Playing too Hard

Breaking the Social Contract

My usual 40K game group has quietly died, and it was sort of my fault.

To set the scene, one of my associates from the tabletop RPG space has moved into 40k in a big way. At first I thought more the merrier and helped him get into it, unfortunately I already had an idea to the kind of player that he would be. In spite of this I put my reservations aside and resolved to give him a fair shake.

A few weeks in and he was regularly trouncing me in one on one games and ended up taking increasingly unfriendly lists tailored exactly to wreck my usual load out. Yet, in the spirit of inclusiveness I invited him to my usual Sunday group, but first I warned him to be on his best behavior and ease off on the hyper competitive list building.

Game day came and the list ended up being a list entirely of assassins that I later learned was from the hyper competitive variety. Long and short of it, the group hasn't convened since. Much later I learned that his list and behavior at the table was exactly the reason the group has not convened again.

A week later I went against him again with my guard list and literally got tabled first turn, at this point I decided the time investment of playing against him wasn't worth it. He did insist on replaying that first turn except with my guard having the first move, but my heart wasn't in it and I wanted nothing more than to go home and move on with my life. Unfortunately, since he is the only one that wants to play 40K right now, it means that I haven't had a chance to get a decent game in.

I guess the take away from this exercise is that each group has their own culture and norms on the table top. I made the mistake of inviting someone in that broke those norms to such a degree that it destroyed the trust in said group that I had previously earned.

Long and short of it, my game group is now ash and I have to rebuild it from square one. Good times.

What I've Been Painting
Finishing off the Ultramarines has been a major milestone for me. They were a major slog and I'm glad to see the back of them. In order to prevent the painters burnout from setting in again I've tried getting a variety of projects on the table in order to give me some variety to work with. While it has been a pain from an organisational point of view, it has allowed me to maintain a much greater throughput.

Recently Completed
Imperial Bastion
I bought this to help offset the fragility of my Astra Militarum infantry, but even though it has been finished it has yet to see action.
The kit itself was a bit of a pain to fit together. It required a fair bit of green stuff on the upper most battlements to deal with some of the gaps. In terms of painting I followed the schema that I used for my Aegis Defence Line and Bunker. I also made an attempt with concrete chipping using the sponge technique, but it didn't come out the way I was hoping. Otherwise I'm fairly happy with the result and it'll fit in nicely with the rest of my fortifications.

Pan Oceania Cutter
This one was supposed to be the last PanO model I would ever paint, unfortunately my participation in the local Infinity scene has brought to light some of the major gaps in my current line up. More on that to follow.
As with all Corvus Belli models, this one was a bastard to get assembled due to the thin components and the white metal material. Once that was done I applied the usual Giraldez method for PanO models. Gradient highlights with the usual mix of blues and a black line shade for the recesses with a stark white highlight for the sharp edges. Once that was done I picked out a few more components with their won colours and decided to call it a day.
Overall I was surprised with how quickly I managed to bang this project out once I was over the Airbrushing stage. Like with vehicles generally, the fewer colours significantly decrease the time spent on the model. I'm also surprised with how good it looks for such a lazy paint job.

Robute Gulliman
The big blue himself, and I hated every minute of painting him. The worst part of definitely an overabundance of gold trim. It took a solid layer of Vallejo Air Metallics Copper, followed by a layer of Gold to build it up to the base coat, and due to my lack of patience with being neat at this point, I had to go back and clean up all of the blue after the fact. The sword didn't come out as well as I'd hoped, though it does make use of the whole yellow glaze on white process, which I will certainly be stealing for future projects. Other than that, everything else was pretty much standard. The level of quality is probably mid range table top, and I'll settle with it at this point.

Lelith Hesparex
The Queen of the Arena herself has the honour of being my test model for my Dark Eldar project.The skin, "armour", and hair have turned out pretty well, as did the warpaint on the face. This somewhat problematically dressed lady will be centerpiece of my almost entirely skimmer-bourne assault army.
The only downside is that the model itself is finecast, with all the problems that come with it. Fortunately all of the details that didn't cast correctly I mostly covered with a paint job, and the major focal points turned out fairly well.

Underway
Leman Russ Punisher
This is the first, and probably most fundamental addition to my Astra Militarum army for this cycle. In terms of weaponry, the Punisher strikes me as the best antidote for multi wound monster models and hordes, a capacity that my AM currently lack.
In terms of hobby I'm planning on fully magnetizing the kit, which means I should be able to swap it to any configuration that comes with the box. I'm also planning to do the magnetization after painting for the most part to make my life easier.
So fair I've got the main Castellan Green basecoat down, a fairly easy airbrush job without any fancy pre-shading or gradients. Next up is the Steel Legion Drab brown stripes. I estimate that I'll have this vehicle completed relatively quickly, as I find tanks are fair quicker to paint than infantry models.

Kabalite Warriors
I've done all of the assembly and the gradient priming for my Dark Eldar Line infantry. I'm currently waiting for a decent time slot to break out the airbrush again and put down the base coat of Incubi Darkness.

Cygnar Grenadier Light Warjacks
Hopefully these two will be the absolutely last of my Warmachine Models, then I can put this army to bed. So far priming and the under paint layer of Exile Blue is down. These are the old school metal models that I stripped off from my old army. I did so at the advice of one of my local wargaming buddies regarding their effectiveness. Again, I won't be going for an amazing paint job, just something good enough to fit in with my existing army.

Ultramarine Rievers
So, it turns out that the getting started Riever snack pack doesn't give me enough models for a legal squad. I've picked up another small box to top them up to legal size. Given what I've just been through I should be able to smash them out pretty quickly. Since I want to start rolling out my smurfs on the table top they may get bumped to the top of the priority stack.

Games Played

Infinity
As mentioned previously, I gave the local Infinity Slow Grow a go with my Pan Oceania Fusilier horde. I wasn't expecting to do well, I was mostly hoping to start internalizing the rules and nuances of the game. Overall it turns out I stumbled on a fairly strong list in the early stages. My first few games were fairly tightly controlled learning games, I won the first through no fault of my own and drew the second due to unlucky dice rolls. Since I had a lot of help from the TO in the second game I certainly wouldn't allocate any of my army's success to my own tactical acuity.
The third game ended up being a grind, as this time I came up against Total Reaction Bots for the first time and didn't have an answer to it. I ended up being back into one corner of the board, and since this was a table quarters game I ended up losing in a big way. This was the game that showed me what my major deficiencies were, and now I'm planning to get my own Total Reaction Bots, as well as an engineer, medic and variety of other additions to my PanO.
I later got a message from my opponent pointing out a few rules he got wrong, especially since he is a relatively new player himself. I appreciate this sort of thing happening in the local meta, as it makes actual development at high level game play possible and builds a far healthier local scene. I'm looking forward to doing this again when it rolls around again. Unfortunately, I wish these things didn't conflict with my existing role playing game commitments.

Anyway, that is it for now. I've got a 40K game with a returning player lined up for later this month and a large game of Chain of Command with my British at some point in the future. In terms of painting I'm aiming to fill out the last of my 40K armies at a steady pace. Wintercon is coming up, so I should consider entering at least one of the events, hopefully more on that in the future.

Primaris Ultramarines - A Retrospective.

The release of the Primaris Marines, along side what appears to be a soft squatting of the current line of Space Marines was an entirely welcome event. I wanted Space Marines to look like the superhuman warriors that they are in the fiction, in comparison to a humble guardsmen. The Primaris range has fixed this scale issue to a respectable degree, and along with the releases of the Triumvirate boxed sets, I knew I was definitely going to pick some up and do them up as Ultramarines to go with Gulliman. So far I've finished up the entirety of the Dark Imperium starter box (with the Death Guard being moved along to a good home), and some additional Reivers both for skull marks and short pants power armour. As of right now they are sitting completed in my display case with Gulliman on the bench and the first few stages of paint already on plastic for him. This is a retrospective of the new line of Primaris Marines in general, both from an assembly and painting perspective.


Assembly
As usual, this part was not particularly hard. Like all contemporary Games Workshop plastics, they go together well, the instructions are clear, and the sprues well marked. I thought about leaving the arms off so I could have an easier time getting at the chest plates, but I ultimately got lazy and decided to ignore what couldn't be conveniently reach anyway.
After the assembly was done I based them in the usual way, as ultimately I'd intended the force to neatly slot in as allies for my other Imperium 40k armies.






Planning
For my basic palette, I opted to follow the Games Workshop painting guide as closely as I could. However, rather than use the Games workshop metallics, I subbed in my Vallejo Metal colour equivalents. Later on in the project I opted to bring in some more Vallejo colours.
The Captain in Gravis Armour served as my base colour template and method for the most part, you can find it on the Games Workshop Youtube channel.

Painting - Early Stages
My first major mistake of the project was in the priming stage. Like a total newbie, I opted to do my first layers of primer during a fairly hot part of the day. The result of this was a slight rough texture on a few select spots of the models. While the primer ultimately is meant to be slightly rough to the touch, you know you've screwed up when the texture is visible to the naked eye. To make matters worse I also opted to use a rattle can of GW Macragge Blue for my main base coat. While this was a major time saver I suspect that it did contribute to a few patches of rough texture on the model.
After that I put a base coat down of the other major colours. The Abaddon Black went down well enough, however the Celestra Gray / Ulthuran Grey for the standard bearer's helmet and the knee badge turned out rough, so I will be discontinuing these particular paints indefinitely, instead using Vallejo equivalents. I also laid down Metal Colour Gunmetal for all of the base metallic colours.

Middle Stages
As always, this is the part where the entire process really became a chore. Since I was doing them as a single batch, it meant days at a time of repeating the same process until completion. The very first process was a pin wash of Nuln Oil for the armour and a regular wash for the metallic components. I found my commitment sorely tested at this point, and took frequent breaks and made a start on two other projects to try and break up the monotony.

I had, far more than usual, a great deal of frosting problems in the deepest recesses with my Nuln Oil. I suspect that with my impatience I was overdoing it. Fortunately, it was easily fixed by watering down some airbrush version of the Abbadon Black and covering the worst of it up with a thin and precise layer of colour.
I also opted to do all the final metallics work at this stage as well, mostly to avoid having to change out my water when switching between colours. In doing so I ran into the limitations of the particular metallic colours that I was using. The first major problem was the shade on the Metal Air Gunmetal ended up with a finish that was essentially black

I didn't bother to fix it by redoing it, instead I applied my highlight of Pale Burnt Metal, again Vallejo Metal Colour, and moved on with my life, as my patience with the entire project was wearing thin.

The longest stage in terms of working time was probably the first highlight of the armour. Again, I made the mistake of tackling this as one huge batch, witch was in a word, demoralizing.

Towards the end of this stage I painted the bases using my usual technique for temperate grassland. Only at this point did the entire army start to transition from looking like garbage, to the point where at a distance it looks quite decent for a tabletop standard.

Late Stage
First I applied highlights on all of the secondary colours, which amounted to the blacks on the guns and body suites, and the red and gray colours. I also applied the golds at this stage, which I did using Vallejo Metal as usual. I started with a coat of Copper to act as an undertone, then layered Gold over it for the actual mid tone. Following that, a layer of Riekland Fleshshade for the depth, and some spot highlights of silver here and there for highlight. After that, all that was left were the assorted details, which came down to purity seals and other incidental details on the models. I painted the eyes in my usual manner, a flat layer of Vallejo Offwhite and glazed over with Bloodletter. To this day I have yet to find a technique that works equally well to this simple method. My final paint step at this stage was to apply a second stage highlight to all of the main colours.

It was around this point that I painted the Ancient's Standard, my major mistake with this was using a gray for the text that was too light to be effective. At this point I was a bit nervous  about going back and redoing it, especially because I wanted to move on to other projects.

The transfers are probably the best work I've done with getting them applied, set, and dressed to date. The key I've found seems to be working on a flat gloss surface and then repeatedly applying the Micro Sol solution until the transfer is completely flat, letting it dry thoroughly between coats. Once I was satisfied with the transfer, a coat of gloss to seal it in, then a coat of satin to dull it down. The end result was nothing short of smooth, and I'm very proud of the result.

I also opted to paint the Captain separately from the main production line once every other model was complete. This was due to some early cock-ups with painting the cloak and the need to strip my first attempts and start again. The one thing I would've done differently is paint the captain with his backpack off, because that cloak was annoying to get to once the model was assembled and based.

Final Thoughts
To be honest I'm not going to say that I enjoyed this project. It was a slog to get through at the best of times, and I broke my rule about painting a squad at a time which contributed to the usual mid-project malaise. In terms of quality I'd judge them at middling tabletop standard, which is par for the course for all my projects as of late. To be honest I'm looking at my upcoming project roster and I'm beginning to feel a bit of dread. I've got a final expansion for my Astra Militarum, which means a lot of infantry, and an entire Dark Eldar army to paint from scratch. I think for both of them I'm going to try to break the project up by squad and do something else in between. Anyway, catch you all next time, once I think of something else worth writing.