Sculpting a Hydra

In the way that I have way more hobby time than i have hobby funds, I've decided to sculpt a Hydra.

I'm not a fan of either the old metal Dark Elf Hydra or the new plastic kit. I wanted something that looked a little more like a multi headed serpent.

I started off with a wire armature 

Then added a layer of greenstuff to cover the armature and build into a tail.

Heres a couple of shots with 1999 Dark elf corsairs from the bits box for scale.

Since then I've been adding  scales in grey stuff. I found a great tutorial over at steamforged.com. for sculpting scales. they have loads of other good tutorials in their painting and modeling section. 

I've just got to do scales on the belly and necks then sculpt the heads now.

Warriors of chaos army book

With the warriors of chaos release a couple of months ago, I finally scraped together enough pennies to get the new rule book. I'm very disappointed. Despite the new hard cover and full colour illustrations, its a let down.
Imagine for a moment that you go to the bookshop to pick up the latest cover of a favourite book, because the last one fell apart at the spine only to discover that it has been re written by Stephanie Meyer.
It has gone from a good book with fantastic imagery and beautiful if disturbing illustrations to a overpriced shoddy "book of the film" merchandise tie in with painted over box photos.

The Marks of chaos have been nerfed, Nurgle has lost the -1 to hit on shooting, Tzeench lost the +1 to casting and got a +1 to channelling. All the magic items full of character have hit the cutting room floor, replaced by 9 that seem to be as likely to blow up in your face as turn the tide of battle.
Trolls have lost the mutant regeneration. Nurgle palanquins no longer poisonous despite nurglings in the demons of chaos list being poisonous.

It feels like it has been written to maximise profits. The new eye of the gods table means you need at least a daemon prince £25 and a couple of spawn £25. The shiny new units are very cool but need several boxes to make them work on the battle field and the Slaughterbrute that comes in at £50 that you have to buy twice.

All in all, I'm very disappointed and I'm going to be going back in time to play Oldhammer where the rules are imaginatively written and the whole game is designed to be a game rather than a mangle designed to get the most cash from your pocket. Once I've had a game with the new rules I'll post again with how they play but I'm not holding out much hope.

Warhammer at the weekend

On Sunday my good friend Matt came over for a game of Warhammer. I've given up trying to beat him as every time I've played against him I've lost. He is a much more experienced general than me.
With this in mind I chose an army list that I wanted to get the models out for rather than something competitive. I chose 1596pts of Chaos Dwarfs with 904 points from the old Warriors of chaos list.
there was a big Troll unit with Throgg at the helm two death shrieker rockets, a hell cannon and K'daai fireborn.
We tried to play a more interesting battle with a unit of bretonian bowmen defending a watchtower with an artefact in it. The Chaos Dwarfs wanted to take the item and the Dwarfs were sworn to destroy it. The luckless bowmen were stuck in the village gate house with two armies looming down on them.

Set up

Repairing a Gyrocopter

Infernal Guard chasing a fleeing Gyrocopter

Checking LoS from a badly positioned Deathshrieker rocket launcher. This is a great use for a camera. I was able to get right down onto the table and we could agree without bias whether anything was visible. 

Dwarfs declare a flank charge on Infernal Guard. Infernal Guard get steamrollered

Trolls in turn charge into the dwarfs and vomit all over them. Dwarfs drown in puke.

Dwarfs chop down the giant

K'daai rout the bowmen from the building causing them to flee between dwarf command and the Infernal Guard. The dwarfs trample the bowmen then charge into the Infernal Guard without pausing to wipe their feet.

The dwarfs fail two charges against the deathshrieker before turn 6 rolls around

The Trolls pursued by the Gyrocopter fail to reach the remaining stone thrower before turn 6.

Great things I have learned from this battle.

1. Take bigger units
2. Don't worry about winning 
3. Use a camera for LoS, it works really well!
4. A 6'x4' board fits really well on a double bed and makes a great surface for a battle.