Been Playing StarCraft 2...

Posted by Ranillon

...And it is hard not to notice the familiarity to a certain game we talk about here a whole heck of a lot. Take a look at the great opening cinematic...

Just give the guy a british accent...

I am not really making a criticism. "Space Marines" and Tyranid-ish bad guys like the Zerg are pretty much staples of the Sci-fi genre nowadays. Besides, it's a great game.

It also shows what you can do with graphics, even the "lessexpensivethanAvatar" sort seen here. I love the fact that the game has great storytelling to go along with the equally superior game play. And, it's only the first installment of a "trilogy" that Blizzard has planned.

It's definitely enough to keep me interested...at least until the next installment of Dawn of War comes out.

Warhammer Update and Island of Blood (with Elves and Rats)!

Posted by Ranillon

The new Warhammer has been out barely a few weeks and already Games Workshop is offering an Update for the new book. They've also updated every FAQ for every army. Nice to see them being proactive.

They have also provided a page on the new Warhammer basic set:

The art looks a bit tacty if you ask me and the name for the new set is hardly original, but the box clearly includes a huge amount of material -- and the new small rulebook. The rumored price is upwards of $90, but that's not too bad for as much as you get, IMHO.

Yet More Demons Coming!

Posted by Ranillon

Man, these malevolent denizen's of the warp are breeding like infernal rabbits! Coming soon to an invested gaming store near you are Bloodcrushers -- in plastic! -- and the two-headed Fateweaver.

Personally, since I've been threatening to finish my Knorne 40K Demon Army the plastic bloodcrushers are especially tempting -- even if they are still an equally impressive $53.75!

2010 Warhammer 40K Origins RTT Final Results

Posted by Ranillon

Here are the final, official results for the Origins Warhammer 40k Rogue Trader Tournament for 2010:

Name - Army	Battle	Sports	Painting	Total
Patrick Smith - Imperial Guard	57	15	16	88
Michael Hernandez - Tyranids	53	13	14	80
Joe Miksa - Space Marines	38	15	12	65
David Talbott - Necrons	34	14	15	64
Allen Blunt - Imperial Guard	30	14	14	59
Michael St. Clair - Daemonhunters	33	15	9	57
Ken Boone - Orks	24	15	17	56
Stuart Moll - Orks	32	14	9	56
Craig Collins - Dark Angels	27	13	14	54
Steven Olk - Imperial Guard	30	12	12	54
Joshua Shivak - Imperial Guard	31	15	7	53
Tom McFarland - Tau	30	14	8	52
Hyde Anderson - Nids	20	15	15	51
Michael Brown - Tyranids	31	14	4	50
Steven Beasley - Eldar	29	14	4	47
Nick Soika - Tau	18	12	11	41
Chris Kruso - Space Marines	22	15	4	41
Brian Vorhees - Orks	WD
CS Barnhaus - Space Marines	WD

Some notes on how the scoring was done --

Each player received a score of 0-5 in sportsmanship from each of his opponents giving a possible range of total sportsman results from 0-15
Battle scores are the sum total of the scenario points from all three games. The basic range was from 0-20 per game, but some extra bonus points could raise results over 20.
Five judges went through and graded painting individually from 0-20. Their totals were then averaged to get the final result. Anyone who did not put out their army to be judged received an automatic 4.
No one could win more than a single award
Eight people tied for Best Sportsman so the award went to the person with the worst OVERALL* score -- it's harder to be fun to play with when you are losing. (* EDIT - We intended for it to be lowest overall, to put the trophy within reach of someone new to the hobby, unlike all the other awards. It was not lowest battle score, we apologise for the typo.)
Ken Boone had the best painting score, but was disqualified from the Best Painter award because he did not personally paint his army. Likewise, as Patrick won Grand Champion he could not also claim Best Painter. The resulting tie between David and Hyde was decided in the former's favor after all the judges went back and reexamined the armies once again.

Our thanks to all who participated! We look forward to doing this again next year!

Coming Attractions

Posted by Ranillon

As a new week starts I just wanted to give everyone a preview of what they can expect this week here at 40KOrigins.com:

1) Complete, detailed results for the Origins RTT -- Right now I am going through the data to make sure it is all correct

2) First Impressions of the New Warhammer -- Just got my copy on Friday and have been reading through when I can. Definietely some interesting effects for my Empire army -- spears are better, greatswords are worse. More details to come.

3) The English Civil War Does Empire -- Being a trained historian I've always wanted to do an ECW army and for similar reasons a Fantasy Empire army. Well, it's occurred to me that as either force is based on much the same technology and the same dress style I can do both at the same time! So, this will be the first installment of a new ongoing series as I put together and paint up some Warlord figures to produce both an English Civil War historical force and Warhammer Empire force at the same time.

Quickshade Test

Posted by gbprime

A few months back, I acquired a can of Quickshade (product link here). The store owner was raving about how good a product it was and how much better it was than poly stain for dipping miniatures. I'd done a dipped army before and was comfortable with it's use, so I dropped 30 bucks on a can and decided to give it a try.

A squad of my marines volunteered. I had painted these guys up in 1999 for the Chicago GT, and they were an all-drybrush job, so they seemed like good candidates to try a varnish wash treatment on. Here they are before the treatment.

Using the medium strength color, I brushed the entire miniature and dabbed off the excess. I let the varnish dry for 36 hours and then sprayed the minis with dullcoat to remove the gloss effect of the varnish. The result was a noticable yet subtle shade-and-ink of the miniatures. It doesn't subtract from the look of the miniatures and darkens the colors only slightly, but it does fill in the joints nicely, giving them the depth they were missing in my haste to get them done for the GT years ago.

The Quickshade product is indeed superior to poly stain varnishes. It is quite brushable (unlike the poly stain), does not bubble, flows like an ink, and is thick enough to stick in all the places it needs to go in a single coat.

Unlike an ink, however, the quickshade requires a dullcoat afterward if any additional work is to be done to the miniature. that breaks up the paint surface and makes blending look funny. the quickshade also sticks to flat surfaces unlike inks, resulting in certain surfaces having a pool of darkness that really needs to be retouched. (only because of the dullcoat requirement, that's kind of difficult) The 30 dollar price tag is a bit of a bummer too.

In summation, Quickshade is a great product to do an entire army quickly and have a force that looks great from 3 feet away. It's up close you'll notice the shortcomings of the shortcut, so you won't be winning any painting awards by relying on this product. For that, stick to regular inks.

New Daemons on Advanced Order

Posted by Ranillon

Games Workshop just put up some new (mostly plastic) Daemons on Advanced Order. You can see some pictures of them below (clicking on the image takes you to the appropriate GW order page):

(Lots) More 2010 Origins Coverage -- Saturday

Posted by Ranillon

Saturday was the time for the big Rogue Trader Tournament -- and the big prizes which you can see in the picture below.

Click This and Any Picture to See Larger Version

We had a larger turn out than last year, but one still not quite as big as it should have been as Origins messed up the tournament listing in its Convention Book, giving it the description for our "By Kids for Kids" Ork Pile game rather than the correct one. This in turn caused at least a handful people that we know about to think the RTT was for teenagers and not attend (although when they stopped by the game later and found out the truth they were sorely disappointed). Nevertheless, it was almost a full house.

Here are a few pictures of the tournament in the midst of the action:

There were a number of nicely painted armies, so I made sure to get copies of the ones that impressed me the most. However, first a few notes on how the judging was done.

There were five painting judges that all individually went around to judge each army while the players were off at lunch. We didn't join together to discuss armies this time around, instead just giving a score from 0-20 with 0 being bare metal and 20 a Grand Daemon level army. Once we had finished the total scores were added up and then averaged out. In the end there were two armies tied for first so we asked the players to put out their armies once again, this time for a group judging session. The winner here ended up getting the top prize.

Speaking of which, first up are Dave Talbot's purple Necrons which went on to win Best Painting:

Dave's army had a nice unity of theme and the highlighting was quite crisp and tidy. Likewise, his "lightning" effects on some of his Necron's weapons worked very effectively, better certainly than just leaving the regular green plastic untouched.

The main weakness of his army was that he just didn't give it enough time. If you pick up the models and look at their bottom sides you see usually just basic, at times messy, coloring or in the case of the Scarabs only primer black. Still, kudos for Dave at being clever at how he "hid" these defects so that from a view from above (the typical perspective) these shortcuts can't be seen.

Second place painting went to Hyde and his yellow Tyranid force.

Again, this was another painting job with a good overall theme that certainly fit what you might expect from a bunch of killer bugs. The shading and highlighting technique was also nicely done.

However, in the end Mike's force suffered from the same basic issue as Dave's (not surprising as I believe they both did their armies together in a short period of time) -- the overall level of finish was mediocre. This is more of an issue with Tyranids as they have a lot more pits and corners where the lack of time to finish well becomes all too noticeable. There were as a result a lot of bare white primer in the recesses of the models despite the fact that everything else was done well. This was the reason why the Necrons beat out the bugs -- too much unfinished detail work.

Still, first and second place look quite good overall, especially from the classic "five foot" distance. Seeing what Dave and Hyde can do with just a few weeks worth of (a lot of) effort makes me eager to see what they could produce if they gave themselves, say, a few months!

Next up are Ken Boone's orks. Really a nice paint job, so much so that they would have won Best Painting if Ken had been the one who painted them -- using an army that someone else painted automatically disqualifies you from winning Best Painting (although you get regular painting scores that are put toward winning overall).