Taller, leaner, and so easy to build ANYONE can do it!

• Hive Tyrant flying tail and hip insert
• 4 x Carnifex Horn, Trygon spikes, or something similar
• 2x Genestealer Extended Carpace (hey, you don’t need them in the new codex anyway)
• Spare Trygon headplate
• Spare Genestealer Torso (time to gut those poor Ymgarls)
• A spare Tyranid head, preferably small, like a gaunt head, stealer head, or tyranid warrior (we used Chapterhouse Alien Cthulu heads, which we love!, but aren’t necessarily needed for the conversion)
• ‘Green Stuff’ or the equivalent in your favorite 2 part epoxy (we are partial to Apoxie Sculpt)
• Tube Tool, power cables, or something similar (see below)

In truth, this conversion couldn’t be simpler.  Here’s how it works.

Firstly, assemble the tail.

Afterwards, glue the two pairs of horns/spikes in the place the zoanthrope’s vestigial talons would normally go.  This is the spot the legs would go on a regular hive tyrant.

Grab your genestealer torso.  Clip off the leg(s) and the tip of the tail.  Just the tip.  

 Since we are using the Cthulu Alien head, we needed to cut the ‘eyes’ off to get the head to flushly nestle underneath the Trygon head plate.  However, for the smaller heads, like a stealer head, termagant head, or the like, you just want to clip it, trim it down, or file it down so it smoothly sets underneath the headplate at the far end, where the face/mouth of the zoanthrope will be.

 Now, glue the head into position and use the genestealer body for the main brain.  Yes, I know, you can sculpt a brain and save a genestealer.  But here’s the thing, most of us have a few stealers lying around we don’t need, and using the stealer torso will save you a good amount of time from sculpting the brain.  So pick your poision:  burn a genestealer and save time, or save the stealer and burn time making a brain.  Your choice.

 Okay, whichever way you go, now you need to mount the head to the ‘neck’, which is the old hip.  I used just a little dab of apoxie sculpt to build up a slight bridge between the two.  Don’t make this too thick, as you are going to putty over it in the next steps.  Let this dry, at least until it’s hard enough to glue down permanently.

Once dry, you are going to fill in the rest of this gap with epoxy as well.  Your goal here is to get a nice, smooth transition between the next and the head, without covering up too many details.  Right now his neck looks pretty fat, but we’re going to change that in the next steps.

Now go in and fill in the slight gap behind the new models ‘talon vestigial arms).  You don’t need to sculpt any detail here, since we’re going to be covering this up with the extended carapace anyway.  Namely, you are just trying to get a smooth surface for the extended carapace to adhere to.

 Meanwhile, go ahead and fill the gap at the back of the head too!  I tried to do something similar to the genestealer carapace here.  Since viewers will rarely if ever be looking under the hood of this model, I didn’t spend a great deal of time here.  Just a few simple swipes with a clay shaper and right as rain.

To keep a consistent look, I poked a few ‘brain holes’ in the newly puttied area.

Looking good so far, IMHO, but there is a real lack of detail here. Instead of spending a lot of time working on detail here, let’s try to hide the lack of detail with a few simple distractions.  Namely adding a few simple details, drawing the attention away from the lack of detail and instead towards the detail we put in place.  Painters do this all the time by having you focus on things like OSL, battle damage, and the like.  We can do the same thing with our kit bashed minis, if we are smart about it.

 To start, we need a little white noise background texture.  I used a simple needle to scrape some holes along the side of the grey stuff, to give it some texture.

 Now, here’s the tricky part.  I wanted to add a few bio-tubes to help hide the lack of general detail here.  For these tubes, I used a specialty tube tool from Masq-Mini.  There are other versions of this tool on the market, and the buy in for this tool is high relatively speaking, but the amount of time it saves you is life altering and I have never regretted buying a set of these many years ago.

 So if you have this tool, SUPER DUPER!  Then make a few hoses and apply them to your model.  If you don’t . . . well, . . . time to get creative.  Either make a few green stuff tubes and score the tube marks into them, or alternately find some actual tubing to apply to the model.  Dragon Forge makes some great power cables that would work well for this purpose and you get a ton for your money!!!

 To be fair, the tubes are kinda an extra detail, unnecessary to the total conversion, but if you have the means available, they can really sell the model IMHO.    Finally, glue the extended carapace in place behind the talons/vestigial arms of the model, hiding your earlier gap filling.

Presto, you’re done!  Here’s what they look like presented as a brood.  It’s worth noting that these zoanthropes stand significantly taller than a normal Zoanthrope, so perhaps not GT friendly, but certainly great for friendly games.

I know, I know, I can here it now “Great, here’s an article to build slender man zoanthrope, but ONLY if you have a bagillion bits on hand!  Thanks, buddy.’  So for those of you without the same bitz box I have, here are a few suggestions to rework the article in your favor:

Tail:  Use as spare hive tyrant tail if you have the other one available.  Doesn’t have to be the flying tail.  You could also use a spare ravener tail, if you have one lying around.

Hip/Neck: if you don’t have the hip piece, try using a carnifex head as a neck piece.  Just cut off the face, and glue the head, open end down, into the tyrant tail socket.

You could also use a spare ravener tail, if you have one lying around.  Just clip off the lower half and use the upper half like a neck.

Head/Brain:  Don’t have Cthulu heads (why would you, of course) ?  No problem, here a few substitutions.
Use a carnifex head with the top half shave off for a much BIGGER head.

Use any spare head you have lying around, from an old 2nd edition Lictor head to a ripper head.

Use a termagant head with a spare ravener torso plate for the brain.

Talons/Vestigial Arms:
Prefer traditional arms?  No problem.  Use some spare scything talons from any number of kits, such as the ravener kit, hormogaunts, or genestealers in place of the tiny little arms I crafted above.

Be sure to check out some of our other crazy kit bashes on our facebook page, here, including this bad boy!
 

Hive Bases for Tyranids (and other resin casting goodness!)

Greetings fellow wargamers!  Caleb with White Metal Games here with another fun tip/tutorial for you!

Those of you that follow my blog will know that I am a long time Tyranid aficionado.  I love me some bugs.  And whether you love or hate the new Nid codex, we can all agree that the Tyranids are a dynamic, evocative race that are as fun to paint as they are to play!  I’ve seen every sort of Nid color scheme from bumble bee orange/black to bio luminescent jellyfish nids, and everything in between.

However, what Tyranid army would be complete with custom bases?!  There are some amazing resin bases out there on the market, from Dragonforge to Secret Weapon, to name just a few off the top of my head.  But resin bases get pricey fast, especially when you are basing an entire army!

This is not to say resin bases aren’t worth every penny.  The time they save you and the way they make your army stand out on the table cannot be matched.  That being said, guys like me don’t love a project unless we’re doing it ourselves, so this article is for the folks out there, like me that like to do their own casting.

I don’t know if you’ve consider it or not, but there are some amazing silicone ice cube trays out there that work great as casting molds for a variety of basing purposes, terrain, etc.   A few years ago I started experimenting with precast silicone ice trays and other mold like devices.

For this tutorial, we are using a set of silicone ice trays and a set of plastic ice trays I got at the supermarket.

You can find the hexagon ice trays here and the portal ice tray here!

As with most two part resins, you mix equal parts of either agent.  I use measuring cups that I buy from the dollar store.  It’s cheap and you can reuse them for hundreds of castings before they are finally so gross it’s just easier to buy a new set.

This article is not intended how to teach you how to cast.  If you want to learn all that, there are tons of youtube videos and tutorials, but I would be remiss if I didn’t mention Hirst Arts.  I can honestly say I learned 95% of everything I know about casting and mold making today by exploring his exhaustive site for days and days and days.  A wealth of knowledge at your door.

After mixing the agents, and spraying a little mold release in the trays for good measure, I fill the ice trays with the compound resin.  Some of the hex cells I fill to different levels, some barely at all.  This will give me a variety of heights for my mounted models, and allow me some fun posting options.

I use the resin that sets in five minutes.  If you have a vibrating table or the equivalent so much the better.  If not, well, just rattle the table a bit after you fill the molds and you should be fine.  These aren’t complex molds and they breath very well.

Once done, pop out your results.  You can see here in just minutes I’ve cast up a wide variety of sizes, heights, etc.  These trays have a very high yield.

This white tray below is a Portal cube tray.  I’m thinking of using some of these as either objectives, or terrain, or maybe both.  You could easily cover up the heart logo with a Space Marine Icon from a drop pod or the like with minimal effort.

Here you can see I’ve arranged a few of the hex bases around both a 60mm base and a 120mm base for the larger Tyranid organisms.  I recommend NOT gluing them into place until you have experimented with how your models look onto top of the resin castings.

Some models, like the Tyrannofex or Exocrine, while quite larger, and not very poss-able.  As such these hex blades won’t be ideal for every model out there in the current range, and bi-peds such as the Hive Tyrant, Carnifex, or the like will be ideally suited for these bases.

We’ll be working on a new studio army over the next few months and we’ll be testing out a few of these hex style resin bases on our own studio Nids.

YES, YES, I know, you’d like to see these bases look with some actual tyranids modelled on them, right?

Fine, here you go!

We’re thinking about using the Portal Ice cube tray to create some stacks of techno-crates.  I could also seeing casting up a bunch and building some sort of strange pyramid or shrine with them.

If you found this tutorial useful, be sure to check out more of our work on our homepage, or at the very least, like us on facebook!   We also have a new podcast called Warcouncil where we share other cool hobby tips!  And you can see more tips through our Youtube channel!  

Caleb, White Metal Games

Crackle medium . . . what all can it be used for?  .

Greetings fellow wargamers!  Caleb with White Metal Games here!  And today I have a quick tip for you!

Over the holidays GW Released their Agrellan Earth technical paint, a crackle medium paint.  Mediums like Crackle, Frost, Pearlized, etc don’t have a major place in our hobby and I’ve never entirely been sure why.  My theory is that until the major paint vendors like Privateer Press, GW, Reaper, Vallejo, and others release their own version of these mediums, most of the consumers remain in the dark about them.

Well personally, I don’t have time to wait around for their okay to proceed.  I like to test out things for myself.  Crackle Medium is very cheap and easy to obtain.  I picked up a bottle at Walmart for $5 bucks!

I’ve been trying to think of uses for Crackle Medium for a while now, and suddenly the other day I got a burst of insight.  Veins!  Veins on wings (and anywhere else you want veins) no longer have to be a pain.  Now, I’m not saying I am the only person that’s ever had this idea, but a quick Google search didn’t reveal a lot of findings, so I felt like a post dedicated to the technique could be valuable.

Okay, so here’s how it works:  Firstly, grab a wing.  I’m using an old pewter Gargoyle wing below from the Tyranid range, however any leather wing would do.  Prime the wing, preferably in a light color like white or grey.  I’m using Vallejo light grey primer below.

 Next, grab your crackle medium, a color for the veins (I’m using VMA Scarlet Red), and a color to go over the veins for contrast.  Since this is a training tutorial, I went with a simple flesh color.  This is actually a sample paint from reaper, but it’s fleshy enough for my purposes.

 Once your primer is dry, apply red.  I was generous here and applied a nice, even coat using an airbrush.

Author’s Note:  I realize veins can be a variety of colors, including blue, purple (for old veins), etc.  However, the same technique can in theory be applied to any underlying color.  And a clever painter might even blend together a few underlying colors, like blue and red to create some dark purple patches, so that the final effect is more rich and interesting.  

 After it dries, apply a generous amount of crackle medium to anywhere you want veins.  I did it in the inner part of the wings, the leathery membrane.  It goes on clear, so you’ll just have to trust me that this happened.

Now, let that dry.  For the final stage, thin your flesh paint down a little bit.  What you want is a nice, even top coat, not so thick you can’t shift it around on the model.  If applied correctly, then the crackle medium will start to do it’s job in mere moments!  So hold your breath and wait for the magic to happen!

 And that’s it!  Simple, yet effective.  What?!  I said this was a tip, not a book report.  Honestly I could have made this a three word article:  Crackle for Veins.

Even though this tutorial is brief, we could encourage readers to try crackle medium to achieve other fun effects.  Try some of these!

Wood Grain:  Black base coat with Brown Overcoat

Marble:  Black base coat with off white/bone white top coat

Lightning:  White or pale blue base coat with darker blue top coat

To see more of what’s going on at White Metal Games, like this interesting Ork Ghost Ark (wtf?) below, be sure to check out our facebook page for all the most recent happenings!  And give us a like if you, well, like what you see.

And until then, PUT YOUR MINIS WHERE YOUR MOUTH IS!

You put your right hand in and you smash it all about!

Hey guys, Caleb with White Metal Games here!

Recently I was tasked with coming up with a right handed power fist for a Chaos Helbrute.  I know, I know, nobody likes Helbrutes in this addition.  However, I’d argue that a Chaos Helbrute with two power fists and twin heavy flamers is actually a wrecking ball at 130 points!

The problem of course was how to covert the second power fist.  The only Helbrute on the market right now is the Dark Vengeance model, which while cheap and easy to acquire doesn’t have what I’d call many options, or any options for that matter.  Fortunately, conversions like this are what I live for!

Since I had kit bashed a few Helbrute back when Dark Vengeance was released, I had a few spare helbrutes laying around.

Here’s what you’ll need for this conversion:

2 Helbrutes (stop whining, they’re less than $5 each on ebay!)
1 Daemon Prince open hand right arm (about $5 for bit plus shipping)
Clippers, Glue, and a Razor Saw

All told, you can build this model for less than $20 and still have most of the 2nd helbrute left over for another conversion.  This is how bits boxes are born, people!  Get with the program!

Okay, this conversion couldn’t be simpler.  Here’s how it works.

 First, clip the long fingers off the Daemon Prince right arm.  Be sure to save the fingers, as these can be useful for conversions down the road.  You’d be surprised.  Clean up the edges where you cut with a hobby knife.

Now, using a pair of clipper, carefully clip both halfs of the arm behind the ‘elbow’.  Clean it up a little bit with a hobby knife.  Now glue the arm together normally.

Remove the melta barrels from the helbrutes right arm.  These are also worth saving IMHO.  They are useful for melta guns, engine exhausts, etc, down the road.  Now glue the arm together otherwise normally.

Once dry, you are going to dry fit the open handed daemon prince forearm against the helbrute melta barrel arm, which now is more of an upper arm/elbow.  If they fit smoothly, great!  If not, clean it up a bit with a hobby knife.  Then using some plastic glue to weld the two pieces together.  Allow at least 1-2 hours to dry fully.

Okay, one of your two helbrutes is what we are going to call the spare helbrute.  Using the right (powerfist) arm on the spare helbrute, carefuly remove the fingers from the right hand.  I used a craft saw to do this, carefully sawing the three main fingers off the hand, then using a pair of clipper to carefully remove the ‘thumb’.

Clean up the fingers so that they are relatively clean and smooth.

Dry fit the fingers onto the daemon prince arm and once satisfied with the placement, glue them into position. Let dry.

Now the model is more or less done. All you need to do is use a little 2 part epoxy to till in the gap along the elbow and under the hand/fingers.

I know, I know . . . you don’t love the posing.  Well,  if you are up for a challenge, then feel free to repose the figure in a more evocative stance, like this feral beastie we are putting together for a themed fallen Wolf Brothers army.

Got a cool helbrute conversion?  We’d love to see it!  Post a picture in the comments below, and then you’ll really . . . 
PUT YOUR MINIS WHERE YOUR MOUTH IS! 

Caleb, WMG


If you found this tutorial useful, be sure to check out more of our work on our homepage, or at the very least, like us on facebook!   We also have a new podcast called Warcouncil where we share other cool hobby tips!  And you can see more tips through our Youtube channel!  

Caleb, White Metal Games

If you’ve got an old picture frame, you’re half way to your new display board!

Hey guys!  Caleb with White Metal Games here.  When most of us are getting ready for a tournament, the last thing on our mind is a display board, especially for new players.  The cost of models, time to assemble (and convert) as well as time to paint eats up all our resources.

But a good display board can mean the difference between having a good looking army and having a great looking army!  And building one can be easier than you think.

I recently volunteered to building a few Demo Board for my favorite FLGS.  In practical terms there is very little that is different about a demo board to a display board, and in most instances they can be used interchangeably.  In fact if you can build terrain, you can build a display/demo board.

Obviously every player is going to want something different out of their display board, and certain armies will look better on certain types of board than others.  For example, if I build a creepy graveyard board for my Vampire Counts, then it might not work well for my Sisters of Battle army.

This tutorial is more intended to show newcomers to the hobby one way they might bang out a fairly generic display board in a day or two for their upcoming tournament. It’s not intended for veterans, nor is it the end all be all only way you can do this.  So with that being said, on with the tutorial!

To start I grabbed a large frame from a local thrift shop.  Big frames like this go for about $10-$15 generally.  You don’t need one with glass (since you’ll just be removing the glass anyway), so a broken picture frame can sometimes be a bargain.  This frame is a little bigger than I traditionally use.  Most of the time a frame about 24″ x 24″ will suffice, however, you can go a littler bigger or smaller depending on the army it’s being designed for.  Obviously a horde army will need a bigger frame than a GK Paladin army, etc.

 Remove the glass, if there is any.  If you are going to simply break the glass, BE EXTRA CAREFUL!  Obviously shattered glass poses a safety risk on many levels.  I would instead recommend removing the backing material from the frame,then removing the glass that way instead.  Glass can be recycled, so if you have a large recycling bin just deposit it gently.

This particular frame posed several challenges.  The first of which was the matte.  I decided to keep the matte as this would create some depth to the board once done, like the soldiers were in a slight defile.
I removed the old backing paper, carefully bent the metal holding spikes up, and removed the old glass.  Then I used the glass like a template to measure the size of a replacement piece of foam board.  I wedged this in front of the backing cardboard.  This helped to reinforce the board, so now there were several layers to the board:  cardboard, foamboard, then the matte material.  I bent the holding spikes back into place.

To be extra sure that nothing would collapse, I also grabbed a roll of craft paper (the my wife uses for parties like a tablecloth that kids can draw on) and outlined the size of the frame on the craft paper.  Then I cut it out, glued it down to the edges of the frame.

I also stapled it for good measure.  This will ensure that the paper doesn’t go anywhere.  Be warned these staples could scratch a table so perhaps apply some felt to the staples once done to ensure this doesn’t happen.

Next, I gathered up a variety of terrain supplies out of my bits vault.  I knew I didn’t want anything too flashy or too tall.  The goal with a display board is to draw attention to your army, without drawing too much attention to the display board itself.  It should accentuate your army and make them look better, sort of the way any geek looks better when standing next to a beautiful person of the opposite gender.  Think of it like a narrative base for the entire army.

I lay out some of the bigger pieces to get a general sense of where I might want to put things.  This isn’t a firm rule, I just want to have a sense of where things might go, so I can plan accordingly.  Obviously this display board, being a demo board, was meant to have several different types of terrain, all of which are fairly flat and low to the ground.  If you are designing something more extravagant, like a Necron Tomb World or Heldrake Aerie, then you’ll want to plan accordingly.  I personally feel board with a lot of elaborate catwalks and such can take away from the army, but a few well placed pieces of even very tall terrain can really make the board pop.

Since this board was matted, I’m going to need to smooth over the transition between the higher level of the board with the lower level of the sunken foam board.  I’ve used lots of different types of plaster over the years, from Plaster of Paris to simple spackle.  The problem with plaster is two fold:  One, it’s brittle, and chips easily.  Two, it’s heavy and adds a great deal of weight to your terrain or boards.  A few months ago I discovered this amazing stuff called plaster cloth, which sort of solves both problems!  And it’s cheap!

Plaster cloth is a bit like an ace bandage.  You cut strips of it and dip them into a basin of water.

Then you apply them much in the same way you might paper mache.  The water activates the plaster and you simply smooth the strips out with your hands.  You rub the strips down and it causes the plaster to fill in the holes on the strips, so that in the end you are left with a very thin layer of what looks like plaster, but is in fact much lighter and not at all brittle.

Obviously it gets messy and you’ll need to tive it some time to dry.  Also, since the gauze it wet it tends to cling to whatever it is laid over quite tightly.  For me, this meant that the transition was still quite pronounced ever after a few layers.  I ended up applying about 4-6 layers around the edges of the matter.

This is around the halfway point.  As you can see, the boarder is becoming less pronounced than before.

After the final strips are applied, the gradient is greatly reduced and the board appears to be a natural decline in the ground.

At this point I actually lay out my terrain pieces.  I fiddle with them a little bit until I find an arrangement I find balanced and pleasing to the eye.

Okay, if there was a major lesson to be learned building this board, THIS IS WHERE I LEARNED IT!  Learn from my mistakes!  A lot of companies will try to sell you on scenic cement, which is for all intensive purposes watered down PVA glue.  I thought I was being smart by making my own.  I grabbed a spare bottle, mixed up a 1/1 ratio of glue to water and used it to coat the board.

Obviously when applying glue in this way, be sure to use some sort of template or mask to protect areas from overspray.  For example, if I don’t want grit/dirty to be glued down in the center of the crater, I should take steps to ensure that the glue doesn’t waft over that area.

That wasn’t my problem.  That was something I knew to expect.  The problem came later, during painting.  Here’s the rub.  Scenic cement doesn’t have a lot of binding power.  As you dilute the glue, it’s ability to hold things in place lessens.  So when it came time to paint the display board, I ran into issues.

I applied my general house mix of dirt/sand/herbs/ballast, etc to the board.  Normally for a project like this, I’d use a spray gun supported by a heavy duty compressor to basecoat the board black or brown or the like.  However, even at lower operating pressure, the air was blasting the grit mixture right off the board.

I then tried using a brush to dab paint onto the board and smear it around.  This method worked, but took over an hour and required multiple applications.  Sand kept coming off the board and would get stained black by the paint brush, clogging the bristles with this half paint/half sand mixture.  I would then smear this Azathothian like gel around the board, but it took forever!  I don’t recommend this.

Instead, try this:  apply generous amounts of PVA (white school) glue to the board in small areas, spread it around with an old paint brush (a big brush, like you’d used to paint something other than miniatures) and then apply your basing medium directly to the board.  This will take longer in the application process, but will ensure a firmer grip on your basing medium and save you TONS of time in the painting process.  Trust me!

So, after that entire debacle was done, I was finally ready to apply some actual paint.  I primed the board black (see above) using a variety of techniques and many, many four letter words.  Also at this time I blasted the interior of the crater with some brown paint from a spray paint can.  My though process was they built this city on natural earth (and rock and roll), so when the bombs started falling, natural earth would be exposed.  It gave me a chance to splash some color onto an otherwise very grey board.

I dry brushed the black with dark grey craft paint from my local Walmart, then applied a slightly light grey paint in the same fashion, create two levels of depth and light/dark contrast.

Already having spent a great deal of time during the priming process, I wasn’t interested in doing a great deal of detail work to the board.  So I settled on a few simple techniques.  For the crashed Aquilla wing, I overbrushed some dark red paint to the wing itself, overbrushed some boltgun metal (or the equivalent) to the exposed engine components, and applied some more grey to the ‘dirty’ areas on the wings.  I applied a few simple black washes to pull out a a little detail and BLAM-O, doneski.

 For the buildings I went even simple.  I drybrushed some coppery metallics of the building, then some boltgun metal over the doors and vents.  A simple black wash to pluck out a little detail and WHAM-O, donearoski.

 Here’s the finished display board, before bringing it to my FLGS.    All in a few days work.

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention Highlen Terrain at this point.  A month or two ago, I found out through youtube that Stephen with Highlen Terrain had designed an AMAZING Necron Tomb World gaming board for Project One Gaming.  However, something happened (fuzzy on the details), and Project One had to cancel the project, even though it was practically done at this point.  Stephen was very good natured about the entire thing and decided to sell of the board as four Necron Display Boards instead. 

At the time I last spoke with him, he had 3 of the 4 quarters remaining, and was offering them for around $100 each, which included a scratch built pylon.  You can’t beat that!

If you haven’t seen the work done by Highlen, I can recommend them enough! If interested, you can email Stephen about what pieces he has remained.  He also offered to rebuild the sections already sold if a buyer wanted to pick up the entire 4’x6′ board for $350 USD including shipping with everything (ALL THE PYLONS!).  My mouth dropped when I heard that and if it hadn’t been so close to Christmas I would have most certainly bought it!

Recently Stephen has been working on some crater boards for a new client and let me tell you I can’t wait to see them done!

If you are a Necron player in need of an amazing Necron display board for an amazing price, contact Stephen at Highlen Terrain!

Or, if you’d rather tackle this project on your own then by all means . . .

PUT YOUR MINIS . . err, I mean DEMO BOARD WHERE YOUR MOUTH IS!


If you found this tutorial useful, be sure to check out more of our work on our homepage, or at the very least, like us on facebook!   We also have a new podcast called Warcouncil where we share other cool hobby tips!  And you can see more tips through our Youtube channel!  

Caleb, White Metal Games

Magnetizing just got a little easier . . . .

You can buy Iron Shavings all over the internet, but you can also get a pretty good deal on them here.  This site also offers some bulk orders here.    In addition, this company sells tons of different sizes of Steel Balls, which are very useful for when you need a sphere for magnetizing but don’t want to pay the exorbitant prices of sphere magnets.

In addition to regular iron shavings, I’ve also experimented with a product called Magnahold.  You can purchase Magnahold here.

Magnahold is a ferrite (iron) additive.  It claims that when mixed with paint and applied to a smooth surface that it will make the surface attractive to magnets.  In the case of a weak connection, it suggests adding an extra layer OR using a stronger magnet.

I bought a bag of Magnahold that was intended to be mixed with a Pint (16 oz) of Paint.  Of course I wasn’t planning on using all of it at one time.  For the purpose of this tutorial, I decided to compare Iron Shavings (generic) to Magnahold to see which held a better connection to several magnetized plastic limbs.

So, I gathered some supplies: the additives, some paint and brushes, and a sheet of plasticard.  Eventually I switched over to a paper plate instead of plasticard.   I also magnetized a few limbs.

For the purpose of this tutorial, I really just glued magnets on the ends of the arms, with the exception of the space marine arm where I actually drilled out a spot for the magnet.

As you can see here, even through the bag the magnahold has a pretty firm grip on the magnets.  And that’s through a thin layer of plastic!

To keep everything on an even playing field, I started with a 1/1 ratio of paint to additive.  I mixed it together, thoroughly.  The Iron Additive is in Blue and the Magnahold is in red.

After thoroughly mixing the additives I could already tell a slight difference.  In the above case, the Iron Shavings are of a much finer gradient than the Magnahold.

They were able to be mixed more thoroughly.   As such, they seem to create a firmer hold on the magnets.
It is very clear that the more concentrated the area of the Iron Additive, the stronger the magnetic hold.

It’s not that the Magnahold didn’t work, I just felt like the Iron Additive had a stronger connection, likely due to it’s denser concentration.

Final Conclusions:

Although Iron Additives are a suitable replacements for magnets, they never reach the strength of a true magnet on magnet connection, however, they do bypass the polarity issues, making them an ideal enty point for newcomers to magnetization.

Iron additives are ideally suited for small limbs, such as Resin or Plastic.  The finer the grain of the additive, the denser it can be applied to an area, and thus the stronger the connection between it and the magnet.

In addition, Iron Additives such as Magnahold could be a reasonable alternatives when magnetized host points are too close together and the magnets are trying to rip each other out of their respective sockets.  For example Tyranids often feature ball and socket joints very close together, and polarity is ALWAYS an issue in these areas as the host magnets often try to pull each other out of their respective sockets.

Due to the gritty nature of the iron additive, it is advisable to use paint as an application medium, but limit the application of the additive to areas that will rarely be seen by observers, such as ball and socket joints and underslung areas on a model.

Also AVOID using superglue to apply iron additive to a model.  In tests it tended to clump and application was very difficult.  Paint seems to be the ideal delivery method as it’s slow dry time ensures you can apply the additive wherever you like.

If you found this tutorial useful, be sure to check out more of our work on our homepage, or at the very least, like us on facebook!   We also have a new podcast called Warcouncil where we share other cool hobby tips!  And you can see more tips through our Youtube channel!  

Went to the 11th Co GT this weekend and I didn’t even get a crappy t-shirt . . .

Hey guys, Caleb with White Metal Games here, and I just got back from the 11th company GT in Myrtle Beach!

For those of you that know me at all, you know that I’m not much of a competitive guy.  However, I am always looking for new venues to showcase the studios work, so when I contacted Neil at the 11th Company about their GT in sunny Myrtle Beach, his advice to me was ‘Bring a Painted Army and come play!’

Well, I took half his advice.  In a strange turn of events, three armies that I had been trying to sell suddenly sold in the two weeks before the GT.  So it was with lament I suddenly found myself without a painted army in sight.  I had plenty of odd figures, sure, a daemon prince here, a squad there, but nothing like what I would normally want to showcase.  My plan up until that point had been to bring a painted army, but with the trip fully planned and paid for, I said the hell with it.  At least I’ll have a good time.  So I snagged every figure I could that would showcase our conversion work, and got in the car, bound for the golden shores of South Carolina.

To preface my tournament experience, allow me to set the stage:  I’ve been to less than a dozen tournaments in the last few years, preferring to stay behind the scenes when I can.  I’m not a competitive player by any stretch of the imagination, and other factors like cost, time away from home, work, etc often deter me from taking trips like this (in fact, I had to leave early, as you’ll see below).  However, over the last few months I have reoriented my business plan to attempt to establish myself in the ‘community’ at large and to do that I have to get out there, shake a few hands, kiss a few babies, etc.

So it should come as no surprise that this was my first GT.  Part of my desire to attend the 11th Co GT was simply to see how a tournament this large is ran.  And while most of it will seem like common sense, seeing how the sausage is made is always interesting.

The GT was for 2000 points, with 7 rounds played over the course of 2 days.  Registration started at 7am (yikes) with dice rolling at 8am.  A new system was being introduced to the GT this year called Torrent of Fire.  Torrent of Fire was new to me, but the basic idea was to establish a way to rank tournament players in a way as uniformly as possible, and to be able to rank those players nationally as well, where scores could be tabulated pretty much at the click of a button.  You can enter the results from each round on a smart device or computer and pairings for each round are posted on the ToF website.  So you basically go the event, log in and enter your results from each round, then wait for the new round results to be posted for your next game.  That’s a really dumbed down explanation of what ToF is, which is to say I’m a bit of an idiot when it comes to anything techy, but the potential for this application is immense.  I asked the ToF guys to speak on WarCouncil where they could full explain what ToF is and how they are planning to spread the word about it.  So once I hear from them, YOU’LL hear from them.  

The 11th Company guys tried to get everyone to sign up for a ToF account before the event through their newletters, but sadly, not all of us (yes, that means me) did.  So posting the results for the first round was painfully slow, as dozens of us had to create accounts for the event and then post our results. However, let me say that after this traffic jam, the software worked beautifully!  Since 95% of the attendees had a smart phone or the like , they just posted their results each round on their phones.  The rest of us used one of the dozen or so tablets or laptops the 11th Co guys furnished so we could quickly enter our results.

The only room for error I see here is that if me and my latest opponent enter different results, I’m not sure how they will establish which results are right.  So while there is room for error, I think the overall feel was that ToF is amazing.  On top of all that, ToF had several support personal on site, promoting ToF and helping to create accounts, answer ?’s, etc.  Great job guys!  I hope ToF spreads like wildfire!

Check out their site if you get time.  The ToF site also has a list of events coming up around the country, so if you eager to get to a GT, there might be one closer than you think!

The event ran like you might think after that.  Pairings were posted at the start of each round, players fanned out carting massive display boards to their next match up, trying to avoid tipping over or bumping into anybody.  I can honestly say that every person I met or played all weekend was a delight, without a rotten apple in the bunch.  There was just a good vibe in the room.

Judge support at the event was excellent!  Judge walked the long lanes of the hall, answering questions, making rules calls, updating us on how long we had left to play, etc.  I never felt like a judge was far away.

There were some amazing armies present at the event and while it would be impossible to show them all, these images represent a smattering of some of the armies I found most evocative.    You can check out more on our Facebook Page!

Saturday was four back to back games.  Playing four back to back games of 40k is just as exhausting as you might think it is.  The only snaffu to the entire day was that since this was an uncatered event, with some players finishing later than others, there was a definite imbalance in the lunch break for many of the players. There was a bar next door to the hotel, but it didn’t seem the 11th Co. had informed the bar to expect a lunch rush around 2-3pm as the GT let out for lunch.  So when 30-40 of us rolled in for a mid day snack, the bar staff was a bit overrun and orders took a bit longer to get out than they normally would have.  I saw a salad take about 20 minutes to get to one player.  If I had to make a suggestion, I would have either recommended 90 minutes for lunch to allow players longer to drive somewhere off site, or perhaps a catered event.  Even a simple boxed lunch furnished by the hotel would have been a welcome option.  I worked in a hotel for about 5 years, so I know this wouldn’t have been much of a stretch.  A little more planning in this regard next time guys would have gone a long way with an already tired player base.

Sadly, four games was going to be it for me.  The Sunday games ran from about 8am to about 7pm or so.  That meant if you played all 7 games, you were likely going to stay an extra night in the hotel, and for me that wasn’t really an option.  So while I bailed like a chump, I have it on good authority that day two at the event went very well.  The players from day one that stayed over were organized into brackets and you played through your bracket in an attempt to match up players with those of similar standing.  What this meant was if you wanted to play 7 games, you got to play 7 games, and those games would be against people of a similar W/L record.

So, final thoughts . . . .

Pros:  

11th Co GT was an AWESOME time, and I had a blast!  The event, while suffering a few expected growing pains, is handled with style and organized with professionalism.  The staff are friendly, knowledgeable and well organized, and they are looking for ways to improve the experience for their players, both with some amazing prize support from vendors like Greenman Designs, MicroArts Studios, BitzBox, KR Multicase, Mr. Dandy and yours truly among a dozen others.

Torrent of Fire was a welcome addition to the event and definitely sped things up as the day went along.

Cons:
A few organization snaffus were to be expected here and there, and since there is always room for improvement I don’t hold this against them.  Catering or a longer lunch break would have been a welcome addition, but was likely overlooked to attempt to keep the cost of the GT as low as possible.

In a major oversight on my part and possibly at least partially responsible for why I lost four games back to back was that I had brought an 1850 point list to a 2000 point tournament!  And while this was completely my fault, 100% my mistake, what was interesting that my list wasn’t looked at until the 3rd round of play, and that the judge didn’t catch the error or inform me.  In fact, until the start of my fourth game, no one caught it.  Finally my fourth round opponent brought it to my attention.  I was more than a little surprised at my oversight.

And while I agree that vendor support at a GT isn’t always right for every event, if the event continues to grow they may want to consider allowing vendors into the hall in some form, fashion, or another.

Final Conclusion:

I give the Myrtle Beach 11th Co GT  9 out of 10!  It was highly fun, exhausting, and a great chance to meet some cool guys (and gals!  More lady players than I’ve ever seen at an event!)

Great job guys!  You really . . .

PUT YOUR TOURNEY WHERE YOUR MOUTH IS!!!

Caleb,
White Metal Games

Greeting all you boys and ghouls!  Caleb with White Metal Games here!  Today I have a quick and easy tutorial for you:  textured urban rubble basing for your miniature needs

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Basing your miniatures is often the final step to really finish off your miniatures.  The problem is that after you’ve take so much time to paint your miniature, you’re really tired and basing is generally the last thing you want to think about.  Most folks default to the green/brown earth/flock scenario, which is perfectly fine.  But not every battle should be fought on mother earth.  Some battles are waged in the ruins of the 41st millenia.

So, how to kill two birds with one stone.  The answer is texturing your paint!  Textured paint is nothing new.  GW sells it.  Let me save you a little time and money.  It’s sand.  It’s just sand, grit, or ballast mixed into the paint.

So, how do we make our own textured paint?  Well, this should come as no shock, we add it in ourselves.

First, grab a mini, some textured basing material (mine is a blend of sand, dirt, herbs, dried tea leaves, whatever I have extra that I add to the batch over time) and some cheap paint, plus an empty container.

First, add some paint to the container.  Darker is usually better, because then you can dry brush up to create texture.  In this case I use a dark grey paint.

Add some textured basing material.

Stir to the consistency you like.  Pancake batter is about what I go for, or ‘gritty’.  Yoggurt like consistency.

Use an old brush or wooden craft stick to apply some of the basing material to the mini.  Be mindful of the paint areas, but a little drift is okay since this will look like dirt/grime/dust later.

Do a little clean up with your finger and then apply a little paint to the edge to polish it off.  I used black below.

This mixture will take longer than usual to dry, a few hours at least, but once dry you can wash it to detail or dry brush to help the texture stand out more.  You can also add some bits like spare weapons, skulls, etc into the basing material, which will be slightly pliant and will hold down those spare bits like glue.  I usually paint mine first and then just stick them wherever I feel like.

If you found this tutorial useful, be sure to check out more of our work on our homepage, or at the very least, like us on facebook!

And until then . .

PUT YOUR MINIS WHERE YOUR MOUTH IS!

Caleb, WMG