Books, books and more books.

To say that i love to read is an understatement. Especially when it has to do with my hobbies. I have over the years collected many books related to my hobbies and interest. So it was a very exciting day last Saturday when i met up with Alvin over at Glued My Fingers to collect my orders.

I got : 1 Gaunts Ghost Omnibus, The Saint,
1 How to paint Citadel Miniatures,
1 Planetstrike,
1 Cities of Death.

I'm was at odds over which one to read first but finally went with the painting guidebook. I should be done with it by today then its on with Commissar Gaunt.

I went to Alvin's with Rizal(the former Ultramarine 5th Co. Capt) at around 6pm if i'm not mistaken. We were among the first ones there according to Alvin. Guys....you would not believe the sight!!! 40K stuffs everywhere!!! All you guys who got stuffs from Alvin should be ashamed of yourself. This isn't an arms race you know heheh LOL.

The 25% discounted price was too good to pass and many of you guys took full advantage of this one time deal. I'm only hoping that Alvin insisted on cash up front first. I'm sure he did, smart guy that he is. Anyways, i know pretty much what most of you guys got and already i'm looking forward to seeing them built, painted and causing mayhem. There were orders from guys i haven't the pleasure of meeting yet so it'd be nice if Alvin could point them in Legio's way. The more the merrier they say.

Not wanting to leave without spending some cash i finally decided to buy a box of Citadel Washes box set. All 8 washes for the price of ...........RM65 only!!! Is that the bargain of the month/year or what?? If he still has a few boxes left i urge you to buy it. Rizal got one box too. And he also got a few other stuffs.

I ended up picking Iqbal's and Subahan's stuffs as well since we're all staying in Shah Alam. I will just say......man did they went to town!!! One of them, I won't meantioned who, got 1 Chaos Landraider and 1 Landraider Redeemer and X number of oblitz among other things!!! Peter, watch your back bro. You won't be the only oblitz cheese in town soon heheheheheh.

The other guy got like X number of juggernaught and a SM vehicle. What's up with that? Building 2 armies?? I just can wait for 2010 to come. All these new armies.

So many heads to cut offs!!! The Saim-Hann will be waiting eagerly!!!

Thanks Alvin.

Magnets

My first knowledge that there were tiny magnets for hobby use was when i was introduced to a miniature air combat game called Airwar C21 by Scott over at Wolf's. He had these really nice 1/600 scale aircrafts which were affixed to small GW flying bases. I thought they were so cool. The magnets were small and stuck to each other very well.

So i bought some magnets to start my own Airwar C21 game but found the best use for them being on my jetbike seer council and guardians. And i've never looked back. These magnets are fantastic. Being so small in size(3mm x 1.5mm), there is no limit to their uses.

I got mine from http://www.domsdecals.com/ at around 34 cents a piece. Also got the aircraft decals from him. Nice guy and no shipment problems.

The clicking sound when i attach my councils to their bases is pure heaven. Its like hearing a harlequin concerto. Which none of you guys could probably understand...right Dann? hehehe

The sound as i detach them cause they got killed however isn't nice. So i would really really appreciate it if you guys show them some love when you next see them on the table. They're just eye candy and isn't really much of a threat. That's why i need to fortune them up every turn and turbo boost whenever i can.

I love you guys. My singing spears will show you just how much next time we meet.


One magnet on the flying base.








One underneath the jetbike.









Viola!!! Farseer on a jetbike. Heads will fall!!!

My Counters

Ever since i started playing my eldar army i knew i had to devise a system of tracking the psychic powers i was throwing around. Being spoiled with using 2 farseers in my list, 1 of them being Eldrad, i was throwing a maximum of 5 psychic powers per turn. Some powers like fortune and doom lasts for 1 round so keeping track of which units were affected was helpful to both my opponent and me. Plus it's a good control method to stop me from casting more powers than i'm allowed heheheh.

After much thought, i came up with counters. I used our Malaysian 1 cent coins which i had and still have in abundance. How come i have so many 1 cent coins??? Its quite simple to make actually and very cheap. But most important...it was effective.

From left to right, top to bottom.

1. Wash the coin clean.

2. Base with fotress grey.

3. Color with blood red.

4. Make the saim-hann stripes

5. Varnish with humbrol semi-gloss varnish. You'll notice that the red turns a darker red.

6. Paint the required psychic power initials with skull white.

VIOLA!!!! Super cheap counters done super quickly!!! I usually have a couple of them on standby in case i need more.

To show the powers of each warlock. D = destructor, En = enhance and Em = emboldenn.

Quiz : Dire avengers bladestorming with fortune and guided.

Chaos termies are doomed.

Will the termies survive?

Masking 101

Ever since i changed color scheme to saim-hann i've been getting a lot of questions on how i managed to get the stripes/lines to be so neat. Simple answer : airbrushing and masking. I know for a fact, beyond any doubt, that i could never produce the same result using a brush. I am hopeless with a brush. That's why most of my models are airbrushed. Due to my experience with aircraft modeling.

How it's actually done is as follows. It would work the same if you're using brushes to paint the lines. Here i'll show how i made the black stripes on my fire prism.

1. Primed the surface with codex grey.

2. Sprayed black on the areas where i wanted it to be black.

3. Using a 1cm wide ordinary masking tape, i masked the area where i want the black stripe to be. Weaken the tape's adhesive by sticking it to paper or slighty dusty surface before applying to the surface.

I usually allow the paint to dry 24 hrs before applying the masking tape but if time is of essence, then i use a hair dryer.

4. Mask all the other area i want to remain black.

5. Another coat of codex grey to remove unwanted black area.

6. Sprayed 3 coats of blood red.

7. Carefully peel off the masking tape. Peel the tape at a 90 degree angle to prevent the tape from peeling the paint off. Some paint might/will be peeled off but this can be repaired using brushes.

8. Using oo brush, carefully paint in the segment lines with black paint.

9. Carefully paint outlines using blazing orange along the red areas. And that's it.

10. Coated using semi-gloss varnish. Blood red would change to a dark hue.

11. Final product. I know its a big leap from Step 10 but just wanted to show how it looked like when finished.

Hope this helps. I have done some commission work for friends in the past. Wouldn't mind doing it again just to help you get your models painted ASAP. But only for spraying base coats, primary colors or stripes/simple designs. Minimal fee. Neatness guaranteed. Hehehehe.

Legio Inquisition Wars

It was an awesome event!!! I had so much fun. Where do i even begin...

1. My army preparation was as well as it could be. I'm happy that everything was completed well before the tourney date. This will be my number 1 principle for all future tourneys that i enter.
'Complete painting 1 week before tourney date'.

2. Tourney organization - EXCELLENT!!! We got a t-shirt and a TAC ruler upon registering. Tables were awesome. I loved the city table best and was hoping to get a game there but wasn't destined to. Scenarios were modified 40k but i esp loved the 2 game scenario were we had the every turn exploding warp stones that we had to contest. That was a very nice twist.

3. Players were very nice. Atmosphere was friendly.

My 1st game was against eventual Tourney Champion, Lim Soo Jin. You would not believe how good his army is painted. Most guys commented on the freehand painting that he did on his landraider but to me...the best was his converted attack jetbike. Those 3 models are .....unbelievable!!! It is so so nicely done and painted. Being a Saim-Hann player who uses a jetbike council, i am humbled by his rendition of the space marine att bike on gravs. You have to see it to believe it. Back to work on my jetbikes..... I lost this game.

My 2nd opponent was eventual Tourney Best Sportsman, Ang Hongxi from Singapore. He played a choas IG army, the 1st for me. The scenario had a special twist whereby D3 +3 warp stones/objectives counter would explode every turn with no cover saves allowed. I had so much fun in this game from the exploding warp stones. The element of having to contest an unstable objective is genius. Ang was a pleasure to play against and truly deserves the best sportsman award. We even traded numbers afterwards for Sporecon next year. I won this game.

My 3rd game was against Abdul Kadir. Kill point game. By this time my feet were already aching due to amount of time i spent standing up. This was a see-saw battle which had me having the upper hand early but was eventually over-ran by his superior CC units. Highlight of this game came after when i shared with Kadir a trick us golfers use to handle the Mrs after spending a day away from home rolling dice. I hope you tried the trick bro hehehehe. I lost this game.

I ended in 14th out of 24 players. My points were 27 victory points, 9 for appearance and 5 for sportsman. Although i'm humbled by my appearance score, it was ouch for sportsman. But still 5 out of a possible 9 is considered average. I will definately work hard on this aspect of my gaming.

4. Lessons learnt.

My 1 regret during the tourney was not finding the time to take pics. I was so involved in my games that i failed to actually make time to take pics. My fault entirely. This i will rectify for the next.

Wear comfortable shoes. You'll be standing a lot during the games and by the 3rd game my feet were already starting to ache and i had minor cramps that nite.

5. Army composition. I liked the way my list played. It was fun and mobile. The seer council was a joy to play and became a fire magnet every turn...i honestly don't know why??DA's are not good in CC even with the exarch having powerweapon, shimmershield and defend. Fire prisms didnt do to well. I'm thinking of changing them to more council and walkers or banshees..

Overall it was an amazing day. My heartiest appreciation and congratulations to Jeff and Azlan for organizing this tourney. Well done guys!!!

Khairul 2.0 Craftworld Saim-Hann

I decided to change craftworld around March this year. The main reason was because i was unhappy with the color scheme and painting standard of my Altansar. This time i decided on one of the major craftworld only to be able to use the decals provided. It finally came down to Ulthwe or Saim-Hann. Beil-Tan and Alaitoc were already represent in our gaming community and i wasnt too keen on Iyanden color scheme.

Ulthwe because i wanted to use Eldrad. Saim-Hann because of the jetbikes. I had decided i wanted to start a jetseer council so the red and black of Saim-Hann would really strike out compared to Ulthwe's black. Plus making those stripes using an airbrush would be both easy, quick and produce a clean neat finish. So Saim-Hann it was. Looking back, i'm glad i choose Saim-Hann. The stripes turned out beautiful and blood red was perfect after a spray of semi-gloss varnish

1750 The Storm Riders

Farseer Khairul (count as Eldrad).









Farseer on jetbike - jetbike, fortune, spear.
This was a shining spear exarch model. I cut the helmet side wing tips and glued one at the back to turn him into a farseer. His right arm comes from a banshee exarh model to represent a singing spear. The cowl for all the council is black, the opposite of guardian jetbikes. And I painted gold stripes to differ him from the warlock jetbike council.




Jetbike council - 5 warlocks; jetbikes, 2 destructor, 2 embolden, 1 enhance, 5 spears.
All are shining spear models painted in Saim-Hann colors. The right arms are from dire avenger exarch power weapon arms. Again to represent singing spears. Cowl is black with red stripes.

Dire Avenger (10 inc an Exarch).

Exarch has power weapon and shimmershield, defend.

Dire Avengers squad B (5 avengers).

Guardian jetbike squad (6 guardians).
2 with shuriken cannons.

Fire dragons (6 dragons).

Wave serpent - transport for farseer & DA squad A.

Stones, brightlance.

Falcon A - transport for fire dragons.

Holofield, stones, brightlance.

Fire prism Blue.

Holofield, stones, shuriken cannon.

Fire prism Green.

Holofield, stones.

This will be my list for the Inquisition Wars tourney held at Legio this Saturday. It's quite fragile but so much fun to play. Except for the DA squad B, all elements are fast and meant to either shoot from far or zoom around.


Jetbike seercouncil has got to be the cream of my list. If my dice rolls are good then they're awesome. They're a fire magnet though and could die easily from concentrated fire.


I'm still tinkering around with this list and thinking about getting rid of a prism to get 1 or 2 more warlocks or maybe another squad of guardian jetbike.

Here's hoping my Storm Riders ride into the storm this saturday and come out triumphant!!!

Aircraft modeling

My first hobby was aircraft modeling. Built a few tanks, cars and planes when i was a kid. But really started to get serius with the hobby around 1997. We bought an apartment and i had a room all to myself. That room became my first hobby room. I've since been blessed to have another 2 hobby rooms. The one that i have now is definately the best.

I invested in an airbrush set and bought a lot of aircraft models. Today i have around 5-6 big boxes of unassembled aircraft in 1/72 scale (around 100 kits). Don't know if they will ever get done. I have a mixture of WW2 and modern fighters with some bombers.

This Su-34 playtpus in Bort 349 scheme was my first entry in a competition. It was held at Jakarta in 2001. I was based there at the time. I managed to get 3rd placing in the 1/72 modern jet category.

This F-14 in navy topgun aggessor squadron was my entry in 2002, also for the Jakarta held competition. And for the 2nd year in a row, i got 3rd placing in the 1/72 modern jet category.Competition was fierce so i guess 3rd placing is better than nothing.

The practice and skills that i got from airbrushing and building all those airplanes will later be helpful when i got into wargaming.

Al-Fatihah. Mohd Azrin bin Zulkefli

My very good friend during college who was also my bestman passed away this morning at 7.30 at SJMC. He was 38 and leaves behind a wife and 3 children.

The only photo i have of just the two of us. We were so young then (he's on the left).

Would really appreciate if you could recite the Al-Fatihah for him. May he be among those rewarded with paradise by Allah SWT.

Al-Fatihah.

Thank you all.

Craftworld Altansar

After reading the codex i decided on Altansar. 1st i didn't want to start a major craftworld and 2nd i love the P3 sanguine highlight color. Warmachine was my first miniature game and i collected a Protectorate army. It fit into the Altansar color so that was it.

The problem with Altansar was since it was a minor craftworld, no decals were provided in the decal sheet. So most of my skimmers were quite bland and i'll be honest with myself...it was plain and boring.

My Altansar wave serpent. Sanguine doesnt look so nice over a large model. Or perhaps i didnt know how to make it stand out. This skimmer has since been colored to a more eye-catching paint scheme. More on that later.

The second is to my brother Arzmi

My brother and my bestest friend in the world, the Lord Inquisitor Arzmi. Soon to be warbike ork boss...sigh, what has the imperium fallen to. Thanks Bro for getting me the Eldar Army box set. This box set is huge.

Apart from all the stuff i got from the box, he also got me:
1 box of banshees
1 box of fire dragons
1 box of dark reapers
1 box of rangers
1 box of warp spiders
and of course the codex.

Getting all these goodies in one go was pure heaven. I was spoilt for choices on which to start first. Finally started with the Wraithlord but the funny part is, after developing my list the wraithlord to this day is unfinished. Perhaps one day.

How come GW doesnt make army boxes anymore? I know there's megaforce but none for eldar. Wouldnt mind getting another eldar army box.

The first post is for Mr. Awesome aka Jeff Brooks

This one's to you Jeff. Thanks for setting up the blog and giving me the rundown on how its done.

What can I say about Jeff that hasnt been said before...super cool guy, masterclass painter(i'm still praying that he gives me one of his superbly painted army for my birthday next year...he's that nice a guy lol!!!) and the guy who made it possible for us to meet every friday nite. Cheers to you bro.

(Jeff and me a long time ago)