Alladin's Bat-Rep #2 - 1500pts Tyranids vs Eldar

Last weekend I had a rematch with the Eldar. I felt that I learned a lot from my spanking last time, and was determined to prevent a repeat...

...Let's just start by saying I was schooled once again.

This time we played at his place, he had a decent table with an Imperial Sector kit and some hills.

Alladin's (Pseudo) Bat-Rep #1 - 1500 pts Tyranids vs Eldar

So here it is, my first battle report! I am calling this a "pseudo" bat-rep because:

1. I am missing lots of information, as my main focus during the game was to get comfortable with the rules, and
2. The game itself was called at the top of Turn 3, due to timing (and the fact that it didn't look like the outcome would change all that much).

 

Alladin's Morning Coffee Musings #7 - 2014, A Year in Review

It's been a while since I've updated, though I have been meaning to for a while now. In fact, I have various bits of half-typed posts littered about, that I will hopefully get to publishing. This is the first!

Now that the craziness of the holidays are behind us, I have finally found some time to get back on here and do some updating.  The last few weeks have been predominantly hobby-free, unfortunately. Part of it has to do with all the family stuff that goes on this time of year, and part of it with my newly rekindled obsession with comic books. Without getting into too much detail, I dug out my old books & read them again for the first time in 15-20 years, then re-bagged them in nicer bags for future display in my office/hobby space. I should have stopped there, but then I went out and started buying all sorts of new issues and back issues of old series I never completed. The good news is that I have basically scoured all the local comic stores for back issues, and can stop obsessing over it for a bit and get back to the tabletop gaming side of things.

Alladin's "Step-by-Step" #1: Grey Knight Strike Squad (pt.7)

 A bit of a delay getting this one up, but as usual I got distracted with other things and that spread out my painting time dramatically.

With this post, I have officially started on the highlighting (mid-toning, I guess, but still! Progress!). As mentioned in the previous post, I have done all my washes for shading purposes, and now I am at the point of bringing out the colours one by one. Without further ado (and because I have so many bloody formulas to copy down), here are some pics:

These two highlight the shading for the reds (mainly 1st pic), and the beige/parchment (lower pic). They will look much better with further highlighting.

With the reds in particular, I went pretty random with the way the light hits the stormbolter. When doing shading, I try to pick a "virtual light source," generally coming from above, and try to stick to it, but after about 30 seconds I just throw any principles out the window and go somewhat random. At this point in the game, my skills are simply not that good to replicate realistic light physics.

Maybe, after I paint 50 of these buggers, I will have a better grasp of light physics. For now I just tried to make it look *somewhat* plausible, and hope that I don't end up associating with superior painters down the road, so I am not secretly mocked at my impossible light sources.

More pics & everything else after the break.

Alladin's "Step-by-Step" #1: Grey Knight Strike Squad (pt.6)

While Thursday was Thankgiving for our southern neighbours, it was just another day off for me. The result? Another productive day of painting. I managed to get the blue mid-tones completed, and I feel the momentum building to finally finishing this project. I used a new paint colour - VGC Magic Blue - and while I initially thought it was still too bright, I am happy with the result. I still need to do some selective washes for shading, and then a lighter highlight for some edging. The results are shown below.