A friend of mine is a professional photographer by trade (its a fantastic job – highly recommend it if you can do it…) and he was down at my place one afternoon. He never really requires much of an excuse to get his camera out, so, noticing some of my painted models on a bookshelf he asked if he could photograph them. I wasn’t going to pass up the opportunity to get my models all photographed up in their finery, but we had a problem – we needed a studio.

A quick trip to the newsagent, and the studio was ready to go. I won’t try to explain it – check it out on his blog (he actually knows what he’s talking about…).

Read the article at KentMarcus Photography.

Yesterday I wandered into a newsagent and bought a copy of this month’s White Dwarf magazine. Why? Because a previous White Dwarf told me to. Or, rather, it told be what came with it.

Pictured here is the sprue you get for free with this month’s White Dwarf. It’s a Space Marine Terminator, and an Ork Nob. Now, I’m a sucker for “free” stuff, and I like painting individual models, which are devoid of the fear of having to paint 31 more of the same things, so I leapt for joy. And they’re good. Really good.

There’s an article in the White Dwarf which discusses the new boxed set for Warhammer 40k, in particular the models they included. They’ve managed to pack an obscene amount of miniatures into the boxed set somehow, and it’s due to advances in their moulding.

Over the last few years, we’ve grown used to multi-part plastic model kits, with dozens of accessories and stuff. We’ve also grown used to the fact that for the really good models, you need metal. Well, no more. These new models, both in the White Dwarf and the boxed set, are metal quality. They are only a few parts, no accessories, but the detail is incredible. This forum thread has pictures of the White Dwarf models, assembled and painted, and as you can see, they’re really nice.

The White Dwarf article commented on the design of the new Space Marine commander for the boxed set: because it’s just a few parts, which can only really go one way, they could focus on making that one way really awesome, instead of needing to account for whatever weapon you want to put in his hand. Basically, it’s just like a metal model, but in plastic.

This is awesome. Seriously. The future looks bright. I can’t wait until they make me a plastic Treeman, and plastic Warhawks so I don’t have to spend several hours waiting for the superglue to dry. As an added plus, good plastic models have less mould lines and the like which often need to be removed from metal models. And plastic models tend not to break: I once faced an opponent who literally chucked his ork casualties into a pile; neither do they bend into funny shapes. They’re also easier to paint, the plastic naturally holding the paint better than metal.

Now, these models won’t replace the multi-part plastics: the multi-parts are better for regiments and the like.  I just hope they can change all the metal models to plastic like this. Besides: I’m sick of supergluing my fingers together.

When you are in a tight pinch for a monster model, Lego, once again, can come to the rescue. In our recent campaign run by Ellisthion we encountered a Fire Elemental. Of course, Ellisthion didn’t have a model for it. A couple of hours and no red blocks left, what you see to the left is the result (click on the picture for a close-up).

Truly, there is nothing that you can’t do with lego.

About 10 years ago, my brother and I started work on a game we called Cyborg. It was a great game until we tried to write down the rules. We have subsequently tried three times to codify the game and each time we have made it suck hard. I think its mostly my fault – I usually do a pretty good job of codifying rules, but I usually do my own games. This is, I think, probably something that the creator of the game concept should have done. If we are lucky, one day he will.

Essentially the game is played in the far future when corporations have taken over the running of the planet (“Will the member for Pepsi please be quiet, the member for Coke has the floor!”) but the terminology has remained largely the same. In other words, hostile take overs are take overs of companies, only now there tends to be a little more blood shed.

The model above was painted as part of a four man “Auditing Team”. There was Mr Blue, Mr Orange (pictured), Mr Scarface and Bob. I had visions of the auditing team coming from Miami and wearing ridiculous clothes – hence the orange suit. I think it worked out great – the photo was taken by a photographer friend of mine Kent Marcus.