Tale of OG Gamers - High Elves

[Meals]

When I read that the Only Way is Essex was nominated for an award, the tiny remnants of my faith in the British population died.

You know what, in this world where every member of the Kardashian family somehow manages to have their own TV show, I'm not really that surprised... I do agree they should die in a fire though, hopefully on the way home from being told the inoperable brain tumour they battled for two years miraculously disappeared. Or is that a bit harsh?

[maelzch]

I don't think it would be harsh enough if it was a napalm fire mate!

[noahtonkin]

Any Idea what happens when you get a misscast if its bought from Ol? Can we take them back to a gw, or would Ol have to send them back?

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[cunningmatt]

Or is that a bit harsh?

Possibly on the cusp of harshness... slightly concerned that of all the things we've discussed here over the last 9 months the one which has led to the biggest conversation is The Only Way is Essex!

Any Idea what happens when you get a misscast if its bought from Ol? Can we take them back to a gw, or would Ol have to send them back?

Wow talk about changing topic. I think you just roll on the miscast table and hope you don't get a 2-4!!  - Aren't I funny?! When I had a missing part in a model supplied through Ol, I e-mailed GW who sorted out replacement (I didn't say where I'd bought it, but they never asked to see any proof of purchase), alternatively Ol may have a method for returning items - I imagine suppliers have to let retailers do this.

[Dave]

Any Idea what happens when you get a misscast if its bought from Ol? Can we take them back to a gw, or would Ol have to send them back?

When I had a missing part in a model supplied through Ol, I e-mailed GW who sorted out replacement (I didn't say where I'd bought it, but they never asked to see any proof of purchase), alternatively Ol may have a method for returning items - I imagine suppliers have to let retailers do this.

I like that your painting blog has become a one stop shop for everything because it probably gets more visits than posting up a fresh thread.

[cunningmatt]

I like that your painting blog has become a one stop shop for everything because it probably gets more visits than posting up a fresh thread.

I know, but what can you do? Except bask in the warm glow of popularity!  (I jest of course!!).

[fatolaf]

What a strange post by Noah, but basically you either do what Matt did or take it to a GW, which is why I am going to be very cautious with the fine cast orders at first...

[noahtonkin]

Yeah, sorry about that. Was half reading 3 or 4 posts about various stuff and forgot where I was posting what!
However back on the subject of trash tv (see, I do read really!), I've just been subjected to the living hell that is Geordie Beach...god, kill me now!

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[cunningmatt]

Sadly I'm not unlucky enough to have MTV in my house, so alas I cannot watch such delights. Instead I listened to Radio 4 which I think is at the exact opposite end of the broadcasting spectrum!!

[cunningmatt]

Friday 10th June - WEEK 23

After last week's disturbingly low brow mass debate (that phrase sounds a lot like masturbate – he he he, sorry that was very childish) about The Only Way is Essex I'm pleased that we've moved on as this week, as we discuss Peter Andre: The Next Chapter... actually no we don't because otherwise I'd have to gouge out my own eyes with a rusty needle. Instead I will discuss this week's painting progress (Yes a third whole week with some painting news. How far we've come in this blog, from the early days of silly pictures and smut?! How much I've grown up?! – though that has largely been ruined by the mass debate comment earlier. Oh dear. It's still funny though!)...

High Elves

Slight panic hit OG Gamers HQ this week as I realised the deadline for finishing my 2,000 points is actually a week closer. Yes I have the arduous task of having to go on holiday in the last week of June. Seriously it's kind, but you don't have to feel sorry for me. So in order to make the deadline and get the Tale of OG Gamers painted and done by the end of June they've got to be finished in two weeks time - gulp! Oh well we need an exciting challenge..., well a challenge, to keep the whole project alive - no one wants to go out on a fizzle.

The good news however is the I've done the first two stages of the Dragon Princes already, which make up that last illusive 200 points, as you can see.

A couple of points to note is that I've tried to glue the Dragon Princes biased towards the front of the base, as these models are so fantastic I am very tempted to add a second rank at some point so just want to make sure I've got the space to do so. Secondly there were loads of gems to add on as extra, and I went crazy and used everyone in the set (except one which I broke with my fat fingers as I was filing off the mould lines - d'oh!). Painting wise, I think I mentioned last week, but you were probably skim reading so I'll mention it again!, I've avoiding going for large blue or yellow plates of lacquered armour as I think my palette is a bit too bright for that to look right (the 'Eavy Metal darker blue plates look great I'm not denying that). Instead I've gone for gold and silver and if I do say so myself I think the Dragon Princes look all the more striking with the golden helms for their steeds. Plus there's still enough blue and yellow on them to join the army's "Shakeaway" theme. "Enough rabbiting" I hear you cry, here's some pictures:

Stage 1 – Dragon Princes













Base: Khemri Brown
Rocks: Chardonite Granite
Masonry: Calthan Brown
Hooves: Chaos Black
Tail and Leg Fur: Codex Grey
Horse Body: Fortress Grey
Silver Metal: Chainmail
Gold Metal: Tin Bitz
Reins: Scorched Brown
White Cloth: 1:1 Astronomacian Grey : Skull White
Blue Cloth and Pennant: 1:1 Enchanted Blue : Ice Blue
Yellow Cloth and Armour Trim: Iyanden Dark Sun
Lance: Khemri Brown
Flesh: Dwarf Flesh

Stage 2 – Dragon Princes











Base: *NO CHANGE*
Rocks: Drybrushed Adeptus Battlegrey
Masonry: Washed Badab Black
Hooves: *NO CHANGE*
Tail and Leg Fur: Drybrushed Fortress Grey
Horse Body: Layered 1:1 Fortress Grey : Skull White
Silver Metal: Washed Badab Black
Gold Metal: Shining Gold
Reins: Washed Badab Black
White Cloth: Layered 1:2 Astronomacian Grey : Skull White
Blue Cloth and Pennant: Layered Ice Blue
Yellow Cloth and Armour Trim: Layered Golden Yellow
Lance: Layered Graveyard Earth
Flesh: Layered Elf Flesh

Veteran readers way back when may remember that I started naming each of my units after classic children's television shows for reasons more tenuous than Jeff Brazier's career. The astute amongst you will notice this has fallen by the way side, however I have got a name for the Dragon Princes, so brace yourself for a very tenuous link – perhaps one day I will think of clever names for my as yet unchildren'stvised (that's probably not a word?) units. Perhaps?

Any how my Dragon Princes remind me of the classic show Through the Dragon's Eye. Through the Dragon's Eye was a BBC School's programme from the late 1980s that acquired a sort of cult status. School's programmes were designed to teach children on the sly, children thought they got time away from the teacher to watch TV - whereas in actual fact teachers got time away from the children and children were subtly brainwashed lessons on punctuation and simple arithmetic. It already sounds better than The Only Way is Essex.

The basic premise of the story was that three children paint a mural of a dragon and then are drawn into the world of Pelamar through the dragon's eye (see what they've done there?). Pelamar was in trouble because the precious Veetacore, the life source of Pelamar, had exploded (bloody terrorists) and all the pieces needed to be recovered to stop the inhabitants simply fading away. However in the land of Pelamar it's inhabitants had lost the ability to read and so needed the help of the children to read the simple puzzles to find the missing pieces. This is where the learning came in, I remember learning how to spell the word "Quagmire" on this programme, a really useful word I have used exactly once since – and you've just read it.

The main characters were Gorwen the Dragon, who bought the children to Pelamar, the children (but I couldn't give a toss about them), Boris, Doris and Morris who were the guardians of the Veetacore – soon to be fired presumably, they were all one colour respectively Orange, Purple and Green. And the evil Charn a monster who wanted the pieces of the Veetacore for his own evil ends – whatever they were! I particularly remember this character as he had the "terrifying" ability to be able to liquefy people, which he did to both Doris and Morris reducing them to a pool of their respective coloured liquid. As an eight-year old child I remember being particularly disturbed by this turn of events, in that odd way that random things like clowns and Gloria Hunniford inexplicably freak out children. In hindsight it probably wasn't that scary and both Doris and Morris were saved in the end, but when you watched the ten-part series over two months at school that's a lot of potentially sleepless nights, and to be honest this show can be probably be traced back as the reason why I turned out as oddly as I have done.

For those of you intrigued by this programme, here's a classic fight scene from the programme as Gorwen finally confronts Charn – I should point out that if you are hoping to one day watch the series this may contain a few spoilers. I think you will agree that the special effects have certainly stood the test of time and don't in any way look naff.

And look at me, that's the first time I've embedded a video in this blog – check out my technological skills!

But of course I can't mention school's programmes without mentioning everyone's favourite part the ITV/Channel 4 continuity screen:

Come on all together now dur, dur, durdurdurrrh, dur dur durrh, dur, dur, durrrh... etc.

Anyway enough of all that humming (that tune will be in your head for the rest of the day) and in honour of poor old Doris who gets reduced to a puddle of goo for most of the series, I'm going to name this unit Doris' Dragon Princes – odd? I think not.

Movement Trays

About a thousand years ago, around about the time of the birth of Bruce Forsyth, I promised I would talk to you about how I made Movement Trays, well with the weeks closing in (just 2 more to go!!) I best do it now else it may never happen!

First up you'll need to get your hands on the remarkably useful Warhammer Modular Movement Tray kit, which contains just enough tray parts, corners and edges so that you will always not quite have enough bits to complete the required movement trays! Always the way!

Mark out the shape of your trays, using a pen – here I've used an Overhead Projector marker pen which does the job well. However unless you're using Foundation Paints you may find it shows through on the final movement tray! For my Dwarf Army trays, despite being undercoated with Chaos Black several times, I can still see the marker pen through the Goblin Green!



Just realised my keys are in this picture, please don't try and copy the key from this image – I don't really want any uninvited visitors, I'm quite a miserable person and you won't be welcomed!

Now it might sound stupid but it is worth checking you're using the right side of the tray (either the 20mm x 20mm or 25mm x 25mm) before marking out the footprint of the unit. This might sound obvious but I merrily made a movement tray for my Dragon Ogres presuming their bases were equivalent to four 25mm x 25mm rather than four 20mm x 20mm bases – oops!

Next use the Citadel Razor Saw to slice up your bases, at this point I can't strongly enough recommend a cutting mat to protect your table from damage, and incidentally your body from damage when your loved one finds out about the table!



It's worth cutting all the way through and avoiding the temptation to brake the two pieces apart no matter how much your wrist aches from using the saw – to be honest it's probably your own fault your wrist aches anyway! Dirty boy!

Then you should have all your nice unit sized pieces left:



All this Razor sawing will create lots of dust, so do make sure you have the vacuum cleaner to standby.



I for one hope this dust doesn't turn out to be highly toxic like asbestos, else the entire nerd population of the UK could be wiped out in one fell swoop.

Next I glued corner edge pieces to two of the corners of the tray and marked out the places where I need to cut the longer edge pieces. If you're doing multiple trays at once it might be worth numbering all the pieces so you know what goes with what once it is all cut up!



I'll let you into my secret code 7HE means this is the seventh High Elf tray, I know – no one would ever figure it out!!

Once all your pieces are cut and glued on, you might need a little green stuff to join the gaps in your edge pieces. After that you're free to base the movement tray in the same manner as your army.

For my High Elves I've PVA glued on Games Workshop sand all round the edge, once dry I washed with watered down PVA which really helps fix the stones in place.



Next I sprayed it with Chaos Black, and then undercoated with Khemri Brown as my other bases. A good tip if you're having trouble getting paint in between all the nocks and crannies of your newly sanded (as in covered in sand, not belt-sanded) base, and you don't want to risk caking the paint on, is to use some watered down paint to run in all the cracks.



For a normal High Elf base I'd drybrush the stones with Bleached Bone – for the Movement Trays I also drybrush the actual tray. Bare in mind, if you play anything like me, your units will soon take multiple causalities and most of the unit tray will be visible! In fact as it will spend longer on the table than most of your troops it's worth making an effort.



Even if I wouldn't normally drybrush that army's bases (say if there were no stones on) I'd always recommend drybrushing the unit tray with a lighter colour just to break up the big block of flat colour. Your monster tank drybrush is ideal for this job.

Then for my High Elves I would stick static grass in patches to the base, and despite all the care and attention in the world, it'll go every bloody where! Much like Weetabix, it's completely impossible to get two Weetabix out of the tube and into the bowl without crumbs everywhere!



At this point I'd normally show you a picture of the completed Movement Tray, however I forget to take one! Oops! Instead I invite you to look at the tiny piece of completed base in the top right corner of this picture and imagine the entire base looking like this. Then you should go to your "happy place".

With the coming of the 8th edition the Horde is in fashion, sadly however your modular movement tray pack isn't big enough to cut piece out for a horde unit on 25mm x 25mm bases (I don't think it will do hordes of monstrous infantry either come to think of it). So for my Beastmen horde unit I glued two pieces together. However at the join I glued several pieces of plastic for support. These bits of plastic are the thin strip on the edge piece (that usually fits under the tray) cut from the rest of the edge piece – using these is a good idea as they will be the perfect height to fit under the base.



It's always worth gluing these supports perpendicular to the join rather than along the full length of the join, as this way to break the movement tray a force would need to be applied in both horizontal planes – which is quite tricky to do simultaneously. And who said this blog is just a load of crap, here's physics in action!

Then hopefully when you turn your movement tray over it will look as if it was always one piece:



Tape Measure Pontoon

And just before you go, I know you know this blog is a hotbed of Games Workshop news, and so much so that I am happy to unveil the full rules for the latest Games Workshop game that I'm sure will be gripping the club in a few weeks time - it's Tape Measure Pontoon. The game that has been invented to make use of your tape measure, now there's no need to extend your tape measure beyond 15" thanks to the invention of laser-guided cannon balls and stone throwers.

What you'll need

All you need to play is a tape measure that can automatically retract.



The Rules

The rules are simple pull out the tape measure to 100 inches.



Then the objective is for the player to then retract the tape measure stopping as close as they can to 21 inches without going over it. Once the player has stopped the tape measure they may twist up to three times and start retracting again, but if at any point they go over 21 inches they are bust and out. Closest player after all the twisting is done wins!



And there you go, the hottest new game around Tape Measure Pontoon, I personally can't wait for a game down the pub, anyone fancy one Slot 2? Though I probably should advise you to wear safety goggles! Although if you're really worried about it, you could use a measuring tape but it does run the risk of rather spoiling the game.

On that note I bid you adjure (that means goodbye) for another week, and hope you'll join me next Wednesday (possibly Thursday if I'm busy, or even Friday if someone goes to the toilet in the air conditioning unit again) for the penultimate week of the Tale of OG Gamers! Sad times I know.

And finally, finally, I just noticed this blog has now passed over the 10,000 hits barrier!! Wow!! If there was a little fireworks smilie I'd add it here. Although on a serious note this fact proves that there's nothing worth doing on the internet. I dread to think of the lost revenue to the British economy this blog has created from those wasted hours at work. Thanks as always for reading – it really is most appreciated!