Aeronautica Imperialis: Eldar Nightwing (Craftworld Alaitoc)

Since I took a break for two months, I feel a real urge to write a bunch of new tutorials and guides. I want to start of with a model I finished yesterday: An Eldar Nightwing from the Alaitoc Craftworld for Aeronautica Imperialis (I have to catch up since my friends' Tau and Imperial fleets are growing fast). I only used basic layering technique to paint this model. In a nutshell: You start out with your darkest paints and paint the brighter ones atop with leaving the darker paint visible in order to create depth. So here is how I did it (from darkest to brightest paints, the ratios are rough estimates):

• Blues: Regal Blue/Chaos Black (3:1), Regal Blue, Regal Blue/Enchanted Blue (1:1), Enchanted Blue, Enchanted Blue/Ice Blue (1:1), Ice Blue
• Yellows: Snakebite Leather, Snakebite Leather/Golden Yellow (1:1), Golden Yellow, Golden Yellow/Skull White (1:1), Golden Yellow/Skull White (1:4)
• Bone coloured: Snakebite Leather, Bleached Bone, Bleached Bone/Skull White (1:1), Skull White
• Metal: Boltgun Metal, Chainmail, wash with Badab Black
• Gemstones: Chaos Black (all of the gem), Scab Red (3/4 of the gem), Blood Red (1/2 of the gem), Blood Red/Golden Yellow (1/4 of the gem), Skull white (tiny dot in the 1/4 that was left black)

This model is not at all hard to paint. Except for the yellow (I bet it took more than ten layers of paint) all other colours go on really smooth. So, there's only three more Nightwings, two Phoenix and one Vampire Raider left to paint. Stay tuned ;-)

Eldar Nightwing from the Alaitoc Craftworld

Eldar Nightwing upside down

I am back!

A lot of time passed since my last article. I'm sorry for that, but I simply lacked the motivation to do anything wargaming related - be it painting or writing about it (the European Football Championship didn't help much). I now want to start again, in a slower rhythm so that I am able to publish new articles more regularly. I am surprised however that, although I didn't post anything in the last two months, people still read my gallery and tutorial articles. Thanks guys!

Resumé time... and some TV!

This blog exists for a little over a month now, and I'm surprised that people are actually interested in my writing and photos. Google tells me that people look for galleries and want to read tutorials, especially on painting Skaven and Nurgle - so, there is going to be more of this in the future. The article on our Gaming Day has been the most read one on this blog so far - that's no surprise, since Korbi pretty much literally posted the link in every German and Austrian gaming forum. Thanks for that, and also thanks to Jody, the Frontline Gamer, who encouraged me to start this blog in the first place.

Right now, I'm working on a few blog posts on board and card games I own. After this, there are going to be some galleries and tutorials about Infinity scenery like cardboard containers, buildings from Sarisa Precision and other manufacturers (I'm trying to take a lot of photos at our gaming club tonight). Maybe, I'll even dust off my ever-work-in-progress Eldar and write something about those 'oomies with da silly 'elmets ;-)

I'm excited! Thanks to all for reading my blog and giving me feedback. Or, considering my international readership: Thanks a lot, vielen Dank, merci beaucoup, Большое спасибо, grazie mille and kiitos!

And now for something completely different: Another episode of Wil Wheatons "Tabletop"! This time, with the German board game classic "The Settlers of Catan".

Custom Norse Berzerkers (W.I.P.)

Kill! Maim! Burn! - Khorne Berzerker Time!

On the one hand, I don't like the plastic Berzerkers that come with the Chaos Space Marines starter box. On the other hand, I don't think the look of the Forge World Berzerkers would fit into my army - too khorny and too little norse atmosphere. So, I had a different idea how to do Norse Berzerkers, and here is a picture of my prototype:

My Norse Berzerker prototype

Here are the bits I used building the model:

• Torso, head, arms, weapon and shield: Chaos Marauder Horsemen
• Legs and backpack: Khorne Berzerkers
• Green Stuff to fill the gaps or to cover them with fur

It's not that easy to build as the normal Norse Marines of my army because the Marauder and Marine bits are not made for fitting together. A lot of cutting, sawing and work with green stuff is going to be required if I ever want to field a whole squad of them. Tell me what you think of my berzerkers.

Gaming Day - Review and Gallery

Our Gaming Day on April 14th has been a full success. We expected about 25 people to attend, but our expectations have been surpassed: Over 30 wargamers and board game geeks gathered in Pleiskirchen to play, chat, eat and drink. We even had ourselves a small vending table with lots of Infinity material and other games (I got myself a Blood Bowl Team Manager!). I spent the whole morning playing a great game of Descent and got an introduction game to Infinity in the afternoon. Apart from that, there was a 40k table, a Warhammer Fantasy table, one big and several smaller Flames of War tables, three Infinity tables and some others for aerial and naval combat as well as for historical battles.

My personal conclusions for the Day:

• I can hardly wait for the 2nd edition of Descent to be published, then bought and painted by me.
• I need to play more and worry les about big armies (smaller or simply squad sized games like Infinity or Mortheim somehow suit me better).
• You cannot have such a thing as enough scenery in a game of Infinity.
• Dystopian Wars has got some badass miniatures! (Iron Sky anyone?)
• As has Aeronautica Imperialis - my Eldar Skyhost is heading in my direction via Royal Mail right now. 
• Blood Bowl Team Manager is tons of fun.
• We need to repeat this Gaming Day soon. Maybe even this year.

Here are the impressions of our Gaming Day (more and utterly blurry photos in my Dropbox gallery):

Panorama view of our Gaming Day (via a mediocre panorama app)

Chaos in the Old World: Painted Models

I was planning to do an article about Chaos in the Old World anyway. But since I managed to paint all of the game's models in one whole day, I wanted to show them to you. Since I swapped to white primer, painting really got faster - maybe a solution on my being-a-slow-painter-issue (expect an article about black vs. white primers soon). Without further ado, here are the miniatures:

Bloodthirster, Bloodletters and Khorne Cultists

Great Unclean One, Plagebearers and Nurgle Cultists

Lord of Change, Pink Horrors and Tzeentch Cultists

Keeper of Secrets, Daemonettes and Slaanesh Cultists 

Vermin Lord, Rat Ogres and Clan Rats 

New GW Paints - Colour Range Comparison Chart

What? I have to learn those names - again?

A few weeks ago, my friends and I talked about the new paint range from Games Workshop and came to the conclusion that all of the new names - except for Khorne Red and Nurgling Green - were worse than the old ones. Okay, after the years we might have gotten sentimental about certain paint names (No Chaos Black anymore?!), but none of us understood why GW decided to rename its entire range.

Most of us, especially those who are fed up with GW's recent actions anyway, want to make the switch towards Vallejo paints. Vallejo products are high quality in general, their paints doubly so. One more reason for me to switch are GW's new paint pot lids, which don't stay open at all - a circumstance I find annoying when I just want to drybrush something or paint small details without my wet palette and need to use the paint out of the pot (and no, they don't dry out quick if you don't forget to close them again).

DakkaDakka has a paint colour range comparison chart (Web Version / JPEG Download) for all those who are confused with the new names or even those who want to make the switch to Vallejo paints (a service which GW's own comparison chart doesn't provide).

It's not that I'd throw away all my GW paints and buy hundreds of Vallejo products tomorrow. But I mostly paint with wet palettes, so Vallejo's dropper bottles are more suited to me anyway. GW abandoning Chaos Black, Skull White, Bleached Bone and many other paint names for no particular reason is only making that switch easier for me.

For others, like people who are fairly new to the hobby and painting, the re-organisation of the paint range might even be a good thing. What's your opinion on the new paint range and the name change?