Battle Missions: The inside scoop!

Right then guys, I have seen and had a good look at the shiny new battle missions book, and I've come to share what I have learned! First off, lets get a good look at the missions themselves, in full:

Chaos Marines

1. Pillage
2. Black Crusade
3. Scorched Earth

Chaos Daemons

1. Night Fight
2. Invasion
3. Fight to the Death

Dark Eldar
1. Dawn Raid
2. Slave Raid
3. Feigned Retreat

Eldar
1. Pre-emptive Strike
2. Flank Attack
3. Mobile Defence

Imperial Guard
1. Prepared Assault
2. War of Attrition
3. Trench Warfare

Necrons
1. Ambush
2. Reconnaissance in Force
3. Implacable Advance

Orks
1. Blitzkrieg
2. Waaagh!
3. Cut & Run

Space Marines
1. Vanguard
2. Surprise Attack
3. All-round Defence

Tau
1. Vertical Envelopment
2. Counter-Attack
3. Fighting Withdrawal

Tyranids
1. First Contact
2. Wave Assault
3. Infestation

Universal
1. Kill Team
2. Linebreaker
3. Clash of Heroes

Quite a list!

So then, what else can I tell you. Well, first the book itself is very nice. Its well put together, some good bits of fluff and some great shots of models/battles.

I'm also happy to say I can allay some fears about the race-specific missions. Although they are clearly designed with each army in mind, this is more from a fluff point of view. It is clear that any army could happily play any mission, indeed this is expressed in the foreword. There is no reason why a Marine army couldn't play the Counter-Attack mission in the role normally filled by Tau, for example. This means we are in effect getting 33 new missions, as opposed to the few for whatever races your gaming group has.

As far the missions themselves go, they are a mixed bag. Some are subtle changes of deployment zone or objective placement, while others are really off the wall or ingenious. My personal favourite so far is a Guard mission that has a random bombardment. This involves cutting out bombardment counters, holding them 36'' above the table and letting them 'flutter' down. Where ever they rest suffers a large blast hit. I think this is a really simple but awesome idea (though not one for tournaments...). There are other similar surprises throughout the book

Finally I'm going to highlight the last three missions. Not only do we see a slightly modified return of Kill Team, but also a hero centric battle where only characters are allowed to kill off other characters. These seem like a real blast to play, and I'll be trying them out as soon as I can.

Anyway, that's all I can recall for now, I hope its been of interest. From first viewing I can recommend the book, I'll be getting a copy when it comes out...

Review: Simple Green

Just a quick post today to cast my critical eye over Simple Green. This product is cited again and again by gamers as the most hassle free way of stripping old models of their paint.

Intro

Commonly found in most stores in the US (so I'm told), Simple Green is a non-toxic household cleaner, used for cleaning things such as baths and kitchen surfaces. It came to my attention around the time I decided I wanted to strip all my old Praetorian figures and re-paint them. On all the major 40k forums I could find at least person extolling its virtues and so, not wanting to risk my rare Praetorians with anything less than the best, I tried to find some.

Living in the UK this was easier said than done...

It would appear that Simple Green is simply not sold in UK stores, so I ended up ordering a 1L bottle direct from their website for the costly sum of £10. Be sure to get the household stuff not the industrial strength, or you may well melt your models...and your hands.

Application

Using Simple Green really couldn't be easier, first find a container like a cup or bowl, pop in your miniatures and then pour in enough Simple Green to cover all the models. There is no mixing or watering down required, just pour the Green straight in.

Now this does mean that you can use up that 1L bottle fairly quickly. It just about managed to cover up the 56 Praetorians I had to strip, but if your looking at doing whole armies and you live in the UK, it could get a bit costly. But more on that later.

1 Platoon, 5th Praetorian Regiment of Foot...having a their group bath...

After this you simply have to let the Simple Green to work its magic. Leave your submerged models to sit for at least 24hrs. Don't worry about leaving them for longer, some of mine sat submerged for over a week and there was no damage to the metal models. I can't guarantee that plastic would be similarly unaffected, but to be honest I don't think this stuff has the power to really corrode plastic.

On point worth mentioning is the smell. Though not entirely unpleasant, it is very strong and you are going to want to store your models somewhere out of the way, like the garden shed or garage.

After leaving the models to sit for at least 24hrs, run a sink full of hot soapy water and grab and old toothbrush.

You can see the paint already peeling off the model before the scrubbing even starts

Take your model and dunk it into the soapy water and getting scrubbing with that toothbrush. It should be the work of a few seconds to get off the majority of the paint, a little longer to get into the crevasses.

And there you have it, done and ready to be repainted!

It took me less than 5 minutes to do the 4 miniatures below, and I had all 56 of them scrubbed down within the hour.

So to summarise...

Pros

Easy to use

Non-toxic

Does the job!

Cons

Cost & Availability in the UK

The Smell!

Can irritate some people's skin (so I'm told)

Since using Simple Green I have discovered that standard household Dettol can achieve the same effect in the same way, so I would recommend UK readers to go with that, for cost reasons. However, if you live in the USofA you might as well go green!

So a great product for stripping miniatures, with only the UK cost being prohibitive for me. Using Oni's great rating system I award Simple Green:

4 Golden Aqulias out of 5

Thanks for reading, I'll leave you with one more before and after shot:

Heretical Commercials (Blogs & Roleplay)

Hello bloggers, just a quick post today, mainly to highlight the blog of a very old friend who I have recently rediscovered and started gaming with again. Forgotmytea and I started gaming together at some point around 2000, but lost contact after going to college and uni. In the last month however I have not only discovered that he still paints and plays wargames, but also that he is a fellow blogger!

So head over to Forgotmytea where you can read about his growing Epic Eldar army (xenos rivals to my own glorious Imperial force) as well as his established Necron army of doom.

The first of hopefully a few awesome objective markers, made by Forgotmytea

+++++++++

In other news, I myself have descended further in to the world of geekdom and have been convinced to try something that I have resisted for so long: Roleplaying Games.

Our GM, who has more roleplay experience in his little finger than I do in my whole body has decided to introduce us to The World of Darkness, a game set in the modern day where Vampires and Werewolves exist alongside mankind.

We have already begun the preliminaries, sorting out characters and background etc. I myself have assumed the role of a Russian Vampire, born under the rule of the Tsars and serf to a powerful noble, who just so happened to be a vampire. Exiled to the UK after the revolution I am always keen to take revenge on...well, just about anybody I can. Links to shadowy figures such as Rasputin are already being formed and the whole thing looks to be a lot of beer swigging fun. If I can, I will get some write-ups sorted and posted here.

Finally, if I do get into the spirit of this roleplay business (and I must admit I was skeptical), then I hope to GM my own Dark Heresy based adventures. To this end I picked up the book yesterday, and dear god it is beautiful. If the price tag wasn't quite so high I would recommend it to anybody just for the fluff sections; as it is I am very pleased with my purchase. I wont be performing any in-depth reviews, as I have no roleplaying experience to judge it by, but as a product in itself it certainly get a thumbs up from me!

Product Review: GW Spray Gun

Concept

As I'm sure you all know, one of Games Workshop's most recent releases is its Spray Gun. Designed to allow you to spray your models with GW Foundation Paint, the spray gun is supposed to give you greater flexibility in your undercoating, and cut down on painting time (something that everybody can get behind!). After an initial release and recall in mid summer, the product has been fixed and has been on sale for a while. Yours truly picked one up last week. What follows is a fairly simple review/tutorial, designed to give you all some basic impressions of this piece of kit.

Now some of you may remember many years back when GW had a wide range of colour primers, not just today's Black and White. This cut down on painting time dramatically, but also led to a number of armies that were just primed in the relevant colour and left. I can remember doing this myself with an IG armoured company (the shame of it!). Indeed I was told by one GW Red Shirt that this was part of the reason why the other colours were discontinued. Whatever the reason, I was annoyed to find the cans were gone when I got back into 40k. Is the new spray gun the solution? 

I've never used any form of spray gun before, which is part of the reason I paid the £23 for the GW version (£18 for the Gun & £5 for a can of propellant).  I've read that there are better & more cost effective models out there, but I figured that the GW version would be more 'noobie' friendly. I realise its far from rocket science, but I find that if I can get something wrong, I often do! 

Contents

So what do you actually get for you money?

Well, its all fairly straightforwardly packaged and comes with the following:

1. Spray Gun. Yes its shaped like a flamer. Do I really care? No I don't. 

2. Propellant Valve Pin (as well as an adaptor for the Propellant Can).

3. Paint Container.

4. Air Hose.

5. Propellant Can. Just to stress that this comes separately from the rest of the kit.

As I had hoped there is also a fairly in depth instruction manual that breaks the process down nicely. You should also check out GW's own 'How To' for the spray gun. Well worth a look. 

GW's Instruction Booklet

Use/Tutorial 

One of the main quires I had with the GW Spray Gun was over using normal paints. All the promotion material talks about using the new Foundation Paints and Washes, but mentions nothing about using normal paint. Almost to stress the point, the paint container has a set of guides to show what mixtures of foundation paint and water are required for good results. There is no info on normal paint. 

Guide for foundation paint:  Fill the container with foundation paint up to one of the marks on the left. Then top up with water until the next highest mark on the right. 

After some internet research I read that it would be fine to use normal paint in the spray gun, and that only a few drops of water were needed to top it up. So I duly whipped out my Dark Angels green and gave it a go. Be sure to give the paint a good mixing with a matchstick or similar. 

Below we see the spray kit mostly put together. It is as simple as it looks. Screw the adapter on to the can (leaving the valve out, unless you want propellant everywhere) and then attach the air hose. Attach the other end to the 'gun' itself and your almost ready to go!

When in your spraying area you can pop in the valve, by simply screwing it into its hole atop the adaptor. Make sure the hose is securely attached at both ends first. 

You should hear the gas as its released from the can. Do make sure the adaptor is screwed on tight, or you will spend ten minutes wondering why the spray gun wasn't working, like I did!

Below you can see the paint pot in its position on the spray gun. It is a good idea to test out your paint mixture first. If its comes on too thick, go back and add some water. If its too thin then add more paint. Simple! You can also adjust the flow of paint by turning the spray gun's Paint Cap.

My spray gun's first victim was to be my Dark Angels Rhino, hence the need to use DA Green as opposed to foundation paint. When using normal paint, it is important that you still prime the model first, either with a normal spray or foundation paints. This helps the following paints to stick to the model's surface. 

So, following GW's advice and using short sweeping motions, I sprayed away. And uttered some pretty horrible words straight after. It would my appear my mixture was all wrong, and the paint came on a bit thick...

This mistake can however be put down to my inexperience, as opposed to any fault with the Spray Gun. And, as it turns out, once I left the model to dry properly the result was not that bad. 

The coat is patchy in a few places but on the whole it is smooth and will give me a good basis to work from, which was the aim! 

We have also proved that you can happily use normal paints in the GW spray gun. With some trial and error...

Tips

The only major advice I can offer is to ensure that the paint is of the right consistency before you commit it to a model. This means testing, testing and testing! Don't allow your self to rush it like I did! I was lucky with the Rhino, but I easily could have ended up making the eventual paint job harder or even ruining the model.

I would also draw your attention to the Propellant can. Try to keep this as warm as possible, within reason (Remember its a compressed can and will react explosively to extreme heat!). As the can is used it will loose pressure and draw in the cold from its surroundings. This will eventually stop the flow of propellant. If this happens, place it somewhere warm and try again later.

Conclusion

On reflection I do like the GW spray gun. 

Admittedly its not cheap, but it is cheerful and straightforward to use, especially if like me you have no prior experience. The kit seems robust and is easy enough to clean. The paint pot with its markings for foundation paint is also a neat idea. The less guess work involved the better! I will be testing these markings out soon, and will report back to you if they are no good.

My only real criticism is the propellant. I can already hear mine running out after just the Rhino which, at £5 a pop, is not great. I am unsure if the adaptor would be suitable for other makes of propellant but its something I intend to look into. If I can find a cheaper alternative then that would be a major plus for the spray gun.

At the end of the day if you want a simple way to quickly base coat your troops or tanks then I can recommend the spray gun. Its robust, simple and does exactly what it says on the tin.

Rating: 4/5

As usual I hope some of you out there found this a useful/interesting read! Does anybody have their own experience to add?