Top Ten Warhammer 40,000 Models

Even though I'm playing Fantasy right now, I am very excited about 6th edition coming out. I've vaguely started planning out my Space Wolf army, but it's really on the back burner until I finish up the Dwarfs. To show 40k there's no love lost, I have gathered up my top ten 40k models.

Casey's recent post about his favorite GW Fantasy models inspired me to do this similar post. Since this is also my 100th post, I thought it'd be fun to do something a little special. The list is limited to models that are currently available. If it weren't, it would be more like a top twenty-five.

Kairos Fateweaver, Oracle of Tzeentch

I love the original Lord of Change, but Kairos takes it to a whole new level. His staff is the tits. The details on his wings are magnificent. His head is also less cumbersome than the LoC. What I like most is that they subdued his clothing a little bit, so it looks more realistic and less like a clothing model standing in front of a fan for effect.

Huron Blackheart

Now Huron here has some good things going on. He's a little busier than I like a model to be, but the way he's posed mid-stride with his outstretched hand is simple enough to balance. I like how the spikey bits are over his head and over the back of his axe.

C'tan Shard of The Nightbringer

Long curves go a great way for this model. It's the most simplistic of my top ten, but it really illustrates how you can have a great looking model without incredibly ornate details. He's the stuff that nightmares are made of. His scythe arm takes advantage of the curves used elsewhere to create a good over-all pose.

The GW paint scheme leaves something to be desired, however.

My Very First WFB Game!

After my post about finally making up a list, I woke up yesterday morning to find a game offer from Richard. I wasn't able to make it over to the GW store to play before, so I decided to go for it, even though they weren't quite "ready". I could have kept using that excuse for another couple weeks, but dammit, they're playable now. I needed a kick in the pants, and got one, so we played!

This combat got more complicated before it was resolved.

It turned into the single longest game I have ever played. We went for nearly 6 hours. Since I had only skimmed over the rule book, we got into a lot of the nitty-gritty details. When learning 40k, I found that reading the rules out of the book and then trying to play later was confusing. This time, the learning-as-we-went approach worked out much, much better.

I cannot thank Richard enough for his endless patience, particularly toward the end when we had the most complicated close combat situation I can imagine. I definitely learned a lot about how Fantasy works and the strengths/weaknesses of my Dwarfs.

The list I ran is the one I put up a few days ago, with just a few tweaks related to my inability to count up points correctly. When I plugged it all in, I realized I was 40 points over. Oops. I found some changes I want to make, mostly with the runes since I can't really do much about the physical makeup of my units yet.

The Slayers did about as much Slaying as I expected, which was great. I was really surprised by the Miners, though. Since my Dwarfs are pretty slow, having them be able to pop up from any table edge is really useful. I might flesh them out to 15 if I keep getting good results.

I have another game planned for next week, hopefully everything I learned won't have leaked out of my brain by then.

The Very First Dwarf (Test) List

Now that the army is based (and I'm back from vacation), I decided it was high time to sit down and finally make a list. Casey was kind enough to give me a hand, since I haven't made one for Fantasy before. He picked all the Runes for me because I really had no idea what would be useful.

Without further ado, I present:

Lords
   Dwarf Lord with shield, Rune of Fury, Rune of Cleaving, Rune of Fire, Rune of Stone, Rune of Resistance, and Master Rune of Spite
   Runelord with Great Weapon , Master Rune of Kragg the Grim, Master Rune of Gromril, Rune of Resistance, and Spelleater Rune.

Heroes
   Thane with Battle Standard and Rune of Slowness
   Runesmith with Great Weapon and Rune of Spell Breaking
   Dragon Slayer with Rune of Fury

Water Bases for Chaos Space Marines

Far, far away in our old apartment, I started working on a Chaos Space Marine army. Then I played a bunch of games with them and decided they're just awful without transports. I really couldn't bring myself to buy and build a bunch of vehicles, so I set the army aside.

A sampling of the fleet of bases I made.

I did, however, manage to get their bases done in an interesting way. I made based them in such a way that it looks like the army is stomping through streams. I stole the general idea from Casey's lava bases, but I don't actually know if the methods we used were the same. I really don't know how he did them.

Marine isn't finished, but I think he looks snazzy on that base.

I coated the base in wood glue first, to smooth out the textured surface. I layered skull white, asurmen blue, enchanted blue, ultra marine blue, regal blue, and then asurmen blue again to get the gradient. After it was dry, I put a brushing of 'Ard Coat over top to give it the glossy water look. I glued on the gravel after the paint dried.

They are different from the usual grassy-land bases, but I'm not entirely pleased with how they came out. Next time, I would try to blend it together better. A lot better. I honestly think the colors I did was the best option I had, but I should have started with the dark colors and blended them up instead of the other way around.

If I had thought about it further, I'd have chosen to put grass there instead of the lame gravel. Grass loves to grow near water, so why I made it a desolate hellscape is beyond me. If I decide to go forward with the army, I think I should scrap these bases and rework them. The idea is cool, but the execution is just too poor.