need to get started.

So $65.27nzd not a bad outlay for so much stuff and when was the last time you got 9 of anything for that price so at this price I could get the above and still have coin enough to get this

At $73.85nzd it's a bit more expensive however the ships are even bigger than Battlefleet Gothics ships and the Space battleship is twice as long as the Dystopian counterpart. So far that's $139.12 that leaves us $60 to spend on enhancing our fleets with carriers, submarines and other assorted toys. I always go with what looks cool rather than what is good according to the masses.

http://infinitythegame.com/

I copied this from their website.

"Infinity is a game with 28mm high metal miniatures that simulates combat and special operations in a science fiction environment with Manga aesthetics. Infinity miniatures are characterized by the high quality and detail of their modeling, the dynamism of their postures and their futuristic aesthetic"

I tell you what their minis are real nice however some of them have that Manga look and well I personally can't stand it. The game itself is a reactionary D20 game it has a very steep learning curve but once you're onto it the game plays smoothly when I played it I took a few heavily armoured troops and thought I was unstoppable unfortunately unfortunately snipers can still kill you no matter what you wear. One other thing I neglected to mention is this game relies on terrain and lots of it almost a Necromunda amount which helps with cover and consealment but the better player will always overcome this. Lets price it out anyways so once again I've gone for a box set due to it being a skirmish game it shouldn't set you back too much.

The above is a nice looking set of toys that'll cost you about $54.00 which is very cheap for such high quality minis when you compare it to 5 Space Marines for $48.00 from Games Workshop it comes up tumphs. You can start adding things to this like snipers, heavy weapons and ummm well what look like warewolves for these guys everyone else just has big robots.


So there you have it these are what I think about these selected games and I'll write more reviews in future if you want to send me something to be reviewed please contact me via email or leave a message in the comments below.

Thanks for reading
-Daniel

Read More