Tag: Sylvaneth

More Painting & A Toothache

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On 10th July 2024

In Blog

The past weekend we painted the wall in Lindsay’s room that had the insulation work done on it. Friday morning, myself and Megan removed all the stuff from the wall and then painted two mist coats on the wall.

Saturday we were all knackered, so bugger all got done, but Sunday came, and we got three coats of brilliant white on the wall and it looks a lot better!

I also did the ceiling in the studio, where the workmen cut a hole in to stuff the roof with insulation, because its the part of the studio that’s been bothering me most.

Just popped up every time we did something in the room, I did a coat up there, and yeah looks nice

Other than that I am being bothered by a tooth infection, but I am seeing a dentist on Friday, right now it feels like my tooth is going to explode and leave shattered tooth all over my mouth 🙁

What I Am Modelling

I started off by painting the Enforcer Commander for my T’au to complete their second Combat Patrol

Followed by these Sister of Silence to complete the first Custodes Combat Patrol

First a Vigilator Squad

Followed by a Prosecutor Squad

And painted the Spirit of Durthu for the Sylvaneth

Alongside a normal Treelord too

So whats next?

  1. Escape from San Canciano Gangs
  2. Dark Angels Assault Intercessors x 10
  3. Genestealers x 20 & Broodlord
  4. Squig Hoppers x 10
  5. Ultramarines Infernus Squad x 5
  6. Roboute Guilliman x 2
  7. Barbgaunts x 5
  8. Blood Angels Landspeeders x 2
  9. Marneus Calgar x 2
  10. Mega Boss on Maw-Krusha

What Tabletop Games I Am Playing

Had a game of Heresy with Russell on Friday at Hartlepool Gamers, and yeah I got beat, of course.

But it was a great game none the less, and Evander Garius is a beast!

What Video Games I Am Playing

Started at last with Assassin’s Creed: Freedom Cry on stream, and I got it finished in five sessions!

And I started on Assassin’s Creed: Rogue Remastered

What I Am Creating

The next Combat Patrol Battle Report was published, this time featuring Megan!

What I Am Spending

We got ourselves an Ultrasonic Cleaner as part of the Studio Referb

And the first of a few Paint holders we need to save some space

We also grabbed some NFC tags to play around with some ideas, the main idea was to make a guest Wi-Fi connection board

That’s been mixed, due to Apple being a special boy, you can’t connect to the Wi-Fi with the NFC reader, so we had to put a QR code in for that.

Still awaiting an Android person to come round so we can test it properly.

What I have found a good use for so far, is to put one on my army boxes and link it to a Google Doc with whats in the box in it, and I think I am going to do this with all my army boxes over the next few weeks.

It was also Humble Choice week, so I got that and ended up with

UK Games Expo 2024

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On 13th June 2024

In Blog

I spent the other week at the UK Games Expo as a volunteer on IT and it was a knackering but amazing few days.

I really enjoyed it and I will absolutely being doing it again next year if they will have me, but I do have to be more realistic about my physical abilities and perhaps I need a job with more sitting down.

My journey to Birmingham was pretty bad, we got continually stuck in traffic, including being in the middle of a bunch of cars headed to a funeral that were following a marching band.

And finally the bus broke down as we left Manchester, and we had to wait over an hour for a replacement, so all in all it was a typical MegaBus journey!

I didn’t get to play many games, but the one that stood out to me was Samurai, but its long out of print, so I will be buying Pollen instead which is in print, if a little expensive.

There were a few cool things that peaked my interest, the DRPA Case and other stuff from Tabletop Tech, the amazing Colour Forge, TT Combat and their Strike Team Commander, Catalyst had Battletech which had me all nostalgic, and Gamer Grass had some amazing stuff as well.

Next year I need to take more notes to give a fuller report!

What I Am Modelling

On my return I hit the Chaos Space Marine Legionnaires of the True Sons

Alongside a Dark Apostle and friends

Plus an Aspiring Champion

After that a Branchwych

And then I painted a couple of units of Tree-Revenants

Plus I got Captain Karlaen of the Blood Angels finished

I am currently working on some Von Ryan’s Leapers for the Tyranids!

So what’s next?

  1. Imperial Fists Vindicator
  2. Von Ryan’s Leapers x 3
  3. Krondys
  4. Deathwing Terminators x 5, Deathwing Ancient & Bladeguard Lieutenant
  5. Soresplatta Fanatics x 12
  6. Havocs x 5
  7. Paragon Warsuits with Heavy Bolters x 3
  8. Spirit of Durthu
  9. Sisters of Silence x 10
  10. Blade Champion

What I Am Reading

I listened to Arrangements for War by Paul Sutton which was very good, but the ending was really heart breaking!

Now I am listening to Catachan Devil by Justin Woolley, which good, nice insight to the mind of Ork Kommandos

What Tabletop Games I Am Playing

I got a couple of games of 40K in at the weekend, playing both Dale and Craig in the 40K league, and if I don’t win the wooden spoon I will be peeved!!!

What Video Games I Am Playing

Bit of this and that, mostly God of War, Sonic Origins and I started Death Stranding.

What I Am Backing

I have backed The Colour Forge Signature Series, pretty sure I want the Reliquary Red by Hellstorm Gaming!

What I Am Spending

From UK Games Expo, I bought

Escape from San Canciano for Carnevale

A new cutting mat, clippers, knife, tape measure plus the Fresh Corrosion and Old Rust paints

I was sold a bottle of Sir Coates Steel, as well as the Sir Coates Models from the Duncan Rhodes Painting Academy

I got some Army Painter Fanatic paints and my first Speedpaint 2.0

The Colour Forge gave me a mini Dry Brush Palette

And finally from the UK Games Expo, a Apothecary Biologis and a Bladeguard Lt for my Dark Angels!

We also pulled the trigger and paid for a Elegoo Saturn 4 Ultra.

I had been set for the Saturn 4, but damn the reviews and even Megan, just were clear on how much better the Ultra was over the standard model.

So now just to wait for the postman to deliver it!

It was Humble Choice, so I bagged the following!

And to add to that I also bought

Not so much mine, but Lindsay did get the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles bundle from Humble Bundle, which I will be reading plenty of!

DAKboard

By

On 6th May 2024

In Blog

As many of you know, I am a diagnosed AuDHD person and one of the things that benefits me, is a visual list of what I need to do, but well, paper isn’t working and we have been looking for a more techy solution for a while.

We were looking at a screen just showing a .txt file for my to do list, and I spoke to Paul about it on Friday, but thinking, hey someone must have done this before, so I googled it and found a few things that would do the job.

I saw the MagicMirror 2 software, but it just wasn’t going to work due to the issues adding modules, needing to be done via terminal and I just don’t have the spoons for it right now.

So instead we are going with DAKboard, which isn’t open source and less customisable, but does the job really well.

Initially I was going to use a TV we had lying around, but well, there was an accident 🙁

So I turned to the old monitor I used for my second screen, and well, its not as good, but its done ok.

So I downloaded the DAKboard software and installed it to the SD card, after a few false starts due to the issues with a counterfeit card I got from Amazon.

I then had to wire up some new extension cables to power it, plus move a set of sockets from behind the bookcase to use with the hoover!

But inserted into my Raspberry Pi and it worked like a dream!

Had to order some specific length cables for the monitor power and the Micro HDMI to DVI needs, but now they are in, it looks a lot cleaner and is perfect for our use case

If this works, we will be buying a touchscreen screen better in the year to allow for dismissing of tasks on the DAKboard interface directly

In the meantime, this has the local weather, our calendars, and both the household and my to do list!

Here is hoping it does the job!

What I Am Modelling

Most was building stuff, but I did get a few things painted, starting with some Thermic Plasma Conduits for Zone Mortalis

And some random stuff, plus a set of Alcomite Stacks for the board too

I also finally painted the Arbite Arbitratror from the Model of the Month a while back.

And some Hobgrot Slittaz were painted too

And Dryca Hamadreth was painted too!

And after that it was a set of Arco-Flaggents for my Sisters

Plus some Sisters Repentia

Then came a Dark Angels Intercessor Squad

Followed by a Dark Angels Ancient

For the Blood Angels, I got a Squad of Eliminators painted

Plus Radukar the Wolf which I got with Stormbringer

And an Assassins from the Cities of Sigmar, also from Stormbringer

So whats up next?

  1. Sneaky Snufflers x 12
  2. Lasrifle Section x 20
  3. Space Wolves Infiltrators x 10, Eliminators x 3 & Battle Leader in Phobos Armour
  4. Psychophage
  5. Megaboss on Maw-Krusha
  6. Boingrot Bounders x 10
  7. Ultramarines Invader ATV x 2
  8. Tree-Revenants x 10 & Branchwych
  9. Chaos Space Marines x 10 & Dark Apostle
  10. Blood Angels Primaris Captains x 4

What I Am Reading

I have been listening to The Infinite and the Divine by Robert Rath.

And before that is was The Twilight Kingdom by Will Shindler.

What Tabletop Games I Am Playing

Got a few league games in, the first was against Matthews Space Marines, which was a loss, but not so bad that I felt outmatched

Then I took on George’s Tyranids, and yeah that was a bloodbath for me!

I was also able to get in a game of Heresy against Paul, and was able to try out Knights in Heresy for the first time in 2.0

What Video Games I Am Playing

Got a couple of sessions of Assassins’s Creed IV: Black Flag in on Stream

I am also playing Final Fantasy II on my Steam Deck, which is a very different game to the first one I played a few months ago

What I Am Backing

I backed a 3D Printing project, the Sci-Fi Outpost – PAY WHAT YOU WANT, which has now completed its funding cycle, and will hopefully soon deliver me some cool STLs!

What I Am Spending

I bought the Sisters of Silence I need for the first Custodes Combat Patrol, along with some paints

And a new microphone to help with Battle Reports, now that they have to be done on Lindsay’s MacBook

And Leon bought a fourth Kroot launch box, so I bought the Codex and Data Cards off him for the T’au

And I bought a few games too for my PC, these were:-

Moved From Docker, But Its Better In The Long Run!

By

On 9th March 2024

In Blog

About a month ago, I realized that the geniuses behind Audio Book Shelf had released a native Windows version of the application. Until then, I had been running it in a Docker install. However, this method was slow and could only allocate 2GB of RAM, greatly impacting performance.

So, I decided to switch from Docker to the Windows version. Unfortunately, this transition resulted in the loss of all metadata due to differences in how Linux and Windows file structures operate.

Consequently, I find myself having to re-add all the metadata. While this isn’t an issue for much of the content, as Audio Book Shelf can scrape data from Audible, it’s a manual task for Big Finish, which constitutes the majority of my collection. Thus, it’s quite time-consuming.

Currently, I’ve managed to complete the metadata for all titles up to those beginning with ‘O’. Although it’s taking time, the effort will certainly be worth it.

Furthermore, I’ve adjusted settings so that metadata is now stored with the files rather than in a central database. This change aims to prevent similar issues in the future, particularly if I decide to switch my server back to Linux from Windows.

What I Am Modelling

I started off by painting a Loonboss on a Giant Cave Squig for my Gloomspite Gitz

Followed by a Heavy Support Squad for my Imperial Fists, armed with Heavy Bolters.

Then I painted some Spite Revenants for my Sylvaneth.

As well as a Branchwych for them too

I then finished up a Penitent Engine for the Sisters of Battle

Before painting another Loonboss on Giant Cave Squig

I am now working on some Vigilors for the Stormcast Eternals

So whats up next?

  1. Vigilors x 10
  2. Nexus Syphon
  3. Chief Librarian Tigurius & Primaris Librarians x 2
  4. Homonculus
  5. Bloodletters x 10
  6. Saint Celestine
  7. Death Company x 10, Chaplain & Rhino
  8. Stabbas x 40
  9. Wulfen x 5
  10. Ultramarines Hellbalsters x 5

What I Am Reading

Not much, but I did listen to Cypher: Lord of the Fallen by John French which was very interesting.

What Tabletop Games I Am Playing

On Wedensday I played a Hartlepool League game with Leon, and his T’au kicked my arse!

I had another game of 40K for the Hartlepool League with Dale on Saturday, and despite his very good list, I didn’t lose as badly as expoected!

What Video Games I Am Playing

I have returned to Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag.

What I Am Spending

I bought myself a few bits of DLC

Space Marines Are Not A Good Starter Army

By

On 28th January 2024

In Blog

I said what I said!

But back in the day, Space Marines were the default starter army, S4, T4 and hitting on 3s with a 3+ armour save, they were decently tough, and didn’t need a lot to make them work well.

Plus they were really easy to paint and make your own.

But these days, they are not a good starter set, they have a bloated list that half the time makes little sense.

Here is the thing, how would you recommend starting a Space Marine army, its always been to recommend the Battleforce/Start Collecting/Combat patrol as they always included a Troops/Battleline, that you could build your army around.

But today, the Combat Patrol doesn’t contain a Battleline unit, the Infernus Marines aren’t one, and its a pretty elite force, simply not one that its easy to build an army around.

And even then, look at what is available, its so many units that its hard to actually look at the list as a beginner and figure out how to start an army.

A kid I know who wants to play Ultramarines was genuinely confused, because, they simply couldn’t figure out how to build an army, what they absolutely needed and how to synergise the army.

Look I am not saying Space Marines are now crap, its just really difficult to build a list as a beginner, and there is no starter box that represents the army as the very basic units which can form a decent core.

How would I fix it, well I would love to see a Combat Patrol with Intercessors at its core, the ETB Redemptor Dreadnought, and a Lieutenant.

Heck, why not release the sprue from Dark Imperium which had the Intercessors, Ancient, and two Lieutenants, then throw in an ETB kit, perhaps the Invader ATV, or as I suggested the ETB Redemptor Dreadnought.

Here is the crack, I ended up recommending the Dark Angels Combat Patrol, or the Blood Angels Combat Patrol, as these have generic units, one of which is an Intercessor Squad, a HQ and a couple of other interesting units. Actually, if you can, get both, they synergise well together, and just sell the upgrade sprues!

What I Am Modelling

I started the week by painting a unit of 10 Gutrippas for my Orruk Warclans

Followed by Snazzgar Stinkmullett the Fungoid Cave Shaman for the Gloomspite Gitz, which means I have now painted all four of the Harbingers of the Malign Portents!

Then a unit of Suppressors for the Space Wolves

After which I painted a Warlock Bombardier from the Skaven range

And then an Arch Revenant for a new Sylvaneth army

As well as Ylthari’s Guardians.

Then it was time to deal with some Tyranids, and I got the Tyranid Prime with Wings completed

And finally a Screamer-Killer.

So what’s up next week?

  1. Termagants x 20
  2. Gitz Stabbas x 40
  3. Ork Warbikers x 3
  4. Knight Judicator
  5. Khagra’s Ravagers
  6. Dark Angels Intercessors x 5
  7. Imperial Fists Heavy Bolter Squad x 10
  8. Spite Revenants
  9. Penitent Engine
  10. Vigilors x 10

What I Am Reading

I started to listed to The Talon of Horus by Aaron Dembski-Bowden, it’s a book I have started a couple of times, but never gotten past the first 30 minutes cause I get disturbed then forget about it.

But this time I am determined to listen it all!

I am also plodding on with The Tower of Nerek by David Guymer.

What Tabletop Games I am Playing

I played Matthew in the Hartlepool 40K league, and won 50-41, but that was only secured due to painting points!

I also played Edward, and I lost that game very badly to an Aeldari alpha strike, a wonderful game, even if I was hammered!

What Video Games I am Playing

I have started on Yakuza 0 and so far its interesting but werid!

I was horribly ill on Sunday, so played through Portal on my Steam Deck for the first time since 2007, I want to play Portal RTX but my 3070 struggles with it!

I did get a bit of streaming in, but its been difficult of late with Lindsay changing her work schedule.

What I Am Spending

I bought the Bloodletters I needed to complete the Chaos Daemons Combat Patrol from eBay

Along with some Genestealers, I only need four to top up my two existing units to full 10 grubby units, so if anyone wants four more to do the same…

And I got the Datacards for the Adeptus Mechanicus

We needed a KVM for the studio to allow easy switching between the media server and Lindsay’s laptop. This Ugreen one was on special offer on Amazon, so we grabbed it and it does what we need.

I also bought a few games

I also bough the Twin Sails Bundle on Humble Bundle, which got me:-

The rest of the games were given to Lindsay and Karen as I already had them.

I got some books too, The End and the Death: Volume III by Dan Abnett, both as an ePub and MP3 audio book, plus Sons of the Emperor as a MP3 audio book.

Of course I got Lords of the Lance by Graham McNeill, as a ePub and MP3 audiobook, and the Shamanslayer MP3 audio book by Nathan Long.

From Big Finish I got Dad’s Army: The Radio Series by Jimmy Perry & David Croft, Poppet by Lauren Mooney & Stewart Pringle, Danger and Deception by Alan Fennell, Fugitive of the Daleks by Jonathan Morris.

From Marvel, I got Moon Knight: Age of Anubis by Jonathan Green, and Doomgate by Jeffrey Lang as an MP3 audiobook.

Starting Sylvaneth with Mortal Realms

By

On 15th August 2020

In Blog

A lot of you will now be getting into your hands the second Premium Pack for Hachettes Mortal Realms, and this time it contains Sylvaneth so just like last time with the Flesh Eaters Courts, let’s look at how you can expand this set into a 1000ts and 2000pts army.

So let’s start by looking at what you get in the pack.

  • Spite Revenants x 5
  • Dryca Hamadreth
  • Branchwych

Plugging that into Battlescribe that gives us a total of 440 points, so a lot less than the Flesh Eaters.

So where would I go first, well looking at the warscolls in the Battletome, I would be tempted to start with The Outcasts Warscroll Battalion, which needs 3 units of Spite Revenants, so you need to go and buy two more boxes of them.

After this I would probably grab a Start Collecting Sylvaneth box and use the Treelord and Dryads from that to add to the army. And also grab the Endless Spells and use the Spiteswarm Hive from that.

So now your list should look like this:-

+ Leader [380pts] +

Branchwych [80pts]

Drycha Hamadreth [300pts]

+ Behemoth [180pts] +

Treelord [180pts]

+ Battleline [100pts] +

Dryads [100pts]: 10 Dryads [100pts]

+ Battalion [280pts] +

Battalion: Outcasts [280pts]
. Spite-Revenants [60pts]: 5 Spite-Revenants [60pts]
. Spite-Revenants [60pts]: 5 Spite-Revenants [60pts]
. Spite-Revenants [60pts]: 5 Spite-Revenants [60pts]

+ Malign Sorcery [50pts] +

Endless Spell: Spiteswarm Hive [50pts]

Going to 2000 points I would start by adding some Tree Revenants, so that you could form those, your Treelord and Branchwych into a Household Warscroll Battalion.

Then I would grab a second Start Collecting Box and use this to add two more units of Dryads and a second Branchwych so that I could add the Forest Folk Warscroll Battalion and a Treelord Ancient.

And lastly I would drop the Spiteswarm Hive and instead add a unit of Kurnoth Bunters with Kurnoth Greatbows for some ranged firepower’s.

So this is the list I would build for 2000 points.

+ Leader [560pts] +

Drycha Hamadreth [300pts]

Treelord Ancient [260pts]

+ Other [190pts] +

Kurnoth Hunters [190pts]: 3 Kurnoth Hunters [190pts], Kurnoth Greatbow

+ Battalion [1,240pts] +

Battalion: Forest Folk [520pts]
. Branchwraith [80pts]: 1. Throne of Vines
. Dryads [100pts]: 10 Dryads [100pts]
. Dryads [100pts]: 10 Dryads [100pts]
. Dryads [100pts]: 10 Dryads [100pts]

Battalion: Household [440pts]
. Branchwych [80pts]
. Tree-Revenants [80pts]: 5 Tree-Revenants [80pts], Glade Banner, Protector Glaive, Waypipes
. Treelord [180pts]

Battalion: Outcasts [280pts]
. Spite-Revenants [60pts]: 5 Spite-Revenants [60pts]
. Spite-Revenants [60pts]: 5 Spite-Revenants [60pts]
. Spite-Revenants [60pts]: 5 Spite-Revenants [60pts]

I am not gonna pretend I am a tactical genius here, this list is probably very sub-optimal, but it’s what I would do personally because I think this is a nice route to 2000 points.

I would also very much look at grabbing an Awakened Wyldwood, because it’s fantastic in game and will really add something to your army.

In terms of painting, I would point you towards the tutorial on YouTube by Duncan Rhodes when he was at Warhammer TV for Ylthari’s Guardians.

So let me know what you think of my ideas, and if you are gonna give them a try out, let me know how it goes!

Just a quick note, if you do follow the links to Element Games and buy something from them, a little bit of a commission is made for Edge of Empire which helps keep the podcast running.

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