Post Apocalypse Month: Coming soon!

Next month is Post Apocalypse Month on TFH and we'll be looking at all sorts of post-nuclear goodies. Mostly we'll concentrate on Muscle Car Apocalypse, which I am hoping to get running at my school wargames club next year. For this reason, you will need a few special materials, so I thought I'd put up a shopping list before we start.

• 1/32 (or close) cars. MCA is a 1/32 scale game, but anything from 1/30 o 1/38 will do. Since most toy cars are made on standardised chassis they tend to fudge the bodies to fit. For our purposes, this is really not a big problem. 1/32 scale diecast toy cars are widely available, I usually get them from eBay for about $10aud each. Sometimes you will find things at op shops, so keep an eye out! (I got a New Ray 1/32 Peterbilt tanker truck for $1.50!)
• 1/32 or 1/35 weapons. 1/35 is the most common military modelling scale, so there is no problem finding lots of weapons and goodies to fit to your cars. Several companies make sets of plastic weapons for customising their kits or building dioramas, invest in a few of these and you're laughing.
• 1/32 or 1/35 figures. Again, there are tons of these available. The plastic ones are quite affordable, and you usually get quite a few in each set, so a single box will often give you a whole gang.
• Plasticard, plastic rod, girders etc. You'll want plenty of these things to add armour, rams, bulldozers etc. to your vehicles. Get different sizes and shapes of everything.

Well, that's the major stuff. It's generally fairly cheap and readily available, although I have found some car types harder to find than others (SUV, Jeeps and other 4wd types have been rather thin on the ground for some reason). Most toy cars depict the more glamorous and interesting models, so expect to find two doors rather than four. Although this technically makes the car a Coupe, I tend to fudge things a bit and call it a Sedan if it's big enough and obviously has a back seat. Number of doors don't count for anything in the rules, number of seats do.

Ishoo Forty: Dwarven Forge

When Dwarves chose to live above ground, they often find gainful employment in the towns of humans as smiths and metal workers. For this reason, the distinctive Dwarven school of architecture is seen across the old world. Dwarves build entierely in stone and metal, dismissing wood as a mere fuel source. Although the Dwarves have a distinctive style of building, it is not a hard style to emulate. How hard? Well, here's one Grot prepared earlier...

And there you are, hippo fans! Peeling foam core can be a bit tedious, but the results are worth it. If you are using a thicker foamcore, say 5mm, there's no need for the inner and outer walls - the sheet is quite strong enough on it's own. It's important to paint the foam with PVA, this helps to protect it as it's a bit delicate. It's vital if you are going to be using spray paints.

Anyway, that's it for now, and that's it for this year. Make sure you come back next year for Post Apocalypse Month, which will run for the whole of January!

Warhammer Cookbook: Dwarves

I've decided to gradually post the Warhammer cookbook on TFH, one page per month, so here's this month's page!

Dwarven Architecture

I know I promised a Dwarven forge rather a long time ago... Well, I actually did start work on it, but I was not happy with the way it looked, so I pulled the plug on the project (a first for TFH - I do not like to admit defeat). A new version is coming very soon, I promise you. IN the mean time, here are some notes on Dwarven architecture.

• Dwarves never use wood. The 7th edition Warhammer army book made this quite clear - wood is for burning, nothing else.
• Most of the time, Dwarves live underground, so you don't have to make buildings for them anyway (of course, this is cheating!)
• Dwarves revere their ancestors, and will usually carve their stone work into representations of them. Pillars will often take the form of huge stone warriors, and doors are often mouths.
• Dwarves are short. This means lower doors. It also means windows are positioned closer to the ground. Getting this right is very important as it adds character and racial flavour to the model, BUT it must still be in proportion. They might be short, but they are also wide, so doors are proportionally wider than human doors.
• Dwarves like stone. Lots and lots of stone.

And as a special treat, here are some old photos of Kazad Grunks, a dwarven hold army display board I built for a mate many years ago. When I had a crap camera. And always tended to scale the photos down so they were really small anyway. Sorry about that. You'll have to squint a bit.

Merry Orcsmas people!

Tis Orcsmas, that strange mid-winter time when Orcs and Goblins feel a strong compulsion to dress in bright red, don fake beards, and give one another brightly wrapped packages, rather than the usual axe to the face. No one quite knows why they do it...

To help you celebrate this most unusual of festivals, the hippo and I have produced an orcsmas set, which you may print out and build at your leisure. It is indeed in 28mm scale, and fully compatible with the various other fantasy RPG tiles which infest my photobucket account.

The Warhammer Cook Book: Warpstone Cookies.

I've been feeling a bit guilty about not posting anything for a while (I've had a Nurgle lord level cold, which, combined with the renovations to my nose, produced spectacular results), so here's something a little silly.

For my mate Pete's birthday earlier this year, I conspired with his brother to produce the Warhammer Cook Book to teach him some basic cooking skills... and TFH guest star Skveek put in an appearance. Check it out!

Actually, this is Skveek's second book appearance. His first ever appearance was in Baby's First Book Of Warhammer, which I made in collaboration with Pete for Greg's son. Later on I re-used him as a guest on TFH.

Well, there's a lot more of this stuff (one recipe for every official race, plus Araby and Halflings!) and it might find it's way online at some point if people are interested.

PS: I am working on Ishoo Forty. It's just going slowly.

Painting another man's chaos army...

You might be wondering what has been going on and why there have been no posts in a while. Well, when Duelling Paintbrushes ended, my esteemed and skaven-sired opponent had a brilliant idea. HGC club member Ben is possessed of more chaos than sense. He is also possessed of no inclination to paint what ever, which means that he has owned some parts of his collection for as long as twenty years (probably more!) without painting them. Since I am possessed of relatively little chaos, but wish to be possessed of considerably more chaos, Greg suggested a cunning trade. I paint Ben's stuff, and in return, I get to keep some of Ben's stuff.

So far, I have completed a unit of 28 Tzeentch warriors, and 5 Slaanesh Dragon ogres (yes, I know Dragon Ogres can't be marked, I just painted them in the Slaanesh scheme). I've also made a fair sized dent in a unit of Slaanesh warriors. Yesterday, I took delivery of yet more models, which means I have the required minis for some big units of Knights, some Marauder Horsemen, and a plentitude of characters, along with an insane plan to convert some war altars.

One tremendous benefit of the arrangement is that Ben has so many wonderful old figures I would never be able to get hold of. I've been peppering the units I paint with these - many of which I have never seen before! Since Ben will not trade them to me (they are worth a lot after all!) I am painting as many of the really old things as I can so I can atleast have my fun with them.

Unfortunately, Ben has taken delivery, so I can only offer up some of the in-progress photos...

Here's the Tzeentch unit, complete apart from bases.

The old Warhammer Quest chaos warrior does duty as unit champion...

The first batch of Slaaneshi warriors

Duelling Paintbrushes: The end.

October 23rd, the last day. Duelling Paintbrushes are laid down, the banjo music fades, and it's time to survey what has been done...

Well, most of it. I am staying with my parents while my sinuses recover from surgery, and I left the marauder unit and marauder horsemen unit behind. I also didn't bring sand or my camera, so bases are not finished, and I had to use my mother's camera. This is a strange experience - she has what is effectively my camera, but five years newer. It's superficially the same, but does almost everything differently and takes some getting used to. I cannot get decent photos out of it the way I can get them out of mine.

Sigh.

Anyway, I have now completed ten Nurgle marauders. These guys were converted from Flagalents back when the plastic ones first came out, and oyu cpuld (briefly) order them in a sensible box of twenty, rather than the traditional GW over priced box of ten. They are now painted. The other half of the regiment was half painted already, but I have not yet gone back to finish them off.

I have also painted my Jugger lord ay last, along with a Berserker champion from Reaper, who I intend to use as a hero in marauder units. Because he is very, very shouty.

I'll get better photos of everything involved in Duelling Paintbrushes when I get home next week.

Duelling Paintbrushes: The end is nigh.

Well, duelling paintbrushes is almost over, and all I've done since the last post is half finish five more nurgle marauders. There is a very good reason for this.

On Wednesday, I entered the hallowed portals of the Alfred Hospital to have surgery performed on my notoriously dodgey sinuses and nasal system in general. On thursday I sat in a hospital bed all day waiting for the bleeding to stop (it's very hard to stop nasal bleeding - you can't exactly bandage the inside of your nose). On friday I was discharged and got back to my parents' place. I had a shot at painting, but the cocktail of pain killers, antibiotics and the inability to breath through a nose still full of blood and splints made it hard. I couldn't paint for long periods - I kept feeling dizzy and having difficulty focusing.

Which is why I have NOT painted twice as much as Greg yet. But I do intend to have another shot today, and I hope to get some Khorne characters completed.

Duelling Paintbrushes: Day Seven.

Day Seven. The Khorne Marauders are completely complete, down to their bases. I've bought some chain, but not yet added it to the dog's collars or connected them up to the dog handler's hands.

They've also had their baptism of fire in a game against Greg yesterday. I took 2500 points of chaos, all of which was Nurgle apart from the marauders. I also took several illegal items because I've only played about five games of 8th edition, and just didn't realise. Greg took 2500 points of empire, and used the Kislevites as a detachment of halbardiers because he didn't have enough of them to use them as anything else.

The Marauders were the last of my units to be destroyed, and my Chaos lord has earned the new name 'Lord McWailsondetachment' for his continued efforts to singlehandedly remove every Kislevite model from the game (he didn't quite make it - three fled off the table without being killed!)

I also took a box of half finished chaos conversions, which Greg looked into, which resulted in him demanding I finish the Marauder horsemen I'd converted and started many moons ago. This is what they looked like this morning:

And this is them this evening, now finished (although I think I forgot the corpse's hair, and I must replace the missing back-banner).

I've also spent some time with the Jugger Lord. His jugger now sports spiffing collars, and will soon sport a spiffing, throne style saddle.

Duelling Paintbrushes: PFH Ishoo For: Khorne Marauders

Sometimes you just NEED a horde sized unit and you need it now. Painting a unit that size can be a very daunting task, but it needn't be! With a few speed painting techniques and a good run up, you can burn through regiments faster than you think! Is it quick you ask? Well, it's Day Four of Duelling Paintbrushes, and I am almost finished painting the whole 32 man unit. How hard you ask? Hippo level.

They won't win any prizes, but they will win battles, and they will win them fast. Well, they would if it was anyone but me using them. As it is, they'll be crushed ignominiously everytime I use them...