Monday, August 8, 2011

Hobby ADD at its finest!

A lack of motivation doesn't have to be a horrible thing. I've found myself with modeller's block, stuck on the legs of the megadread, so I've set it aside. I did a little painting, but not too much as I don't have a case for my orks yet, and I'm not painting them just to have them get all damaged without foam. And now I've started major project #2: Da Bommer!

The fuselage

The main body is roughly octogonal in shape, tapering from nose to tail. The nose is still hollow because I have yet to decide of it is a standard bommer or a blasta bommer. I'm leanign to a blasta bommer because modeling up a deff arsenal full of dakka and rokkits will just be hella fun!


And here is the engine housing, where the nacels will attach and the wings begin.





And the engines. First up is the basic engine, jet intake being the first step done.



 The next two are the basic engine nacel assembled. biz and gubbins to be added in the future, after the wing assembly is completed.


And a couple photos of the detailing of the intake. This is the only part that has the detailing done, as it needed to be done before the octogonal housing around the blades was finished.


Well, there we go. Long update with lots of pics. More to come!

Saturday, August 6, 2011

Help me... help you!

Well, sort of. I need bitz, and I want to pay you for them! Built that Leman Russ and have all those exrtra weapons? Sell them to me! Decided to leave your battlewagon open to the air so all your nobs can feel the wind in their hai- ...teeth, sell me the extra armour plating. Built your Sentinel to be a lascannon toting Land Raider hunter? Sell me the plasma cannon and missile launcher and all that other good stuff.

I'm not made of money, so you won't be getting rich off of this, and I won't be selling the bitz... I just need to flesh out my bitz box. So give me a hand, sell me the extra shit you're not using, and we can both be happy!

PS: I'll take just about anything Games Workshop, including extra fantasy stuff. Fantasy bitz won't be very useful for my orks, but they'll be good conversion fodder for my =][=munda conversions.

Thanks in advance, friends!

Bill

Edit: Oops, forgot my contact information: thebill77718@yahoo.com

Monday, August 1, 2011

Looking Ahead to Our Next Camaign

Don't worry, work continues on the Megadread. And the Killtank. And the Grot Tanks. And prepping my boyz for paint. But after reading Rik's blog ( http://rfmadeptusastartes.blogspot.com/2011/08/new-dice-from-my-man-crush-new-ideas.html )and what he had to say about our next campaign, I though I would take a moment and throw some ideas I brainstormed today while watching Forgetting Sarah Marshall. These thoughts are in no specific order:

  1. Casualty Rolls: We will (probably) be using experience next time around, expanding on the idea of the Heroic Action Table from last time around. With that being said, units that are destroyed, reduced to 50% or are falling back at the end of the game run a risk of being lost.

    Rik and I originally talked about a resource gathering portion to the campaign allowing the purchase of larger and better units, but the more I thought about it the more I think that that would be more work than it was worth, and that the possibility of losing your battle-hardened units and replacing them with green troops will represent that facet of a campaign with less math and record keeping.
  2. Factions. We will definitely be playing as Factions, probably Imperial v. Orks. In our Planetary Empires campaign we have 7 (or is it 9?) players. I have played against 3 of them. I wanted to play with Kip and Matt and Steve and Chase and everyone, but the map never made that work.

    Now, when we play as Factions we can play how ever often we like, against whomever we like, for as many points as we like. There will be much more freedom, and opportunity. Now, I hear what you're thinking: "But Bill, if you split the campaign into factions you will still only fight half the players." Well yes, but I will have the opportunity to play WITH everyone, because that freedom will allow us some megabattles and team action that will still let me play with all my friends.
  3. Territories. In Planetary Empires, the specific tiles on the map meant little to the campaign - what really mattered was the little buildings on the tile, and those were random and often VERY one-sided. Going forward, I would like to see the sectors on the map have meaning for the campaign. If you play in a hive city sector, the Cities of Death book should be used. If you control a Forgeworld, you have greater access to heavy vehicles like baneblades and the like. Sectors will make Casualty Rolls easier to pass. Etc, etc, etc...
  4. Campaign Actions. While you have the freedom as a player to play in any theatre in the campaign versus any player, your faction will be focusing on a few specific strategic aims. There will be major actions, such as assaulting a sector to capture it or fortifying with defense lines and bunkers, and minor actions like raiding for supplies reconaissance and harassing the enemy behind his lines. All will have specific strategic benefit for the campaign.
  5. Initiative. This was one of Rik's ideas, and I haven't really worked on this much yet, but the basic idea was whichever faction "won" the previous campaign phase will enjoy some kind of benefits for doing so. These benefits would be something like rerolling deep strike scatter and outflank arrival, bonuses to siezing the initiative (duh, lol), and the like.
  6. Terrain. We are looking for a more purposeful use of terrain. We have bastions and Fortressi of Redemption, defense lines and more. Wouldn't it be nice if that Fortress of Redemption on the table did more than block LOS to your deployed Land Raider or Thuderwolf Cav?
Well, those are my thoughts so far on the NEXT campaign, Rik and I will be working on it. I would love to hear everyone else's thoughts and input.

Major update on the megadread will be coming soon, working on the legs right now (well, I will be as soon as the Diamondback beat hte San Francisco Ferries) and they're looking good.