5th Company Update and how to avert that spray disaster!

So after recovering from Salute and sorting out the rest of the Tactical marines to finish off the 6 Squads I managed to get cracking on with them and push through the pain barrier that I hit earlier in the month and played hours of Dawn of War 2, rather than painting green!

So the last odds and sods nearly finished just some skin and the effect and get then based and we're good to go for the squad numbers.

So whilst that lot was drying I decided to finish spraying the last of the devastator marines and start working on those next, But had a slight "issue".....

Either I over sprayed, the can was cold, I didn't shake the can enough, sprayed too close or just fluffed it up I managed to kill 2 Sargent's a "wound marker" and 2 heavy bolters!

So I deployed the detol and soak them for a couple of hours and some scrubbing with degreaser later....

Far better looking, so the spray didn't come off all together but gives me something to work with rather than a blob of paint that looks like a marine!

In the mean time I've been working on the stuff that I picked up on Saturday and managed to get it mostly painted up for the game of infinity that I'd arranged,

 So I got 5 crates, 5 barriers and a sat uplink model,and after a childless day managed to get them all done,

Add the compound set that I also had lying about and one can of ultramarine blue later the 4x4 was good to go!!

However the game didn't go my way at all and got stomped all over so its time to do some reading and suss out what the combined army can do!

I've also managed to suss out the pledge and this is where I'm currently standing...

		Bought		Painted		Difference
Jan		41		60		19
Feb		227		107		-120
March		26		19		-7
April		73		94		21

So thanks to the terrain I've blasted the month of April but still have a lot of catching up to do for the month of feb, Better crack on with some 20mm T-34's!

Salute 2013

So once more myself and the happy band of people from Leicester Phat Cats wandered down to excel in London for the 2013 Salute show, mingled in with the superfit London Marathon runners registering for the race on Sunday.

Personally fair play to the people who do this, I'll happily admit I'm a lazy monkey so wouldn't last 500 meters!

Any way onto the Geeky stuff!!

So myself, Nick, Lee and Steve travelled down on the train and slogged it across town to get in the queue, once more the queue filled up fast and soon looped back on itself!

So as soon as we walked in I picked myself & Khris a Warlord open day ticket for July so we can actually learn how to play bolt action and have alook at all the other shiny stuff that they have!!

I only managed to grab a couple of snaps this year compared to my 50+ from previous years, the tables that grabbed my attention were steampunk type tables...

and another one that caught my eye was,

And what must be the first in 12+ years some of us managed to actually play a game!!

Coops giving Relic's a crack

Lee & Nick going for it with Saga, whilst Dan threatening to get his "weapon of mass destruction" out!

The painting compo was high quality as always and grabbed a couple of pics of the ones that I could get to but as always it was a bit of a scrum to get close and have a look,

I also wandered over to the mantic stand to have a mooch at the new teams that they've just put pictures up for and I've pre-ordered the robots and insects and they look superb in the flesh so I carn't wait for those to turn up!

but I did spot these....

and Amera were taking pre-order for the stadium,

Personally I'm not going to bother mainly on the amount of room that it will take up and for what ever reason it doesn't float my boat, Spencer compared it to playing in a bath which did make me smile!

I picked u my pre-orders for Battlegroup Overlord and the display tables looked stunning!!

We had a bit of a natter with Warwick and the chaps and I'm looking forward to getting a game of this in at some point!!

But that didn't stop Nick & Coops having a good thumb through the book for the lists and commenting on the points increase/decrease on certain units!

Overall the day was a good laugh but my legs/knees decided to give me a rough time part way through the day so didn't do the usual running around looking at random stuff.

I also only picked up a few bits and bobs which included...

3 20mm SU76m's from lancer miniatures
6 StuG's from PSC
some infinity type terrain from warmill

and that was it!! The shocker for me was no new system!! but nothing that I saw interested me but I did spot a up and coming game called timeline 300 by troublemaker games I was speaking to the guys on the stand for quite a while and the game has a nice twist that you gain coal points at the start of each turn and you can make units so like a table top RTS so I'll be keeping my eye on this one. Also the launch of new games tends to be going through kickstarter at the moment so is that going to change the industry was we know it??

Painting Dark Angels the "Anton" Way...

As I'm currently ploughing though the 5th Company I thought a step by step might be useful for people looking for a quick and effective way to paint a 100 marines!

So once you've assembled your model spray it with Army painter angel green, I went straight over the plastic I didn't bother with a pre-coat of black or anything,

Once that's dried off I then mixed Caliban Green with some warpstone glow and dry brushed the whole model I did a couple of levels of highlight at this point.

Then I hit it with a Biel-tan green wash/shade,

Once the initial wash had dried I wasn't happy so went onto do another couple of washes to dull the green down, but if your doing salamanders or prefer your dark angels lighter looking then the single wash is fine.

Once I was happy with the armour I starter on the metals for the model using good old tin blitz,

At the same time I did the chest eagles and other boney type bits

Then it was back to the metal to finish that bit off,


At this point your glorious marines should look something like...

I used game colour gun metal and to give a old/different look I mixed some brassy brass into the gunmetal and put on the edges of the weapons and other areas to break up the flat surfaces, One thing that I haven't done is go for the "traditional" red guns mainly because I think they look pants.

so before I did the "details" I washed the metal with army painter strong tone (badbab black) and the boney bits with ogryn flesh.

So all that was left after this point was just the chapter symbol, the squad symbol and details like pouches, purity seals, the company symbol on the left knee pad and eyes, all easily done and once you've based the model in your preferred scheme your good to go!

So a nice and easy way to paint marines, using the new shades to full advantage, I've painted this lot using the above technique,

All I need to do is add the unit numbers, and in the mean time I have this lot left for the tactical squads to be finished off,

then its gonna be the mammoth task of the transports...

But I've had an idea with regards to the droppods so I'll be doing one as a test to see if my idea works then simply apply it to the rest of them.

As usual any comments etc pop them below,

The big unpack!

Don't worry my lovely followers the Anarchy hasn't gone dark!

So in the words of rastamouse, Wagwan?

Well I packed up the Mancave and was a surprised to see how much stuff I really had!

and it keeps coming....

So now I'm at the new place and the traditional put the stuff back together session has taken place..

And the GC's room is sorted....

So its now onto the mammoth task of sorting out the new Mancave, finding the box with the painting table in and cracking on with the Dark Angels working out the pledge for March (which I'm sure is an interesting one) and doing various odds and sods around the house. So there will be less updates than usual but once I'm back to "normal" then you'll see business as usual.

Also just a big thanks to the guys who helped me move on the day, So Spencer, Khris & Keith you've got front row at the BBQ!