You Sunk My Battleship!!!

Hey guys as promised yesterday here's my hobby article. So its been a while so what have I been up to since my last post? Well other than worrying and revising for summer exams (I love Engineering... -.- lol) I've been dabbling in a bit of Dystopian Wars. Now I started briefly having a look at this game about 6 months ago but never really got into, however a new rulebook has just been released so I've decided to give it another go. Over this easter I've been playing a few games and painted a bit and to be honest I'm really enjoying it! To start with the models are gorgeous a real pleasure to paint! The game system has had a lot of its flaws fixed in the new incarnation of the rules, and to be honest I kinda missed rolling fistfuls of dice like I used to playing 40k.

So what's the game system itself? Well Dystopian Wars is a game where Air, Naval and Land elements can be used within your games, all at the same time if you really want. In the games I've played so far I've only played with the Naval and Air elements which have been really good fun. The tactics are quite important however pre-measuring is allowed at all times which definitely takes some getting used to. The power of the weapons within the game is dependent on which "range band" your target is in, in relation to your model. The Range bands are 8" wide and there are 4 of them with your ships getting more dice to roll against the enemy ship the nearer you get.

There is also and "exploding 6" mechanic within the game which adds a nice random element. A roll of a 6 in game

counts as 2 hits (where 4 or 5 is one) and also grants the roll of an additional dice, which means there is a possibility of rolling strings of 6's allowing ships which normally wouldn't have a chance against bigger ones the chance to damage them.

Dotted around this post are pics of my Prussian fleet, the Battleship, Frigates and Tiny Flyer tokens, the tiny fliers aren't the only airborne models there are full scale planes and for the prussians zeps and airships!

The Prussians are a very fast but fragile fleet with all of their firepower delivered up close in range band 1 as well as being great boarders.

Other forces are the FSA (Federated States of America) Which are mainly paddle steamers with huge guns and rockets.

The Empire of the Blazing Sun (Japanese) which again have rockets and are very durable.

The Kingdom of Britannia (I'll let you guys guess who this is ;) ) These guys are a mid ranged fleet with lots of Torpedoes and shield generators.

The Covenant of Antarctica these guys are super advanced tech wise with weaponised particle accelerators and energy turrets.

And finally the Republique of France again a close ranged fleet but with a definitely different playstyle to the Prussians.

If you want to know more about Dystopian Wars feel free to ask in the comments or check out Spartan Games' website and forum here

Stargazer out.

Finally... Stargazer's come back to 40k.

Well it's been a while guys, what with uni and christmas etc it has been a bit mental but after a long break from 40k playing mainly Malifaux, I feel fresh and revitalised and ready to get rolling dice again! My personal goal is to make it to Blog Wars 3 after letting 2 Blog Wars slip by I feel I should start to represent and actually turn up to this one lol.

So I've been writing a few lists and settled on one I like that I feel will be relatively competitive. I started off with the Blood Angels codex but after having written a few lists I couldn't get one to fit the way i wanted to play so went back to the Vanilla codex (I know boo, hiss, why the fuck would you do that you idiot, etc.) and I have come up with something that I think I quite like.

So without further ado here's the list;

Cassius

Hestan

7 Sternguard w/3x Combi Melta (one on sarge), Combi-Flamer, Heavy Flamer, Powerfist (on Sarge) Transport: Rhino w/ HKM

Ironclad w/ Heavy Flamer, Meltagun, in Drop Pod x2

10 Tacts w/ Flamer, Missile Launcher Transport: Rhino w/ HKM x2

10 Tacts w/ Meltagun, Multi-Melta Transport: Rhino w/ HKM

5 Assault Marines in Drop Pod w/ 2x Plasma Pistols, Meltabombs

This comes in at 1740 so some points to squeeze some extras in. My only thoughts were potentially to drop Cassius and bring a unit of Sniper Scouts w/ Missile Launcher instead as well as give the Sergeants in the Tac squads Power Weaps.

Right lets dissect the list and give my rationale in taking the units.

Stargazer's Painting/Malifaux Corner - McMourning Tactica

So new post time you lucky people! This is something I've been meaning to post for quite a while this is the next installment of my Malifaux tactica and this time round I’ll be addressing the Dr Douglas McMourning, head of the Guild morgue and Ressurectionist master.

So down to business. For a basic overview McMourning is a glass cannon. Fact. He’s a melee monster and has the ability to walk through most non-master models in the game and some masters as well.. With a average at best defense of 4 he is quite squishy although this isn’t necessarily an issue due to some of his other abilities which I’ll go into later ;) As far as positioning in your crew, he is kinda a one man army who needs little support it’s always a good idea though to keep him out of line of sight of scary guns and offer target saturation for the enemy so he doesn’t get focused on too much. In the activation order try to save McMourning until last unless absolutely necessary so he can gain back any wounds he loses. His cache is 6 as standard and he doesn’t really need any more unless you have spare soulstones left over.

Abilities

Body Parts – You can exchange soulstones for body part counters. I personally never use this as I don’t find it particularly difficult to gain body parts in game and the soulstones are more useful in my opinion. However it also allows you to exchange a corpse counter at any point in your activation with 2 body part counters. Basically anytime you kill something you will gain 2 body part counters.

Hard to Wound 1 – Pretty standard, nice to have but nothing amazing.

Organ Donor – This is the most important ability that McMourning has. When McMourning inflicts wounds with a melee weapon he gains that amount of wounds back. Remember melee spells are also included in this. This is also the reason why you should always activate last because if he loses wounds during the turn simply walk into an enemy and start hacking away.

Precise – ignores Armour and Hard to Wound very useful against pretty much everything basically just makes him more lethal.

Actions

(+1) Passion for his Work – Allows you to throw away a body part counter and gain fast, very useful gives you another action per turn and body part counters never seem to be in short supply when the Dr is about.

( 0) Master Surgeon – target enemy or friendly model within 6” makes a healing flip and either gains or loses that number of wounds. Quite situational but can be useful, remember no resist on this so is there a pesky model on a couple of wounds with a high defense? No problem with this action. Also remember McMourning can use this on himself if you are really desperate to regain wounds but with Organ Donor you should be fine.

(0) Scalpel Slingin’ – The most useful ability McMourning has, use this as much as possible, it allows you to make a 6” melee strike and if you wound the target (use soulstones if necessary to hit) you get to push into base to base. This basically removes the need for walking giving you more actions to use on spells or attacks.

Triggers

Scalpel Magic – Very useful! Try to get it off as much as possible if there are high masks in your hand and soulstone if necessary, this combined with scalpel slingin’ you have the potential of 7 attacks on an enemy model in a turn!

A Piece for Me – This is an automatic trigger on McMournings melee weapon and gives you a body part after damaging a defender. If you are getting stuck into melee then there will never be a shortage of body part counters down to this.

Spells

(0) Monstrous Creation – This is McMournings summoning spell, although it requires a 10 crow to get off it is more often than not worth spending a soulstone to make sure that you can get it to work when you need it to. Don’t bother summoning Canine remains with it but definitely summon Flesh Constructs and Rogue Necromancys to provide hitting power when needed.

(1) Dissection – This is a rather nasty spell with a damage arc of 1/5/10 although if you inflict severe damage your activation ends. This is good to use as your last action, use soulstones to get a high total allowing you to cheat the damage, this will enable you to kill almost anything in the game in one hit! If you cant get the severe aim for moderate and try to get off the scalpel magic trigger as mentioned earlier.

(1) Rancid Transplant – This is probably my favourite spell of McMournings. Whenever I have a relatively high mask in my hand I will use this spell in conjunction with scalpel magic. It gives the target Easy to Wound 2 for the rest of the game, which means you get a double plus on any damage flip subsequent to this spell. This turns a resilient model such as Teddy into a model which is far less scary allowing you to actually deal with it. The only thing to remember is that this spell requires you to discard a body part counter however if you can get off scalpel magic you can normally gain that body part back without too much trouble.

(1) Wracked With Pain – I’m not the biggest fan of this spell although it definitely has its uses. It causes 2 wounds and prevents the target from taking (0) actions for the rest of the turn. The reason why I don’t normally find this so useful is that I normally activate McMourning last anyway so most if not all of my opponents models will have already gone. The good thing about this spell however is that unlike the rest of McMournings spells it targets Wp instead of defense which can be useful against some crews/models which have defensive triggers.

Crew

Sebastian - This guy is McMournings right hand man and the model is just too nice not to take! He has a good synergy with the dogs that McMourning normally takes and is able to deal quite a large amount of damage if he gets stuck in in melee.

Canine Remains – These are the staple of the crew fast and good objective grabbers can ambush unsuspecting models on their own and cheap bodies to generate more body part counters. Their (0) action, which allows them to pass corpse counters to McMourning, is invaluable keeping the good Dr stocked up on the much needed Body Part counters.

Nurses – I personally don’t use these that often however they can be useful to turn the dogs into “Cruise Missiles” as they normally die whenever they end up in melee anyway. Can be hard to manoeuvre into position and keep there..

Zombie Chihuahua – Not that great.. good for cheap body part counters I guess but that’s about it..

Ok I think that’s about it for this post.. any questions as always feel free to ask

Until next time

Stargazer out.

Stargazer's Painting/Malifaux Corner - Painting in the heat

Guess who's back, back again.... you know the rest ;) yes I am back guys finally!!! Exams are over and the summer has begun hence me posting this quick post before then continuing my series of Malifaux tacticas.

This is something that has been on my mind over the past couple of days. Here in the UK we have just had 2 days of scorching weather (well for us anyway) and so I thought I'd give a few tips on what you can do to carry on painting even when it's 30 degrees

outside.

So what do I use at the moment and will it "do"? To the right is what I currently use to paint. I use a citadel pallette (this is good because it's plastic so easy to keep clean after each session although a bathroom tile will achieve the same kinda thing) Any old jam jar or similar for water and a funny looking dropper bottle.

This is probably one of the most important things. It's "Matte Medium" or "Mixing Medium" depending on which company make it.. The one I use is the P3 mixing medium as it's the most cost effective one at my LGS, I think this 30ml bottle cost me about £3 so not bank breaking and that will probably last me a good 2-3 months at least.

So what does it do? Well it's used to mix into your paints to help thin them as well as aiding the flow without the use of water. So basically water your paints down slightly less than you normally would and add this stuff. It will keep the colours more vibrant rather than making them look washed out and pastelly (sp?) So in this kind of weather when normally when your paint is drying on the palette instead of adding more water and completely ruining the colour of the paint you can add this stuff and carry on painting happily without constantly remixing colours.

So that's what I use normally and it can be used in hot weather if you can paint quickly and don't need large amounts of colour for large areas of the model. However that's not the only way to do it.

So next up is the wet palette. Some of you probably already know what this is but for those that don't it's basically very thin paper over the top of a wet absorbent layer, the water then seeps through the paper to your paints which are on top of the paper keeping them wet. Sounds perfect right? However the problem with these are the price tag, many people aren't too happy to shell out £12 for the palette then another £8 for the refill sheets (privateer press versions of both btw). But don't worry about that I'll show you how to make one with stuff you probably have lying around the house ;)

So this is what you need to start -

On the table there I have an old ice cream tub lid (although any small saucer or dish type thing will work, basically it just needs to be able to hold a shallow amount of water..), A sponge like the ones you get in most blister packs, I think that's a large one from a malifaux starter pack, and some baking parchment/greaseproof paper/whatever you want to call it.

Next up you can't see very well in the photo but soak your sponge in water make sure it's completely saturated to keep your palette wet for longer. Then put maybe half a cm of water in the bottom, this is basically just to keep feeding the sponge water as it dries out.

On the right is what you are looking for after you've put the paper onto the sponge.

The darker area that you can see is where the water is beginning to come through, this is what you want as the paper is semi water permeable. Don't worry if the patch is confined to one part of the paper, once you have used the paint slide the paper over the sponge and the dark patch should then move on the paper (this is quite hard to describe but just experiment and you should get what I mean) Also don't worry if the paint looks like it isn't sitting in one "puddle" the paint should still stay wet so no worries.

That's basically it. I know some people use kitchen towel instead of sponge but I personally can't vouch for this. Anyway enjoy people and don't be afraid to experiment!

Stargazer out.

Stargazer's Painting/Malifaux Corner - Introduction to the Masters of Malifaux

Sorry for the day lateness but today I'm looking at the different factions and masters in Malifaux and will give a brief overview on each one. I'm doing it because Wyrd miniatures' website is to be frank shocking with absolutely no information about malifaux at all. I will also include henchman in the list who can be taken as masters but individually are slightly less good however their special forces make up for it.

So here we go:

Stargazer's Painting/Malifaux Corner - Nicodem Tactica

So here we are. It's been a while and time for a change of topic. Today will be my Nicodem Tactica giving my thoughts on how he is best played.

So an overview, Nicodem is a very defensive master who although is best near to your crew for support shouldn't be too near to the front because with a meagre defense of 3 and no defensive triggers or tricks to get him out of melee he just dies fast. Activation wise I find Activating the big man first is a good plan as it allows you to get up the bolster aura straight away and with The Fog he will be pretty safe as long as he isn't out in the open on his own. I will always take Nicodem with a Cache of 6+ as any less means he can struggle to summon or get off Rigor Mortis when he really needs to. They are also useful for if he does come under attack giving him a little defence.

Stargazer's Painting/Malifaux Corner - Knights Sanguine Showcase

Well.. How can I follow that?? That really is an awesome robot!!

Anyway time to continue with my army showcase, I thought I'd showcase some footsloggers today but instead of your standard marines I'm bringing you something a bit different that unfortunately you don't get to see on the tabletop anymore or at least not in competitive play :(

Here are my Terminators. These were one of the first units I painted for this army, probably about 2 years ago. My plan which I followed through for this army was to try not to spend more than 2 hours on any model. Allowing me to churn out a decent sized army while still making them look like a decent tabletop standard. In reality most models actually only took me around 1 hour as I got the colour scheme down.

For these boys I wanted them to look like they had seen some action as well as having more purity seals which I green-stuffed on. They have like the rest of my army been weathered with forgeworld weathering powders. I also painted lots of scripture on their armour as they are relics of the chapter.

As always if you want to contact me about anything painting related please comment or email me at joshualeak@hotmail.com

Oh and here's sneak peak of my showcase next week ;)

Stargazer out.

Stargazer's Painting/Malifaux Corner - Knights Sanguine Showcase

Hi guys sorry bout last week don't really have an excuse so I wont try to give one lol. Important thing is that I'm here now. I thought that this week to give you guys a break from the malifaux which no one understands lol I would showcase my 40k space marine army - Knights Sanguine.

I warn you this is very pic heavy although my photography skills aren't the greatest.

So I'll start with some of the vehicles to here's an Ironclad/Furioso and a Vindicator. Any questions on how things are done/techniques as always ask in the comments or email me. Feel free to leave comments and criticisms if you have any ;)

Stargazer's Painting/Malifaux Corner

Well... Nicodem... :/

My 25ss crew consisted of:

Nicodem

Mortimer 7ss

Rotten Belle 4ss

2x Vultures 4ss

2x Necropunks 6ss

7ss cache

I can definitively say I got my arse handed to me on Tuesday! Let me explain, it was a 4 player game (1st sign of a really bad idea) vs Pandora (2nd sign) Collette and Ramos. Ok not great so far but still really?!

Strategies flipped: Nicodem, Claim Jump. (not the end of the world but I can think of better...) Pandora, Slaughter. (Probably the best strategy for her crew so we really are in trouble) Collette, Turf War. (Again pretty good for her with the whole speedyness) Ramos, Plant Evidence. (meh.)

Stargazer's Painting/Malifaux Corner - How To Paint Hair

So this is the start of a how to series that I will be continuing (provided I get requests lol) showing how to paint all sorts of different things almost a painting clinic if you were...

Anyway this week I had a request from Atreides asking how to paint blonde and ginger hair so that's what I'll be addressing as painting both brown and black hair is pretty straight forward but these 2 colours can cause more problems but never fear

they will be easy after you've read this article! ;)

Rawr I'm a carnifex!!!- This is about as close to hair as this fella is gonna get!

So I'll start off with the blonde hair, a little disclaimer for abbreviations GW- means normal GW paint. GWF-means GW foundation paint. GWW- means GW wash. FP3- means Formula P3 paint. Also make sure you thin you paints down. I usually go about 1:1 with water but depending on the age of the paint this can vary so watch out. Also don't let the colour dry out on your palette because you will be needing it for later stages.

Stargazer's Painting/Malifaux Corner

Good afternoon people of the world, it's been a busy week hasn't it? It seems everyone I know including my co-authors on here have had a crazy week. Hence my post today isn't going to be the longest in the world unlike last week....

I was originally intending

to bring to you a how to on painting different hair colours however there's one slight problem, I haven't had a chance to paint the hair to show you how to. So that will be next weeks blog post. This week though I thought I would show you another member of my Malifaux crew, Madame Sybelle. She is a pretty important character within the crew as she links it all together allowing me to do some pretty nifty things. In the fluff she was the owner of the brothel that Seamus attacked who was along with her ladies of the night resurrected to serve Seamus.

Stargazer's Painting/Malifaux Corner

Welcome back peeps, another week on and another installment of Stargazer's little corner of the internet. After talking about painting last week (More specifically Seamus the Mad Hatter) I felt it was only right to discuss how I like to use him in game. Yeah yeah yeah I hear you cry "that's all well and good but you've posted the wrong bloody pic! That's not Seamus!" and you would indeed be correct dear reader that is not Seamus. However that is Seamus' totem (sidekick/physical manifestation of Seamus' magical footprint in malifaux) The Copycat Killer (Little Leprechaun with a big gun) All the masters have one of these totems and the tactics relating to the totems are directly linked to the tactics for the master so I thought I would throw him into this post as well. For info on painting him see my post last week here as he is pretty much the same colour-wise to Seamus.

So.... tactics. Disclaimer: the thoughts and tactics provided are my own there are a myriad of ways to both build a crew and play it in Malifaux giving almost infinite tactics however these are the ones I feel work the best for me :)

Sonnia Criid Witch Hunter

Well here we are lazy sunday... all relaxed and ready for the new week (or not as the case may be ;)) I've only got a small something for you today but I think you might like it as I continue on my quest to make everyone play malifaux mwahaha... oh sorry got a little evil villainy there, my bad.

The main reasons I wanted to post this was a) this was the final piece of a commission I have been doing for Ven and thought what better way of showing him it than on his own blog... and b) over the last week I've had a bit of painters block. I tend to only paint when I'm in the mood (very frustrating) and I was so thrilled to have gotten over this last night I felt I had to show the world!

Stargazer's Painting/Malifaux Corner

Hi guys and welcome to the first installment of the painting and Malifaux corner. In the coming weeks I'll be talking about and discussing (yes you guessed it dear reader) how I go about painting miniatures and more specifically the wonderful world of Malifaux.

So what is Malifaux I hear you cry! Well it's a skirmished based game

which is described by the company that produces it, Wyrd Miniatures, as Steamvictoriohorrorwestpunk (Clear as mud ;)) a "crew" generally consists of between 5 and 10 models (in an equivalent 1500pt game of 40k) Every model has maybe 5-10 special rules and the Masters (leaders of the crews) might have up to 20. There are also large amounts of synergy and interplay that goes on within a crew making it quite a challenging game to fully master (I'm definitely not there yet!! Although I like to think I'm competent with the crews I currently play with) It might seem very complex from that briefest of descriptions but as you get into it the game really isn't as hard as it sounds.

Guest Post - Painting & Malifaux from Stargazer

Hi Guys my name is Stargazer and I have been very kindly allowed by Ven to start posting on this blog.

A bit about me, I’ve been involved in Warhammer 40k and related things for the last 8 years but really have only begun to play with a really high quality of gamers and paint somewhere near the standard I’m at now for the last 3 years.