Sammath Naur- Chambers of Fire

Let me show you today another of the dioramas that crowd my shelves -storage is becoming a trouble!

It's the Sammath Naur. Well, you have just read the title, so you should have imagined by now:

 

Crappy photo taken at my previous home before moving

In the Cracks of Doom inside the Orodruin Dark Lord Sauron forged the One Ring and this place is known as the Chambers of Fire.

 

Drop it, Mister Frodo!

The minis are GW and, as soon I got them, I knew I had to build up a diorama. This cracking scene inmediately came up into my mind and did not leave until it was fulfilled.

 

Hey, Sam, what's that behind you...?

Maybe I shouldn't have preserved the round bases and have instead fixed the minis into the scene, but my gamer mentality avoided me to do so. If I did this again, I'd probably go for the absolute integration into the diorama.

 

Sssss... My precioussss....

The diorama itself is the cheapest seediest thing you can imagine. Just two pieces of plywood for the floor and the back wall, lots of DAS putty and some Tente Blocks (I've told you before of this Spanish alternate company for Lego which I've always preferred).

 

The final result

 

I tried some light effects from the lava beneath, but I'm not quite satisfied. Nevertheless, despite the shabby aspect of it, I'm still pleased with the idea of having my own Sammath Naur decorating the shelf.

Spanish ISAF Soldier (Pt.1. Beginning and weapon)

Hi everyone!

Today I'm starting a new group of entries concerning a single project. I will be alternating projects as I've been doing so far, just not to bore you with the same stuff. But if you prefer otherwise, please let me know ;)

The title says it everything. I have long time wanted a figure to represent a Spanish Soldier serving in Afghanistan as part of the International Security and Assistance Force (ISAF). The lack of this kind of product all over the companies I've visited made me take the resolution of grabbing the bull by its horns. If it didn't exist, I'd have to create it.

I was looking for some piece for exposition rather than wargaming (that will be another absolutely different project -but not today), so I aimed for 54/72mm. Finally I chose the 72mm. Knightmodels Navy Seal as a starting point.

 

Yeah, I chose a scuba diver for a desert trooper. That's how my mind works, don't ask.

 

I most probably won't be using the flippers though

Well, well, well. There's a lot of work to do here. I chose this model basically for the legs and the head. I would have almost nothing to touch up in the legs, and the boonie was perfect for my purpose, as I didn't find any helmeted head suitable for my intentions. 'What happens with the rest of the model, genius?' I can hear you asking.

The first problem, and probably the most challenging, is the weapon. The basic design of a M-16 differs from the G36. Let's do it Sesame Street style with some help from Wikipedia:



This is a M-16

 

This is a G36

 

So, what could I do? I went on green stuff:

 

I have no idea of what I'm doing

Hmmm...

Hey, where did that come from?

Well, close enough for me

 

Okay, it's not perfect, not even by chance. The muzzle and the whole barrel are different, but that doesn't specially bother me. So it is the grenade launcher, but I didn't dare to remove it because of the soldier's hand. I tried to mimic the G36 designs, but trust me, once all this is painted in black, no one will notice the differences :P

I did not finish the whole butt of the weapon, as it has to fit in the arm of the model. Maybe the sculpting is not pro, but I think it will work for my purposes.

Hope you like it, let me know what you think!

Playing Rogue Trader: Battle at the Farm

Yes, this is for real! We are playing Warhammer 40,000 using the rules first appeared back in 1987. Of course, we had to play the mytical 'Battle al the Farm' between Crimson Fists Space Marines and Snagrod's Orks.

Legendary primeval  Rulebook. If you never played this, you are too young

Rynn's World has been invaded by infamous Ork Warlord Snagrod the Arch-Arsonist of Charadon. The Space Marine Chapter of the Crimson Fists, dwelleres of that planet, are driven to the brink of extinction after a missile destroyed their fortress-monastery. Their remains, leaded by Commander Pedro Cantor, had to really do their best not to prevail, but even to survive.

Pedro Cantor and 15 Space Marines find shelter in an abandoned burned farm. But they cannot find rest, as a horde of Orks under the command of Thrugg Bullneck are heading just there. Thrugg hid a chest of jewels when he burned the farm and now he's taking advantage of a rutinary patrol to try to recover them secretely without their boys knowing anything about that...

The whole story is better told here:

Directly from the pages of the rulebook

I played the role of Thrugg Bullneck and Mighty Miguel from Laserburn assumed the role of Pedro Cantor. As a matter of fact you can find all the campaign in his web, I'm translating here the most of it for the record.

The Space Marine forces were these:



Squad Rodriguez



Squad Patts

Squad Culln



Pedro Cantor


The Ork forces were these:



Sergeant Hruk's Squad




Ork Squad #2




Ork Squad #3




Ork Squad #4



Thrugg Bullneck (well, an ordinary Ork mini)



So, you wanna see what happens next with all these people? Let's battle!

 Turn 1: the Orks moved and advanced towards the farm.




Old MacDonald had a farm, ee i ee i o!



'Ere we go! 'Ere we go!

Nothing else happened that turn, of course. Right after that, the Crimon Fists realized that something was happening, so they decided to look up:



Hey, dude, what's happening out there?

They begun to shoot, but nothing happened. That's why the Orks roared and advanced again. As a matter of fact, the following turns were more or less the same: advance, shoot, advance, shoot...




Shoot'em up!



Oi! Resist, boyz!

At some point we realized that something was going wrong; it was, of course, the very deployment. We had set the Orks really, really far from the farm. They could do absolutely nothing in order to achieve their objective (i.e., stay a whole turn inside the farm main building with Thrugg or Hruk). Turn after turn they were heading to it as fast as they could and the building was impossible to reach.
So yes, this was just a shooting gallery, we had screwed it up. But what the hell, we were not going to repeat it at this point, so we just kept on playing.




Fewer and fewer Orks each turn




And fewer!!

As you can see, there was no much tension, but we were still enjoying of the absurdness of the situation. We made a clash of bosses:

This pic could have been taken 25 years ago, but it wasn't

And the inevitable conclusion was:




Ouchie!

 Well, and that was all, folks.
This game wasn't compensated at all due to the enormous distance (we did not measure it at the beginning, I must confess) so this was just shooting practice with green targets, nothing else.

Had we done it better, the battle would have been much more fun. However, we enjoyed it enough, gaming with RT rules again. If you haven't played this game, I encourage you to do so.

But don't worry, you will have the opportunity to see more Old School gaming over here...

Painting Dreadfleet: The end of the project

Well, let's put an end to this :)

The last models of the game are the small auxiliaries, the Cogs:

Great Alliance Cogs

With their tiny riggings!

Evil guys

Evil tiny rigging

So that's it, folks!

Let's have some family photos for the record:

 

This is the whole set

 

The good guys

The allegedly evil guys

Scenery and stuff

Cinematic close up #1

Cinematic close-up #2

So, this has been the Dreadfleet project. I hope you have enjoyed it as much as I enjoyed preparing it. It's been quite a funny stimulating challenge, but I'm happy with it.

Well, now let's focus on RT campaign! You'll see it soon :)

Boromir, son of Denethor

...Captain of Gondor.

This is another one of the superb minis by Knightmodels. Their sculpt quality is really unsurplussable. You can see the actor's face in each model, they are wonderful. This belongs to the 72mm. LOTR range.

First of all I undertook the head:

 

Eddard Stark? No, I'm afraid you are talking about any other guy...

 

Once I had primed it all and I begun to put up the pieces I discovered with horror that... there was a piece missing in the box! The right arm was entirely missing. I thought about telling the company, but I knew that I lacked the patience to wait with the model unfinished till the reposition piece (if any) would arrive. So I just sculpted it with green stuff:

 

From shoulder to wrist

 

That implied cloth, chainmail and embossed leather. Well, I tried my best. I think it goes unnoticed once it's painted:

 

What a horn

Here you have:

Not perfect, but I'm satisfied

The model depicts Boromir before the Fellowship comes into Lothlorien, so the cloak is not the Elven grey one, but the Gondorian one. I had to check the movie production pics and I reproduced the pattern:

 

Again, not perfect, but good enough for me

 

I aim to get the whole Fellowship of the Ring when all the characters are released, so you can expect to see some more of these over here...

Hope you like it!

Painting Dreadfleet: Flaming Scimitar & Skabrus

We see light at the end of the tunnel :) I'm bringing you the last two warships of the game.

This is the Flaming Scimitar:

 

Well, at least all of her parts

 

This is one of the most original concepts of the game, I love the idea of the elementals helping the ship.

 

Fire striking, wind blowing and water carrying. Wonderful

 

Rigging as usual:

Not much thread this time

It's not always easy to find out where to glue the thread

As I told, just guess the most logic way to distribute the pressure from the sails

I had a problem with this one that I finally didn't solve. Yes, the arabic domes. I wasn't able to make the pieces suit completely. I think it's due to the fire or the wind djinns, pushing the pieces out. But believe me, at tabletop distance it's not so awful as in the pics.

 

It could perfectly belong to one of the One Thousand and One Nights stories

 

The last ship (ship... whatever) is the zombie Skaven leviathan called Skabrus.

You don't see a ship here?

According to the fluff, the monster gulped a ship full of Skavens (rat-men, if you're not into Warhammer background). The rodents ate the beast from the inside out, but they all died. When evil vampire Count Noctilus found the dead monster, he resurrected it for his fleet, unaware that he was also bringing the Skavens back to life (or un-life, or whatever). The zombie ratmen allied to Count Noctilus and comitted evil plunder and un-lived happily ever after. Or so. Yes, these are the things that can happen in the Warhammer universe. Now you know what to expect from this model.

 

The Warhammer version of Finding Nemo

Thread has no much sense here, as this is an animal and the rigging couldn't possibly be tense and fulfl its mission. But oh my, am I trying to apply logic now? Seriously?

 

You knew this was going to happen

I fixed tense stayes and some random threads any which way

 

Unfortunately the interior of the beast cannot be seen, but there's some work there with bowels and stuff. Well, yeah, maybe it's for good.

We'll end the project in next Dreadfleet post, with the auxiliaries and some pics of the whole game.
Hope you're enjoying it!