New Year - New Hobby Ambitions

I find that as a busy, working dad it is supremely hard to find time to hobby. For those regular readers of our blog you will already know that I don't play as many games as I want to and that I have not finished a hobby challenge yet!! However I love the hobby and need to make time for it in my life and so, like many other things, I always give myself targets at the start of the year to try to achieve during the year. With targets in mind I find that I progress towards them even if I don't always complete them which keeps me and my model collection happy!!

The key with setting targets is adhering to the SMARTER Principle:

Death Company Chaplain Progress Update 1

After I bought, read and reviewed the Blood Angels supplement 'Angel's Blade' (Angel's Blade review here) I couldn't help myself in getting the Death Company chaplain with jump pack.

I love the model, it's so detailed and has a great pose. Also after reading the story I was inspired to get another leader for my army and put together the Death Company strike force formation. After all the Death Company are, of course, my favourite blood angels unit. After spending a rather too much £20 (Come on GW £15 at most please!) I've set to work over the past couple of days and started painting him so here is my progress...

Stage 1
I sprued the model cleaning up the mound lines and left him in 5 pieces ready to paint. Then I base coated the model Abaddon black.

Stage 2
Here I picked out all of the red areas of the model and painted them Mechrite Red (Mephiston Red in new money). I love the way that on half of the armor there are muscles bursting out!
Next I painted the wings on the jump pack Red Gore (Wazdakka Red for non-dads). I wanted these slightly darker so went for a more purply red.  I also thinned this paint right down to a wash consistency so that the black still showed through. This will hopefully let me paint up to a brighter red on the tips of the wings giving them some depth.

The more I paint this model the more detail I see and the more it impresses me. let me know what you think of my work so far.

James


fourdadsoftheapocalypse.blogspot.co.uk – A blog about Warhammer 40k and the Horus Heresy by four Dads

Twitter Primarch Deathmatch Q-Final Result - Sanguinius v Angron

"...and Angron is going to town! Those mighty fists are moving like pistons!"

" Wait! Hang on. Sanguinius is on the other side of the arena. It looks like he is just leaning against the wall smoking a very large and expensive cigar!! What is going on?"

" Well I saw it all and mid fight Sanguinius was seen whispering a few sweet nothings into the Big beasts ear. He then backed off and left Angry Angron to it."

"So?"

"Well we all know that the big man has a little temper. We all know that when he loses it he has no idea what he is doing. Sanguinius obviously just banked on the fact that he could get Angron so angry he would just beat himself up!"

"Oh and there it is! Angron takes himself down!! And the mighty angel stubs out his cigar and wanders off down the tunnel refreshed and ready for the semi-final!"

"Well that was certainly interesting - and sneaky! Fair played but we have no time to waste. As you Deathmatch fans know we have a double bill tonight and with Sanguinius winning that paves the way for the last Quarter-final which is..."

MORTARION

vs

ALPHARIUS/OMEGON

"Better get voting right now fight fans on @4dadsapocalypse on Twitter."





fourdadsoftheapocalypse.blogspot.com – A blog about Warhammer 40k and the Horus Heresy by four Dads

What apps do I use for Warhammer 40k?

There is no doubt that we live in a supremely technological age. I can't believe how lucky my children are with the information, fun and convenience that technology gives us these days. I was at university 17 years ago and having to trawl through journals and books in an actual library to research my dissertation. Then it would be a trip to photocopy a hundred pages to take home which would then be highlighted in different colours before finally writing up on a word processor!

These times are history now and all has changed except for the fact that I am not playing computer games, I am still playing with models on a tabletop.

So how have I moved on with technology to make my wargaming easier and keep me in touch with the wider community?

What apps do I use to 'plug in' to Warhammer?

1. Battlescribe
This has to be my most used app. One thing I love about 40k is list building. Should I put this unit in? Wait, what about that tank backing up that unit? How should I kit out my Death Company? It gets me thinking and imagining I am a tactical genius planning to take over the 41st millennium - I am definitely NOT this!

It can be complicated and time consuming though trawling through codexes and rules, finding out the point values and adding it all up. Luckily I found Battlescribe which I think is the best list building app out there. It can be awkward to set up and will take a few minutes to work out how to use it properly but once you get going you will soon have 15 lists to choose from. I love it!

2. Feedhammer
Feedhammer is a great app which has a number of blogs and twitter accounts on its list. As soon as there is a new tweet or blog post from one of these it appears on the feed. This allows me to keep up to date with what's going on easily and quickly without trawling Twitter or the internet.

3. Wikia - Warhammer 40k
What an incredible amount of information! Anything you want to know about the 40k universe is in here somewhere with pictures.

The info is split into categories to browse or there is a search function to get you what you need fast. Great resource.

4. ToF psychic phase
This is an app that works out the odds based on the number of dice you need to reach certain degrees of success. You can work out chances for both casting and denying in the psychic phase and it calculates your chances of suffering a perils of the warp too.
A great app for any psyker in your army.

5. Rules 40k
Want to know any rule in any codex or the main rule book? Its all on this app.
You can search or just browse alphabetically to find what you need. All special rules and rules for characters are here and are super easy to find in the middle of a game.

6. Pinterest
I use Pinterest as a source of inspiration. Searching on Pinterest is much easier than searching on the net for pictures and tutorials and a search for Warhammer 40k always brings up a wealth of pics and tutorials that are amazing to look at and easy to access. Pinterest is sorted into 'boards' too so accessing someone's board is an easy way to find pictures of a certain theme. In particular I really enjoy looking for dioramas and terrain which inevitably fuels my thirst for some hobby time!!

7. Whatsapp

I think that Whatsapp is the best way to communicate with your Warhammer buddies. Its free, quick, you can have conversations with groups of people and posting pics to each other is super easy to get feedback on models or relay battle reports. This is how the 4 Dads speak to each other everyday!

8. Twitter

Some people love it, some people hate it, I really enjoy using Twitter. It allows you to find out new information quickly and easily and interact with the community. I really like the convenience of Twitter and the fact that tweets are so short but allow you to click through to a blog post post or website if you want to. Of course the dads are on Twitter so follow us if you fancy on @4dadsapocalypse

So those are the apps that I use. Let me know if there are any other good apps out there that you use and what you think of the one's I am currently using.

All the best,

James