Something old, something new...

...but nothing borrowed and nothing blue. Instead it's mine and all green. Or it will be.

I'm of course talking about my 40K orks. I have been playing them since the second edition boxed set (you know, the one with the 20 monopose orks and 40 monopose gretchin), but since I suffer from the ever disruptive Oooh Shiney-syndrome and GW release new models faster than I can paint them I have a huge lead mountain to get rid of. Lately the lead mountain's upper portions have been more and more made of resin and plastic, but at it's core there is proper metal. When excavating in search of some WW2 stuff I came upon a suspiscious-looking box.

Note the date: invoiced january 9th 2001, arrived at the post office Mars 5th 2001.

The crucial question is, did the box still contain what was on the invoice?

May the Fourth be with you!

Could it be? No it isn't? YES IT IS, A FOURTH UPDATE!!!
(Yes I know "May the Fourth be with You is what you say on may the fourth a.k.a. Star Wars day.)

Håkan, one of my mates,  delivered a Z-95 headhunter he had ordered for me about a month ago when every local game store was out of Z-95:s. Naturally our order got delayed and the local stores have restocked in the meantime.

But anyway, I mentioned that I was going to repaint the Z-95 to match the card art for Lt. Blount and we joked that I should try and repaint it tonight and then update the blog to get four updates in so many days...

Well... I did it.

The original paintjob with blue markings. (Picture by Fantasy Flight Games.)

Lieutenant Blount's card. Notice the red markings.

My repainted Lieutenant Blount.

First I repainted the fuselage with Vallejo Khaki mixed with Vallejo Deck Tan. This produced a more grey-brown paint than the original grey, more akin to the colours of the X-wings. 

Next I used a Nuln Oil wash to bring out the details, after which I drybrushed with pure Deck Tan to lighten the paint job a bit. The markings were picked out by free-hand with GW Mephiston Red. It was hard to see what the markings were on the wings so I just went with red stripes. I touched up the lines and added a few small nicks and scratches on the red with deck tan again.

Last I added some more Nuln Oil to the engines and the cock-pit canopy where the drybrush had spilled over. I used Liquitex gloss medium to bring the shine back to the canopy. 

May the Force be with You

Figures finally finished! Frigging fantastic!

What's this, another update? Updates three days in a row? Will it start raining frogs next?

Actually what happened was that I had a lot of stuff nearly finished but didn't want to put it up before I had completed my X-wing Tournament report. It was tedious to write though, so I actually got some stuff painted in the mean time. So without further ado, pictures!

Crusader 28mm late war brits.

Repainting X-wing ships

Inspired by the fun tournament I played in and the fact that a lot of the players had either repainted or in some way touched up their ships, I decided to try my hand at painting some ships. Now, these are 1:270 scale, and I have painted tanks and infantry in 1:285 scale so how hard could it be?

The answer is pretty not hard at all, as long as you have a fine brush and a somewhat steady hand. For starters I decided to repaint one of my two HWK-290s.

Come on JJ, how do you like my lens flare?

At Starfighters everyone can hear you Pew Pew

I promised earlier that I would report on my first ever X-wing tournament. You can read an introduction and about my squadron here.

"What do you mean you don't have any S-foils?"

The tournament used a five round Swiss system, meaning that opponents would be random in the first game, but in the subsequent four games you would meet someone with roughly the same points. Winning would keep you at the top facing harder and harder (or luckier and luckier) opponents, while loosing would cause you to drift down the score list and meet less successful players. After five games the two top players would meet in a final. Each game was timed for 60 minutes play time, excluding set-up. When the time was up you had to finish the current turn and then total the points lost and incurred on the opponent.

Spellcrow Ork bits review

Just a quickie today. I recieved a small package of Ork bits from Spellcrow, a resin bits maker in Poland. Instead of taking photos I did a small video. I will definitely buy from them again, nice stuff and the freebies included were a nice bonus.

I bought the bits from their eBay shop, although they have more items on their own web-page. They are also available from Wayland Games, should you wish to buy from a familiar store.

Anyway, if you can stand my mumbling and gibberish, please enjoy the video.

In Space, no one can hear you Pew Pew!

I promised you that I would tell you about the X-wing tournament I played in. This was a local tournament arranged by the Starfighters X-wing club in Uppsala. We were 16 players competing for one of two ships from wave 5, just released at GenCon but not available in the shops yet.

The prices: an Imperial Decimator and the Rebel YT-2400. (Picture by Erik Björkelund)

Why I play historical games.

Wow, it's been a month since I last blogged, what's happened?

Well, I sort of ground to a halt on my ork project, not so much for lack of things to paint or inspiration, but simply the realisation that I'm throwing good money after bad product by a company that doesn't love it's customers. (Sort of like an abused spouse staying with the abusing partner.) That put a sour taste in my mouth and I have been playing lots of X-wing (the boardgame) and Castle Wolfenstein (the computer game) instead.

You see, it started with this guy:

A "failcast" ork Big Mek with Kustom Force Field.

Despite being released with the last version of the Codex, he's not in the new one. Or rather, this version is not legal according to the new codex. In order to take a Kustom Force Field, the Big Mek needs to upgrade to a set of Mega Armour.

And will thus look something like this:

The new Big Mek, although with a telly-porta.

Ok, I know I can play with my old model and I intend to, but bare with me and I will make a comparison.