It came from 4chan: Interview with Fabricator General Scriptarius!

Welcome to yet another edition of It came from 4chan! This time I bring you a memeber of the Adeptus Mechanicus that has been lurking the boards of /tg/ for years. His conversions are legendary! From his gingerbread Titan and Stompa to his 40k Nativity Scene and his conversions of the Primarchs, he is well known to many and now Wolves for the Wolf God is going to introduce him to the safer regions of the galaxy. Let me introduce you to..

Fabricator General Scriptarius!

It came from 4chan: Vox Casters are worth it!

In which we learn about the awesomeness of Anonymous voice actors, vocaroo and how things can quickly become way too epic for us mere mortals to handle...

Incoming: Dark Eldar Sslyth and Lhamaean with PICS!

Games Workshop continues to amaze us with the beautiful sculpts accompanying the Dark Eldar range and the ever-increasing Finecast range. This time I have for you a picture of two newest additions to the Archon's Court - the Dark Eldar Sslyth and the Dark Eldar Lhamaean.

Dark Eldar Sslyth and Dark Eldar Lhamaean

The sculpts are once again fantastic!
The Sslyth is definitely my favorite and looks like he should. The model is slightly static, but not as much as the Lhamaean. The resin factor means that he could be used for a plethora of conversions for Tyranids, Dark Elves, perhaps Lizardmen as well. This little scaly fella will run you $15.25 and will be available the day before 9/11.
The Lhamaean is not my favorite, but it does look cool. She looks like most of the female Dark Eldar chicks. Actually, I couldn't help but notice that as of now she is the least scandal-clad female in the Dark Eldar range. Very static and I guess her body could be used for conversions as the head and the weapons are nothing too special. This virulent lady will poison your wallet for $15.25 and will be available the day before 9/11.

It came from 4chan: Spider thread? Spider thread.

Welcome to the first season premiere of Wolves for the Wolf God's newest series:

In which I, Skarvald the Troll-faced, venture into the deepest, darkest corners of the Internet, nay - into the web's Eye of Terror in search of those with talent bestowed by the Chaos Gods themselves.

Think of it like a spin-off of DFG's It Came From the Forums series, except instead of lurking forums I'm lurking and posting hobby-related stuff from the... deeper parts of the web. Seriously though, I really like the comparison to the Eye of Terror. Everyone knows of 4chan and its infamy. Many avoid it due to its NSFW nature, the trolling, the shocking images..  but then again many visit 4chan for the same reasons. However, if you have been there then you know that amongst the corruption there lies talent and forbidden knowledge worth the Insanity and Corruption points gained while browsing 4chan's image boards.

There are a lot of things worth seeing! For example the /tg/ image board (it stands for "traditional games) is basically 60% Warhammer 40k and when people are not betting on who's going to kill Matt Ward or posting models sloppily covered with layers of thick paint you can find a lot of cool ideas, models and even fluff (ever heard of the Angry Marines? Okay.. maybe not the best example..) With the It Came From 4chan series I hope to show you some of the cool things that appear occasionally on 4chan while at the same time inspiring people to keep doing what they are doing and to stop muckin' about.

So lets start with our first worshipper of Chaos..

Did someone say OGRE SPECIAL CHARACTERS?

Well, the new fantastic Ogre models are not a secret anymore - we've all seen their cavalry, the Stonehorn, the mammoth mount and the amazing Scraplauncher and cannon. Here are some new models that you may have missed, however. This time it's all about character models aka Lord and Heroes:

Golgfag Maneater, the infamous Ogre Maneater Captain

Check out the shark jaw-thing on his back! Yet again Games Workshop surprises us with the amount of detail. As usual - lots of bones, skulls, horns and spikes! This Maneater extraordinaire has so much bling-bling that it would be almost too daunting a task to even start painting him. Notice the skull he's stepping on. Is the model too "busy"? I wonder if the Great Maw shark-jaw thingy is a separate piece - I think swapping it and putting it on a different model might make Golgfag more manageable..

Bragg

Bragg apparently will be getting Heroic Killing Blow in challenges. Think of him as an Ogre Executioner. I can't decide what I like the most about Bragg - the scars, the crazy unwieldy (even for an Ogre) weapon or the sadistic, potentially masochistic grin?

The Firebelly

Well, this is the Firebelly that everyone has been talking about. This confirms the rumors about Ogres being able to take a Fire mage. Holy crap, check out the flames coming out of his mouth... It's.. it's.. amazing. I'm definitely picking one up as soon as possible. The flames will be a sweet conversion bit for those who would rather not play around with Green Stuff, I suppose.
A lot of people think that the Firebelly is not very Ogre-like. Sure - he's skinnier, definitely more angular (reminds me of the new O&G Savage Orc Boyz) and where there should be fat there are muscles.. But come on.. he's a Firebelly. He burns all calories away.  Also, S4 breath attack? O_O

Hunter on top of a Stonehorn

Loving the little vulture. Does this mean that the hunter will be plastic and a part of the Stonehorn box? His face is definitely scary, but it lack the character of the previous models by a lot. Interesting that the model isn't really holding or has an unsheathed weapon.. but then again you don't need one when you're riding on top of friggin Ludo from The Labyrinth and your pet is corpse-eater. I mean, the fact that you have one means that you at least feed it from time to time.

Mournfang cavalry from a different angle

Even from a different angle the Mournfang models are kind of.. meh, which is unfortunate - the detail is exquisite. This is probably the champion guy, since he has a nifty gun and I doubt that all Mournfangs will be able to shoot.

I've decided to start an Ogre Kingdoms army instead of the Orcs and Goblins army that I was so excited about. I guess I should have learned my lesson from my Skaven-playing days - having to 30+ models on a movement tray is way too annoying, time-consuming, boring... and did I say annoying? I'm sure that the bigger bases of the bulky Ogres, combined with the lower model-count will sweeten the deal for me, but we'll see when the book comes out. We shall see...

Excitement Abounds

Space wolves really love strawberry

Hey everyone, its Frozencore Joe here, with a little frozen treat to beat the heat. You may or may not know of me already, I seem to be mentioned on this and that blog from time to time. What you might have gathered is that I don't post often, because I am lazy. It isn't for lack of substance, no, my Dark Eldar are still going strong; Skarvald, Brian and I are already gearing up for Adepticon next year. I even started a rather large Blood Bowl League, proving that specialist games aren't dead within our community...and FOOTBALL! I guess I just consider myself more of a doer rather than a reporter, but that should hopefully change. I was recently at Games Day working on the Heroes of Armageddon table with various bloggers of style and repute, and I had a blast. It really made me want to be more active in the community, but I had a problem. You see, if I started posting again things would more or less be the same "post three times in a week then be lazy for two months" deal I had been doing for the longest time. What I needed was a dupe friend that I could trick ask to let me ride his coattails into internet stardom. I just happen to have some sort of bromance with just this sort of sucker, so expect to hear from me every once in a while.

It's kinda like that.

Skarvald handed me some control over his little baby, and oh man, was that a bad idea (and oh so photoshoptacular). I'm sure Skarvald will be on my case to post more regularly; he has been using nagging words like "our blog" for the past week, which seems to be bringing back my fear commitment. Aside from my excellent Photoshop skills, I hope to bring a different perspective to the blog. I am more of a veteran war-gamer than Skarvald, which he seems to think will offer some sort of insight, and I hope that he is right. Expect to see some painting tutorials in the future, a battle report or two, and some joint articles. We have so much more in store. For those of you interested in looking into the past, I have added my old posts from my starving skeleton of a blog to the history of the glorious Wolves for the Wolf God.

I hope you all can enjoy my stay here as much as I will.

Games Day Coverage! #2

I'll start the final Games Day coverage post with some extra pictures from the Monstrous Creature Converstion contest, simply because we all love big nasty things that go "RAAAAAWR". Right?

Squeekdor was a rat. He was a dragon-rat. Or maybe just a dragooon!

Parasite of Mortrex, I presume?

There. Now that they are out of the way.. Oh, I totally entered the Speed Demon painting competition and painted a Watermelon Space Marine. He was like.. green.. with green stripes.. and purple/red shoulder pads with black dots. But I forgot to take pictures and never picked him up. Good luck out there, Watermelon Marine. 

"orkz, orkz, Orkz, ORkz, ORKz, ORKZ, ORKZ!!!"

Another cool event that I got to participate in was the BIG GAME. You know, the one with the hundreds of Ork and Imperial Baneblades? Usually it's not my cup of tea, but me and three Games Workshop ex-employees decided to drive some of the Ork Skullhammers and unleash some dakka on da oomiez, if you know what I mean. (Huh?) Our plan was to simply focus fire on a different Baneblade each turn in order to systematically purge any Imperial presence in our sector, stating with the opponents who were an obvious nuisance and just needed to go away (okay.. not very proud of this, but war IS war..). Apparently the Orkz had one all of the previous games for the day, so the Imperials had to control every single objective in order to win. Well.. we made sure not to let them anywhere near them and despite various WAAAAAAGH-offs and tactical boons the Imperials failed and yours truly managed to snipe one of their Command Tanks. Gotta love Unlimited Range and True LoS in a game where no cover is allowed, lol.
 The highlight of the game, however, was this little kid. The lil fella was super excited and was giving orders left and right despite barely being able to reach the tanks on the table. He wanted us "big guys" to control the bigger tanks while he would take control of all of the little ones, so people would discard him as being an actual threat. Oh, he also insisted that I, as one of the taller people should have taken the tallest Skullhammer because I would have the best... wait for it... "trajectory".  Whatever that means, right? I just patted him on the head and assured him that us orkz don't need any trujekturiz.

Golden Demon
As always, Golden Demon made me jealous.. but oh well. I keep on telling myself that I'll practice my painting techniques more and just paint more in general but it never happens. Got a chance to talk to my buddy Tim Lison, who was one of the judges. Actually, I just got to say "Hi" because he was super busy.  The models this year was fantastic, but a lot of them were put behind very badly scratched plexiglass, which made pictures a pain in the butt. Here are some of the pictures I took:

Bjorn the Fe-oh, sweet, look at my sweet fingernails in the reflection!

Back as we promised, mortals!

Brother Al Gore of the Global Warming Marines..

Storm Warden Dreadknight!!!

 :P NSFW btw. 

Bill and Brian being all gentlemanly and charitable. :)

One of my favorite parts about the event was knowing that at least half of the Heroes of Armageddon table was going to be in good hands. That's right, ladies and gentlemen - Bill, a regular at the local Games Workshop Deer Grove decided to buy 2 out of 4 tables, snagging the Hive city portion, where his endless supply of Eldar vehicles can park and relax. Bill already has his own Apocalypse table with like.. over 9000 bastions, so Hive Hades is truly a nice addition to his terrain collection. Thank you for your donation, Bill, and the I think I speak for everyone from the HoA crew when I say that we all hope the tables see as many games as possible.

Conclusion.. 

Sweet Eldar titan table!

Games Day is really what you, as a gamer, make of it. As me and my friends were covering every part of the convention for the third year in a row we quickly realized that the times... they were not changing. At least not in a good way, anyway. Each year the convention space seems to be increasing as the actual event, freebies, exclusive goodies and other jibjabs are dwindling.  Notice that more than half of my Games Day coverage had to do with club events and not actually things ran by Games Workshop. Yes, there are a lot of cool things to see at Games Day. Don't get me wrong. There will always be cool fan-made conversions, initiatives and tables thanks to people like John and Mike from Santa Cruz, Brian, etc. There will always be new models and Golden Demon entries to stare in awe at. 

I guess what I'm trying to say here is we all need to realize the big part that clubs and fans of the hobby play at Games Day and try to be a part of the convention and not just idle bystanders.
Nowadays participation is so easy that we should all think about participating. It is not like you have to go out of your way to play your part - you already convert and paint miniatures on a daily basis. Just try to think ahead and think of how you could turn a local event into something bigger for Games Day.
Sure, walking the walk might be harder than just talking the talk. Yes, having to built, paint and transport armies and tables at the convention and setting up could be time-consuming and annoying... but in the end it will be worth it. You would then have played your part!
Do you HAVE to? Nope.. Just like you don't have to build your miniatures, prime them or paint them in order to play. We can all just play with empty bases. ;-D

Games Day really doesn't have any exclusive items to offer, besides a Games Day miniature, T-shirts and maybe a few early boxes to pick up. Don't spend all of your money at the convention for things that you can always buy from your local Games Workshop!!! Think of your local GW store or independent FLGS - their stores won't get credit for your purchases, especially if they are stores in the vicinity of Games Day. Local GW managers this year had to close their stores on a Saturday to help with the convention just to sell the same product to people. Their stores lost money and I bet corporate GW doesn't care and won't listen to any excuses. Don't hurt the stores that let you play on their tables..

Don't wait in line at Forge World for hours just to save a few bucks on shipping. Games Day is once a year, you can always order from their website. Some people I know spent 2 hours in line after driving to the convention from different states! Seriously..

It is sad to see so much of the flavor from Games Day gone. I keep on hearing about the glorious days.. I'm also pretty sure that Games Day 2009 in Chicago was the last Games Day to have the $5 grab OOP blisters. But hey.. now we have the Carnival of Chaos. You could win a pen with the words "WAAAAAAAAAGH!" on it....

I really didn't mean to sound negative, but it's important to call out Games Workshop on some of their bullshit from time to time.

It was fun nonetheless. See you next year!

There's a reason this Khadoran Warjack is Unique..

A White Russian..

I'm talking of course about the Black Ivan warjack: the newest, meanest addition to the Khadoran Empire.
First of all, why wasn't it named Black Jack? Would have been perfect seeing as how it is a black warjack but I guess Privateer Press really wanted to enforce the Soviet vibe of their new model.
But seriously... Have you ever seen a black Russian? I haven't. It has to be a pretty rare sight, right? We are talking about a culture so monochromatic that it has a drink named after its whiteness... ;D

Reminds me of this guy...

There is, however, a legitimate reason for his Unique status. Actually, two reasons in one.
Reason #1: The plastic/resin/whatever abomination that Privateer Press is using is crazy hard to clean! I bet this is not the first time you're hearing this. The Khadoran warjacks are pretty easy to assemble, but getting rid of the flash and mold lines is definitely harder than penetrating their ARM in the game. There were mould lines around and on top of the numerous rivets, around a lot of the fine details as well. Mold lines were also found in places that were hard to reach with a knife but still very visible (behind the knees, feet, etc.). Two big chunks of extra resin were also a pain in the butt to clean - they were located around the head of the warjack. Some pieces like the actual arms had to mold lines at all, but some took hours to clean. Hours. And that's not even including the time I'll need to spend washing them, because.. you know... resin is gross. 
Reason #2: WTF BEAR CLAW? Such a cool weapon, but so annoying to pin. You have to pin all three fingers. That took like 2 hours. The head was a good fit and the shoulder spike thingamajiggers were actually very well done - you don't have to file down the rivets around the shoulders to put them on, because they have little indentations for the rivets. All of the flash is on the bottom as well, so you don't even need to clean it.

Black Ivan fresh from the factory. Pre-paint.

Man am I happy to be finally done with this model... It has great stats and some great synergies with Kommander Harkevich. I would say something about its fluff but you know.. the book that he's supposed to be in has yet to be released so all I have is this lousy black Russian robot with a bear claw. But hey, that's my first Warmachine model. Not 100% built - still needs some green stuff where the claws are, but he's lookin' alright for now.

Games Day Coverage! #1

With Games Day upon us, me and my buddy Vince quickly drove to the Donald E. Stephens Convention Center in Rosemont, IL. We got there are about 9:00 AM and were not surprised to see the waiting area filled with many, many gamers. Compared to Games Day Baltimore there were less unwashed gamers as well! Yay!

"Matt Ward Pride"

The Staff Registration went smoothly. I had to sign a piece of paper promising that I wasn't going to get drunk, etc. at the convention, which was fine by me. I also asked if the club members were supposed to get a T-Shirt and after asking around the lady at the counter gave me one of the Staff shirts which were just like the Games Day 2011 shirts, except a beige color. However as it turned out it was not meant to be. ;( As Joe also went to sign up for his badge he was told that we were not supposed to get any shirt. And I guess he then pointed at me... And then they took my shirt.
It would have been glorious..

There were also a bunch of people from the local Games Workshop store that were there an hour or so before the doors open. It's always nice to see some familiar faces in the crowd and I was pretty excited to see what they would think of the Heroes of Armageddon setup.

Unfortunately, as a Club member I had to leave them in line, for you see - I got to get in early. And for free! *evil laughter*

The Gang!

Inside, me and the HoA crew had like an hour to burn before the horde of gamers was allowed to pass. We spent that time mostly chatting with the vendors, other club members, etc. Me and Joe got to talk with one of the guys that made the Ultramarines movie and he told us that if they are looking to make a second movie and that many people want them to do one about the Space Wolves. However that would require a lot of money because of the effort required to animate so many braids and beards. The guy was really nice and gave us some free Ultramarines T-shirts as well.

And then... the gates opened.
Most of you already know what it is to be waiting for those doors to open while not being trampled by the fans who must reach the Forge World line. This year the fastest guy actually completely missed the line and sprinted past it - some GW employees were even waving their arms, signaling for the crazed fanatic to stop. Personally I didn't even bother..

Being on the other side, though.. It's different. It's refreshing.. relieving. But it also has that whole "Oh Shiiiiiit" vibe to it, maybe because gamers are just that crazy. Oh, and a feeling of pride, of course. The fact that you are contributing and somehow making Games Day a better game and a better day for everyone is exhilarating.

The only club (I assume) event that I participated in was Squighopper Races! Why? Because I had a chance to play it last year and the whole game is so much fun. It captures the spirit of goblins riding squigs and it plays like a game of Blood Bowl but with a bunch of extra cards that allow you to drop banana peels, poke people with a pointy stick, fart.. stuff like that.
Me, Joe and Fritz managed to get in the first round of Squighopper Races but failed to win one of the shiny trophy. There's always next Games Day..

The picture you see above is definitely what won the Vehicle Conversion Contest. It is simply mind-blowing when it comes to the attention to detail, all the rivets and wallets that died for this project. I really want to see this bad boy fully painted and on the tabletop. Imagine it tank-shocking a Reaver Titan.. Wowza! Orkz definitely have the upper hand when it comes to vehicle conversion contest simply because you can afford to be sloppy and very, very random.  

Speaking of random... O_o

The Predator Centipede?

The Monstrous Creature Conversion Contest also had some brilliant entries. With every new Warhammer Fantasy Battle army book we see more and more crazy big ass creatures and this is also reflected in this years conversions. There were a lot of models using Tomb King parts from the Necrosphinx. There are even more insane plastic and resin kits on the way as well, so expect to see some phantasmagorian convertions next year as people finally start to use the resin Finecast model range (Cockatrice, Black Dragon, etc.) and the myriad of other beasts (Ogre Kingdoms!) in their conversions. 


Heroes of Armageddon

WHO...IS...DEADLIEST?

People staring in awe at the Heroes of Armageddon table were definitely the highlight of the day for many of us. It was nice to see little kids commenting on the fluff and their excitement to see their favorite special characters on the table. Throughout the day I asked a lot of people which model they would like to be in the conflict for Hive Hades and many chose the Blood Angels snipers or some of the distant Heavy Weapon teams from the Steel Legion. Which was lame.
It's all about the orkz, bros. Why would you choose the Khorne-worshiping pretty boys in red or the oomies who would rather hide in their metal boxes and shoot you with flashlights rather than putting up a good fight? Pfffft. :P

It's all about Sizorfist, guys. Look at him.  

I bet there were at least a thousand pictures taken of the Heroes of Armageddon throughout the day. At one point I was explaining to this family all about the event, all about the fight and the factions involved. The family I was talking to just randomly decided to attend Games Day - without knowing anything about 40k, Games Workshop or tabletop strategy games!!! And at the same time they were ecstatic about everything - the models, the table, the charity itself. The children were asking who was going to win and the dad was having the time of his life taking pictures from every angle imaginable. It felt great. For a second I felt like a Games Workshop employee and I bet I could have sold them like 2 Assaults on Black Reach, teehee.

MiniWarGaming interviewed Dr. Jawaballs, Doctor of Love about the Heroes of Armageddon initiative and the charity aspect of the event. You can see the video below:

Here are some more pictures from HoA:

The Golgotha by Miniature Wargame Conversions

Wazzdakka Gutsmeck by John Shaffer

Ghazghkull Mag Uruk Thraka by Mathieu Fontaine

They call me...... Tim?

Another highlight of the day for me was finally meeting Tim from Miniature Tim. You guys know him. On his blog he had announced that he was going to Games Day and that he was also going to wear a white T-shirt with his blog's logo. God, it was so hard for me to locate him, but eventually I did and I definitely felt like a creep following him as he was having a phone conversation. Hey, I didn't want to miss him, it was find to find him as it was. Tim was a great guy and I guess I just knew that the blogosphere was losing an important member when he was on blogging hiatus. Glad you're still posting, man. Keep up the good work and good luck with next year's Golden Demon entry!

My only regret with the Heroes of Armageddon was that we never got to play with the models. It would have been such a bloody, fast-paced massacre! I know, I know.. They models were not ours anymore and ti would have been a clusterfuck and a half. But that's something to think of for next year. If there is a charity event in the making the models shouldn't just sit there, they should be played with. Oh, did I mention that HoA got Best Theme for Club Tables? Yarrrr...

Jawaballs also made us proud by winning the Banner Contest with his Armageddon banner. Second year in a row. Congrats, Jawaballs! I'm still determined to convince my store to gather some moneycashdollars so we can commission a banner! It's true that the competition this year was barely there. There were a ton of entries at Games Day Baltimore, but I guess people thought that bringing a painted piece of fabric to the Windy City was not the best idea, huh?
What are you going to surprise us with next year, Jawaballs?  You've set the bar so high.. Can you beat it?

Waaaaaaagh!!!!!

Mike Cho from MiCho Miniatures also got an award - A Silver Demon for his Bloodcrusher of Khorne in the 40k Large Monster category! Mike painted an Assault Squad and a Storm Raven (the one with the sweet angel wings on it!!!) for the Blood Angels army from Heroes of Armageddon. I'm certain that he could have easily gotten an award for his Storm Raven as well! Mike is a very nice guy and a skilled painter, so watch out for him, guys. Also watch out for his swords.. On the picture to the right Mike is screaming WAAAAAAAGH! as best as he can... I guess passed... for a goblin. No Lore of the Big Waaagh for you, Cho. You get the Little Waaaagh..

All of the awards together! Shiny!

Alright.. This post is gettin 'uge, so I'll have to stop writing for now!


To be Continued..

The day before Games Day: The Tale of the Tables for Heroes of Armageddon!

Phew! I survived yet another Games Day!
But before I start showing you shiny pictures of the event itself let me start with the day before Games Day in which yours truly overslept, the FOUR 3'x4' Heroes of Armageddon tables were finished and then transported to the Donald E. Stephens Convention Center in Rosemont, IL, the Heroes of Armageddon crew finally met in person and the miniatures finally got to see their enemies..