Tournament Madness

Fuck it I put down a finished army for once.

First of all lets start with lockdown and how it impacted my ability to paint my Nids, I ran out of Ceramite White. Your nids are not white, why is it required you might say.

I blame the old fella, it was his first time leading the army.

Well I based mine on several painting guides from Tale of Painters and importantly how they paint Hive Fleet Kraken skin, this involves priming white before a wash of Seraphim Sepia and a coating of bone however when I primed my first model white with Corax I was like this isn't white and painted all of the skin areas with a thinned layer of Ceramite white so that it was actually white for the Sepia to do its work. I did a test on a spare model to check the difference between straight over the primer and with the layer of white and the difference was huge. 

Game 1 - Death Watch Shred Nids but he had cool objective marker mats

Back to the present once lockdown was over I went to buy some Ceramite white only to find they no longer produce the lumpy white substance any more. Shocked I bought some Corax white in a pot and tried mixing it with White Scars till I got a white that wasn't as bright as white scars but not as grey as Corax and after awhile painted a test termagant. While it passed hiding amongst the crowd of my other termagants I could tell which one it was on inspection and I knew it would stand out on my big Monsters. Time past and I put off painting my monsters in favour of having fun with my necromunda gang.

Game 1 - Last Bug Standing vs Death Watch

Suddenly it is 2 weeks out from the tournament and I have to paint my models, I went into my local non-gw gamestore the Caffeinated Dragon (for the best way for any business in Wellington to survive is to sell coffee on the side.. Hell even the 2nd hand clothes stores and hairdressers near my work sell/make coffee to sweeten the deal) found the Reaper Minis paint line and got myself some Dragon White.

Game 2 - Whats red and white and right up your backside.

While its not as pale as Ceramite White its still not as bright as White Scar which meant it was my next best thing and away I went, for some reason I also put on 2 ripper swarms on my list despite only having 4 bases.. So I haggled my mates till I got given some more rippers (Thanks yall) and started getting to work.

Game 2 - Tau plugging my Butt

 

Only then did I discover that it was taking me 3 - 4 hours to apply each layer of fucking paint to this huge beast of a beast. We were in it for the long haul, not only this but it was School Holidays and the Wife was being driven mad and therefore I was limited in the amount of time I had in the Hobby Shed. This lead to waiting till she was asleep to sneak out of bed and head out to the freezing cold shed in the middle of the night to paint or waking up early and getting some done before Work.

A compilation of all the Chaos Armies I did not face in game 3
cause I have no photos of that game and it was the one chaos army I didn't take a photo of...

One week left before Tournaments and our self evaluated painting lists were required to be submitted, looking at my painting metric I was at 31/32 and having a display board was worth 1pt. Between that and having the inside knowledge that Septimus Clegg would be turning up with half painted models I thought maybe with a display board I can have a chance of taking home an award for the Beauty Pageant..

Its okay to drool just not on the models

I say an award because I meant 2nd place trophy as I knew Glen Burfield was taking his Eldar and I cannot compete with that...

How can one compete?

Well let me tell you I was wrong about that... The Bastard is so good at converting and painting he can win first place with 2 models only having a single layer of paint over the primer and I don't even think I got a vote... 

Game 4  - What an Arse

Anyway on the list went the Display board I didn't own. 

Game 4 - What a bully picking on such weaklings.

Adding to my list of projects to finish in a week I needed a better way to transport my army than the 101 ice cream containers and cardboard boxes currently in use so I bought an old travel case from the city mission and got some foam delivered.

My Army is now on Wheels!

I then spent the weekend touching up my old models so that I could coat them as I was sick of the paint chipping due to my way of moving hordes (pick them all up and dump them down..) and my warriors getting caught in each others spikes in my storage tin (another reason for the need of a proper way to transport and store models).

Now thats a display board

Monday passed with me playing Necromunda, Tuesday came and the Wife wasn't well so I worked from home and snuck in a moment to varnish my gaunts and warriors... man did this go wrong.. despite it looking great on my Genestealer detachment, Carnifexs and my Doctor who model (who was the test for this) the gloss varnish from Repco (intended for cars) was applied about 3 times to thick and now my termagants hurt your eyes if lights were too bright. 

So much bling!

At least I was confident that the model would break before the paint would chip... Tuesday night was  practice match with Ryan, still the 2 extra ripper bases were about half done and the 'Virago' Pattern Shadowsword wasn't even half done.

I like the purple and orange

However I am glad I got this game in as I felt so much more confident in knowing my units stats which followed on from my lesson on how does one play 40k with Septimus Clegg.

Game 5 - Target Acquired

Some how from about 9pm on Wednesday night going till 2am on Saturday morning I made a Display board finished my models coated them and cut out all the foam for 90% of my army. Only my old metal Hive Tyrant, Rippers and Objective Markers didn't find room in the case yet. Can I give a time line of what happened, not really.. was my display board still drying when I packed it in the case on Saturday morning.. yes... and I didn't even need to drink any energy drinks on Saturday as I had enough caffeine still flowing through my body after drinking several litres of it over the past 3 days...

Game 5 - My opponent kept asking if I would like to pass any of my saving throws...

Overall I am happy with how the tournament went despite never having done so poorly in a tournament before. The only game I won my opponent intentionally threw! and I would have been tabled 3 times but thankfully managed to finish with 1 model on the table in the last turn in 2 games once cause I killed all their anti tank and Virago was to damm big for bolter fire and in the 2nd one because I screened a character and they ran out of shooting after killing the screen. However I feel this is the first time I have been happy with the presentation of my army at an event (except when I borrowed Septimus Cleggs Hive Fleet Nidrot but that doesn't count).

Rocks and sand painted to look like rocks and sand

Actual photos of the 'Virago' will come once I have had some rest and can be bothered getting it out of the case again for a proper photo shoot ...

Like real bugs they all go Squish

And as always my brain was on overdrive after a tournament and I couldn't help but focus on how to make a solid list with the models I own and what could I do with the Genestealers I got for cheap at the Tournament... I will let you in on a secret: 5 new characters have been planned. Photos of these will come once I actually glue some bits together and its more than just a day dream.

The Model that Won the Beauty Pageant, it had to be first to die 😜