Sunday 19 July 2015

Black Templars - You've been vindicated!

Hey Ladies and Gents!

Today is a nice hobby update on where I am at with my Black Templars which is nice considering how Blood Angel heavy the blog has been recently with both reviews (a little more on that later) and hobby progress.

So today I have a finished project to show you and also some WIP projects that will hopefully be completed in the next couple of weeks or so (more likely 3 but I'm giving myself something to aim for!)

So here is a rescue project I commenced on a knackered vindicator, I'm aiming to improve on WIP shots as I realised the impact is a lot better than just a before and after picture, but with this tank I'm afraid that's all you're getting for this one, but skip down later for some better WIP picks of the other Vindicator.

Here's the before shot:

And here is a host of after pictures!









You can see in the last picture how little effort I put into really cleaning this up, but I just wanted to get it nice and table top ready from a distance.

I'm happy with how it turned out but I think I will go back once I've done all the tanks and add a more extreme highlight to all of them.


Here is the before shots of the second rescued and converted vindicator:





On the back of the tank was a gaping hole, this was covered up with my favourite emergency conversion material, Train Tickets!! They are pretty sturdy and featured in the first tank conversion also!

And finally here is my WIP scouts that are all metal and have been stripped and half undercoated so far (the other half and second vindicator are upstairs drying from an undercoat as I type!):

With my piled up Death Company crammed in behind them! But having sold all my none Blood Angel and none Black Templar figures my to-do pile is still big but considerably smaller than it was!



Narrative Gaming


So I am playing the second of my Narrative game on Thursday which is why the Templars are getting a good seeing too as we are escalating the points value to around 1500-1600 from 1300. This mean either adding both vindicators or a vindicator and some neophytes. I'm hoping to get some real pictures of this game and try my hand at a decent battle report for once! We are going to be playing a custom mission for this one so I will enjoy writing that up for you as well. Basically the Orks and Templars are going to be fighting for Ork tech from the crashed Hulk from the first game and this will have knock on effects in the final show down where the Templars and Angels will assault an Ork Town. It should be fun!!

Blogucation

Finally I would like some feedback from you my readers on what you enjoy about my blog and what you would like to see more of or less of as I move forward. I really enjoyed writing my review of the Blood Angels codex, though I had a lot of tongue in cheek turn of phrases as I'm sure you will notice if you have read them.


Would people like to see more review? Or more hobby updates? I know I'd like to put more WIP shots up as I said before, I'd also like to put more battle reports up as well. I'm looking forward to writing about my experiences at Fluffageddon and Blog Wars X at hoping to get some snaps of my battles as well as my opponents because I like putting faces to names! 

Anyway, any advice for a better set up, look to the blog or just improvements in anyway please leave a comment and I will try and make this blog better as I go forward.

As an addendum, it took my 2 and a half months to reach 1000 views and it has taken less than a month since then to reach 3000 so I am super happy with over 2000 views in just less than a month! Thank you to everyone who reads my blogs and special thank you to NafNaf from Objective Secured and Nick from the Burning Eye and Corrm from Standwargaming who can all be found on my blog roll and who have been fantastic inspirations and I hope to play all of them in future tournaments I attend :)

Till next time,

Peace out

Rob

6 comments:

  1. Hey Rob. I enjoyed seeing and reading about how you are rescuing these tanks. More progress shots is definately appreciated. I have done alot of ebay buying for my space wolves, so over 60% of my vehicles are reclaim jobs. All are damaged in some way but I either repair it or use it as battle damage.

    I can't add any constructive input on your tactics articles as I am not a blood angel player, But they are well written, and alot of people do look for these types of articles on blogs, so keep em coming I say :)

    Just keep doing what you are doing, post about what you enjoy and keep experimenting. Def do a few battle reports ect and if you enjoy writing them do more. I find them very difficult to write so I dont do any, but I do enjoy reading them. Thor over at creative twilight, and Greg at feed your nerd both do good narrative style writing for their reports which work very well, whereas Cornm does excellent more tactical ones on his blog. Find a style you like and are comfortable writing in and go for it :)

    Thanks for the shout out :). Glad I could be some small help in your blogging journey.

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    1. Thanks Naf, I really enjoying making the bes out of some knackered stuff, but at the same time its been really enjoyable with my angels to buy mostly new stuff and just play around with sticking bits together.

      I have a lot of Stormcast sprues now and I'm looking forward to putting some serious time into converting them for Blood Angel duty, though the idea of slicing off and filing all the meteors is some what daunting!!

      Thanks again :)

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  2. Hi Rob, some really nice work on the tanks, great paint jobs!

    As for the blog, some WIP and tips on the painting would work well. Your stuff lucks really good in the photos and it might be nice to get some insight into how you get things painted. Plus doing WIP articles allows you to post more often than waiting to finish a project.

    I've certainly found that reviews really boost the number of visits to the site as it is something that a lot of people want to see. I was fortunate to be able to get my Dark Angels reviews up fairly quickly after the release of the codex, but people are still interested in reading different insights into older codices from different people (say from a competitive angle or from a more general narrative angle).

    Battle reports are a nice addition to any blog, but I find that they can take a long time to write up and put together. I find that a lot of people like the maps that I use (from Battle Chronicler) and the analysis of the game afterwards; where the plan went well or failed, which units performed well. It does slow your games down a bit with all the photo and note taking, plus the write ups can take over an hour to complete, but it's something that I enjoy doing and you may like it too.

    I am really enjoying the blog and I will need to keep an eye out for you at Blog Wars X. Cheers for the shout out!

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    1. Hi Corrm, I have also found that my review have upped my views a fair bit, I know that I have read each of your dark angel reviews a couple of time or more so that doesn't surprise me too much.

      I'm hoping to get my first battle report up early next week, though this will be very picture heavy and more narrative than tactical as they aren't really competitive games.

      Indeed I look forward to seeing what you bring to Blog Wars X! I don't think I'd fair all that well though to be honest against you!

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  3. Woooo Templars! That is a lovely job on the tank revamp! One suggestion. Wipe your camera lense down! I want to see that tank in all it's glory!

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    1. Thanks Greg! Following this comment I actually got my act in gear and bought a dedicated digital camera on the cheap for my photos so I don't have to rely on my phone anymore.

      I'm also really interested in a foldio after reading a review of yours I think, so I thank you for that!

      I'll apologise now for the poor photos in my next post, I just could not get it to focus well and its been tipping it down all week here sadly so flash was needed.

      Hopefully a lot more Templars coming up too!

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