Warhammer 40k Boarding actions set

 

So when The boarding action set was released (decides to not look for the date to reduce guilt), I was really excited about it like many I guess. It's quite an impressive set though and a huge task which I dreaded.

So I took it in baby steps and first started clipping and sanding every bit off the sprue to organise them in zip bags. That took me the three Hobbit movies with the kids to get every bit sorted and prepared.

Fast forward a year and a half and I started last summer with the idea I could paint this set within the holidays. No kids around, good spraying conditions, if there was ever a time, that was now.

So I set a space in the basement and proceeded.

The first coat was a dark red undercoat from below:

Followed by a Zandri dust zenithal to give a nice preshading

The rest was mainly blocking metal parts and an oil wash on everything with a mix of burnt sienna and black. 
Then a cream drybrush and the basics were done, followed by details, one colour at a time, methodically, using contrast paints whenever I could, trying to be really focused on completing the same colour over all the parts before switching to another. 
WHat I thought would be a tedious mind crushing exercise actually became a soothing mindful moment everyday, using like 20 minutes here and there to complete one task until it all added up and the set was taking shape so rapidly.

If you're ever gonna paint that set or any similar from GW, I STRONGLY advise you to mask the pegs and parts supposed to go into others, the tolerances on those pieces ar eso tight even just a prime coat will make them difficult to assemble and two will make them a nightmare.
I learnt it the hard way and therfore masked those parts before spray varnishing :

Now here's the fun part, I won't detail all teh bits I painted since they all come in 4, there are a few variations between the same bits but it's just minor stuff

I got to say this wall section (and the other 3) is probably the one that took the most attention from me, the screens just demanded it and were the occasion to do cool stuff. It really adds a level of immersion to paint stuff on them so I took the time to make them nice. 

Now the big screens really are where I had teh most fun, can you spot the 5 easter eggs amongst them ?

The power device wall are the ones I dreaded the most and probably the ones I have more mixed feelings about because of the OSL. I tried to follow Artis Opus's tutorial and it honestly went quite well until the last stage where (despite the warning in the video) I tied to rush it and sort of messed it up. It's still OK enough for terrain and at table distance it does the job but I reckon I could have achieved that WOW effect if I had been careful enough.

The rest of the sections are more dull which is a good thing, several pieces are a little too busy in my taste and the copy/paste of details tends to show on some parts

Like often, it's tempting to try and paint every detail you see and that can make things blurry and hard to read. I've tried to keep some stuff undetailed and just let the sculpture do its thing.

The set also comes with a lot of doors on a lot of walls, like A LOT

I said A  LOT

After the attempt with the power devices, I decided not to push my luck trying OSL on every light source so kept things simple with the ligt, I was also afraid it would make the set too gaudy which I dislike in general. I like model to stand out so I generally want the scenery duller.

You can see on the sides where I had to sand the parts back to plastic to make them fit easily in the other parts.

For some reason, I particularly liked the wall ends, don't ask me why

The pillars (all 32 of them), were simple enough to not take long and I kept the tiny control panels you're suppose dto attack on them for ater projects and keep them simple.

And then you have the 60 connectors where just sprayed metal, with a couple of black and brown washes, a silver drybrush and a bit of rust washes.

The whole set takes far less time to assemble than I feared and covers quite a juge area even if you've not really thought things through. There are definitely several uses in the near future where I'll need those.

So here we are, if you count the preeping phase out, the painting stage of this set took me about a month with small sessions done at lunch breaks and in the evening, nothing excruciating, nothing tedious. Some will look better or woll have been faster to do but against all odds, I had a lot of pleasue doing this, up to the point I'm now looking forward to other sets of the genre. That in itself is a great reward !

Happy painting to you all !

Trench Crusade communicant

Hey everyone, it's been a while since the last update on my Trench Crusade forces but I got my hands on the missing minis a few months back so after clearing a few other projects, I'm delighted to be back to the holy trenches !

After having done the small guys, I had free reins with the bigger ones so following on the anti tank communicants, I'm moving onto the melee ones !

New Warhamer Fantasy Roleplay character

 

Hey everyone, if you've paid attention to my latest battle report and you're super focused on details, you might have noticed my character loked a little different from usual. Following the latest developments, including a change of class (from pit fighter to Judiciary champion), some stat changes (like unlocking more attacks and gear (buying a full plate armour last game), I thought I had to update my model accordingly !

Warhammer fantasy Roleplay - The Brotherhood of the Hammer

Hey everyone, I had a lucky call from my GM this summer asking me if I'd be willing to come over for a gaming weekend to play some WHFRP and 2nd ed 40k. Now I don't see how anyone could possibly say no to that  so I booked train tickets and we were set !

The Roleplay session would be following our current campaign but as a bit of a stand aone with only 3 players this time for a quick scenario.

If you want to catch up with previous episodes, you can do so in the following links, it is quite a long read now but it's proven to be a very helpful guide to us players (and even our GM) before new games.

The first episode is HERE

Second episode is HERE

Third episode is HERE

Fourth episode is HERE

Now with Gregor fully equiped in his new plate armour he managed to order after last time's events, he thought he'd be able to enjoy a bit of quiet and everyone could go on their daily missions and jobs...

The city was its usual peaceful self, the main square even had a harpy instead of the usual brawler in the public arena.

Gregor and Ophelia went looking for new jobs on the billboard when they heard a loud clamour coming from the construction site for the new temple to Grungni.

One of the workers on site had been found dead at the bottom of the excavation and his death seemed suspect !

Right at the edge of the pit, Lukas Drauer, an innocent simpleton known by all the neighbours, was found in disarray with his hands covered in blood.

The guard had been alerted so Thorbur and Moira went down the excavation to check on the victim's body.

The case seeming almost too simple, the guard escorted Lukas to the prison when passing in front of Sigmar's temple, the sigmar priest Heindrich Drauer came out running and begged the guard to let Lukas free and it could only be a mistake ! The captain of the guard knew very well it was unlikely Lukas had anything to do with it but in the absence of any lead, he had to take him in and show the city guard was handling the case, the rest would unfortunately be in the judges' hands.

Heindrich, the Sigmar priest turned to Gregor and implored him to take Lukas' fate into hands and protect him.

Like always, Gregor went to get Myrmidia's blessing and put his fate into her hands...

As the neighbourhood's doctor, Moira had had the opportunity to examine the body of the victim before it was put in the hands of the priests of Morr. Her examination revealed a scar had been carved into the dead dwarf's scalp with an odd shape :

Harandil, the band's mage, immediately recognised the mark as that of Teentch, the chaos god of change... However, Moira's examinations seemed to indicate the mark had been carved after the body's death

Thorbur had to deal with the delay caused on the construction site for his temple and Moira had work to resume so it fell down to Gregor, Ophelia and Harandil to deal with this case.

After discussing with the guard, Lukas had been released on good faith but the capatain of the guard had instructed Gregor to find him solid leads and to report every new clue to him directly.
Just as Lukas had been released, Heindrich came to Gregor to tell him Lukas was already missing ! This wasn't gonna be an easy case.

On the billboard, amongst a few pointless notes, there was a message left with Sigmar's rune and signed by "the brotherhood of Sigmar" calling to purge all the mutants and heretics", that felt odd but it would need some investigations to get them anywhere.

A few visits to the local inns and to the brothel gave them some useful intel, the brotherhood of Sigmar seemed to be an outcast band led by the former judiciary champion, Ulbrecht Van Taal with ties to powerful organisations.

With very few leads, our heroes decided to go look for the deceased's adress and went to check on the registers at the public library. The librarian was a nice fellow and Gregor and he had grown a mutual respect and esteem, almost a nascent friendship.

Thanks to him, our party got the adress of the dead dwarf and learnt they had to go to the trading guild to check on his testament.

Just as they were coming out of the library, a loud scream was heard from the nearby temple of Sigmar. A dead body had been left on the stairs !

The body looked suspicious and upon first inspection, a tentacle was coming out of his left sleeve !

Gregor knew he had to call the guard right away so they took the body inside the temple but just as they did, the tentacle left the handless arm and appeared to be a weird creature with 8 tentacles around a weird bladder like head !

The new victim had papers on him identifying him as Mr Friedrich, the weird tentacley animal animal attached in place of his severed hand was clearly a set up to pass him for a mutant of some kind.
The priest's aid Elsa also gave some very useful information about the brotherhood of Sigmar, after seeing the body infront of the temple, she couldn't help but cry "this had gone too far !" and after a bit of questionning, she finally admitted having been part of the brotherhood but leaving it out of fear.

 After reporting to the captain of the guard again, our heroes headed to the traders' guild to see about the 2 victims.

They were received by a rather obnoxious individual who drop-fed them information against money.
They did learn something extraordinary though : both of the victims had previously had testament with the same person as heir : Rufus Hagen. Even better, Rufus Hagen was a member of the traders' guild !
It also turns out both the houses of the victims were neighbours...

Our heroes reported to the guard and warned them to protect the people around and headed to the houses of the deceased.
Arriving at night, they tried to enter the premises but both houses had been locked and sealed which felt odd since the second victim had yet to be buried, it's almost like it had been locked in advance !

Fearing they might make too much noise (player note : and because, as a sort of running gag, our mage once again forgot he could cast "zone of silence" to protect them from making any noise), our heroes headed back home to get some rest.

On the morning after, they went back to the houses which were being emptied. They encountered an individual who got immediately suspicious of them, his name : Rufus Hagen.
They played it like they were investors looking for opportunities to make profit and invest VAST sums of money. That very quickly lifted enough suspicion for Rufus to let his guard down a bit. However he rapidly told them off and advised them to take an appointment at the traders' guild (which they had done already).
Ophelia did follow Rufus and his men though and found their hideout further down the docks ...

On their arrival to the brotherhood's hideout, the captain of the guards asked the men in fonrt of it to give them access and to get Ulbrecht Van taal out and they refused right out. The captain of the guard was clearly embarassed because his position and connection to the city council tied his hands and he seemed like his hands were tied.

He did however tell Gregr and his friends if they were able to confront Ulbrecht publicly into a judiciary duel, he could bypass higher authority...

Our party rapidly found the entrance to a basement behind a barrel...

In the room, there were several men, 2 of which were wearing fine plate armours

After telling them to surrender, the leader who identified as Ulbrecht Van Taal firmly stated that he'd only come out if they made him and his croonies started attacking, an ogre joining the fight !

With the higher ground in his favour, Harandil fried a few of the lightly armoured ones with fireballs while Gregor was tanking most of the attacks. Harandil then cast iron fist and granted hismelf formidable combat power, also starting to get real fired up and swearing like a gipsy.

The pair, aided by Ophelia who was aiding them from afar, finally got rid of the whole with only Ulbrecht left standing.
"you have proven your worth, I'll come outside and fight you for honour"

Held on the city center square, in presence of many witnesses and the city guard, Ulbrecht and Gregor started their duel, Gregor would be representing the victims of the murderous scam the brotherhood had been scheming with Rufus Hagen and Ulbrecht would be defending Rufus Hagen and himself.

With 2 fighters of great prowess and used to the exercise, the fight was intense, brutal and quick. Tanking the brutal hits from Ulbrecht and waiting for the opening, Gregor finally found the right time to give his opponent a deadly blow, thus putting an end to the case, sending Rufus Hagen into a panic !

Rufus used some of his influence to avoid getting emprisoned but Ophelia returned to the party with papers she had found in the hideout while the duel was taking place, one of the letters clearly indicated the tie between Ulbrecht and Rufus, bearing Hagen's seal. The guards captain felt relieved but also a little anxious, some much bigger stakes were in play and would only unfold later...

The party had solved the mistery, Lukas Drauer was saved from being judged for a crime he hadn't committed and  the band had gained a few riches from the hideout, Gregor gaining a triple blessed copper amulet which would protect him in his future quests !

The construction of teh temple was also saved and the poor dwarven victim would be buried in its foundations as a mark of honour.

Who knew what would happen next !