32nd Inquisitorial Guard – I salute you!

12 04 2012

With the advent of no inducted Imperial Guard in the new Sisters of Battle ‘Codex’ (Codex being used in the loosest sense of the term) I have decided to part ways with my IG, painted to represent the 32nd Inquisitorial Guard (I wanted to distinguish them from the ‘regular’ IG troops.

I took them to my FLGS last night and put them up for sale in their cabinet for a modest $65 (only $5 more than buying a Chimera and a box of guard). I’ll leave them there for a month, and if they don’t sell, it’ll be off to Ebay with them. Is it sad that I got a little sentimental when I walked out of the store last night? I guess when you invest time, money and passion in something, you put a bit of yourself in what you produce, but it did feel like I was saying goodbye, lol!

Hopefully someone will be able to use them and give them a good home. Here are some pics I took last night before I took them to the game store:

Give ‘em hell, boys!


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Space Wolves – B&C paint challenge completed!

3 04 2012

I just recently (by the skin of my teeth) completed my painting vow for the Bolter and Chainsword painting challenge. Here are my Grey Hunters!

I’m very pleased with how they turned out! let me know what you think!


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Categories : General, How to..., Miniature painting and techniques, Warhammer 40k, Warhammer 40000

Sisters of Battle… What is happening?

29 07 2011

Sister Wishlister

Hmmm. Suffice to say, I was deleriously excited when I saw the inside back cover of last months Games Workshop Monthly Release Catalogue White Dwarf and I noticed the little box that declared ‘Next month – Part 1 of the Sisters of Battle Codex!’. While I was disappointed initially by the fact that my girls only seemed to warrant a Chapter Approved WD codex, I got over it and moved on. I rushed up to my FLGS on Wednesday to purchase the latest issue (even after reading all the venom online about the codex) to see wtf all the fuss was about. I was pretty disappointed that a vast majority of the issue was devoted to Vampire Counts. The Sisters debut of the ‘new’ rules were stuffed at the back of the magazine almost like an embarrassing afterthought. A whopping 14 pages out of 120… I can only hope that next month will see the Sisters maybe even gracing the cover and taking center stage, although with the preview of next month being focused on Ogre Kingdoms, i’m not too sure. We are promised at batrep of the Sisters Vs. Orks, although elsewhere they said it was against  Tyranid Hive Fleet Leviathan, so either they will publish more than one batrep, or they just did a shit job proofreading before going to press.
 
Now i’m not about to launch into whether this new set of rules is going to make them more competitive etc etc, as there are a deluge of blogs out there who are already doing that (and very well, I may add). I’m just trying to get my head around what exactly GW are doing with this army. A cursory glance at the first part of the glorified pamphlet Codex shows us a little bit in the way of the origins and key conflicts, then jumps straight into the Army Special Rules. I wonder if newcomers to the game will look at this and think ‘holy shit! this looks awesome! sod the other armies out there with their shiny books packed with background fluff, i’m rolling with these ladies!’. I guess I have to ask, has this been put together with current non-sisters players in mind, or are they simply appeasing an older crowd who play them? If it is the latter, then I’d be suprised, as i’m sure GW will want to milk as much moolah out of it as they can, so if it’s the former, it’s not particularly impressive. Shit, they’re even regurgitating old artwork for filler.
 
I’m not sure how I feel about the new Faith Points system. At the start of the Sisters player’s turn, a D6 is rolled, and this is the amount of Faith Points available for that turn. As mentioned on many other blogs, it makes little sense to have this the same for forces of any size.  A 3000 point Sisters army would have a max of 6 Faith Points available? Seems a little goofy, considering the religious fervor these ladies are supposed to have…
 
Gone are Inquisitiors and their retinues, as well as allied forces of Imperial Guard or Space Marines. We do get Priests, with ‘Ecclesiarchy Battle Conclaves’ which is where Crusaders, Arco Flagellants and Death Cult Assassins have now been lumped. If I remember correctly, weren’t the arco’s weapons in the previous Codex classed as power weapons? They have added Feel No Pain, which I guess is pretty cool, and gone is that bloody horrible ‘stim injector death’ rule.
 
We don’t see an entry for the Repressor in this list. This was one of the things that was getting me excited about the new lists, was the posssibility of plastic sisters, and a plastic Repressor (any one who has attempted a FW one will know how much of a pain in the arse it is to put together). In fact, the only minatures in the book are old ones, so are they saving that up for the next issue? will they get new minis or will it be the old range redone in Finecast? No fire points on an Immolator now? No 12 inch ride-and-fire either? wtf?
 
Gone is Lord Karamazov on his toilet Throne of Judgement, and back is Arch-Confessor Kyrinov and Uriah Jacobus, who have returned from a well earned break between Codexes.
 
There are some interesting little tweaks here and there, but the army seems to be lacking the somewhat ‘medieval’ feel they had to them before.
 
On the whole, it seemed pretty anti-climatic. I can only hope that GW redeem themselves by releasing new minis, vehicles etc in the next issue, and while i’m not going to be sending my army off to Ebay just yet, their days may well be numbered.
 

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Preparing for war!

20 04 2011

By the gods! where has the time gone? it seems like only yesterday that I was at AdeptiCon hanging out with Dethtron and Evan… Well, I guess a new position at work, my computer at home taking a shit and generally being bloody knackered are the reasons that I haven’t posted in a while…anyway, enough of the excuses!

AdeptiCon was great fun, and a great chance to catch up with some people from the blogging universe. I met Tasty Taste, Brent, Sandwyrm and a couple of others from the HOP network (sorry, names are escaping me right now!). I also met Papa JJ from Dicerolla who is a gentleman! he approached me and Dethtron at the convention and asked if one or either of us were with Crusader, and thus, the ice was broken! Unfortunately we didn’t get to really hang out much, what with the tourneys going on, and our impending show that night at a venue that was only marginally bigger than my 3-year old’s bedroom. But, friendships were forged and i’m sure that we’ll be seeing Papa JJ again soon for more fermented grain beverages.

My one down point from the con was Forge World. I won’t go on about it, but this is definitely their second strike in my book. They had sod all I wanted at Games Day a couple of years back, and the same thing happened at AdeptiCon. I wanted the ‘event exclusive’ mini, a rather sweet ‘boarding marine’ in pre-heresy armor, but they had sold out. Way to go Forge World. They were painfully trying to get rid of some Eldar Titan that they didn’t want to have to cart home, and from what I understand they did end up taking it home. Well thought out lads…

Forge world: see all this really cool shit here?
me: sweet! hell yeah!
Forge world: well, you can’t buy any of it.
me: >sad face<

If any of you are familiar with the ‘Cheese Shop’ Monty Python sketch, it’s pretty spot on with my FW experience.

So, new Tomb Kings are imminent, and I am super excited. It’s put me into gear full throttle with painting my WFB army, which is also another reason I haven’t posted for a while.

I saw the leaked pictures and pretty much had a nerdgasm. I’ve heard on the interwebs a lot of hate toward the Sepulchral Stalkers/Necropolis Knights, but I think they’re really cool looking, and somewhat over-the-top, which I’ve been coming to expect from Fantasy Battle, considering recent releases. I actually also really like the thought of skeleton troops harnessing them and riding them, it’s just so ‘out there’ and quite refreshing to have this unusual take on what I believe will be a heavy cavalry class for this army. (about bloody time too!). The Sphinx is great too, and the model options just look incredible! I’m super excited about the Tomb Guard though. I actually held a box in my hand at my FLGS the other day, but alas it was still shrik wrapped, but it was on the ‘coming soon’ display. The down side to these guys is that they will be retailing for $41, the same price as a Stegadon… yowch! The one thing that I did find odd about them is the choice of head dress they are wearing, which looks distinctly more Mayan than Egyptian, in my opinion:

A small thing, which I don’t really care about, I just thought it odd… I also managed to thumb through the new army book too, which is gorgeous and lavishly illustrated in full color (yes, it will cost more too). Although we haven’t seen them yet, there will be another wave of TK stuff, as we have seen with other lines, GW will do an initial release, then a second wave. The second wave will consist of what look like plastic Ushabti (3 in a box for about $40 i’m guessing) and some new character figures, including some TK that looks like he’s appearing from a mound of scarabs. I’m hoping that new Liche Priests will be on the cards. Looks like we TK players are stuck with the gods-awful Screaming Skull catapult model, and I didn’t see anything about a new Bone Giant (I HATE that mini!) Having said that, I was in a bit of a rush, and didn’t get to look as deep into the book as I’d liked.

I was also half hoping that we would get new skeleton infantry minis, but alas it was not to be. The cavalry models seem to be out of scale with current horse models they make for other cavalry, which kinda sucks. I would’ve liked to have seen TK dedicated skellie minis, instead of the VCs ones with a couple of egyptian style upgrade sprues in there. There’s a lot I don’t use from those regular sprues, and won’t be using on anything else. Oh well, the pro’s defintely outweigh the cons for the imminent Tomb Kings, and I for one am a happy camper…

The release date of May 7th has totally put the firecrackers up my arse that I needed, and as I wanted to take a much needed break away from painting the Emperor’s finest, this has been perfect! I’ll be posting up some pictures of my progress in the next few days, so stay tuned.

Cheers for now


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Crusader, Adepticon, oh, and some Sisters of Battle news…

1 04 2011

Ultra quick post today my lovlies…

After what we thought was going to be a big shit dump of a mess, no thanks at all to Brauerhouse in Lombard, We’ve actually managed to secure a spot on a show for this saturday night for all those people at Adepticon who want to listen to some heavy metal. So,  Brad, our He-Man-esque guitar player, whose pastimes include playing guitar for us, and wrestling dragons, managed to get us on the bill with She Likes Todd and Situation red. The best bit is it’s f*cking FREE to get in,  and only a 10 minute ride from the Adepticon venue. For more in depth details on how to get to the show from Adepticon, be sure to swing by Dethtron’s blog, Dick Move, to get the information. So, come along, hang out, have fun, drink some beer, and pick up our brand new release EP – ‘Rise of the Templars’ for a mere $5 :)

In other news, I found out yesterday, with thanks to the Blood Of Kittens network, that we have a little taster of what is to come for Sisters of Battle! HELL YEAH!! It appears to be a page from the upcoming new codex… Looks like Sisters will be ‘losing’ acts of faith as an ‘extra’ , but gaining some of them as standard special rules. I’m wondering if different slots will have access to different AoF? AND we see that Repressors are included as vehicle options. Could this possibly mean a plastic kit??? and WTF is an ‘arcaballista’? Anyway, i’m very excited, and you will be too, when you see the image by clicking here! 

If you haven’t already, I urge you to join up with BoK, it’s a great network for fellow 40k bloggers.

Thanks for listening, and see you Saturday night!

Paul


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Tomb Kings and other asshattery.

28 03 2011

It was a busy weekend this last week. Hell, it’s been crazy the last few weeks. I started a new position at my job, so that has been sucking up a lot of my time. Now I’m getting into the ‘groove’, I should be able to start posting again, many apologies for my lack of new stuff since ‘Old Stuff Day’, which is not even really new stuff, its old stuff. I think a rip just opened in the time/space continuum.

Played a show with my band, Crusader, on Friday night, at some hole-in-the-wall place called Mikes Luv N Music on the south side. I couldn’t quite make up my mind if it’s supposed to be read as ‘Mikes Love and Music’, which would instantly call into disrepute the nature of the place, ‘Mike’s Lovin’ Music’ which would make me think of Barry White for getting your girl in the mood or ‘Mike’s Loving Music’ as in he really digs music. I’ll go with the latter, although I’m still not sure. Anyway, beware, as me and Mr. Dethtron feel that they may have an infestation problem, in which case, it would be option number one in regard to how to read the venue name.

The show went OK. Maybe a couple dozen people were there, but it opened up a gateway for playing shows at a venue in the city, so it was worth it. The sad news, it appears, is that Crusader will not be playing the weekend of Adepticon. This is in no way anything on our part, but on the part of a venue owner who offered us the night of the 2nd April, ignored my numerous emails for about a month, only to be told last week that he had a ‘booking conflict’ and that it ‘wouldn’t work’. Well, f*ck that guy and his shady business practices. We are still looking for an alternative, but I’m not hopeful at this juncture. Me and Dethtron will be at Adepticon though, and I will have a small amount of CDs and shirts available for those interested. Don’t forget you can hear a couple of tracks from our EP on our facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Crusader/172112556153977  and can also buy our merch from our newly created Big Cartel hub: http://crusader.bigcartel.com/

Saturday saw a game between Dethtron and myself, with me fielding my Black Templars against his Tyranids. We were playing 1500 points, and I was wondering how the game would end. We were playing for kill points and Dethy was leading the way by about 5 points through a good portion of the game, but I managed to squeak out a victory by 1 kill point. The Emperor saves! Especially in the case of my lone Templar with a flamer who was the sole survivor of his 10 man unit. He just refused to die. His crowning moment was when he took 8 wounds in one go, which I was sure he would die from, only to save on all of them, much to the disbelief of Dethtron (and me!).

Yesterday saw me and the family running about hither and yon over suburbialand visiting various stores (including a Borders that is closing down – 40k books SCORE!) and also a brief stop in at GW in Orland Park. I marched in and picked up the new White Dwarf to have a peep. Yeah yeah, Grey Knights all over the place, Gundam walkers aplenty and orangutans flinging poop etc etc. Sod that, I went straight to the back page, and there was a picture of a Tomb King, with confirmation that April will in fact, belong to the dead. I spoke with the Black Shirt in there to see if I could glean some info about Nehekara’s finest and this is what I managed to get:

• The skeleton box set will NOT be re-done (booooo! Vampire Counts SUCK! – literally).
• Chariots will also remain the same, although these look good as is, I feel.
• Looks like Ushabtis will be in plastic, probably 3 in a box with load out options.
• Bone Giant redone (thank the gods) and in plastic, again, with different weapon options.
• New character models in metal, although not too sure who.
• Mention of a heavy cavalry? Something about riders on giant snakes? This sounds a bit lame to me, but I reserve judgment to see it in the flesh before punching any kittens.
• Most likely that mummies will be in the list now. Really? Mummies in an Egyptian inspired army? That’s LUDICROUS! I mean, they obviously are better suited to a mid-European style Vampire Counts army*
• Big Beastie. Every army has one, maybe even two. Much speculation surrounds this, but consistent themes that pop up are some kind of Sphinx based monster.
• New Liche Priest minis. HELL YES! I refused to buy those other pieces of crap they had because they looked completely out of place with the delicate detailing of the other models. Well done GW!*

That’s all I got. I kick myself now for not asking about war machines ala the Screaming Skull catapult, which, while being an awesome item, is an utter worthless piece of shit to put together. Oh, he did mention that the TK book would also be hardback, and $39… Please bear in mind that this was all info from a Black Shirt, so take it with a large pinch of salt (except the book price), as I think the general public is more informed than they are sometimes. But, we only have to wait a little over a week to find out. I expect an ‘INCOMING’ email from GW any second now.

On a completely unrelated note, it would appear that the traitorous forces are targeting children in order to swell their ranks by making toys like this:
Defiler, anyone??

Until next time…
(* in case you were wondering, this was sarcasm.)


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100th Post! Today is Old Stuff Day… Black Templars revisited!

2 03 2011

Rob over at Warhammer 39,999 had a great idea for resurrecting old blog posts that may have been missed by newer readers, or just forgotten about in the annals of internet time.

I guess When Cannons Fade is still in it’s infancy when you look at some of the other big players out there, but thats ok. I’ve never really been one to post up army lists, dissect rules, or start working on the math behind my beloved hobby (I leave all that complicated stuff to Dethtron :) ).

I do however, enjoy focusing more on the hobby side of the game, the painting, converting, WIP side of it, so thats what this contribution to Old Stuff Day will be, a look back on my boys in black, my Templars.

This post from back in February 2009 showcased my efforts for the founding of my Templar chapter. I had acquired the Assault on Black Reach box set, and given the Orkses away to my buddy Evan. I thought that this would be a great way to start an army, or at least bulk up the plastics I had already been amassing.

First to be tackled was the Dreadnought. The snap-fit style of the set was good, although I think they used a harder type of plastic, because cutting and trimming it was a bitch! Eventually, after some blood, sweat and tears were expended the honored brother, in all his resplendent glory, was finished:

Don’t forget to check out the original post for more views: http://whencannonsfade.com/2009/02/27/completed-the-aobr-dready/

Fast forward to August of 2009. After tinkering around with some other bits and pieces, I did a test run on how I would be painting my boys in black. I was very happy with the results:

Before

 

 

After

 

 

 

You can see the post and pictures in it’s entirety here: http://whencannonsfade.com/2009/08/27/chaos-lord-wip-and-black-templar/

November 2009 sees the appearance of my Black Templar Assault Marines. Exactly as the label says:

So there we have it, a couple of snap shots from WCF’s past. Since then I feel that I have improved on my painting skills (i’m pretty pleased with my Templar Rhino with xtra armor, and my Landspeeder). There will be more Templar goodness to come, but I do hope you’ll swing by the WCF TARDIS and have a look back through the archives!

Yes, this is an old picture of me with the TARDIS...

Cheers!

Paul


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Categories : Literary musings

Stop the press! Sisters of Battle rumors?? never!

6 01 2011

haha! well, after years of reading through ‘rumors’ (read: wishlisting) on numerous forums, accurate rumor veteran Stickmonkey has come through for us Sisters fans. You can read the info HERE 

From what he’s given up, it should be very exciting when the new, improved Battle Sisters roll out. You know what this will also mean - PLASTICS!

My money is on something being announced in some fashion at Games Day/Golden Demon.

Thanks Evan for making my Thursday more bearable!

>end transmission<


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Nurgle lord – the end is in sight! (maybe)

5 01 2011

I can’t believe that I hadn’t posted these, or maybe I had, but I couldn’t find them…

Anyhoo, to kick off 2011, our first contender is a WCF veteran, as he’s been on here from the start, my Nurgle Lord. I tend to do a little, and put him away, then come back and do some more… still, he seems happy enough, belching and farting in my gaming closet… This year, though, I’m aiming to have more completed stuff posted and not just dribs and drabs. This guy, though, is the exception. He didn’t do too badly in a game I had just before xmas either. yay!

You can see the PP ‘Bloodstone’ base that I use for the basis of my rusted metal here.


A brown ink was over the bloodstone gives it depth…

Boltgun metal, chainmail highlights and some chestnut ink to finish the job!

He’s getting there! Another couple of hours should get the job done. In the meantime though, I am working on my Black Templars Rhino.

Black is such a pain in the arse to paint >sigh<

TTFN

Paul


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WIP update – Wolf Guard in TDA

1 12 2010

Hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving!

I decided to jump in and have a go at the December painting challenge over at Bolter & Chainsword to see if I could get this guy done. The deadline is 11.59 tonight, and I think I can do it. No prizes or anything, but I like doing these once in a while to get the firecracker up my arse that I need sometimes. I just need to finish up the gold/bronze areas and put the logo on his shoulder pad, oh and add some snow to the base. I may also add weathering but i’m not too sure i’m confident enough to do this yet.

I’m trying to up my skills, as I would like to submit an entry to Golden Demon when it returns to Chicago next year. I have a Wolf Lord that may well be the candidate for that…

In other news i’m hoping to finish up a couple of other projects so I can post up my epic Nurgle article that i’ve been planning. The end is definitley in sight! It’s actually such a big article, I may have to give it a page, instead of  just a post. We’ll see!

C+C welcome on wolfy up there, thanks for swinging by!

Paul


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