Battle for Macragge Box Set

I was at Hobbytown the other day (I am at Hobbytown at least 3-4 times a week) looking at the Space Marines. I had two evil plans on this particular trip. The first part of the plan was to get my brother-in-law to help me move our insanely heavy love seats and my giant desk from our apartment to our new trailer. The second part of the plan was to get him some minis of his own.

I was looking at the basic box containing a Tactical Squad of Space Marines when I noticed that for only ten dollars more I could get the Battle for Macragge starter set, which had not only 10 Space Marines, but also:

1. A Space Marine character model.
2. 24 Tyranid Miniatures
3. A bunch of scenery bits.
4. Templates (which I'd been meaning to buy eventually anyway).
5. Dice (I already have a set, so I could give them to him).
6. A small rulebook.
7. Another book containing several scenarios meant to introduce the rules slowly, which would be good for both of us, as neither he or I is familiar with the rules.

My wife approved the purchase, so I grabbed up the box and ran for the counter before she could change her mind. Upon arriving back at the trailer park, I got out of the car at my brother-in-law's house and took the box set in to show it to him. I also convinced him that moving our furniture would be an awesome experience and make him into a manly man (the kind of man whose chest hair is so bristly it pokes right through his shirt). He was pretty excited (about the miniatures, I don't think my manly man speech really got the point across). We moved the furniture and then he and my sister came over to eat dinner with us. The food was awesome because my wife is a grand master in the kitchen.

Afterwards, I threw a huge pile of White Dwarf magazines onto his lap and showed him some of the Space Marine paint schemes that he could consider, as well as reminding him that he could make up his own. He kept pulling the Space Marine sprue out of the box and saying, "I wish I could get them off of here," so I pulled out my sprue cutters and let him have at it. He also started cleaning up the flash and mold lines while we sat around and talked. My sister finally dragged him away from the X-Acto knife at 3:00 am and they went home. I sent the Space Marines Codex with him so he can read up on the fluff and think about some models he wants to put in his future army.

I slept for a couple of hours and then had to wake up for my Fantasy Baseball Live Online Draft. Then I did homework. It was great. My sister and brother-in-law came over for dinner again tonight, and after dinner he pulled out the box and started in on cleaning up the figures. Once again, my sister had to drag him away. I think I've got him hooked. Now I just have to get my hobby shed set up so we can start painting the figures and terrain and playing the starter scenarios.

I guess I could do a little review of the components in the Macragge Set. This is of course colored by my own personal biases. It's a good value for the money. Like I mentioned earlier, the whole thing costs only ten dollars more than the basic Space Marine squad. The Space Marines in the starter aren't as detailed and don't feature the customization options or extra bits, but they're still Space Marines. The Tyranids so far don't fit together very well, but some cutting and some glue will fix that. I realize that the battle for Macragge is a big part of the 40K mythology, as is the battle between Space Marines and Tyranids in general, but I don't really care about the Tyranids at all. Having to buy 24 of them is sort of lame when I don't plan to pursue a Tyranids army at any point. I have the same problem with the Warhammer Fantasy starter. I just don't care about the Empire vs. the Orcs. But the Tyranids may be useful at some point, even if it's just to play the starter games with my little brother or broken into parts to serve as vanquished foes on my Witch Hunter bases. The terrain and scenery pieces are kind of cool and we'll be able to get good use out of them, especially now as we don't have any other terrain. The templates and dice are cool, as well as the little rulebook so you don't have to lug around the big hardcover beast. From reading through the little introductory booklet, it seems like the scenarios do a good job of covering everything in manageable chunks, as well as giving out some hobby information as far as assembly and painting the minis is concerned. It would be a good way to get a friend into gaming, as everything is included except the paints, glues, and other hobby tools. I highly recommend it, with the only real negative being a complete lack of interest in the Tyranids.

Goodbye

I am not saying goodbye to my blog, but I am saying goodbye to my Heroclix. I sold them all on eBay as part of my plan to make money towards my start into miniature wargaming. They brought in a little more money than I expected, so that was good. Unfortunately, we have a few bills piled up, so I will be putting most of the money toward living expenses. I did set aside enough to buy the rest of the miniatures for my Skaven army and some Warhammer 40K books.

It's kind of hard to pack up some of the Heroclix, as I had a lot of the rarer pieces, as well as a lot of pieces that had some sort of sentimental value for me. You wouldn't think that you'd be attached to a bunch of plastic, but I guess it's just the memories of where you got that figure or the time that one of your figures won the game for you or whatever. And it was my decision to let them go. If it had been a case of my wife saying, "It's them or me!" I think I would have been pretty bitter about the whole experience, but at the moment I think it'll be good to get them out of the house. I just am dreading the trip to the post office with around 40 boxes to mail out.

For Warhammer, my Wood Elf Tree Spirits army will have to wait until I'm done assembling and painting my Skaven, so that project is way in the future. And the Skaven army is on hold until I can get my "Man Shed" all cleaned out and my desk moved into it. I have big plans for the shed, as it's going to become a sort of study/hobby room. I don't expect to see much progress on any of it until mid-April or later.

I am formulating a plan for Warhammer 40K, though. I read something about a small-scale, skirmish-type option for the game in one of my White Dwarf magazines, so I ordered the back issue that has those rules in it. My brother-in-law (who is also my new neighbor) has expressed an interest in Space Marines, so my plan is to draw him in slowly and then hook him into playing games with me. I figure he can come up with a couple hundred points of Space Marines and I'll get a couple hundred points of Witch Hunters. Then we can add points as time goes on.

I think he might be intimidated by the prospect of painting these tiny figures, but that's something everyone goes through at some level. I know I was pretty nervous about putting the first layer of paint on my Skaven. I figure Space Marines are pretty basic, without a bunch of fiddly bits, and once he does a squad or two he'll be an old pro. It'd be nice to get some gaming time in soon, so I don't get burned out before I really get started.

In other news, we (my wife, me, my sister, and my brother-in-law) are going up to Seattle the first weekend of April for the Emerald City Comic Con. It should be pretty fun. My wife and I had a good time at the 2004 Comic Con. I will spend most of my time trying to get sketches from the various comic artists. My brother-in-law will probably spend his time flirting with the Penny Arcade guys. My sister and wife will probably go to the convention the first day for the costume contest and whatnot, then spend the rest of the time hanging out elsewhere in Seattle. It's my big trip for the year, and I've been planning it since I was in Iraq, so I'm starting to get pretty excited.

Also, I wish I was a ninja.

Still nothing.

Once again, I have not made any progress whatsoever on my Skaven army (or any other army, for that matter). We are moving to our new place this month, so packing and cleaning take up all the time that working, going to school, and taking care of the stupid dogs do not. I think we should have just bought another couple of snakes. Our ball python just lays around and only needs to be fed every week or so. The dogs always have to eat or chew things or poop or pee or make noise or whatever else you can think of. But enough of this tangent.

I just wanted to make a post so that the three people who read this blog will have something to read. I really want to get this army done, but I don't think I'll make my timeline. I am selling the rest of my Heroclix on eBay, so that should at least fund the rest of my Skaven list and perhaps some stuff for my Wood Elf army. Yes, a Wood Elf army. But the cool thing is that my Wood Elf army does not actually contain any elves. It is composed entirely of tree spirits (Dryads, Treeman, Tree Kin, Branchwraiths, Drycha). Basically it's all the cool parts of the elf army without the Orlando Bloom elements.

I have also snatched up the Warhammer 40k rulebook and a Space Marine codex. I am trying to decide betweem Space Marines and Witch Hunters. I know there is an option to put Space Marines in a Witch Hunter army, but it looks like it takes away your ability to use some of the other cool Witch Hunter models. I'll have to research it some more.

Finally Assembled

I finally got tired of seeing my Standard Bearer's pieces cluttering up my desk, so today I finished cleaning flash off of the parts and assembled him. So far he looks pretty good. I opted not to go for the shield and cape, and instead used one of the Night Runner claw hands.

I think the fact that the banner is more a collection of trophies than an actual banner helps this figure to stand out from my regular line unit standard bearers. Hopefully I'll be able to paint it up nicely enough to stand beside my other command figures and characters.

Paint Index

I got tired of always trying to remember what a color of paint looks like (or even what colors of paint I have), so I made a little index for myself out of some styrene.

The Standard Bearer

In the absence of any real painting time, I've contented myself with assembling parts for my army's standard bearer. Since it will be an independent character without a lot of supporting cast, I wanted something unique and visually appealing that also coud go well with the rest ofmy army. Most of the parts came from a Clanrat sprue, but I borrowed a head, cape, and shield from a Night Runners sprue and a scroll from the Plague Monks. I may end up getting rid of the cape and subbing in a weapon arm, depending on how it looks. I'm thinking of perhaps using one of the "Wolverine Claw" arms from the Night Runners as a way to offset all of the Clanrat parts on him. I toyed with using more Plague Monk parts, but they just didn't match up very well. Hopefully at some point I'll get him all assembled and post a picture.

Painter's Block

I was hoping to have my 30 Clanrats done by the end of February, but I don't know if I'll make it. It seems like whenever I have an opportunity to get it done, I just can't bring myself to be motivated about it. I finally sat down and assembled the last ten. So I have 20 primed and 10 unprimed. I wonder why it seems so difficult to get started on it. It doesn't help that I've developed an interest in Warhammer 40K now, so I've been researching Space Marines and Witch Hunters a little, at the expense of focusing on my Skaven.

There is good news, though. I've built movement trays for all three of my assembled units. Also, my wife got me a box of Stormvermin for Valentine's Day, so I'm a lot closer to having all the minis for my army. All I need now is 60 Clanrats, 2 Poisoned Wind Globadiers, 5 Jezzail teams, and a Warp-Lightning Cannon. That seems like a lot, but it's a lot less than I needed when I started.

Other good news is that my wife and I found a trailer that we're going to buy soon. It has a lot more room than our apartment, a six-person hot tub, a little yard for our stupid dog, and an outside lighted workshop that I can put my desk and miniatures in so that the aforementioned stupid dog can't bump my desk and send miniatures flying everywhere. I also hope to avoid having her bump my arm while I'm painting details.

Movement Trays

I've noticed that when I want to rank up my units, it takes forever and one wrong move can ruin the whole formation, with figures flying everywhere. I also imagine that in a game, moving your figures one at a time could be quite tedious. So I've been researching movement trays for my figures. I looked at the official Games Workshop trays, but they are all one size and it seems that if I have any units that deviate too much from that size, it won't look very good on the table. I did some research on the internet and came upon the idea of making my own bases out of sheet styrene. I bought a thick sheet of styrene and some long thin square pieces for the edges. I think I'll just make a custom base for each unit, so in this example I formed my Plague Monks up on the sheet, measured it out, cut it off, and then added edging. It looks pretty rough, so I'm going to either fill in the gaps and sand it off to make it nice and square, or I'm going to maybe sculpt around the edges for a kind of "terrain" look, rather than a square boxy look. On either case I'm going to paint and perhaps flock it. But as far as the main purpose goes, the Plague Monks fit very nicely inside and it is infinitely easier to rank them up and move them around. Each 6" x 12" sheet looks like it will make 2-3 trays, and each bag of the long thin styrene has four 14-15" pieces which should do they edging for the same number of trays. The company that makes the sheets is Evergreen Scale Models and I paid $2.49 for the sheet and $2.19 for the strips. The sheet is 2mm thick, and the edging is 4.8 mm to a side.

Finished My Unit of Plague Monks

It's been a couple of days since I completed my Plague Monk unit, but I've been too busy to post the pictures. I think they turned out really well, especially the musician and standard bearer. I had a little bit of trouble with the clearcoat, as it seems to reactivate any inks that I may have painted on the figures. The only place this really affected me was the warpstone chunk on the standard. The ink started to run off and smear. I solved this by just dabbing the clearcoat with my brush as opposed to brushing it on. I had the same problem on my clanrats standard, as I used a permanent marker to draw the stitches, and when I brushed the clearcoat on it smeared a little. I had to redo a portion of it and carefully dab the clearcoat over the rest.

My next project is going to be a unit of 25 Clanrats, plus the five Clanrats I'm adding to the unit I already finished. I plan to add a little more color for this next unit, as both units I've painted so far have been green-themed. I'm going with a lot of green still to preserve my army's unity, but I went out and bought some blues as well. I'll probably have 3 rat with green armor and two rats with blue armor in each rank. That will give me a majority of green, but some variety as well. I may also vary the fur color to a different set of browns, to further differentiate between the units. Hopefully I can get the 30 Clanrats done by the end of February.

The Big Project, And a Change of Direction for the Blog

I've always had an interest in miniature wargaming, but have never really done anything beyond think about it. In early January I was in the local Hobbytown USA looking at the miniatures and writing up a list for some Reaper Warlord armies when I saw an old buddy of mine walk into the store. I hadn't seen him since last year when I was home from Iraq on leave, so I went over to say hi and ask what he was doing in Hobbytown, as he'd never really seemed like a gamer to me. He said he was a closet nerd and played Warhammer with some of his friends.

I told him I was actually looking at Warlord and he replied with, "Do you know anyone who plays that?" I had to admit that I didn't and he said, "Just come play Warhammer with us. It's a lot of fun."

I spent the next couple of days online looking at websites and trying to decide if I wanted to build a Warhammer army and if so, what army I wanted to play. If I was going to play a Fantasy game I didn't want to play a human race, Elves don't really do it for me, and orcs and goblins just didn't appeal to me. Chaos is a bit too demony and evil for me, and I like undead, but not really the way that Warhammer portrays them. That left me to decide between Dwarves and Skaven (ratmen). The dwarves look pretty cool, but they're going through a reboot and the Skaven just looked too fun to pass up. In addition, they have a pretty good variety of figures and they are a horde army, meaning I'll get the chance to paint up a lot of them. My wife said something along the lines of, "You have to give up some other hobby if you want to do any miniature wargaming," so I put some Heroclix up on eBay to fund my first army.

After my Heroclix sold, I had some money to burn, so I
started figuring out what I needed. This required several trips to Hobbytown to look at the selection and decide what I wanted. I'm sure the employees thought I was stealing or something because I went in there every day for a week and just looked around. I picked up the Skaven starter box and went to town, assembling all of the miniatures, cutting off flash and filing them smooth as necessary. The photo is one of the units from the box at the end of this step. I attached the shields on this unit prior to painting, which I've learned (the hard way) makes painting that part of the miniature very difficult.

Once I had all of the minis from the starter box assembled and primed, I started coming up with a paint scheme and accumulating my painting supplies. This involved at least one trip to an arts and crafts store, which was filled with old women who gave me nervous looks as they probably don't often have hairy bearded homeless-looking guys walking the aisle of their store. On January 14th or 15th I started painting. I chose a unit of clanrats as my first project for the army. This was quite a learning experience for me. At first I only painted a couple, so I could see how they turned out and make any last-minute additions or changes to my paint scheme. They turned out pretty well. Here's a picture.

After I got those three figures painted I got a job and school started, so I was pretty busy and it took about two weeks to finish the rest of the 20-man unit. They turned out well, and I had only attached three or four shields prior to painting them, so aside from those few figures, the shields were easy to paint and then attach. I finished the unit completely earlier this week, and then I ran into a near-disaster. I had purchased some spray-on clearcoat and followed the directions on the can to the letter, but when I let loose with it, the dreaded "fuzz" covered my minis with what looked like a layer of dusty snow. This was very unfortunate and I was quite angry. Unfortunately, I don't have a picture of my snow-covered ratmen. Immediately after I covered them in the faulty clearcoat I had to head for class, but my wife volunteered to go to Hobbytown and pick up some brush-on stuff to see if that would fix the snow problem. I painted a couple of them with Model Master Flat Clear Lacquer Finish and the snowy look went away. They're a bit shinier than I would like, but it's a lot better than the alternative. Here's a pic of the completed unit.

I have forgotten about my process for basing these minis, as I ran into a bit of a snag there as well. I painted the bases with some cheap brown paint from Wal-Mart and decided to see what they looked like fully covered with flock, as opposed to just covered on top as shown in the above photo. They looked horrible, as seen to the right. You can see the Elmer's Glue in the background. That's what I use to coat the bases and then I dip them in the flocking material, tap the excess flock off of them, and then set them out to dry. To fix the awful-looking bases, I used my Dremel tool with a sanding attachment and stripped the flock and paint from the sides. Then I repainted the sides in the same brown color. Luckily, I performed the full-base flocking experiment on just five minis, so I didn't have to Dremel and repaint all 20 rats.

It felt good to have a full unit painted, so I sat on my laurels for a couple of days basking in my accomplishment. Unfortunately, if I want to play any games with my planned army I still have 180-some miniatures to paint, so yesterday I got back to work, this time on a unit of Plague Monks, one of the previously mentioned units I primed and assembled back in January. After looking at paints and such for a couple of hours to come up with an appropriate scheme, I started in on two of them. They turned out pretty well, especially since I had no prior experince painting large expanses of cloth, like the robes that these figures wear. I based them just like the Clanrats, and I was able to finish six more by about midafternoon today. I also finished the green basecoat on the other 12, so hopefully I can get the whole unit finished this week sometime and move on to something else.

I hope to have the whole army done by early summer, but I'll have to see how work and school go. I've got a pretty good start though. I plan to update the blog as I finish things off, so hopefully that will provide some incentive for me to get things done.