40k | Of Dice and Pens

ModCubes – A new gaming aid

November 16, 2015July 9, 2016 Mordaq Leave a comment

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I was flipping through Kickstarter a few months back, and a project happened to catch my eye. That project was titled Modcube – Part Tokens, Part Dice, Fully Modular. I decided to back it, and tossed in roughly $60 for two sets of tokens and cubes, planning on getting the ones that were created for Warhammer 40k infantry and vehicles. Fast forward a few months, and they arrived in the mail! Excited, I eagerly dug into the package, and assembled my 16 cubes. Each cube can hold 6 different tokens. After careful planning (actually it was just me thinking “Oh this could work.”), I snapped my 16 cubes together. I had cubes with numbers showing how many wounds were taken, cubes showing what was rolled on the vehicle damage table, cubes showing if the unit needed to take a leadership test, and many other various useful status effects.

As you may remember, I brought them in to the Montgomery Mall one Saturday, and let Jay and Chris use them in their game. In the middle of the game, Jay commented on how useful they were, which I call a big plus.

I rather enjoy these cubes, and highly recommend them to others. They’re lightweight, durable, and can be rolled just like a normal 6-sided die. The cubes and the tokens come in an enormous amount of colors, so you can easily choose your favorite color, or mix-and-match to get multicolor cubes. They are very easy to customize with your own combination of tokens. As of this current writing, not only do they have tokens for 40k infantry and vehicles, but they also have tokens for Star Wars: X-Wing, Infinity, Malifaux, Star Wars: Armada, Warhammer 40k mysterious objectives, Warmachine/Hordes, Star Wars: Imperial Assault, and D&D Attack Wing, so there’s a wide range of tokens. On the downside is the fact that the colors can rub off on your hands if you handle the tokens themselves too much (Mine got a tad bit smudged as I was assembling them, but they’re still readable).

To sum it up, I’d give them a solid 9/10. They will be selling them to the general public sometime in November at their site, www.modcube.com, so keep checking there to get yours!

Mauler Fiend

October 18, 2015November 19, 2015 Mike Levitt 3 Comments

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*Mauler Fiend Noises?*

This model took me over a year to finish. Its still not technically done because the tendrils are magnetized and I haven’t finished painting the other weapon option. I painted a large portion of it, didn’t like how it turned out, then I just let it sit for a year. I finished it when I decided that having a painted model was better than having an unpainted model, even if the paint job doesn’t look good. While the painting itself isn’t my best, I really like the way the base turned out. This was my first attempt at using cork board and I think that it looks fairly convincing as stone in some areas.

This model is still fun to field in an army list and it really ties the army together. I don’t have all the models I use painted, so its nice to have an intimidating daemon-y vehicle thing to run at your enemies face.

Abaddon the Despoiler

October 18, 2015October 22, 2015 Mike Levitt 1 Comment

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(I don’t know any Abaddon quotes… This is kinda embarrassing)

To be perfectly honest I only painted this model because Charles had an extra one he wasn’t using. I have moderate interest in making a Black Crusade list, where I have each chaos leader, but that is not a high priority for me right now.

This model was fun to paint though. I made sure to dry brush some grey over the black before anything else to give his armor a bit more depth. Then I painted the gold and other details. The sword was the most fun part for me; I really enjoy dry brushing. Its base coated dark purple, with about 3 or 4 layers of different shades of blue layered on top.

Kharne the Betrayer

October 18, 2015October 22, 2015 Mike Levitt Leave a comment

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Blood for the Blood God! Skulls for the Skull Throne!

Kharne is my second favorite character in 40k lore (Angron is the bestest!) and while the setting of 40k is goofy beyond all reason, the characters and stories have had a lot of thought put into them. A lot of the stories for the World Eaters are framed like Greek Tragedies and his is no exception. His Primarch, both a military leader and father figure to their armies, was found seething with rage and hatred. The entire World Eaters legion willingly underwent the barbaric surgery to try and raise Angron from his madness only to be consumed themselves by his overwhelming anger. When Kharne fell, he became hollow inside. An empty vessel slaying countless friends and foes who were foolish enough to get within reach of his axe.

The model is packaged with a normal space marine sized base. There is no way Kharne would be okay with such a tiny foot print, so I gave him a terminator sized base instead. Since I play a Khorne army I have plenty of skulls on hand for basing, so that was not an issue. I primed him in a metallic transparent red spray paint that I purchased by mistake. It turned out so good that I kept it, and used that as the base coat. I didn’t use any special techniques for this model, I just tried to take my time and make sure I get each part of the model I want to paint, but looking at the model now for this post I can see places I missed…

Khorne Berzerker Champion

October 18, 2015October 22, 2015 Mike Levitt Leave a comment

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Charge Forward!

When I first started my Chaos Army I knew I wanted to play Khorne. Mostly because I love the color red, but also because I found them to be quite funny. In the grim darkness of the far future, where there is only war, they choose axes and swords instead of guns. I almost immediately got the Khorne Berzerker Upgrade pack available on Forgeworld to make a squad of dudes. I borrowed (stole) a pair of Sanguinary Guard Legs from Charles to give him a great running pose.

Painting was straight forward. Base coated with bright red, silver, and gold. Then I inked him. I don’t remember exactly which ink I used, but it was probably one of the ones which GW has discontinued.

For lore purposes this model is one of 8 characters I have been building for my ‘command’ squad. They were a vicious squad of Berzerkers who all got promoted and blessed by the Blood God. Now they lead their own war bands, but when the need is dire they join together again to wreak havoc across the galaxy.

Imperial Fists Showcase

October 16, 2015October 19, 2015 Charles Muscarella Leave a comment

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There’s a funny story behind this squad actually… You see, I have tritanopia, which you may know as blue-yellow colorblindness. But what that means to me is: I can’t see yellow. So you could imagine that painting up some Imperial Fists would be quite the challenge for me, right? Well let me tell you, it was.

A long long time ago one of the GW players (Ben) at my store asked me to paint his Imperial Fist sergeant, and so I did. Ben went on to tell me “the color is off… it’s too brown…” So off I went to paint it again, and this time “Now it’s too orange… that’s not the right color at all.” So I did it one more time, and “well it’s probably the closest your going to get.” And that was the end of that. I hadn’t tried painting an Imperial Fist or any yellow model for that matter since.

Years pass, and and the manager at my store asks me to paint up a squad of Spaces Marines (the new box) for Free Comic Book Day in May 2015, a week before the day. I took a GW player poll as to what I should paint the squad as, and well… you guessed it. Everyone wanted to see some FISTS! So off I went, to conqueror the yellow! Construction took all of 2 hours, and then I primed them black. Yes you read that right, black. After that, it was coat, after coat, after coat of variations of yellows (at least that’s what the paint vials said). I painted this squad in a total of 16-18 hours after priming them, and I think they turned out just fine.

My two favorite parts about these models are the glow effects on the guns, and the VII printed on the knee pads. I hope you all think they look awesome, cause I’m not doing it again.