The Emperor's Herdstone

Ha – I thought the Necromunda gang was finished but…I’ve been thinking about how having the same wargear is going to make it hard to keep up with the bookmaking and model identification in game.

So I’ve gone with a very simple trick; different colours on the bases for my Leader (gold)

Champions (silver)

And Gangers (bronze).  Oh and I painted the three power swords in the gang too.

Now, there’s more to the model identification than that – how do I keep up with who is who among my identically kitted gangers?

Easy; by marking the vision arc in black on the base and painting their gang number (I’d like it to have been a name but I’m not creative enough and these will just be used for pick up games) on the black background.

I’m pretty pleased with the idea, should speed my games up (esp. the vision arc marker).

I’ve also written out fighter cards for all the gang.  This was boring but, actually, a great way to really grind in the stats and wargear traits for my gang (I can quote the las pistol / las gun stats in my sleep!).

Right.  These really are finished now.  I’ve started talking about 40K (here) already so these need to come off of the painting bench now.  I’ll keep you updated.

Any comments, let me know!

I’ve been writing this blog for a few weeks now and have got a bit of content on 30K and Necromunda (within the lifetime of this blog I’ve built and painted my Necromunda gang).  But that’s not what this was meant to be about.  What this was meant to be about was documenting my experiences navigating from total noob to the cut throat world of tournament 40K gaming.

Actually just writing that last sentence made me do a little sick in my mouth (I’m not competitive at all).  So what’s all this about?

Why am I getting into 40K?

Loads of reasons, here are some of them:

1. It’s my hobby.  Fairly ephemeral one this.  I’m just drawn to 40K like a moth to a flame.  Tabletop wargaming has always been one of my main hobbies (I have heaps including, but not limited to, cycle touring, the clarinet, video gaming, golf and heaps of other stuff).  40K (whatever 30K elitists (of which I am 100% one)) say is by far the biggest game in town.  Being a table top wargamer and not having at least a functioning 40K army is a bit weird
2. I’ll be able to play more games.  This one isn’t really true.  I live in a weird place at the moment and so don’t play outside of UK based events I fly back for (a grand total of one this year).  Also, my gaming group doesn’t play 40K (with the exception of one guy who is a good friend and I’ll be drilling for advice soon).  However, I can see that life might change before too long and a potential location change is on the cards.  40K might be a good way of meeting new people wherever I end up.
3. It’s more stuff to paint.  This is a big one.  I don’t yet know how I will be painting my army (I have an idea but there’s a long way to go yet) but as this is my hobby, if I don’t have stuff to paint then I feel a bit lost.  I’ll be discussing painting options in more detail when I come to the painting section of this blog (obviously).  I could have painted another 30K legion but this way I’ll get to try some new techniques (and paint something that isn’t power armour (#spoileralert).
4. To give me something to write about here.  So this blog is my new hobby and I wanted to use it to document exactly what it’s like to go from complete noob to 40K tournament player.  I’ll try and document everything I can – the good and the bad and I hope you can get in touch with your thoughts too.

So those are some of the reasons why I want to start playing 40K…but just having an army and rolling dice isn’t an aspiration; what does success look like here?  What do I actually want to achieve?

1. I want an army I’m proud of (or an army I know I will be proud of one day).  Game systems are creeping up a bit on me – I want to build and paint an AoS army this year and I am going to get involved in Adeptus Titanicus when it drops – so the likelihood is I’ll try and get this army up to a neat tabletop standard and leave the opportunity to upgrade the finish in the future.
2. However painful it is, I want to experience the really competitive edge of 40K gaming.  This is nothing more than masochism to be honest; I’m not interested in winning anything but I would like a tough school and to understand where the outer edges of the competitive landscape look.  This really is just a reaction to one of my un-informed biases about 40K (that the competitive meta is horrible).
3. After the competitive experience I want to roll back to some more chilled events (if they exist) and find my sweet spot for really enjoying the game (assuming I don’t have an epiphany and fall in love with balls to the wall WAAC tournament 40K play).

Ok so those are the reasons I want to play 40K and what I want to get out of this experience.  But where am I actually starting from?

Hmm, bit of a candid admission here.  I’m a 40K 8th ed. noob but I have played 7th ed.  In fact my total number of 40K games is ~10 (including five as the doubles partner of my good friend Tom who is teaching you to write 30K lists here). I’ve had two 40K armies previously:

1. A double predator Minotaurs Space Marine army.  Yep, it won all the games it deserved to.
2. A knight army.  Yes, you read that right.  I went from a list with no statistical chance of winning anything to a literal kerbstomping rape train with no brakes.  I did a knight army as a quick way to get into 40K before but all it really was was a quick way to becoming the most hated man in the room.

So I’m not a complete noob and I have experienced tournament 40K as the doubles partner of a winning machine but 8th ed is very different and I’m branching out on my own.  But what are my preconceived ideas about 8th ed. 40K?  What am I worried about? (disclaimer, I don’t “worry,’ about anything (other than my pension pot and my kids)):

1. The game system is dysfunctional.  I’ve heard lots of stories of first turn scoops in tournaments because losing the first turn means losing the game.  I will not scoop, guaranteed, but I’m interested to see if this is really the case
2. The hobby standard is appalling at events because the meta changes so quickly units blow in and out of fashion all the time.  This is more of an issue to me; I’ll be fully painted as well as I can be within my aspirations for the army.  I hate playing against, ‘no effort,’ armies.  We’ve all been there.  Your stuff doen’s have to look amazing.  It doesn’t even have to look good.  It just has to look good to you – if you really think your army looks crap, you’re probably right.
3. Everything is hyper competitive all the time.  I’m hearing terms like ‘soup,’ (which I understand to mean units from lots of different books bunched together just because it’s good, not because it’s thematic) and it’s making me feel a bit sick.  Hopefully I’ll be able to throw a wet blanket on this attitude!
4. It’s a younger demographic.  Younger than 30K anyway.  This is almost certainly true.  30K is uniquely veteran in its player base.  I like that but, who knows, there may be elements of the 40K culture I can use in 30K anyway.

So, that’s why I want to play, what i want to achieve, my starting point and a few of the pre conceived ideas I have about the 40K hobby at the moment.  The next stop will be picking an army.  I’m looking forward to that bit.  Actually that’s a bit of a weirs thing to write because I’ve picked it already and an writing this in reverse but I’m looking forward to writing about it I guess.

I hope my 40K journey is interesting and, of course, if you have any comments let me know!

Date: 07th – 09^th September 2018

Venue:  Warhammer World, Nottingham

Link: https://warhammerworld.games-workshop.com/horus-heresy-campaign-weekend-the-invasion-of-lannar-iv/

This looks to be WHW’s only HH event this year and certainly one I wasn’t going to miss.  Tickets sold out insanely quickly; I got mine but I was on buying duty for my friends and didn’t get theirs.  Fortunately our standard SOP was initiated and it became every man for himself.  They all got sorted in the second wave so now there’s a decent sized group of us (3 x traitor and 2 x loyalist) going up.

The event is billed ‘narrative,’ with the awards as follows:

• Victors of Lannar IV – for each member of the winning faction. Chaplain – for the Loyalist player with the most Favourite Game votes, with the best gaming results as a secondary sorter.
• Dark Apostle – for the Traitor player with the most Favourite Game votes, with the best gaming results as a secondary sorter.
• Hero of Legend – as voted by you for the winner of the Hero category in the Legends painting competition.
• Company of Legend – as voted by you for the winner of the Company category in the Legends painting competition.
• Icon of Legend – as voted by you for the winner of the Icon category in the Legends painting competition.
• Best Scout Force – as voted by you for the best looking scout force.
• Best Army – as voted by you from the selection of nominees for the best looking army.

Right off the bat I’ve got my eye on the single miniature painting comp with Fulgrim (Hero of Legend)

I’ve been to a couple of campaign or narrative events at WHW before and I find them to be more fun than ToS events because of the lack of cut throat WAAC elements but it’s fair to say that people are definitely there to win their games.  The event is fairly expensive and with all the extras it comes to a pretty pricey weekend so I guess most people want to walk away thinking they had a good time (and that generally doesn’t mean getting their pants pulled down for three days).

So what’s the weekend schedule?

Friday night – Flexible 4,000 points game.

This Flexible 4,000 points system is interesting.  4,000 points (which is bigger than any 1:1 game I’ve played before) is the minimum size but the players’ pack encourages bigger games.  Reading between the lines this system is to allow all those Titan owners the opportunity to use all their toys.  I have ~7,000 points of EC but given how the force org slots work ~5,000 points is my playable limit.  My intention here is to take 4,000 points and let my opponent take whatever they want.  I’m looking forward to this game a lot.

Saturday

2 x 2,500 AoD games

2 x 1,000 Scout force games

The AoD games are self-explanatory.  I’ll post my list up for these (and all the games) when Tom’s finished his series of ‘how to write a 30K list,’ articles (you can find those here)

The 1,000 Scout force games are slightly different.  To fit the narrative these are smaller games (obviously) and completely the opposite of the 4K+ games – there’s quite a tight restriction:

• No Primarchs, Praetors or unique (named) characters.
• No Lords of War, Super-heavies, Gargantuan or Flying Gargantuan creatures.
• No vehicles with a combined armour value of more than 33.
• No units with a toughness value of 8 or more.
• No flyers or flying monstrous creatures.
• No fortifications.

There’s also a specific painting competition for this force.

This is cute but I can’t go too far through this article without raising a flag around the timings.  Off the back of a 4,000 points game the night before, 4 games in a day is a lot of games.  I know two of these are 1,000 points but 2 x 1,000 points isn’t the same as 1 x 2,000 points game – it takes much longer.  Now, obviously, we’re there to play games but my instinctive response is that this will be a long, tiring day of gaming in a noisy venue.  Still excited though.

Sunday

1 x 1,000 points game

1 x Flexible 4,000 points game.

So, a lot of gaming (seven games over two days and one evening), a painting comp I’ve got my eye on and a decent sized group of my mates going.  Should be good fun.

What about the logistics?

Ok so I’ve been to a number of these before and here’s how I’m doing this one:

1.   I’m taking time off work over the week before and after the event so I’ll be able to go up on the Friday at my leisure (my UK base is in Surrey, about a 3 hour drive to Nottingham).  I’m taking a friend with me and with all of our cases and us (and the fact that my UK car is a little city runabout) I’ll be hiring a car.  For reference, WHW is not in a convenient location, whatever anyone tells you, unless you are driving.  It’s not an easy walk from the station and you can get a tram but I wouldn’t know where to start with that.  Car hire for Friday – Monday is GBP260
2.  There are several very handy hotels for WHW (Holiday Inn, Premier Inn etc).  I always stay at the Castle Marina Premier Inn.  It’s good value, close to WHW and has several restaurants close by.  Friday and Saturday night comes in at GBP170
3.  Food.   As a major city, there are lots of places to eat in Notts – WHW itself has Bugmans which is good for the time you’re there but once you leave there’s a whole city of food before you.

So, it’s a >GBP600 weekend (with event ticket, food and petrol) before you get into spending at WHW itself (I’m planning on picking up Adeptus Titanicus and, possibly, Kill Team while I’m there).

What’s next?  I’ll be sharing my lists with you, going over what I’m taking up with me and then I’ll be there and sending back some images and blog reports from the event itself.

Let me know what you think!

Ok so I’ve just come off the back of two very long painting projects in Eidolon and Fulgrim (you can find out more about those here) and despite promising myself I’d take some time away from the painting table to focus on other things, I didn’t.

Instead what I did was paint my Necromunda gang.  I’ll start off by saying that anyone who wants to win a Slayer Sword, look away now.  That was never the point to this painting project.  What I wanted to do with Necromunda was get a whole game system out of the gates very quickly.  The gang is 17 fighters (apparently quite big for Necromunda) but would get batch painted.

I had a strong aesthetic that I wanted to follow.  You can read more about that here but it’s essentially; dark skin and clothes with very bright accent colours (strong contrast is always a good thing in miniature painting in my opinion.

So the models were built, the aesthetic was chosen, now it’s time to execute, right?  Well, kind of.  Actually I like to over complicate life so there were a couple of things I wanted to achieve with this gang:

1.  I want it painted quickly (after some long stints on single models, the idea of getting a whole game system entry in short order was appealing to me
2. I want it painted to a level where I can progress the gang if I use it.  By this I mean if I start using the gang for games (not sure if this is very likely) then I want to be able to do a few hours here and there to progress them and get them looking better over time rather than ‘finishing,’ them now.  In practise that’s going to mean basecoating them neatly this time rather than rushing a basecoat and layered highlight job when any future effort would be remedial rather than progressive.  Yes that’s right, you’re reading a ‘basecoat and dip,’ article.
3. I wanted to try a few new paints out, principally the Vallejo game ink range (I picked up a set of these after watching some Vince videos).

So, with all that in mind here are the stages I went through:

Over a light sketch (see more about that here)

1.  The skin in Citadel Paints Dryad Bark

2. Green clothing in Citadel Paints Castellan Green

3.  Black hair and black leathers in Abaddon Black with some Kantor Blue (both Citadel Paints).  Just a few extra words on this step – I don’t like using pure black when I paint as it’s really ‘heavy,’ and over powering.  So I try and add another colour (usually a blue) to lift it a bit.

4.  Silver parts with Citadel Paints Leadbelcher.

4.  Loincloths and leather straps with Citadel Paints Baneblade Brown and Balor Brown respectively

5.  Wash over the whole model with 1:3 Agrax Earthshade : Lahmian Medium.  We all know what a wash does in terms of adding depth but as my base colours were already dark I added a lot of medium to make sure I kept the definition but not so much of the intensity and depth of the wash.

6. The ornaments were base coated again with Citadel Paints White Scar and Vallejo Game Ink Yell and Red.  This stage really brought the aesthetic to life.  It made the skin look darker (so I’m glad I didn’t go too heavy on the wash) and really adds contrast.  In terms of the Vallejo inks, they are very, very vibrant.  I didn’t thin them and only added one coat and the colour is very strong.  I’ll do more things with them before making a final judgement but overall I’m impressed with them so far.

7.  The bases were painted with Leadbelcher, Nuln Oil, Typhus Corrosion and Ryza Rust (all Citadel Paints)

So, how long?  About 5 hours all told.  Am I pleased with them?  Against the standard I wanted and the outcomes I listed, yes.  Are they the best things I’ve ever painted?  No.

So what’s next for them?  I’ll black the rims (it’s all about black rims) then try and get a few games in with them.    If I play 5 games I’ll go back to them and add some simple free hand on the loin cloths and some extra details on the ornaments so they have some depth rather than just being day-glo vehicles for contrast.

That’s my first end to end game system painted within the lifetime of this blog.  Get in!

Hello everybody, apologies for a ten day delay back in the UK.  I’m now in Tbilisi again and have the next floor in Tom’s mind palace on HH list writing to share with you.  By way of recap, Tom is a highly successful tournament gamer and is, therefore, infinitely more qualified to discuss the finer points of list design than I am!  The first part of this series is here.

Welcome back to this series on writing lists for the Horus Heresy. Last time we talked about finding the reason to build your list to begin with. Today we are going to look at some of the more common styles of list that you typically see on the tables of the 31^st millennium.

A note to begin with is that we will not be considering book 7 factions and units for the purpose of this article. If you want to build a list that fits with the ethos of the game and will see your community blossom and thrive, do not play with Custodes, Thousand Sons or any of the Mechanicum units in book 7. Post FAQ Space Wolves are pretty reasonable, they have distinct advantages in 30k but, unlike the aforementioned, stay within the scope of the rest of the game. I am thinking that I may add an entry to this series discussing why book 7 is so off kilter. There are a lot of voices decrying it as bonkers but few who take the time to explain why.

The theme list

We looked a little bit at this in the previous article, the theme list is one that really goes all in to recreate a specific force from a story in the background. There is, of course, huge variation between these lists both in the way they look and play. The driving factor behind them is always narrative and they tend not to be too well optimised, with a little fat on the list. Here though, we run into a concept problem that in all my years in the hobby I have rarely seen anyone properly reconcile. Most people still seem to see lists on a continuum of fluffy to competitive. This is completely wrong. The 2 are independent variables, you can have lists that are both fluffy and competitive but you can also build a list that is neither. A very heavily themed Iron Warriors army can be very competitive indeed if it is vehicle heavy with a good mix of heavy armour and artillery, combining (as an example) fluff and efficacy.

The gimmick list

Fortunately for us 30k is not so much a game about building layered rules combos, so it is less susceptible to this phenomenon. Gimmick lists are those that are built around rules rather than strategy. It could be the interaction of a legion rule and a unit, it could be the application of a psychic power to a key unit or it could just be a composition of units with such rules. The underlying driver of this kind of list is that it commits its strategy to rules over decision making and tries to win the game off the back of it. They very often have deep strike components like a Leviathan in a drop pod or a powerful unit in a Dreadclaw or Kharybdis. Sometimes they layer several of these rules together, often revolving around units that operate in and manipulate reserves. This kind of list is a bit of a pet hate of mine as you are mostly playing against the rules writer rather than the player across the table from you. Beware the player who builds this list and claims it is for narrative reasons, for this player a special circle is reserved.

The primarch death star

This is a list that we have all seen at some point and probably have run it ourselves from time to time. The fundamentals are pretty self-explanatory: primarch plus expensive unit equals primarch death star. The thing about this type of list is that they are not necessarily as scary as people seem to think they are. A big part of this is mobility, these units generally have to choose between footslogging, a Spartan or a drop pod of some kind. If they footslog never then approach them and they are no threat. If they try to drop pod, I would seriously consider whether you have enough units for a surround. There is a good reason you don’t see expensive units in pods very often as losing the whole unit to a surrounded pod is harsh. So we have left the good old Spartan. For me this is the real game against this kind of list, if you can kill the Spartan quickly enough the unit inside loses a lot of their threat potential. With this swing your opponents force often goes from looking like an unstopping comet hurtling towards you to a rock in the rapids that is still dangerous but avoidable with care.

The Rite of War list

Another list archetype that is pretty easy to recognise is those lists created around a specific Rite of War (RoW). There are a number of these that are not legion specific and every legion with rules has 2 of its own. These RoW are very hit and miss with many being pretty unusably bad, even in a theme list. However, there are some, like Armoured Breakthrough or Sky Hunter Phalanx that allow players to build really visually impressive armies while, almost by default, building good but not over the top lists. Personally, I think that exploring some of these RoW can be hugely rewarding for players who want a theme to their army that isn’t tied directly to their legions story. The only thing you really have to watch out for with these RoW lists is that they often substitute core army requirements in an ordinary force for something different. As a result of this, converting a RoW army back to a more regular setup can require some new purchases. Still, I think this is a great way to play the game, my experience of these lists at events is that they are fun and interesting both for the players using them and their opponents.

The all comers list

The all comers list (ACL) is the holy grail of list building. It is the army list that, in the most possible circumstances, will be able to compete, to take on all comers. Building this kind of list is really, really hard. Many of the other archetypes we have looked at are used as off ramps for players who just cannot quite make the ACL work. It is not just about taking over powered units (which most of us in heresy try not to do); it is not about just having the most points efficient selections from your army book; it is not even about getting as much stuff on the board as possible. What it is about, how you conceptualise and construct the ACL, will be the topic of my next article.

Until then, dear reader, the Emperor protects.

Here’s the first part of my guest Tom’s unabomber manifesto on 30K success.  As a recap, Tom is a highly successful tournament player (podium at the GT, played every ToS event for two years and not lost a game and he’s never lost to Magnus).  I’ve asked him for access to his mind palace for how he approaches 30K.  Strap in and ride the lightning:

Writing army lists for any game is a subject that tends to be bafflingly contentious. Everybody has a view on their own list, other lists generally and yours in particular (if you happen to be standing before them). Similarly, list advice is available on just about every hobby related outlet from blogs to podcasts to social media pages. This makes me think, as I begin to write this series, that I should probably begin by justifying this particular foray into the subject. Essentially, I think that most of the dialogue on this is reductive, ill-informed and mostly generated to pander to the self-righteousness of the author. Some notable exceptions exist, primarily in the form of Mr Ryan Kimmel from the Radio Free Istvaan podcast. I hope to add myself to the notably excepted over the coming series.

You often hear the question “how do I build a good heresy list?” followed by a vigorous expounding of why the questioner should do things exactly the same way as the volunteer sage who is answering the question. However, the correct response to this fundamental question is in fact “what do you want from the list?”. For many people this is an easy question to answer, they have been brought into the hobby by a particular idea or story; for others they have fallen in love with a particular legion or character. For me though this is only half the question.

One of the things I want to do early in this series is draw a distinction between list and theme. For me these fall on different sides of 30k. List building is gaming and theme is hobby. There is overlap between the two, before you start typing angry comments below, but as it stands I think people are too quick to overwhelm their list with theme, almost deliberately sacrificing table top potential to prove how committed they are to said theme. The same can definitely be seen at the other end of the spectrum with the player building any kind of competitive list also abandoning any pretence of theme in pursuit of efficacy (I’m looking at you Magnus/Valdor outside of Prospero/Terra players).

A part of answering this question is understanding the consequences of various decisions we make as we build and play an army. If you want to represent a very particular force from a Black Library novel, for example, you should understand at the outset that whether that army performs on the table or not is entirely random. By taking the decision to carry through such a precisely focused theme you have to accept that. It is a pet peeve of mine when people turn up to the table and complain about my army/board setup/mission when really they are just avoiding taking responsibility for their own decisions.

The other side of this equation, is the person playing Custodes and wondering why they have no opponent at their local store/club night. Just as with the hyper themed player, the hyper competitive player has to understand the choices they make in building such a list; namely that they are probably damaging whatever community they are playing in. Fortunately, Heresy is pretty well balanced in most regards, with the notable exception of book 7, almost everything from this book makes any list immediately fall into the hyper competitive category.

Now at this point you, dear reader, are probably reading along merrily mentally condemning the ghastly rogues of one stripe or another that I have been describing. Here we run into one of the biggest issues we have in our community. I will explain this with reference to Gaynor’s Law. Gaynor’s Law is so called because it recalls a conversation with a family friend (of the same name) who, when asked in conversation to define what he meant by rich people, answered jokingly “anyone who earns a pound more than me”.

If our community could be a little bit more aware of the strengths and weaknesses of the armies we build and little less concerned with calling WAAC at any player with different toys from our own lists, I think everybody would be happier. All of this starts with the answer to that simple question: “what do you want?”. I think what the vast majority of players probably want is a list that gives them a chance to make a game of any match up, that reflects some aspect of their chosen legion and the opportunity to roll out their favourite models.

All of these things can be done together so long as we answer the question honestly. Some people are going to want to sacrifice their ability to take on all comers in order to pursue that totally all infantry World Eaters build. It will look amazing, it will be great fun to play in some games and it will have absolutely no hope of scratching the enemy in others. Conversely, some people will want to play D-nova Magnus because it is devastatingly, unstoppably good. It is a lovely model but it had better be well painted as it’s going to spend its lifetime on a shelf looking (hopefully) pretty.

My intention in this series of articles, for which this will serve as the preamble, is to share what I have learned about writing good lists for the Horus Heresy. How to identify what a list needs at the conceptual level; how to make efficient choices where and when needed; and how to make the most of marrying theme and table top effectiveness. We will begin, next time, with a look at some archetypal lists and why I love or loathe them.

Until then, dear reader, the Emperor protects.

Let’s face it, most Gaming groups are odd.  Men (usually) of sexual maturity (technically) choosing to spend time pushing plastic soldiers around with a ruler should telegraph that truism if it hasn’t occurred to you before.

Well mine’s ‘odder,’ than most.  I’m really lucky in that a couple of the members are God tier painters (multi Best Army award winners, featured in Whit Dwarf etc) several are very generous with their time and resources when it comes to different systems (so there’s always a game available) and some are just cool dudes.  There’s also another theme that runs through my gaming group and here’s a story to put it into context;

We used to meet at our local GW store (we now have a more formal independent club).  Every Wednesday I would trek down there from work with my 2,000 points of Beastmen to play one of four of five friends.  Every Wednesday (force majeure notwithstanding).  Every Wednesday.  For five years.  Must have been great, right? Competitive, back and forth, some great game stories over those five years surely?  No.  In five years, I won four games.  Yes, you read that right, four.  I just got used to it.  Every week I’d turn up and get face stomped – whatever the system, whoever the opponent.

But there was something that put it all into perspective.  Three times a year I’d go to WHW for the fantasy ToS singles or doubles events.  5 games over two days.  Despite winning four games in five years at the club, I would be really disappointed not to win three games at a WHW event.  I was the last player awarded best Beastmen (so all time champ in my eyes) and at the doubles a very good friend of mine (that I’ve lost touch with actually, I must sort that out) and I would regular place top five (we came within spitting distance of winning it twice).

I used to find this disparity weird (I’m not very bright) before it dawned on me; I was training at an uber tough dojo.  You can apply all the sporting cliches to it that you want: Summer races are won in winter training.  Easy training hard battles, hard training easy battles.  The more I practice the luckier I get.  All of those apply.

As well as the painters, the cool dudes and the multi system guys my club has a hardcore, balls to the wall, competitive faction (they’re also cool dudes, that’s not mutually exclusive).  The razor’s edge of this faction is a good friend of mine and serial winner called Tom.  He’s won more games of 40K and 30K than anyone I know, I’m willing to bet he’s won more games than anyone you know.  He was third at the GT with a non-Custodes army.  He’s played every ToS event for the last two years and not lost a single game.  His whipping boy at our club regularly wins tournaments.

I’ll be honest, I don’t play him often; I feel like I’m wasting his time and I try and get my turns done quick so he can keep stomping me.  But I do like listening to him and what he thinks about the game.

As he’s got older (he’s many years younger than me) Tom has mellowed a bit and if you asked him now he’d tell you he plays for the narrative (it’s bullshit but as long as he believes it that’s what counts)!  He’s now a much more thoughtful gamer (I still wouldn’t beat him in a thousand games) so someone I’d really like to get the thoughts of.

How you play the game itself is very subjective but my view is that winning starts with the list (that also feels like the easiest thing to write about).  So here, for your reading pleasure, is Tom’s Unabomber manifesto on writing lists for 30K.  The first part is here.

Hello!  So, despite telling myself I’d have a couple of days without any tabletop hobby after finishing my EC being home alone got the better of me and I’ve got on with my Necromunda gang.

Cracking open the packaging it’s immediately obvious that the kits are really quite complex; there’s loads of customisation (understandable for a game with a significant narrative / campaign element):

Now, my gang is very straightforward – 14 fighters are armed with the same weapons and three more have a different CC weapon.  I was worried at first that everyone having the same weapon would mean that there wouldn’t be enough of them on the sprues but actually as all fighters have three weapons there are enough bits to represent at least one of the weapons on every fighter.

I put a new blade on my craft knife and started hacking away.  I’ll preface this bit by saying that I don’t really like building models; it’s my least favourite part of the hobby and I’m very slow at it.  I found these kits went together easily enough but with one issue:

For someone who has very weak eyesight (If I take my spectacles off I fall over) some of the parts of the kit are extremely small.  I’ve been used to fat-headed power armour recently too which doesn’t help.  Well almost immediately after the pic above was taken, my knife slipped on a piece of flash and cut through my finger tip and halfway across the nail.  I think it’s only because I used a new blade that the injury wasn’t worse but crikey it hurt.  Take my advice, don’t economise by trying to use knife blades after they blunt!

Anyway, sob story notwithstanding, I soon had all the bodies and heads assembled and put onto bases:

A couple of things about getting to this stage:

1. The more deconstructed the models are when you paint them, the better the paint job.  I subscribe to this fully.  However, you’ll see from the pic above that I’m fully assembling before I paint.  Not because I don’t want a good paint job – I’ve just finished two very long paint jobs and actually just want to see how well I can paint these in a relatively short period of time.  Also, with the arms being paired on some of the two handed weapons, keeping them all separate becomes a book keeping exercise.
2. The bases.  Yeah, this one is a bit trickier.  I could (should?) have just pinned the models to wine corks and painted the bases separately.  Again, I didn’t.  I think this will speed my process up.  I haven’t actually thought too hard about how I want to paint the bases yet.

So now it was a case of cutting out the weapons, cleaning them up and test fitting them on different bodies to see how they fitted.  I once cut all the pieces off the sprue when building some Bestigor and only then realised that the arms were paired and body specific.  Not a single one went together right!

There’s a similar situation with the Necro gang. Not all models are meant to carry one or more of Las rifle, Las pistol, Stiletto knife or Power Sword so it was worth going through all the models to make sure I had poses that fitted with the weapons etc.  Even after the dry fitting, there are still some gaps to fill but nothing too crazy:

With all the gaps filled the next stage is priming.  I do this with my airbrush and I do this with two coats.  Why?  You know how you always find more mould lines after you’ve started to paint a model?  That’s because the paint gives all the raised areas a slight highlight and its annoying.  I prime once and this shows up all the mould lines I missed:

These get scraped back and I lay another coat of primer down.  I’ll guarantee there are still mould lines on the models – it’s one of the things I’m really bad for (and one of the reasons I don’t like modelling that much).  But this way I do as well as I can.

The last process I include in the modelling stage is a light sketch (zenithal highlighting).  As with a lot of my painting, this is something I really picked up from Vince and his Hobby Cheating series.  Look it up for more info but ultimately it’s a case of:

1. Undercoating the whole model in black
2. Airbrushing at a ~45 degree angle with a mid grey
3. Airbrushing with white at a perpendicular right angle to the model (ie directly from above)

This initial light sketch will make painting highlights (and shadows) much easier and will generally help me get to a higher standard much quicker.

Ok so that’s where I’ve got to.  I’ve got my aesthetic and now I’ve got some models built.  Time to get the paintbrushes out!

The paint is barely dry on Eidolon (the last EC miniature I’m going to paint, I’ve talked a bit about that here) and I’m already itching to get on with something else.  With my 40K army in the UK at the moment, that something else is my Necromunda Escher gang.

I wrote a piece about the list building (you can find that here) so I know how I’m modelling the gang but I want to do a bit more research before I start washing and cutting the plastic.  I’m a big believer in armies (or gangs in this case) that look like unified groups – a common aesthetic.  My ECs have it (all the same armour finish and heavy weathering, all with lots of decals) and I definitely want to apply it to my Escher ladies.  But what aesthetic am I looking for exactly?

The fluff is pretty cool and very clear.  Escher make heavy use of poisoned weapons (although not in my gang they don’t) and the models make significant reference to a kind of westernized pseudo Amazonian look (referencing back to poisoned arrows used by tribes in that region).

Ok, but how will that work with a backstory for my gang?  Were they historically a jungle tribe which, over millennia has moved to the Underhive?  Or are they historically Underhive dwellers that know how to use poison, did some Google image searches and realized they liked the look of face paint and feathers in their hair?  It’s important for one big reason.  Indigenous Amazonian tribespeople look like this:

(source: http://workflow.arts.ac.uk/view/view.php?id=182861&offset=10)

Not this:

(source: https://www.games-workshop.com/en-GB/Necromunda-Escher-Gang-2017)

Now, I’m not saying all Amazonian tribes look like the top pic (I realise I’m on thin ice here) but the research I’ve done tells me that they all look a lot more like that than the GW image.

Paintjobs are very subjective but I feel like the GW image doesn’t look like an Amazonian tribe but also doesn’t look like a group of people / animals that live in low light / darkness conditions (troglobites) and the very pale skin associated with them.

(source: https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/animals-that-live-in-caves.html)

It kind of just looks like a group of girls from Bracknell with feathers in their hair.  I want to commit.  And I think how I want to commit is to paint my gang with dark skin, to represent a group that, ethnically, came from a jungle area of Necromunda before it all went to sh*t and that the Underhive has taken over their traditional areas.  They’ve evolved from traditional poisoned weapons to mechanized poison (again, not in my gang but whatever) but retained a relatively authentic Amazonian aesthetic.  That will give me an opportunity to get some good contrast between the colourful clothing details and the skin.

When I look back at the models I don’t think it will be easy.  The models are all t*ts, teeth and high heels but I’m going to stick to some rules in my aesthetic to really reinforce the gang:

-Dark skin
-Black hair
-Face and body paint
-No animal skins.  There are many instances of Escher gangs having lots of animal skins on their clothing.  That doesn’t work for me; I can’t find any reference to these in Amazonian culture.  What I can find, though, is some great opportunities for freehand patterns:

(source: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/381117187190060151/?autologin=true)

(source: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/185773553355176089/?lp=true)

I’m looking forward to getting them built and to start painting!  Let me know what you think.