It's Time for an Overhaul!

So it's been a hectic life with deployment and work ups for me, but now that it has calmed down and hopefully will stay that for a little while.  It's time for an overhaul of the blog, plus I have a lot of work that never got thrown up here.  So here comes some changes and updates!

Hobby Update December 2013

As life would have it, I have been incredibly busy. The Navy has consumed most of the free time I have available, which I have to split between my children/wife and 40k. So this update is a mega update, as I have tried my best to keep up with both even with reduced time.

First and foremost
I have branched off into two different armies, Blood Angels and Tyranids. It all started with some friends pressuring me to branch out of the Guardians of Silence/Dark Angels. I was tempted by heresy and bought a large force of Tyranids. They had always been an army that I looked at and said, "If I were a foul heretic, I would play Tyranids." The amazing paint jobs I have seen for Tyranids excited the artistic side of me the more I thought about it. And thus I now have a sizable Hive Fleet Behemoth force. That's right I went with the good ol' Behemoth scheme, why? Well it's simple really, I have always found the Behemoth scheme visually appealing and usually I want nothing more than a good looking force on the tabletop. Tyranids will hopefully offer me a little more than just good looks though, I feel like they are the only army that I will truly focus on being very competitive. We will see how they turn out. So far I have only played one game with them and I wiped my friends Orks off the table by turn 3. Thus far the bugs that I have painted, have been awesome to paint and I'm sure as I continue to work on them I will further enjoy developing my own way of creating the Hive Mind's will. Hopefully they will keep winning to since my marines can't seem to do anything but glorious defeats.
My army includes:
1x Flyrant
2x Hive Guard with Boneswords
1x Tyranid Prime (made from old Hive Tyrant)
1x Tervigon
3x Lictors
2x Zoanthrope/Doom of Malan'tai
1x Venomthrope
59x Genestealers
1x Broodlord
72x Hormagaunt
13x Ripper Swarms
58x Termagants
8x Tyranid Warriors
4x Biovore
3x Carnifex
1x Old One Eye
1x Trygon
*Most of this army is under considerable repair, being that I bought it used a lot of things needed stripped and or disassembled. I definitely plan on adding more, but I am waiting for the upcoming release before I buy anymore.*

After a short time with the Tyranids, the light of the Emperor drew me back. This time to the blessed Angels of Death, ie the Blood Angels. It ended up being a very really long way about getting to them, as I originally went to make a Raven Guard mega-force with the new Space Marine Codex (I went so far as to buy the special Raven Guard edition of the codex). But after going through their rule set, I realized that even with their new chapter tactics they were not the army I was looking for. I love assault in 40k games, even if 6th Edition is not all that kind to assault armies. I mean who doesn't love smashing into enemy lines and crushing the foul xenos underfoot (if only it went that way). After some thought, I remembered that the Blood Angels were the most assault-y of all Space Marine Chapters. So I began to read their fluff. I would never play an army if I didn't love their fluff. The Blood Angels to me are one of the most compassionate (sort of) yet blood thirsty chapters, it is this very dichotomy that makes me want to play them. The goal here though is to make a fluffy force more than a competitive army. Being as such, I decided to create an entire battle company. The Fourth Company, the Knights of Baal, to be exact. In planning the army, I will likely write into the fluff that the current Captain (Captain Castigon) has perished to be replaced by Captain Nero, a character of my own creation. I am also thinking about making Sergeant Rafen my first Sergeant for the company, simply due to how well James Swallow developed him in the first BA Omnibus. That being said, my company being a fluffy force, I definitely plan on writing a lot of background for the group to give them more flavor. Definitely should be a very fun project at the very least and I have a giant, mega huge flyer that I've been working on that should look awesome in Blood Angels red. With all the skills I have learned in the past year and some change, I hope they will be an exquisitely painted force. As of right now I have:
A Jump Pack (JP) Captain w/ Hammer&Shield
A JP Librarian w/ Axe
A Librarian w/ Stave (new plastic libby)
A Terminator Reclusiarch
3x Sanguinary Priests with JP Chainsword (CS) and Bolt Pistol (BP)
5x Sanguinary Guard
5x Melee Death Company
20x Assault Marines
40x Tactical Marines (2x Squads still need assembled)
1x Stormraven with Chapterhouse True Scale Kit
1x Land Raider Crusader
1x Predator Annihilator
1x Drop Pod
20x Scouts (1/2 Snipers 1/2 Close Combat)
*I also bought a Space Marine Strikeforce that I'm waiting to receive, which includes:
-Space Marine Commander
-Command Squad
-Razorback
-20x Tactical Marines
-5x Assault Marines
-5x Scouts
-1x Venerable Dreadnought
-1x Drop Pod

To help me with painting all of that, I have purchased/received an airbrush. I feel like an airbrush will accomplish two missions for me. 1. I will be able to paint faster and more efficiently. 2. My painting with a brush has plateaued and I feel like an airbrush will help me get to the next level.
After a megaton of research, I went with a Grex airbrush. They are a newer airbrush company, but I really like the design of their airbrush and honestly I had trouble finding a single bad review. So I bought a Grex Tritium TG3 Combo Kit with the airbrush and an AC1810-A Compressor. I will go into all the technical specifications in a later post after I have received and played with both items. I would definitely recommend checking Grex out and if you are interested head to Spikey Bits at http://www.spikeybits.com/servlet/StoreFront for some great prices.

Well that's most of what's been going on with me, how has the past year been for you?

Apocalypse Pre-orders are Up

The new Apocalypse Pre-orders are up on GW's website.  Prices are pretty extreme, almost to the point of unjustifiable for me to order much of the new stuff.  Even still, I ended up pre-ordering the new rulebook, templates, dice, and war asset cards.  Definitely looking forward to the new rules yet at the same time I'm a little grumpy about the prices of all the new terrain.  I understand Apocalypse is generally for those of us who spend way too much money on the hobby anyways but still the prices are pretty intense.  When I look over my table sometimes its hard to believe that there is $1,000's of dollars worth of plastic on it.  But I can say that I am proud of how much I have accomplished in my first year within the hobby, who knows what the years ahead hold.  One of my next projects will be to paint another Black Reach Dreadnought (my first painted model) and compare how my painting skills were then to now.  Should be interesting, anyways happy money spending if you plan to pre-order!