Event - 2020 Fields of Blood New Zealand Grand Tournament

The FOB NZGT is on again this weekend. I have been running it since 2008, prior to that Games Workshop ran it 1999-2007.

It is unashamedly a hobby event with the winner being the participant that scores the most points across the four core categories - Battle, Presentation, Selection and Sports.

Numbers are down a bit this year - expected with the Covid situation - but there are 44 gamers fighting for the First Overall plaque. There are also plaques for 2nd and 3rd and for the winners of each individual category.

In addition there are eight Best in Race awards. All the participants have been assigned to a faction so in the end a third of the field will be walking away with a trophy.

The event is on at Khandallah Town Hall in Wellington and the results can be followed on Down Under Pairings. If you are local, feel free to drop in.

I'll post some pictures of the action.

 

Hobby - 40K Manufactorum Progress

 Managed to get the basecoats done on the Manufactorum I airbrushed earlier this month.

The next stage is to apply washes and then airbrush inks to weather the piece. I'm hoping my new tiles will arrive this week which will allow me to fix the building to its base.

Happy with the way the flooring has come up. It will contrast nicely with the blue and red tiling that I used on my other buildings.

Hobby - Properly Cocked Podcast

 The Properly Cocked podcast is a local podcast hosted by Steve Joll. For those that don’t know, Steve is a professional announcer gracing the airwaves for one of the national radio stations. He also does voiceovers on television ads....and once you’ve clicked it is Steve, you can’t unhear it. 

Steve also has a side hustle co-hosting 40k Today where he is exposed to an international audience.

Joining him on the show are Aaron Wilson, Brendan Dee and Sean Sullivan, three NZ hobbyists. The podcast follows a regular format where they each choose their Top 5 on a particular topic. This can be gaming, painting or the wider hobby. I find them well researched and considered. The big surprise for me was Sean's breadth of knowledge on the lore.

Over the last week I've been listening to their back catalogue while painting terrain. It seems that while I can win tournaments, organise events and give advice but I make one blog post about Contrast Paints and I'm forever "Pete Dunn the Contrast Paint Hater". 

Hobby - The Trials of Covid

 Yesterday, I arrived home and in my letterbox was the following.

Purchased from a Russian vendor and sent seven months ago. It has obviously been in the wars. However, for all its troubles, it was extremely well packed and nothing was broken.

Hobby - 40K Terrain - Airbrush

 On Sunday morning managed to get in an airbrush session of some new GW terrain.

The buildings have been primed black, then based with Mournfang Brown, Mephiston Red with a highlight of Evil Sun Scarlet and finally Astrorath Red.

The next stage will see the blocking in of the metal - I'll use Iron Warriors - before gold trim (Retributor Armour base).

In the background are the pipes and conduits. Again these were primed black. I gave then the Mournfang Brown base before applying a salt chip mask. They were then sprayed with Averland Sunset yellow base. They've had the salt mask removed and are ready for detailing.

More pictures over the next week.

Hobby - Atelier Inks from Art Supplies

 Earlier this week Matt Carroll at Art Supplies, Auckland offered to send out some Atelier Inks for people to try. This morning a box arrived with three bottles of their Artists' Pigmented Inks for me to use.

I've previously purchased Daler Rowney inks from Art Supplies (www.artsupplies.co.nz)so I'll be interested to see how these compare. 

Thanks Matt.

Hobby - Miscellaneous Jobs

 I've got a few miscellaneous jobs to do this week.

The first is to paint up some Plaguebearers to give me two units of 30 metal PBs.

The other thing that has happened since I last had PBs on table is they are now sold with 32mm bases. I'm taking opportunity to move all sixty of them over.

While cleaning out some terrain, I found these resin pieces which were released as Citifight stratagems/objectives back in 2006. I'm going to paint them up and integrate them into my city table.

Speaking of which; I sold off my STC-Ryza terrain to Hagen but kept what look like escape hatches. Again these will be painted up and put in the basements of the various buildings.

Finally, there was a post the NZ Warhammer 40k Facebook group a few days ago that pointed out that the local Kmart has smallish "lego" display cases in their stores. These are about 10" x 6", so sit on top of my Hobbyzone shelves. They are a three tiered unit made of plastic. I bought one Saturday (NZD 13) and it arrived yesterday ($4 post). It is just the right size to keep my painted miniatures in while I working on them e.g. waiting to be based.

The miniatures are being protected by the combined efforts of Davros, a Cyberman, Mr. Burns and the Mighty Sainter.

Hobby - 40K Nurgle Daemons

 Over the past week I have been painting up additional models for my Nurgle Daemon army. 

I found some Putrid Blightkings downstairs that I had bought before GW blew up the Old World. The models painted up well and I decided to use them for Beasts of Nurgle as I really dislike the goofy official model. They will need to be based on 60mm bases .

The other models I painted were two of the Nurgle characters - Sloppity Bilepiper and Spoilpox Scrivener.

The next set of models to do are about 20+ metal Plaguebearers and about 30 of the old metal Nurglings.

I've also started to accumulate Death Guard models to build my new army. Very happy that GW announced a new Death Guard codex this morning.

Hobby - A Nice Surprise from GW & Adepticon

 Yesterday afternoon a FedEx courier pulled up to the house and dropped off a parcel posted from Illinois.

The day New Zealand went into lockdown (25 March) I was due to fly out to the USA for two weeks holiday including 5 days at Adepticon. Unfortunately Covid-19 resulted in the convention being canceled. One of the events I had signed up to was the Games Workshop Preview. It was widely anticipated that they were going to announce the new edition of 40k that evening.

It appears that they were also going to shower us with freebies - which brings me back to my couriered parcel.

A Care Parcel from Games Workshop & Adepticon

So in the box, I received a Warhammer Community cotton carry bag which contained four gifts. A set of Convention-only cards for Beastgrave; a Primaris Assault Intercessor and Necron Warrior (apparently these are unique poses, not available outside GW previews) and two softcover books - one containing the collected fiction from Psychic Awakening and the other the same from Malign Portents.

A pretty nice haul.!

This stuff will get dished out here locally. The figures will go to Tom and Cody (local Necron). The cards to Luke at my local GW store (only person I know who plays). I'm keeping the Psychic Awakening book and I'll offer the AoS book to a local I know who helped me get into the GW hobby.

Oh....and hello! It looks like 9th Ed was going to be announced at Adepticon - going by the figures included.

I hope I can make Adepticon in 2021.

Hobby - Tablescape "Urban Streets" Tiles - Secret Weapon Miniatures

 Last year, I sold off four unused Tablescapes "Urban Streets" tiles to Dave Foster as part of a display kit (they come with a frame).

I immediately regretted it, especially so when I found out that they were a scarce commodity. This regret intensified when I sat down at the start of lockdown to work on my home table. I decided to make tiles with permanent buildings  rather than bare tiles I could place buildings on. This was to increase the visual impact of the table.

In March I contacted SWM and they were having a sell out of their old tiles. These were originally part of a Kickstarter but the relationship between them and their Chinese manufacturer had broken down and they were no longer able to produce new stock. However, their inventory didn't contain many of the Urban Street tiles. The team at SWM went out of their way to gather the tiles I was after and they arrived at Jack's place in Boston today.

Eight New Tiles, a Clothes Horse & a Pair of Feet

My original intention was to pick up the tiles when I visited Boston post-Adepticon, then to have Jack bring them home at Xmas, now I will just have to bite the bullet and have then sent by USPS.

Once they are completed I will have 40 tiles which will allow me to make a 10' x 4' board or have considerable variety for a 5' x 4' board.

Hobby - Maggot Daemon from Creature Caster

 Finished up painting the Creature Caster (boo, hiss) Maggot Daemon this morning.

He is quite a bit different from your usual Nurgle Daemon in that he looks far more feeble (less resilient).

Now onto the GW models. 

40K - FOB NZGT Faction Breakdown

 Here is the Faction breakdown for Fields of Blood New Zealand Grand Tournament at the end of September.

You can check out the actual lists on Down Under Pairings here

Race	FOB Faction	Codex	Number
Imperium	Codex Space Marines	Space Marines	8
	Non-Codex Space Marines	Blood Angels	1
		Custodes	2
		Deathwatch	1
		Grey Knights	1
		Space Wolves	1
	Imperium	Sisters of Battle	2
		Ad Mech	1
		Imperium	1
Aeldari	Craftworld	Eldar	7
	Aeldari	Harlequins	2
		Dark Eldar	2
		Ynnari	1
Tyranids	Tyranids	Tyranids	6
Xenos	Xenos	Orks	1
		Tau	3
		Necrons	1
Chaos	Chaos	Heretic Astartes	1
		Death Guard	1
		Chaos Daemons	2
TOTAL			45

Remember the FOB NZGT is a hobby event rather than a straight Gameplay event. Battle points only make up 35% of your overall score.

40k - Blooming Life

 As we move into Spring here in the Southern Hemisphere, a young man's heart turns to Nurgle (the giver of life).

I've decided my next painting projects will be finishing Nurgle Daemons and then rolling into a new Death Guard army (my 4th).

First cab off the rank will be the Daemons. Here I have a Creature Caster (boo hiss) Maggot Daemon from their Kickstarter as well as GW's Sloppity Bilepiper and Spoilpox Scrivener. I then have three Putrid Blight Kings I intend using as Beasts of Nurgle. 

My Nurgle Daemons currently have FW Plague Ogres as my BoN but I had a box of the Blight Kings and the models are too nice not to paint.

This morning I have sprayed them a few different green layers and intend painting them over the next few days.