Wargaming Tradecraft: May 2011




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Weekly Update

Last Week at Wargaming Tradecraft




Shop Smart

artist: GaryStorkamp
Not often in our hobby are we dealing with items where we have to shop around a whole bunch and try to get the better deal - but there are occasions. Most of our purchases will be at our Favorite Local Gaming Store and we don't need to worry about warranties, price matching and so on.

Sometimes though, we're buying higher end tools for our hobbies - things like drills, Dremels, compressors, boomsticks, etc... When we do, it's important that you get the right quality and don't get ripped off.

The following article isn't limited to just hobbying - you should be able to apply it to most other things you shop for.

Charity Roundup


image from davetaylorminiatures
Previously, I did a Charity Efforts Round Up and promoted some of the different things that the wargaming blog community was doing to help those in need around the world.


This post is to notify you that I've created a section in the sidebar on my blog devoted to promoting the charities that are currently in progress through the community.

If anyone wants to directly link it from their site, rather than keep a list updated themselves, then use the following link:


Create a Poll

 Many people around the Blogosphere use polls to ask questions of their readers. It's a good idea for a number of reasons... sometimes you're not sure about how people will react to an idea you have, other times you want to make sure people are interested before you start typing down a specific road, or maybe you've got a bunch of ideas and with limited time want some feedback into what topic to cover first.

Voodoo Care Package

 The Massive Voodoo care package has arrived!

For those unaware, this was the random prize drawing in the Massive Voodoo Mad Max Contest that I entered my Postapocalyptibuggy in.

Damnatus on IMDB (Warhammer 40k Fan Film)

Heyyy, that's cool.. as of a few months ago, Damnatus, the Warhammer 40k Fan Film, is now listed on IMDB with a full cast and a few reviews.

Too bad it was never officially released. As one of those reviews mention, apparently, it was leaked on Internet. Tsk, tsk, those pesky Internets.



For those not aware, this was a German movie made by a bunch of fans at their own expense. It was shaping up to look like a quality release and their website has some nifty galleries of some of the work they put into it.

The problem they ran into was some sort of crazyness regarding German copyright law. I don't fully understand it, but it seems that if Games Workshop game them the permission to release this film, it would have relinquished the 40k brand into public domain. (Something GW would obviously never do, and we can't fault them for) In addition to that, they couldn't transfer creation rights of the movie to GW either.

Unfortunately, while GW told them "Hold off, we're looking into this." they went ahead with spending money and time to make the movie - admittedly, that was their bad. By the time GW gave them the verdict, the movie was completed and the cast and crew were told their efforts could never see the light of day.

As I understand it, it's actually a better movie than Ultramarines.

(FYI, I will remove any comments directing people to the supposed leak as I don't want a GW ban-hammer coming down on my blog. Please keep it to yourselves or take the risk on your own sites.)


Why post at all about this? *shrug* With all the GW crazyness lately, it reminded me I hadn't checked if there had been any update on the Damnatus project. I thought it great to see the movie listed on IMDB, so those involved would at least get some recognition for their hard work.

Weekly Update plus Thoughts on Games Workshop's Price Increase and Embargo

Last Week at Wargaming Tradecraft


I wrote up a post on how to save money, time and convenience, so take a look. Also, slow news day critical attention to detailing all facets of the hobby led me to post about rolling tubes.

ForgeWorld also released the Eldar Wraithseer... hawt.

Also, I've begun a test to see what benefit there is to adding NON OBTRUSIVE ads to my blog. Feedback is much welcome, but I'll be doing a blog-fu post later for everyone on the topic.

IF YOU HAVE QUESTIONS ABOUT AIRBRUSHING
anything at all - now is the time to ask it. Either post a comment, or hop on the website and use the email link.

Coming up, to a Wargaming Tradecraft near you, quite soon, is a highly detailed post on all things airbrushing. I've been typing up a storm this weekend and have over 17 pages done already. I still need to add pictures, format everything and turn it all into blog posts, but get ready to strap in for some highly detailed information.

Rolling Tubes

 Slow news day? Obvious post? An obsessive need to eventually document anything I can think of?

Call it what you want, but this is how to roll tube ends to get the most out of your glue, putty, etc.

Forge World Eldar Wraithseer Released

Forge World has now released the Eldar Wraithseer.

It looks pretty cool, has some nice rules and it even gets new psychic powers. (Force a Ld test, give fleet to a wraith unit or give wraiths an extra 6+ save for a turn)

Takes up an HQ slot but you have to take another HQ option with it. You can even toss a D-Cannon on it's shoulder.

Not only does it act as a 12" spiritseer, but anything shot by it and all wraithguard/lords within 12" have their cover saves worsened by 1. Wow.

I think the most amazing thing about this Forge World release though, is it's the same price as a normal Wraithlord. Bazinga!

Saving Money, Time and Convenience

Written for the House of Paincakes while Dethtron works on a super secret project...

"Snatch back your life!"
For some of us, the time investment into a hobby like tabletop wargaming can be just as costly as actual out of pocket expenses. Rather than talk about saving you money in this article, I'm going to talk about saving time and other things. Younger gamers may not fully grasp this, but people with significant others, children, jobs and other responsibilities will probably agree - and younger gamers, maybe this will help free up time to do homework, get a job (and afford more minis / supplies) enjoy other things like video games, movies, friends and RL.

In the end, your sanity may thank you the most.

Weekly Update

Last Week at Wargaming Tradecraft


I spoke about Welding with Solder, but it was during the Blogger blow-up, so I've reposted it. If you commented, they were lost, so take another look.

Welding with Solder

Previously I spoke about creating Fake Weld Joints. This basically involved heating up some wire and running it along plastic or using excess glue and allowing it to squish out of a join so that it's obviously been connected.

Here, I'm going to talk about creating the final type of welding you'll probably be interested in at a miniature scale, and that's solder welding.

Stylish Blogger Award

I wasn't sure what to think about these awards floating around our community lately. I mean, on the surface they're basically a feel-good pyramid chain letter. But having received one, and giving it some thought, I decided that it IS a "feel-good" award. It's a nice thing to recognize people for the work that they do, not to mention spreading some good feelings around and do some networking and advertising. It's also fun to share something about yourself to the community that they might not know.

Eldar Corsair Heavy Weapon Team and Guardians

via Dark Future Games
Forge World has released another new Eldar unit conversion pack... an Eldar Corsair Heavy Weapon Team

They look pretty cool...

So now, for only $25 you can CONVERT (not purchase.. you already have to own guardians) a total of FOUR whole models...

Sooo for $6 x4 you get a head, gun arm and weird wing thing jump packs.

Seems like a rip off... I'm curious to see the new Eldar line GW is going to be releasing if Forge World's trying to cash in on new units well before the new codex release.

Or, for almost $30, you can convert 10 normal guardians with their normal upgrade pack.

No rules yet, but I can only imagine the next Forge World rulebook will focus on tiding Eldar players over until a new Codex releases.

The Box! The Box!

I've won the random runner up prize from Massive Voodoo's Mad Max competition... a mystery (appropriately) red cross box full of what's no doubt some hobbying goodness!

Check out the winners as they're very deserving of it!

Again, you can see the gallery of all the entries - well worth the time to look through the awesome stuff people entered.

And finally, if you want to see all the steps I put into creating mine, check out the Step by Step page.

The Things You Own End Up Pwning You

Well, it's been quite the (almost) two weeks.

Things are finally getting back to normal, big thanks to TheWife and my buddy Jim (over his birthday) for sorting though so much of the destroyed stuff, drying out what they could and moving our stuff back in during the periods I had to work.

The good news is, we made out better than expected and most of the losses occured to electronics. (Even stuff unplugged due to batteries)

You have no idea what it feels like to go through this, be happy about the gamestations surviving, laying down to relax after a long day that finished with you setting up the tv/stations/mass of wires, only so you could relax by watching some Netflix on your PS3 (some of you know where this is going) and discover that Sony's PSN network was hacked, is down, and is preventing you from Netflixing. (The work around only started working for us last night)

The bad news is most of what we saved from our wedding is gone, tons of white wolf including *gasp* the Book of Nod, (not that we play World of Darkness anymore, but they're all far out of print) my Eldar/Dark Angels novels, 40k rulebooks (big/mini) and TheWife's Chaos Codex (somehow Eldar codexes survived).. oh and my data was only backed up to last April, with a little from a few months ago. (Yes, I got sloppy in the last year and new backup procedures are going into place - 2 hard drives, swapped whenever we visit family for offsite backup)

So, I have my data from childhood, old school projects, photography, wedding photos, etc... Lost in the last year? Everything that went into creating Wargaming Tradecraft besides what's been uploaded; things like high res images, unflattened editable images, organization, some WIP shots, etc. (I've resigned myself to not resurrecting the hard drive storing it, but I've got a few far fetched ideas left to try)

Our landlord's been very apologetic and awesome, and we got out of the hotel last thursday. We've sorted through most everything, now just have some stuff to get back into place. My hobby room, aka our spare bedroom, is almost no longer storage, and therefor almost functional again... then some paint and music/show fueled catharsis can begin... only to be delayed sometime very soon because the floor in there still needs to be replaced and some work projects are/will be requiring a lot of overtime.

I also need to catch up on what's been going on in the blogosphere.


I have gone old school and written out (pen and paper!) a detailed plan for creating a ton of posts on various aspects of air brushing.. I've also decided to get back on track with my punk art stuff and start exploring other painting styles... so those're some things to look forward to.

Sooo, you'll have to be patient while I finish sorting through the last of things, deal with work stuff and get back into the swing of it.

In the meantime, if you're new, maybe you'll want to check out past stuff. I index and sort everything I post here, so check out:

Massive Voodoo Mad Max Cars

Take a look at the incredible submissions to Massive Voodoo's Mad Max Car Competition that I entered with my Postapocalyptibuggy.