Cloning is the way of the future.

  Flashy attention grabbing picture's that have nothing to do with a blog post are also the way of the future...

   Anyway, recently I've been made aware of some stuff called "Instant mold". Basically this stuff is some plastic goop, that you heat up in hot water, and it becomes goopier (spell check tells me that isn't a word..). From there you can basically stick a model or bit into it, it will set hard around the model as it cools, but it wont stick.. and you can then use it as a mold for re-creating the model or bit, with green stuff or any other non heat based molding stuff. 

This is how the stuff comes, a pack of 6 of these strips.

To INFINITY and beyond

 So, where have my updates gone? Well, to be honest the last month I've spent wholey immersed in INFINITY, this has lead to basically no progress on anything fantasy or 40k related. Instead get ready for an update on what i think might be one of the best tabletop games I've ever played (including gorkamorka!).
  Infinity is a game produced by a Spanish company called Corvus Belli. Its a skirmish game set 175 years in the future, in a manga (cyberpunk?) style setting, using between 6-16(ish) models in a game. And I've gota say, clean vistas, cool tech, and no space marines in sight is SO refreshing. The game also has some of the best miniatures I've ever seen (in 14 odd years of wargaming that's saying something), which was the major factor that sold me. Seriously, go check out the range at http://www.infinitythegame.com/infinity/en/facciones/ ... I'll wait..

Grey Knight progress! Psyflemen dreds!

 Literally the third thing i saw in the new grey knights codex was the ability to make a duel wielding twin-linked autocannon drednaught, I must say this got me pretty excited! I thought YAY i can make a drednaught that looks like Rifleman from battletech! I didn't however realise that it was actually a pretty stock standard build for drednaughts in 40k (not sure why i thought i was being original). Any way the GK's have the ability to make their autocannons strength 8(psybolt ammunition), making them pretty much the best gun platform available in the greyknight list, and doubling the range of most of the other anti tank available.

Dragon Forge Resin Bases

  So i was recently suckered in hard by the release of the new Grey Knights. My excuse is that i have a couple squads of the metals from 8 years ago, so its not "really" bandwagon jumping is it?
  Any way for this army, since its going to be the main 40k army i run for a fairly long time and i expect it to be the tournament army i use at the VICC's next year (for our club title defence), i decided to pick up fancy bases for them all.
 I've used bases from a number of companies before, such as back to base-ix, microarts and scibor parts. This time however i went with Dragon forge, and I've got to say I'm really impressed with the bases they produce. The back to base-ix stuff I've used before has been pretty basic, but also really cheap to buy, the microarts and scibor stuff has been fantasticly detailed stuff, and also made out of a better resin, but i found them prohibitively expensive if you want to do an entire army out of them.

  Dragon forge however, I found produce some really fantastic quality bases, that are really detailed, and made out of a really solid resin but also cheap enough that i could buy enough for the entire army ( and spares). I ordered 40 20mm rounds, 15 40mms, a drednaught base and some hero bases from the "ancient ruins" range, and i think it came out about 60 bucks (though the exchange rate with the US helps alot, since the ausy doller is worth more right now)

Here's a pic of the order, although i'd already gotten keen and busted out a bunch and used them before i took this pic

 

Pump Ogres and Mangler Squigs

This past weekend I played in a 2k fantasy tourny called "Rumble in the Bronx" out in geelong, fantastic tourny, run by a great bunch of mates. I decided to take my updated goblin list, with 4 pump wagons and 2 mangler squigs, pretty much my favourite new/revised stuff in the new Orc book.
  I had a couple designs sketched out for use as generic "pump ogres" in the ogre army, but i felt they'd work perfectly for mangler squigs, models who flail around wildly and cause destruction to anything they hit, friend or foe. So these designs jumped the que.

For Glory!

So, like every male ever, I loved the movie 300, the glory, the warrior spirit, the stabbing stuff with spears, and the fact that it was based (very loosely) on real events. In my defence of this bandwagon jumping I've loved ancient history since i was a kid, I should be playing historical wargames really.. but ive never found a model range that i really liked the quality of. That is to say untill i saw the crocodile miniature's spartan range. Daaammnn !

Disparity By Design

So the title of this blog is Noakes' rant, yet up till now I've done very little actual ranting. Time to change that...

I'm sure most Australian gamers are well aware of companies based in the UK and US like mealstrom and wayland games.These companies are internet based gaming distributors, and they sell product at an incredibly reduced price, as an example i recently got suckered in (hard) by the new grey knights, and after digging out my old metal grey knights from 8 years ago, decided to build an entire army. I bought nearly 2 thousand points worth of GK, for the princely sum of $320 AU, including shipping, not too shabby at all, now look at the GW price if i'd bought from them, and it would have been just over $700 AU, more than 200% the price..before shipping! ridiculous!

It's Been A While

So, it's been a fair while since I did anything here, lost the urge to update, but i HAVE been taking pictures, and i HAVE been fairly busy.

So where to start, I've built an entire (almost) 2500pt empire army, (pics to come) sadly its unpainted, so not much interesting going on there. However here's a sneak preview of the Rocket battery.