Monday 12 August 2013

NWG Series, Part Three - Board Building

So here we are for part three of the NWG Series I'm going to show you the WIP display board that I'm building for the army.

Last week I put up the list and details of the models that I needed to get sorted. I have now managed to get all of the toys built and equipped with all the appropriate wargear, I'll detail this in a later post, for now it's the board.

As you may have seen from part 1, I had some scrawled ideas of what the board would look like.

The original plan.
As you can see I wanted to get all the squads in front of the pods being addressed by the Librarians. The usual board size is around 2" x 2". I got some MDF cut and had some expanded polystyrene lying around.

I started by assembling the wooden base.

The base
 I test fitted the polystyrene and then trimmed it to fit in snugly.

Polystrene test fit
I then used my specially crafted foamboard template to measure out the spacing of the pods on the polystyrene.
Foamboard sizer.

Measuring the spacing for the pods
 I then got all the toys together and made sure I could fit them all on with sufficient space.

Planning out the troop layout
After drawing out the shapes I then went at it with a hot wire cutter.

Cutting out the edges

Cutting out the pod holes

Some progress
 Once everything was cut out I fitted it into the wooden base.

Polystyrene nested in the frame
The next step is to texture the board with some pre formed plasticard that I have lying about and get the rest of it painted up all nice looking.

Tuesday 6 August 2013

NWG Series, Part Two - The list

Welcome back to the NWG Series, time for part two.

Last time I hinted at something involving drop pods and left a few of my mad scrawlings up on the blog for your viewing pleasure.
I suppose it’s time to explain the some of my schemes, I’m going to be entering the 40K tournament, which has a 1650pts limit and rewards you for playing with new toys, conversions and the like.

I’ve opted to bring a list that involves drop pods, 9 of them.
Heres a quick list run down:

Dark Angels
Librarian, level 1 (Divination)

Tactical Squad, Melta, Drop Pod
Tactical Squad, Melta, Drop Pod
Tactical Squad, Melta, Drop Pod

Veteran Squad, Melta, 3x Combi-Melta, Drop Pod
Veteran Squad, Plasma, 3x Combi-Plasma, Drop Pod
Veteran Squad, Plasma, 3x Combi-Plasma, Drop Pod

Space Wolves
Rune Priest, Jaws, Hurricane
Rune Priest, Jaws, Lightning

6 Wolf Guard, 2x Combi-Melta, 3x Combi-Flamer, 1xTerminator w/ H.Flamer, Drop Pod

8 Grey Hunters, Melta, Banner, Drop Pod
8 Grey Hunters, Melta, Banner, Drop Pod

So as you can see I’m going to be needing:
9 Drop Pods
6 Melta Guns
2 Plasma Guns
5 Combi-Meltas
6 Combi-Plasmas
3 Combi-Flamers
1 Terminator
3 Libbys/Priests
6 Sgts
26 Marines

Pretty much all of this needs to be built and painted from nothing, I think I have about 20 Marines, 3 Special weapons undercoated and 1 Libby/Priest model actually painted.
1 model out of 64 completed!
It's a few boxes.
The most daunting thing is likely the 9 Pods, as they’ve a lot of different bits, I’ve spent the last week cleaning them up.
These are the large components
Thanks very much to Ian of Mad Eye Miniatures / The HobbyShack for getting these toys to me in such short order, what a gent, ply him with your business!

Now how am I going to get 9 pods painted? Well I’m going to cheat of course, using Army Painter sprays to take care of the grunt work of base coating both exteriors and interiors.
 
All the rest of the sprues
 
Obligatory crotch shot of just some of the plastic bits.
Progress overall has been slow but I have most of my materials now and I’m working on getting things moving, I’m sure once I get into the swing of things we should see more solid progress and a bit more dedication on my part.


Until next time!


Lots of Rubbish