Nigel Kavanagh
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Homepage: http://w-ired.org/blog
Posts by Nigel Kavanagh
Team Ireland 40k update – from Captain Mike
Dec 21st
Hi all,
I wanted to touch base with everyone to let you all know what we have been up to!
The European Team Championships, to me, are an extension of our love for our hobby. A chance for us to demonstrate what a great gaming scene we have in Ireland and allow us to make friends with gamers from all over the world. As captain, it’s my privilege to put together a team that represents the best of the Irish gaming scene. Great Gamers, who love a bit of banter(read also beer) while playing for their country. Pretty Cool!
With all this in mind I’ve assembled a panel of people from all over the country to help get the best team going and support this team in any and all ways possible.
So far the Team Ireland Panel has:
- Held a number of small-scale fundraising events at events around the country including range guessing at Conspiracy, Dominicon’s arena of Death and Moocons raffles
- Submitted our own mission pack for consideration for use at the event itself!
- Secured sponsorship for the team from a number of quarters to make sure that our teams are supported as much as possible in going to the event in Poland. The IGA in particular must get a call out for their support – Thanks again guys
- In regards to making sure that the Irish team all look the part we held an open design competition to help Team Ireland “look the part” in Poland with the coolest looking t-shirts around (you’ll be able to vote on the finalists soon so watch this space)
- Identified a supplier for Team Ireland Bags
- We will also be looking for Dice designs pretty soon
- Accommodation for the team is sorted in both Poland and UK
- Analysis, List design and rules querying really kick off in a big way in the new year.
All of this wouldn’t have been possible without the time and effort of the panel and there’s still a whole lot more to be done.
If you want to offer help sign up here – http://www.w-ired.org/forum/
Also, if you see me or anyone else involved with the panel at events, make yourself known! Part of my goal as captain is to ensure we utilize the talents of everyone in our community to make sure that YOUR team is the best it can be.
This is a small gaming community so we are really going to need an army of list play testers in the coming weeks once the rulespacks are decided upon.
Keep an eye out for some team tournaments in the new year too! Rumours of events in each of Dublin/Cork and maybe even Galway abound so stay tuned… team events add a whole extra level of fun. Nothing like being able to pat a team mate on the back for saving your bacon ‘cos ”that dice just kept rolling 1’s”
Lastly to let you know what’s coming up in the new year.
- ·Expect to hear from me a little more often as we get into crunch time!
- We have the final few rounds of qualifying so if you want a space on the team make the best case possible!
- Team announcements will be made in early April
- The inaugural border shield will be on the 7th April as we host Team Northern Ireland
- The 6 Nations (now including Belgium) will be held at the end of April
Anyway folks you’ll be hearing from me from time to time about what we have planned, how its all progressing and how you can help us. Until then take care and heres to rolling the dice for team Ireland in 2012!!!
Mike Tangney
Captain, Team Ireland 40k
Underground Gamers Campaign – update 1
Dec 15th
Well its that time of year again boys and girls the annual attempt at getting a campaign up and running only to fall flat on its arse again.
This year me, Fergus, Steve and Scully have started a little mini campaign to get us playing some games again on a Tuesday. We’re going for soft, friendly armies and a relaxed playing atmosphere (sorry Lenny this rules you out). The campaign itself will hopefully last a long time. It will be mostly narrative with rules and scenarios made up on the fly depending on how good or bad I’m doing. It’s going to be open ended like Fergus, so anyone can drop in for a bit of dirty fun and play and odd game and we ll write it in somehow. We’re allowing allies and even army changes on the way to keep it interesting.
The campaign itself will be set on the magic ancient Warhammer island of Japan because I found a handy map of it and updates on the campaign will appear here sporadically when I can be pushed and between gaps in looking at porn on the net. At the moment I m using a Chaos list I m slowly assembling for Phil’s tale of three retards. Steve is playing with his Beastmen, Scully like his mongrel background is playing with a mess of Dwarves and Elves and Fergus is playing with his Empire and Ogres, and of course…himself.
Campaign Night 1
War had come to the ancient island of Jaipain. Armies were already being mustered on the plains. In the High passes the Dwarves and Elves prepared to march, grumbling over their uneasy treaty. Along the beach scores of halberdiers lofted their weapons shoulder high like a forest of willowy steel pines. In the forests and the dark places of the island the Beastmen crept into the sunlight braying at the winters sun. And from the sea mightiest of them all The God King Heff stood at the prow of his flagship girding his well-endowed loins in the wind and slapping the faces of the gods themselves with his manhood.
The Empire and the Dwarves were first to clash forming up in blustering lines on the western shore. Threats were hurled, mothers were insulted but in the end like two strutting peacocks both forces limped away after their empty posturing.
More to the north the God king Heff was the first of his people to set foot on the golden shores. Spreading his feet wide he placed his muscular legs upon the sand and proclaimed to his men “I have led you to the promised land now bow before me and you shall receive my salty blessing”. The ignorant natives having seen this display of power bent the knee also and began calling him Godzilla after their elephant God.
The battle however did not go as well. Taking advantage the beastmen hordes erupted from the nearby forests. Caught completely unawares only the tactical brilliance of the God King allowed his men to make a tactical treat. As Ste-Gor prophet of the Stumpty Orphan God shook his fist and hurled his faeces at their departing backs.
Well the first night of games went well. Spurred on by a brilliantly written scenario in which one side had to force their way into their opponent’s deployment zone two epic games of warhammer were played. In the main game my mighty Chaos army limped into action against Steve’s beastmen hordes. Unfortunately due to extreme luck and a dodgy last turn stubborn roll I was robbed of victory giving Steve the bonus points for the mission and went down 17-3. Not the first time I ve gone down with this army and it probably won’t be the last time I go down… but still it left a dirty taste in my mouth.
The second game beside us descended into farce and quickly became one of the most boring and pussiest games of warhammer I’ve ever seen. Like two tramps without a can opener and a tin of beans they stood staring at each other for most of the night with not a clue what to do. Some models moved forward and some moved back and that was about it. The only highlight of the game was Fergus continuing soiling himself as they both played out a dull 10-10 draw.
So after the first week Steve has lucked himself into the dominate position…something, judging from his John Wayne like walk, he is completely used to. Next week should see Steve take on the might of the Scully’s pick-and-mix army. Jolly old saint Nic will be the campaigning virgin trying to protect his modesty and Bretonnians from hoary old Fergus.
Till then bye.
As recounted by the Heff from the Underground Gamers on the Wargaming Ireland forum
Blending Tutorial
Sep 19th
Hi Folks, after I got a few requests to prepare tutorials on the techniques I use for my models I now present a first tutorial on blending. I will try to get a few more tutorials up, e.g. NMM, Faces, Weathering, Reflections, use of colours etc. but since real life keeps me fairly busy in the moment, I don’t know when. I do blending first because it’s a basic requirement for many techniques. But instead of repeating the typical blending tutorial what you can already find on the internet, I try to show you how I paint blendings on an army scale, because when I started blendings I quickly realized it takes up a horrendous amount of time to do it properly. Time I don’t want to spend on a whole army. Thus I developed my own shortcut.
Wet pallet
The first thing you need to prepare before you start a blending, actually in my opinion before you start any painting at all, is a wet pallet. This is basically wet tissue paper with baking paper on top. What does a wet pallet add to your painting? While water evaporates from the colour and dries
down your colour quickly the baking paper acts as a membrane and delivers water to the colour at the same. Thus it keeps your colour in ideal consistency for much longer. This is, in my opinion, absolutely necessary for blendings where you paint over a long period of time with thinned and self-mixed colours. If you can close your wet pallet, e.g if you prepare it in a box of tubba-ware, you can even keep it over night.
An example of wet pallet, mainly shades of grey for silver NMM
Classic blending
The blending what you normally see is based on the following principle. You start by mixing up different shades of colours, e.g. black to white in 8-10 shades using chaos black, codex grey, fortress grey and skull white for Silver NMM. You need to thin them by 1:4-1:10 with water or colour thinner and you should use a wet pallet (baking paper on wet tissue on a plate does the job). Then you apply layers starting with the darkest colour going up to the brightest. The important thing with blending is, that you keep the brush parallel to the gradient and move it away from the dark colour. Also you do not use the tip but the flat side of the brush. Normally you would apply a couple of layers on top of each other but leaving out a little bit more of the painted area with each step. I think the picture explains it. There is three different blendings just to show you the effect of adjusting the number of layers and the transparency (i.e. the dilution of the colours). Top is a poor blending with few layers and comparibly thick colours. Middle: Colour thinned out. Bottom: Colour thinned out and more layers applied. I think you can see the improvement of the blending with each step.
In order to obtain an even better result you can use very thin colour to smooth out the gradient by applying wave like brush strokes along the intersections of two shades.
There is a bit more behind blending, but because I do not use the “ideal” blending I wouldn’t go into more detail.
Fast Blending
My approach to blending is much faster and explained in the following. But I have to point out that it’s rather fake blending than real blending what I’m doing.
The basic principle behind the blending is fairly simple. Instead of applying many different layers with straight edges I apply less thinned layers (typically 1:1 or 1:2 colour:water) and with the tip of the brush I prepare uneven intersections between the different layers. Something like this:
It’s up to you to find the right settings (thickness of the brush strokes, dilution of the colours, amount of layers etc.) to obtain the correct effect. Normally I need only one layer of each colour to get a more or less smooth blending. Too sharp contrasts can be smoothed out by using thinner colours and paint in a wave like manner along the intersections of two colours (just like smoothing out with normal blending).
The more often you do the smoothing, the better the blending will be. But obviously it also takes more time and since I want to get a decent blending in as short a time as possible I try to minimize the extra effort.
Well, that’s it for Blending. I think it’s mainly a matter of training to get this technique straight. Good shapes to train blendings on are coats, cylindrical shapes such as armour plates on legs and arms and straight areas such as armour plates on vehicles. Generally it is good if the area is of medium size
rather than too large (e.g. on LARGE vehicles) or small (e.g. frames of gems). And the micro-shape shouldn’t be too confusing in the beginning.
Warmachine/Hordes Tournament July 24th
Jul 11th
Hello again,
I will be running a 35 Point Warmachine/Hordes Tournament on July 24th in Gamer’s World Dublin. Full details are:
Steamroller 2011 Rules (can be found here: http://privateerpress.com/organized-play/steamroller-tournaments)
35 points
2 lists allowed, the second list must have a different Character warcaster/lock
10 Minute Turns
Registration begins at 10:30 am
Entry 10 Euro
No painting requirement
Ciaran
All-Ireland Infinity Gaming Day – Sat. July 23rd
Jul 1st
With the success of the inaugural All-Ireland Infinity gaming day, we will be running a second one.
It will take place in Gamers World, Jervis street, Dublin, on Saturday July the 23rd, from 11am.
Again the emphasis is mostly going to be on beginner friendly gaming, with demos available for anybody interested in the game, pick-up games and even co-op scenario play available.
If you don’t currently own Infinity then the rules, army lists and an army builder are freely available at the manufacturers web-site – http://www.infinitythegame.com/infinity/en/downloads/
Q-Con 2011
May 6th
Q-Con is the annual Gaming Convention hosted by Dragonslayers, the Queen’s University Belfast (QUB) Gaming and Anime Society. This year, Q-Con enters its eighteenth year of providing almost 1500 people with a weekend of gaming and anime awesome – straight through the last weekend of June 2011!
Q-Con features a wide selection of games and events over the convention weekend; with Role-Playing Games, Board Games, LARPs, War Games, Collectable Card Games, Console Games, Anime Screenings, Cosplay, Special Events, Exhibitors, and much more!
Big events to watch out for this year include: Rock Band Live, the Cosplay Masquerade, and Warhammer competition tournaments. Come along and make yourself known – from 24th to 26th of June…
REGISTRATION INFORMATION
Early registration for the full weekend ticket for Q-Con costs just £15/€17.
Accommodation is available for just £17/€20 per night – availability is limited, so register early to avoid disappointment.
For registration/accommodation details, information on all our games and events or if you would like to run games at Q-Con XVIII then please visithttp://www.q-con.org.uk for more details. You can also follow us on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/QConBelfast
Sayl the Faithless and Nightmaw (from Warhammer Forge)
Apr 13th
Even more goodies out today with the release of Sayl the Faithless and Nightmaw.
From Warhammer Forge:
Sayl is pre-eminent among the Dolgan tribe, and his rise to ascendancy began with his allegiance to Schalkain the Vile, as one of his seven seer-apprentices. Sayl’s honeyed lies turned each acolyte against the others, and fanned the flames of suspicion into murderous strife. Eventually Schalkain was manipulated into conducting a dark rite involving Sayl and three fellow ‘loyal’ apprentices which resulted in Schalkain’s horrific death at the hands of a daemon beholden to Sayl, while the three surviving acolytes were twisted into a terrible beast known as Nightmaw. Hated and feared, Sayl the Faithless and Nightmaw now march alongside Tamurkhan the Maggot Lord.
Experimental rules are available here.
Tamurkhan on Toad Dragon (new from Warhammer Forge)
Apr 13th
Great to see more Warhammer Forge stuff coming out – this looks an enormous beast. Assuming that the model on top is Ogre Tyrant sized, it’s got to absolutely huge.
From Warhammer Forge:
The fell legend of Tamurkhan has been whispered for many centuries amongst the nefarious tribes of the Chaos Wastes. Some tales speak of him as a scion of the Great Kurgan, one of four sons each cast to the four winds to conquer and enslave. Others claim that he was once no more than vermin – a corpse-canker grown fat and clever on the spoils of the battlefield, swelled and transformed by the light of the Ruinous Powers. Perhaps the most fell creature under his command is the mighty Toad Dragon Bubebolos, a huge, reeking, primeval horror and greatest of all its bloated kind. Blessedly few in number, the Toad Dragons are lumbering horrors from a forgotten age whose flesh festers with unwholesome rot and whose black blood is clotted with maggots and carrion worms.
Experimental rules can be found here – link.
New Empire Warhammer Forge Goodies…
Mar 11th
Warhammer Forge came out and spoiled us today with two new resin sets for the Empire.
First up, they have brought out a conversion set for Imperial Handgunners. This set is designed to mix with the usual plastic Handgunners and help create detachments. According to the experimental rules, they’re only usable when named character Captain-Engineer Jubal Falk is included in the army too which is likely to limit their use in tournaments. However, they look great and we hope to see a bunch of these in Imperial armies before too long.
Secondly, they have released the frankly awesome Land Train. Coming in at a very hefty £115, this kit is absolutely huge (I’m guessing about 8″ high) and looks fantastic. This is a really stunning piece of kit that reinforces the steampunk madness of the Empire in the Warhammer world. With rules that appear very reasonable indeed, we can see this being allowed at tournaments as a Steam Tank alternative. There’s no doubt which we’d prefer to see on the tabletop!
Warmachine & Hordes ETC 2011
Mar 11th
Its ETC fever at the moment, & the Privateer Press players arent getting left out
The Warmachine and Hordes ETC will be held in Maelstrom Games on July 2nd/3rd & will comprise of 4 man teams. Looks like we will definitely be sending over 1 team, but we are not limited to just 1. If anyone would be interested in going let me know and we can round up numbers & see what the scope of things are.
Details here – http://w-ired.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=1274
