Wednesday, 29 February 2012

Review: District 5 Holo Ads

23:27 | Posted by Ant Holloway | | Edit Post

I have a fair bit to review from the folks over at Micro Art Sudio, but I want to start with my favourite piece - the District 5 Holo Ads.  MAS have promised us another set of these sometime in the future, which I'm very much looking forward to, but this is what we have released right now.

As you can tell from the intro up there, I liked the Holo Ads.  I think they bring something to an Infinity board that was previously missing, and that's character.  You can spot 40k terrain miles away from its style and that elevates it over "generic sci-fi battlefield", these ads do exactly the same thing for me in regards to Infinity - it takes the battlefield from generic sci-fi and uplifts it to an Infinity battlefield.

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Labels: Infinity, Micro Art Studio, Review, Terrain | 3 comments

Wednesday, 15 February 2012

Video Review: Broadsword Class Dreadnought

23:46 | Posted by Ant Holloway | | Edit Post

My first video review.  I'm so proud.

No, wait, I'm not.  The audio is terrible and the picture is out of focus for most of it (I blame never having used this camera to take video before).  I'll do better next time.  Let me know what you think below, but be gentle.

Summary

The Broadsword is an impressive model and well worthy of being the centrepiece of any Sorylian fleet.  A few problems in casting quality mar the experience, but otherwise a very nice piece that addresses one of my key issues with Firestorm Armada quite well.

Links

• Firestorm Armada at Spartan Games
• Broadsword Class Dreadnought at Maelstrom Games
• Arcane Tempest Gun Mage at Privateer Press

Labels: Firestorm Armada, Review, Sorylian, Video | 0 comments

Monday, 13 February 2012

Monday Musing: Is the Combined Army a Metaphor for Games Workshop?

23:34 | Posted by Ant Holloway | | Edit Post

That's a bit of an odd title, isn't it?  This is because it's a bit of a tongue-in-cheek response to Frontline Gamer's lengthy and fan-favourite article "Is the Imperium a Metaphor for Games Workshop?" (here).

I say tongue-in-cheek because his article is fairly long, obviously has had a lot of thought go into it and expresses the rage at the very centre of his dark being.  I, on the other hand, don't write articles that long, generally don't put that much thought into them and am just running with the idea.  Don't be too offended, it's all in good fun.

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Labels: Editorial, Games Workshop, Monday Musings | 10 comments

Thursday, 9 February 2012

Mars Hungers, the 1500pt Version

10:04 | Posted by Ant Holloway | | Edit Post

Throne of Skulls is in April.

APRIL.

That's less than 80 days.  Must get the metal men painted.  As I've changed colour schemes I can't even use my older troops (painting over silver is rather annoying when you're using black as a secondary colour).  I refuse to do another caffeine-fuelled week of pain as I paint the whole force - the come-down migraine after the event hurt too much to consider doing that again.  I doubt my performance at work was particularly good that week either.

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Labels: Lists, Necrons, Warhammer 40k, Warhammer World | 0 comments

Tuesday, 7 February 2012

Replacement Flying Stems

20:19 | Posted by Ant Holloway | | Edit Post

Don't you just hate it when a flying stem snaps?  I mean, they're cheap enough to replace but it's not the cost that's the problem.  You're going to be spending at least thirty minutes drilling out the old stem then repairing, repainting and reflocking the base.  All in all it's a complete pain.  I was just becoming comfortable with using the original stems "as is" (I magnetise all my Land Speeder stems, but that's not necessary or easy for the Necron vehicles) when disaster struck and I decided to investigate sturdier options.  I wasn't particularly happy with just replacing it with brass rod and was left thinking "Why oh why do they have to be stupid, brittle acrylic?".  Then a lucky Google turned up a thread on Warseer (rare to get something useful there, I know, but bear with me) that led me to the following person.

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Labels: Bases, Tips, Warhammer 40k, Warhammer World | 2 comments

Friday, 3 February 2012

Vallejo Polyurethane Matt Varnish Review

10:00 | Posted by Ant Holloway | | Edit Post

I'm not a massive fan of varnish.  At least, I've always found Purity Seal a bit lacking and gloss varnish horribly off-putting, not to mention some of the cheaper varnishes I've ruined models with.  So I thought I'd get some of Vallejo's Polyurethane Matt Varnish (Vallejo number 27.527) and give it a whirl.

Unfortunately the only painted, metal model I had was from years ago and looks horrible.  At least it didn't matter if I ruined it.  Here are our initial shots.

I really, really hate the paint job on this guy.  I loved the idea of using the missile launcher hand, but my painting has come a long way since this Librarian.  I'd also convert him out of plastic if I were using him today, man I hate metal.  As you can see, not much in the way of detail to ruin, but it's a good enough surface to see any colour distortion.

I didn't clean him, dust him or anything before applying the varnish.  I figured if we go for worst case scenario and we came out good, that'd be proof of the product.  The varnish itself I applied through my airbrush - one of the big advantages for me of this varnish is that I can shoot it through the brush.  I'm not a massive fan of brushing varnish on.

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Labels: Review, Vallejo, Varnish | 0 comments

Wednesday, 1 February 2012

What's Wrong with the Doomsday Ark?

10:00 | Posted by Ant Holloway | | Edit Post

Recently I was asked "What's wrong with the Doomsday Ark?" after I expressed some distaste for the unit, which resulted in a rather ranty and overlong response for the medium (Facebook isn't suited to these kinds of rants).  Here's the tidied-up, reasonable and hopefully useful response for you to digest, dear reader.  It's still fairly opinionated, but hopefully with enough logic to explain those opinions.

The Doomsday Ark is an expensive (just a few points shy of being our most expensive) Heavy Support choice for the Necron army.  It carries a long-range, high-strength, low-AP, large blast weapon that becomes significantly weaker when the unit is moving.  Its primary role is stand-off fire power, and suffers greatly if it has to move.  In a lot of ways you can think of it like a Devastator Squad without the cover save.

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Labels: Necrons, Theorycraft, Warhammer 40k, Warhammer World | 0 comments