Tournament Octagonal Pentagon 2014: IT BEGINS

Another year, another flurry of blog posts!  This year's Tournament OP is a month away and it's time to get my 40k act together again.  I've been playing practice games to see if my new Catachan force can take on the competition and I'm thinking they are up for the challenge.  But first, I've got to paint some stuff!

Pictures after the break.

Team OP 2013: Preparation Complete

The painting is done, and I've got the pictures to prove it!

Group shot of the marines, with leaders front and centre! 

Team OP 2013, painting update!

What's this, posts on consecutive days?!?
That's right, time for an update on my painting progress.  I've managed to get the initial coats of green and metal done on the chimera:

Looks a bit streaky, needs more paint.

Something Wicked This Way Comes!

Well, it's that time of year again.  With the second annual Team OP tournament only three days away it is time to resurrect this blog and track some progress.  I'm using a similar list to the one I used last year, except some changes in the allowed army composition have led me to spice things up a bit.

The main difference is that the different spots on the Force Organization Chart have a maximum amount of spendable points, so I was forced to cut down on my heavy support.  Also, there is a mandatory 500 point allied attachment, which will be my Fallen Angel led Chaos Marines.  Without further adieu, here is the list.

Team OP prep: 33 down, 31 to go

Time for another painting update.  Today I managed to finally get the first combined infantry squad done.
Well ok, not entirely.  For some reason I still haven't touched their autocannons, but those will have to wait until tomorrow.  Here is some photographic proof.

Success!

Team OP painting prep: Missiles away!

Hey there.  I just finished doing a bunch of work on my first 20 man squad and I also based the missile launcher teams.  These were a major pain as I had simply glued both small based models onto one larger base when the codex was updated.  This would not look good with the basing material I was using, so they had to come off.  It was a brutal struggle, but in the end I managed to separate the men from their bases and the small bases from the larger ones.  

First up we have the group shot.  Also seen in this picture are a commissar and a platoon leader who were based using extra glue I had.

On Painting the Imperial Guard: Memory Lane

In lieu of fresh pictures, today's post will describe the techniques I have developed as I learned to paint my army.  As you probably have noticed, I am not a 'pro painter'.  That being said, I have come a long way since my first model.

It all started back in 2002.  After talking to my good friend Chris about this Warhammer game we decided that the Imperial Guard was the faction for me.  My first model was the infamous Sly Marbo.  Buying him taught me the most fundamental skills of Warhammer modelling: buying your model and gluing it together.  At this point in my hobbying career I had no time for silly things like undercoating or basing.  My brother and I also learned quite quickly that 'black ink' was not like the other GW paints we had bought as it took a lot to get a nice even coat.  Instead of investigating this further we simply ignored the subtleties of painting and stick to the basics.

A Catachan from the first batch.  Pretty gross by today's standards, but it did the job.

Team OP: First steps

So, a day has passed and I've started getting my models organized.  In this first picture we can see my Leman Russ tank being built, along with some random Catachans and some basing supplies.  This tank still needs a name, so suggestions would be appreciated.

This next picture shows how I plan to base these dudes.  You'll notice that it is quite jungle-ish, which is exactly what I want!

More Dark Eldar, finally

So today I was struck by the urge to do some painting, so I pulled out the deneb stone and did the skin on a wych squad and a couple of warriors.  It seems that just painting a couple of models at a time isn't doing it for me, so I think I'm going to switch back to the tried and true batch painting method I used for my imperial guard army.

New Blog, New Dark Eldar

Hi everybody, and welcome to my blog.  To start things off let's look at some of the warhammer I've been painting.  First off some shots of the first three warriors I have done.