Warhammer Quest: Cursed City is a labour of love for hobbyists and a love letter to those old enough to remember the original Warhammer Quest. I hope it's a good game, but it really doesn't matter.

 One of the things I've paid a lot of attention to during my absence from the hobby is the re-introduction of Warhammer Quest.  

Delicious components

I have very fond but hazy childhood memories of playing the original 1995 Warhammer Quest with my friends Dave, John and Tim.  Dave had acquired the set during a period where we were all collecting Warhammer Fantasy (R.I.P.) models and doing our best to play games when we were too young to stay focused on collecting and painting armies and didn't really have the money to do so.  Warhammer Quest was a dream come true with everything you needed right in the box, and I spent some allowance money on the Wood Elf hero to give another option.  Back then, they released small boxes with a new hero for WHQ with their in-game card you needed to play them, and at the time Wood Elves were very much my jam.  I hadn't yet learned that bugs are gross and I can get all the exposure to nature that I need from golf.

But really, my journey began before that with HeroQuest.

We had a family friend who owned a cottage in the Muskokas, and my father was a general contractor and carpenter.  It was mutually advantageous that we would go up for a period each summer and my dad would do some work or repairs, my brother and I would mow the grass or paint a deck chair, and we would get to use this absolutely amazing property for a week or so each year.  

This cottage was a full blown house in lake country.  Rare for the time, it had all the appliances you'd expect, running water and all that.  Because the owner and his family spent so much time there, there was a variety of VHS tapes, outdoor fun equipment like ATVs, and a selection of board games.

Among the board games was something that completely blew my mind called HeroQuest.  If you don't know what I'm talking about, give that a quick Google.  I suspect that the same son of our family friend responsible for the stack of 1960s-1980s comic books was also responsible for HeroQuest being there, but all I can say for certain is that the box art alone sent absolute fireworks through the mind of a young boy who had been consumed by old AD&D PC games like Pool of Radiance.  

I will never find the words to express the frustration I felt when I couldn't get my family to play the game with me for more than an hour -- I couldn't understand why anyone would want to do anything else.  Screw the lake.

Fast forward a few years, after I'd managed to finagle my own copy of HeroQuest, when my newfound interest in Warhammer ran face first into my delight for HeroQuest and RPGs in general.  It took me a long time to learn that Games Workshop was responsible for HeroQuest as well.  

Stepping away from the days of yore, when I learned that the modern Warhammer Quest games were designed to be playable solo, I broke into a sweat.  I wouldn't have to convince anyone to play with me.

But I didn't buy Silver Tower.  I didn't buy the next one.  I didn't buy Blackstone Fortress, despite being intrigued by the fact that it was WH40k. 

Then Cursed City got a reprint right as I was getting back into this hobby, and I found out that it had all the secret sauce I remembered from before.  Wide variety of heroes?  One's even a wood elf?  Character progression over the course of a campaign?  Random table of bad shit that can happen to you between missions for no reason?  Sign me up.  

So I bought it.  Then immediately decided that I wouldn't play it until I had assembled and painted every model.  I wanted to savour the anticipation and have something beautiful.  I've started, and I'm making progress.  I'm not bothering to count while I'm typing, but I'm 5/8 heroes painted and I'd guess around 20 of the bad guys.  There's  60 miniatures in total.  It's a lot of work.

Just the enemies.

I don't know if the game is good, but there are lots of places you can look up reviews.  I'm guessing I'll enjoy it regardless.  But I wanted to use this space to document some of my trials and tribulations while getting the set ready for prime time, and maybe I can inspire someone to finish their set or help someone learn from my mistakes.  

So with that in mind, I'll be posting about the painting and some thoughts about the models and some limited lore.  I'll also give my thoughts about the box itself, but here's my initial take:

For the money it costs, there is nothing that is going to give you the variety of incredibly high quality sculpts to paint.  It's also a hugely satisfying building experience, although it's moderately challenging so I'd say make sure you have the right tools and patience for the job.  The quality of the materials inside, the models, the presentation is so far beyond my expectations that it really is the best example I can present for the new Games Workshop theme:  High cost, unbelievable quality, slick presentaion.

It's going to take forever to paint, it took a while to assemble, and it will take some time to beat the campaign.  But god almighty, I am going to enjoy opening that envelope.  

Start of a long journey

I'm painting again. I don't know where it goes from here.

 It's been a while!

About 6 weeks ago, I felt like painting again.  It's been about 10 years at this point since I stopped, but I've taken longer breaks than that before.

I wanted to wait before posting anything both because I'm a lot older, out of practice and I honestly wasn't sure if I'd pick up a brush and not be able to paint.  As documented previously, my eyesight and fine motor skills were never great to begin with, and I am absolutely racing towards the grave at this point.

It's hard to say what exactly gave me the itch again -- I've casually kept up with WH40k over the last decade, and my Google news feed occasionally features articles from the ever-delightful Bell of Lost Souls (as an aside, it's been incredible to watch the progress of that site over the years).  I think I just ticked over from seeing some beautiful models to realizing that I could go pick up something -- maybe just get some fresh paints and a couple of models and dip my toe in.  You know.

Within a couple of weeks, I had the 40k starter set, some extra Necrons, the Age of Sigmar Dominion box, and Cursed City.  As well as the big paint set from Army Painter, and a growing collection of Citadel contrast paints.  I guess the toe dip went a little sideways.

As an aside, I'm amused that this post of mine from December 2010  has become an entirely valid alternate way to paint models that we now call 'Contrast Method' or 'Speed Painting'.  We'll come back to that.

I'm now about a month and half into collecting, assembling and painting.  I'm really enjoying myself.  

The reason I'm posting tonight is that I wanted a place to put up some pictures of what I'm working on, and document for myself some of the progress I'm making.  Also it's a place to share photos where I'm not spamming my friends and family, who I'm sure are already tired of the daily random photos of weird little models that they don't really understand.

I can also see by the dashboard that somehow people still end up directed towards this site every once in a while.  I hope that these poor lost travelers can find something that inspires or helps them in their pursuit of the hobby, or at least reassures them that someone, somewhere, is also still trying to figure out how to paint after decades of doing it.  

I have a lot of thoughts about the hobby, Warhammers both 40k and AoS, and the enormous evolution of available tools to produce beautiful models and the huge increase in both cost and quality of Games Workshop miniatures.  

Right now I'm working on finishing the Cursed City miniatures before I actually play a game of it.  I'm about 17/60 minatures done, and I'm mostly pleased with how they've turned out.

I will be posting here occasionally with some updates and backlog photos of the stuff that I've been working on.  Forgive me in advance, the photos I've been taking are in no way staged for photography, just rough workdesk photos like the header above.  But in the meanwhile I thought I'd share the first model I painted after a 10+ year absence vs a model I painted a few days ago and the evolution over that 6 week period as I started to remember what was forgotten.  Both are WH40k Orks from the (5th edition?) starter set, Assault on Black Reach.

March 27th: 

How do paints work again?

May 1st:

I'll try to put up something new every few days or when the thoughts feel like going down in text.  In the meanwhile, I'll also try to find a better set up for taking pictures of miniatures, but bear with me for a while on that :)

I'm back!

.... An ill wind stirs...

And by that I mean I may start painting models again and talking about that.

In case anyone still has this on their feed, I must apologize for the absence.  I can't remember much of the last two years other than seeing one of my zoanthropes larger than life, and then a darkness whose length cannot be measured in minutes, or days, or years, but rather in sins.  

We've been biding our time.

I'm incredibly devoted to the ideal behind Men With Toy Soldiers:  I want to provide emotional support for other grown men who play with toy soldiers, and share my trials and tribulations regarding turning injection molded plastic or hilariously ill-fitting "pewter" into art and tactical enjoyment.  I especially want to encourage other grown men who have fond childhood memories of tabletop games.

For anyone who is still interested, here are the topics I'm interested in covering in the short term:

1) My 1 year old citadel paints are dried up in their containers, but my 15 year old ones are still good to go. I also notice that they have about a dozen different types of paint in their range, while I grew up painting gorgeous minis and it was just paint and primer. DISCUSS.

2) I will unabashedly admit that I love 4th edition D&D, based solely on reading the rulebooks.  I reminisce about having to calculate THAC0 and the hilarious min/maxing we did in 2e and 3e.  I wonder why noone ever thought of making 1 hp minions before so we could feel legit tossing fireballs.  I thank the world of MMORPGS for improving the combat system.  I think I want to go to a local shop to play D&D encounters and write about it, having never played D&D seriously since oh about 1998.

3) I want to paint again, although GW's bait-and-switch with the 40k rules doesn't make me want to play (yet).  My painting articles before were well-received, and I'm proud of the minis that I do have.  My Trygon  has been out on our picture shelf since I finished it, and I'm excited to do more mini-painting that I can be proud of.  I'm not going to insist on them being Tyranids, I just want to paint, so I would love to hear some feedback if anyone's still listening.

Anyhow I think the glue on my Ork whatever-the-hell-they-call-the-leaders just set, and I want to get him cleaned up so I can prime and decide on a colour scheme.

Cheers!

MWTS

Delusion? Or Genius?

So while I was scheming about my Tervigon conversion, I had an idea:

All those Rippers we all have kicking around? And all that extra space on the MC bases?

I was thinking of magnetizing 6 rippers onto my next Trygon's base, and pulling them off as wound markers.

What do you think?

Alright, it was Paddy's idea!  I'm scared to contradict him.

Prepare yourselves for the world's laziest Tervigon conversion... And a status update!

Hello, everyone!

I will remind you again that this is representative of my conversion/painting skills

Just a super-quick post to update on my progress with all the new acquisitions, and I can tell you that my league starts in mid-February, but I'm doing well enough here that I may actually be able to play my first game before then.  I know I haven't been keeping up with my posting, but in my defense, you don't want to hear about me working or see pictures of grey plastic models :)

Also I finally figured out what I'm going to do about Tervigon conversions!

But first, an update of where I'm at:

We're Back! And we have a 1500 point 'Nid list for your consideration!

Well here I am on the last day of my holiday, finally returned to the city, ready to build up the Hive Fleet and play in a league!

Hive Fleet Turbo-Ants Cheerleading Squad 2011

I appreciate those who visited during Men With Toy Soldiers' hiatus, and now it's time to get back on attack.

So when we left off, I had asked for input regarding a 1500 point list using primarily what I had available in order to participate in an upcoming league with a 'Golden Standard' of 1500 points.  I got lots of good input, and was told quite firmly that I could not bring Swarmy in a 1500 point list (especially with two Trygons!), and now I think we're on the home stretch for what I'll start off with.

Be warned:  this list may shock your Net List sensibilities!  We have foot slogging Zoanthropes, Genestealers, and a Gargoyle blob!  There are no T-Fexes, no Harpies, and only one Tervigon!

Merry Christmas from Men With Toy Soldiers!

First, I want to thank everyone who has dropped by since we opened up less than a month ago to comment, follow and read our content!

When I started this project, at the urging of my better half, I was utterly convinced that I was absolutely deluded in thinking that anyone would have the slightest interest in what I had to say.  Thankfully, I was wrong!

He's making a 1750 point tournament list, he's checking it twice...

What keeps recurring in the feedback that I'm getting is that:

1) People are interested in the perspective of someone just starting up in the hobby.

2) Most of our articles are 'fun' to read.

I'm glad to hear both of these things, because I've been making an effort from the beginning to keep everything posted very positive and light-hearted, while also trying to provide lots of pictures and content that was a little bit different from what I'm seeing elsewhere.

So thanks again to everyone that's tuned in, and have a great holiday season!  It'll be quiet around here for a few days while we're devouring turkeys with the Hive Fleet at home, but in the new year I endeavour to continue providing you all with half-cooked Unit Reviews, mediocre paint jobs and conversions, and of course, lots of pictures captioned with bad jokes!

The quest for the 1500 point Tyranid list continues!

Well, I'm trying my best to come up with a 1500 point list for an upcoming league that I'm happy with, and that I don't need to buy/convert too much for.

I'm finding the points total to be really restrictive, however, because I want to include a Trygon -- Which really means I have to include two, and there's a third of my army gone.

The other thing I'm struggling with is where to fit Genestealers in.  I want them to outflank, but if I do, I want the Swarmlord along for the +1 to reserves and the re-roll.  Does anyone have success infiltrating them, walking them up or outflanking them without bonuses?

Put me in, coach!

I also haven't been able to visualize a conversion for a Mycetic Spore, so I don't know that I can put my zoanthropes in.  Does anyone have any experience with scuttling them up the table behind friendly units?  Or is that just crazy talk?

Anyhow, I'll shoot out two lists for now.  I'm not 100% happy with either, but I figure they'll get nicely dissected here and hopefully that can help my though process along.

Help! I need a 1500 point list!

Hi all,

Just a brief call for help here.  I'm thinking of joining a league for this season, starting in a week or two.  It's 1500 points 'golden standard', so we have to play at least that point value and can play above it if both players agree.

Uncle Paddy Needs You!

I want to build a good, balanced, all-comers 1500 point 'Nids list, and I need input!  Please!

Doesn't look like there are any comp rules, but your opponent can award you 3 points for sportsmanship per game, and one point is 'is it a fair list', one point is 'would you play this person again'.

HELP!


Bonus round:


We don't have to take the same army each week, or even the same codex!  So while I might not play it, I'm trying to build a 1500 point Blood Angels list with no mech except for dreads.  Go!

Santa showed up, and brought the Hive Fleet with him!

Thanks everyone for the suggestions on what to pick up!

As it turns out, we bought everything.  All of the Tyranids in the store.  Well, actually, I left a couple boxes of 'Gants and Raveners behind, and an army box.  And since we still had money to spare, I ordered a couple more things, which I'll list below.

So here's what we got:

Santa brought the tequila for Paddy O'Lantern

List and what's to come under the jump!

Help me spend $400 on miniatures!

Sorry about missing the last few days' worth of content, Men With Toy Soldiers was away at the first of many illustrious holiday events!

We also had a family dinner tonight, at which I over-indulged.  I think the Hive Mind was fully in control, because I was definitely The Great Devourer!

But we're back in town for a couple of days until we do the real Christmas marathon, and Santa is coming around tomorrow in the form of a shopping spree at my Friendly Local Game Store, sponsored by my Sugar Mama.

It's all about the Elizabeths, baby

So I'm going to put up what I have, and if anyone still reads the blog you can help me choose how to spend money!

Here's what we've got:

1x Tyranid Prime

2x Tyranid Warrior

16x Hormagaunt

28x Termagant

8x Genestealer

1x Trygon

So, I've got $400 (Canadian) to spend, at 20% off GW prices.


What should I buy?  GO!


Bonus round:

If you run out of Tyranids worth buying, I've also got a budding Blood Angels army....

Finished Trygon!

Well, that was a journey!

I actually finished it yesterday but didn't have time to post anything up.  I also want to say that by 'finished' I mean it's ready for the tabletop, but I'm going to be finding small errors and correcting them for weeks to come, I'm sure.

Here it is!

Bring on the AV14!

Detail pics and my thoughts after the jump!

The Biggest Bug of All - Trygon almost finished!

After much. much work, we're coming around on the home stretch!

I have to paint three of these eventually? Goodness.

I am actually tired from painting.  However, it's almost done!

Here's what I have left to do:

- Edge all of the carapace sections with Dheneb Stone
- Clean up a couple of the details
- Do some general fixing of errors
- Base it!

So what you're looking at is very close to the finished product, with a little less depth in the carapace!

Here's a closer view of the front that shows the details a bit better:

Terrifying, isn't he?

So I should be done, dare I say, tomorrow!  Although it's such a large model that I'm sure I'll be finding errors on it for the next month, so it'll keep me busy.  As for the base, I think I'm going to take the Rippers off, just because I don't really feel like painting them or that they add too much to the base.

I'll wait until tomorrow to do that, though, because maybe I'm just tired and grumpy right now!

The Biggest Bug of All - Trygon WIP Update!

Well, this thing is a pretty big project but having started it I'm much less intimidated!  I had a nice night where I popped the movie Hot Fuzz on the computer in front of me and just painted away.  So here we are:

The Trygon got a manicure with OPI colour "Voracious Vermillion"

 - The exoskeleton is done, highlighting shading and all.  It will get another thin coat of Leviathan Purple wash over certain parts, but other than that it's finished.  

 - The (very) bright red on the talons will be toned down considerably after a couple coats of Baal Red, but I really like the effect -- it's very attention-grabbing!  This will probably be the method I use for MC talons on all of my bugs, except perhaps the Tervigon, but more on that at a later date.  And what you're looking at there is just two layers of Blood Red over white primer.

- The Carapace is what I'll be working on tonight.  I'm still trying to wrap my head around how to shade and highlight it, and I still haven't picked up Devlan Mud to test it and see if I can get a more natural, consistent shade on the Dheneb Stone.  One thing I'm very pleased with, however, is how smooth of a coat I managed to get on the large back Carapace section (the only part I'm really stressing about) by being very patient and thinning down the Dheneb Stone alot:

I hate to see you go, but I love to watch you leave

As always, any input is appreciated!  One decision I'm still struggling with is whether or not to use the red for any other 'spines' on the model, such as the side ones that I've left unpainted on the tail.  I'm not sure if it would add anything, or just make the model look busier.

Thoughts?

The Biggest Bug of All - Time to paint a Trygon!

EDIT: The next one gets painted before it gets fully assembled.  Made that tougher for myself than I had to.

Well, here it stands in all its white-primed glory:

Whitesnake!  Haha!

This is by a large margin the largest model that I've ever attempted.  The next largest was a Bloodthirster, which really isn't all that big without its wings.  This model poses a couple unique challenges that I'm going to have to overcome:

1) The two-part Scything Talons.  Because I've been painting both the carapace and talons bone-coloured for the rest of my models (such as these hormagaunts), I've got a bit of a quandary here, since there is carapace on top of the Talons.  After doing a lot of test runs on a spare Mawloc arm, I'm going to try leaving the carapace bone coloured, but doing all the talon 'blades' in bright red.  We'll see how that works out!  I can always repaint it.

2) The sheer size of the model.  As I said, I've never tackled anything this large, and the wash-over-primer method I use for the little bugs won't really do this justice -- plus it would take a lot of wash!  So I'm going to do a traditional paint/highlight/wash on this model. Which could take some time!  I'm also going to try Devlan Mud for the carapace sections instead of Badab Black, since I think it will give me an overall 'smoother' finish.  I'll be testing that out beforehand, though.

So that's what I'm up to.  How are you all doing?  I feel like we haven't talked in so long!

I'll update the WIP as I get something accomplished on this beast.

P.S.:  I had to add a couple rippers to the base.  I like to think that they look up and say, "I want to be a Trygon when I'm all grown up!"

MathHammer, Episode 1: Termagants are better than Tactical Marines!

This is the first installment of a series of articles that use the power of math to show that some units are better than you think.  We're delving into some dangerous uncharted territory here, and I'm likely to make errors, so feel free to contradict me!

I notice after posting that he has dirt stuck to his gun!  Silly Termagant!

Everyone knows that you only take Termagants in units of 10 so that you can take Tervigons, right?  That's what the internet says, so it must be true.

As those of you who have been reading along know, we try and do things a little bit different here at Men With Toy Soldiers.  While I agree with the consensus that Termagants + Tervigons are possibly the best unit in the game at scoring objectives, I want to see if we can find other uses for them, and possibly even... have them kill things?

So how does Acid Blood work, exactly?

Super short post:

I'm trying to wrap my head around how Acid Blood is supposed to work.  Since I can't get clarification by googling it, and it's not in the FAQ, maybe I'm just imagining things.

But if I had unit X attacking, say, a Pyrovore (comes with Acid Blood), and let's say for argument's sake that unit X was really good at close combat:

30 attacks, hitting on 2's = 24 hits
Wounding on 2's = 20 wounds
20 Wounds, 4+ armour save.... 10 unsaved wounds.


"For every unsaved wound a model with acid blood suffers in close combat, the enemy unit that struck the blow must pass..."   - Tyranid Codex p. 84.

So despite the Pyrovore only having 2 wounds, would you have to take 10 initiative tests for the unsaved wounds as opposed to 2 for the Pyrovore's wound total?

I'm going with yes, and here's why:

1) Rules!  If I cause 200 unsaved wounds on your model that had 2 wounds, and you had Feel No Pain on that model (triggered by unsaved wounds), I guarantee you would want to roll 200 FNP checks to try and save its life, despite the model only having 2 wounds.  Exactly the same situation.


2) Fluff!  If I bleed acid and that hurts you, and you beat my corpse into a bloody lump, you're going to cause more acid spray.

Thoughts?

P.S.:  The Zoanthropes who run the legal department here at Men With Toy Soldiers would also argue that the definition of 'unit' in the base rulebook, combined with acid blood as written, verbatim, would mean that every model in the unit that wounded the acid blood critter must take its own initiative test and risk a wound.  Not sure if anyone plays like that, but that's the logical conclusion of both rulesets.  Either way, we might be able to find a use for the Pyrovore (god I'm trying so hard...) as a melee suicide bomb.

Interlude over!

How To Cheat At Painting -- Part 2

Part 1 here.

Recap:


If you're anything like me, you face two very large obstacles when starting a new painting project or (heaven forbid) an entire army:

1) You are physically disabled when it comes to painting.  Your hand quivers as though in constant terror of the brush, and you have eyesight somewhere between a myopic bat and an a rock.

2) You have little time, and less attention span.  You are also the slowest painter in the world, and it's a shame there's no trophy for that.

Because I'm determined to enjoy this hobby despite my challenges, I had to figure out a way to paint up 'Nids quickly, smoothly, and (since I started a blog) in a fashion that photographs well.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

We left off with this:

We've come so far together!

Now I'm going to continue the step-by-step and show you how to finish off a model's details and give it a good looking base, all with minimal effort and time!

How To Cheat At Painting -- Part 1

If you're anything like me, you face two very large obstacles when starting a new painting project or (heaven forbid) an entire army:

1) You are physically disabled when it comes to painting.  Your hand quivers as though in constant terror of the brush, and you have eyesight somewhere between a myopic bat and an a rock.

2) You have little time, and less attention span.  You are also the slowest painter in the world, and it's a shame there's no trophy for that.

Because I'm determined to enjoy this hobby despite my challenges, I had to figure out a way to paint up 'Nids quickly, smoothly, and (since I started a blog) in a fashion that photographs well.

I should have special parking at my hobby shop.

Now, I've posted the evolution in how I paint my bugs, but I feel like I should share a step-by-step for others on how to quickly and easily put together a decent looking model, from priming to basing.

Finally on Google!

Well, it took about a week for Men With Toy Soldiers to show up on Google, but we've finally done it!  Thanks so much to everyone who's tuned in to check out what we have to offer in the early stages, I can promise you that things should be both bigger and better moving forward.

As for being on Google, check this out:

We're number 1! We're number 1!

So thanks again to everyone who has been reading and commenting, I've gotten some great positive feedback.  I'll try to keep providing you with reading material that's positive, in good humour and hopefully helpful or inspiring to other people who love the hobby like I do.

I'll also keep making fun of Space Wolves!