Terrain, Painting, Assembling, and Daemonic Thoughts

Lots of things in the works ... sorry no pictures this time.

I've been mulling over redoing the terrain set for the Eldar. I think I'm going to ditch the modular idea for making a series of static boards. The Eldar maiden world will again be the test, as the other boards I want to have more complicated terrain. So far, It's going to be a little more hilly... but not patchy plateaus like in the last set ... and there'll be much more foliage to make it look more natural. More trees (the board will be Autumn themed), rocks, maybe a river. ...we'll see. My biggest obstacle at the moment is how to transport and store a 6'x4' piece of ply-wood. I have a two-door car. I'll have to see when the next time a truck-driving friend comes by, and see if I can hijack them on a Home Depot run. Then there's storage. This will be fixed terrain, so I need to find a way to store (shelve?) several 6'x4' terrain sets as I make them. I can't even imagine the type of shelving that will be required for that. Another note on the terrain... my plan is that when I've finished an army's terrain set, I want to redo that army's bases to match with the terrain set they belong to. I wanted to state this incase anyone seeing my models is wondering why the base is mono-chromatic. I plan to replace them once I finalize their terrain.

On to painting... orks orks orks orks. I've been painting a ton of Orks lately. so far, other than the warboss, I have 10 choppa boys, a Nob and a burna boy painted up. Lots more to go, not much free time lately to do it in. Also, I painted up a Tau firewarrior to test if I like the color-scheme. I'm going with Bor'kan (sp?) ...the Space Wolves Grey ones with the dark grey cloth and Hawk Turquoise Sept markings. They look great, and I'm already thinking of how I'm going to do their snow-themed terrain set. Also will have lots of woods (since Kroot get bonuses in forest-terrain). I want each Army's terrain set to play to it's strengths. So, other than the woods, the rest will be rather open, as the Tau favor long-range shooting. My plan for Chaos (both marines and daemons) will be a city-fight set, since I build Chaos as a mainly close combat army.

Assembling... I have a ton of assembled models waiting to paint. I went on a bit of a buying spree lately, and picked myself up some juicy models. Two Tau Crisis suits, a Tau commander, Three Stealth suits w/marker drone, 20 Fire Warriors, 3 Piranas, a Devilfish, a Hammerhead Gunship, 6 Gun-drones, A Chaos Lord, Sorcerer, 8 Khorne Berzerkers, 5 Chaos Terminators, 15 Chaos Space marines, a Chaos Rhino, 8 Thousand Sons and a Sorcerer, 5 Possessed Marines, 2 Chaos Spawn and a Defiler. Whew.

A quick word on the new Chaos Daemons codex coming out ... I'm rather excited about it. I've seen the pics of the models, and to be honest I can't understand all the hate.

First off, the Khorne Bloodletters. I was actually quite tired of the old Steroid filled football player Bloodletters. Yeah, they looked big and mean, but stupid as well. The name Bloodletter to me implies a slightly more subtle form of carnage. If you want large, crushing carnage, you have the Greater Daemon as well as the Juggernaut of Khorne. Juggernaut; that sounds large and crushing. The new Bloodletters look leaner, and deadly in a serial-killer kind of way, which I like. They look the type to make a game out of how much of you they can cut off while keeping you alive.

Next, the Daemonettes of Slaanesh and The Masque. Lots of complaints about them, and how the older daemonettes looked better. Slaaneshi units should be alluring, eccentric, excessive, and still daemonic. I think the new models capture that perfectly, as opposed to the older ones which were wholly female with crab-claws (yay for titties?) The newer ones appear slightly more hermaphroditic, which I think is closer to what they should be, along with more piercings, varied shapes, weaponry, etc. I think they look great, and I'm getting a bunch of them.

I haven't heard many other complaints about the models, and I pretty much like them all ... and I'm hoping they redo the Greater Daemons. So far, the old ones are still pictured. I guess I'll get my Greater Daemons from Forgeworld. They make an awesome Bloodthirster, and a decent Keeper of Secrets. Their Great Unclean one, while suitably disgusting and stagnant ... doesn't translate for me. I realize that stagnation is key to what makes something Nurglesque, but if the model moves in game, I'd rather it look like it CAN. Forgeworld's Great Unclean one doesn't look like he can stand up, let alone walk. Ultraforge, however, has an AWESOME looking pestilence daemon in the works who does look like he can move around ... yet still looks putrid as all hell, so I'll be keeping an eye out for that.