Kosh's Korner - Wargaming on a Budget

Scenic Magnetic Base
This weeks budget is going to be used to buy materials for a scenic magnetic display base. There will also be plenty of material left over for terrain making in the future. Most of the materials needed are self explanatory and can be bought at your local DIY store (Home Depot or Lowe's.)

The first thing we need is pink or blue insulation foam. Not just any foam, but extruded polystyrene. This foam is very dense and not like the foam you find at hobby stores used for floral arrangements. The blue type is made by DOW and the pink is made by Owens Corning. This stuff can be difficult to find depending on where you live, I've heard it's almost impossible to find in California. Luckily, in my neck of the woods, Lowe's sells the blue stuff and Home Depot sells the pink. It's sold in 4'x8' sheets, similar to plywood and can be found in the building materials section near the plywood in both stores. I bought two sheets, one 2" thick and one 1/2" thick for $40.

Next we'll need something to cut the foam. Actually, two items will be needed, a keyhole saw and a hot-wire cutter. The hot-wire cutter cuts through the foam like a hot knife through butter and leaves a nice smooth cut. However, due to it's shape it's hard to cut a large piece of foam off the sheet with it. To cut a chunk off the sheet, use the keyhole saw, cut it about 1/8" bigger than you want off the sheet. Then, using the hot-wire cutter, cut off the 1/8" for a nice smooth cut. The hot-wire cutter can be purchased at a big chain hobby store. I got both the saw and cutter for $15.

The rest of materials are as follows:
Wood Filler - $5
Wood Glue - $3
Foam Board - $6
1" and 1 1/2" Zinc plated washers - $6
1/4" Dia x 3/32" Thick NdFeB Disc Magnets (Model #D094B at Amazing Magnets) - $12
Flat Black Spray Paint - $4
Hot Glue Gun and Glue Sticks - $8
Styrene Sheets (Plasticard) - $7

This will leave plenty of materials to build a lot of terrain as well as a scenic base.

Project 1 - Magnetic Display Base
This project came out of No Quarter Magazine #5. Your best bet is to get a copy of NQ #5 if you can, but here are the very basic steps.

Cut out a block of 2" foam big enough for your army.
Cut out smaller pieces of foam to create tiers.
Cut out foam board to match your base and tiers.
Cut out circles for where your model bases will go.
Glue all the pieces together.
Glue zinc plated washers inside of circles. (Don't forget to glue the magnets to your models base.)
Fill in all cracks with wood filler.
Place any rocks or other scenic items.
Splotch on a mix of wood filler and water, should be like mud.
Glue sand to each tier level.
Cut and glue plasticard around the outside of the bottom base.
Spray paint flat black. (I'm at this point so far)
Paint the base how you want and add static grass or any other scenery you like.



Project #2 - Painting Legion of Everblight Hordes Army
As you can see above I'm still working on it. I decided to go with a different color scheme than normal for Everblight. I'm going with red/orange looking dragons and a dark color (mechrite red/chaos black/liche purple 1:1:1 mix) for the spines and elf armor. It is similar to the bottom dragon pictured over here.



Project #3 - Chaos Space Marines
Last but not least, I haven't forgotten about 40k. I'm still working on my CSM squad. I'm painting them in a Purge color scheme. I still need to highlight the green armor, then hit all the metallic bits. I'm still trying to figure out how I want to highlight the black armor. It will probably be gray with a slight touch of green.

That's it for now. The total budget this week was $106, looks like we went over a bit. But, at least we have all the basics to build some terrain, as well as plenty of material left over. There's still a lot of work to be done...

Why Magnetize?
In the long run magnetizing your models could save you money and a lot of trouble. For instance, with a 10 man Chaos Marine Squad you can change the options on four of your marines. You can have an Icon Bearer, an Aspiring Champion, and up to two marines can have different weapons. My squad currently has an Aspiring Champion with a power fist, an Icon Bearer with the Icon of Chaos Glory, a marine with a Flamer, and a marine with a Meltagun. Let's say after playtesting with this squad I want to change the Icon to a Slaanesh Icon and change the champion's power fist to a power weapon. If I had glued them on this would be difficult, yes possible, but with magnets very simple.


How to Magnetize?
First of all, check out this tutorial by Hyun over at Wee Toy Soldiers. Hyun is the man, I've learned so much from his blog in such a short time. This does take some special equipment such as a dremel. The type Hyun uses, a MiniMite are very inexpensive. I use a Dremel Stylus myself that I bought a while back, they run about $60. Of course, you'll also need magnets. I bought my magnets from Amazing Magnets. You can get 100 1/16" and 100 1/8" for $12.50 + shipping, that's a lot of magnets that should last a while.


A few things to remember. Mark the poles on your magnets. You don't want to try and put the wrong poles together after you've already super glued the magnets. I used a permanent marker to mark two magnets that were stuck together. This tells you that the marked side goes down into the hole you drilled. Another thing, don't magnetize every available optional weapon right away. Just do whatever you need for your army right now. If you decide to go back and change something, say a Flamer to a Plasma Gun, magnetize the plasma gun then. This way, you know which model you're going to put it on and you can put a magnet on the existing shoulder socket magnet to get your poles correct. One last thing, don't worry if you drill in too far (just don't drill all the way through) and your magnet isn't flush. You can stick some green stuff down in there or just go with it if it's not too bad, the magnet should still be strong enough to hold. It takes a few tries to get the depth correct.


That's about it. Don't get discouraged, a couple of people told me not to worry about magnetizing because I'm new to the hobby and may not be ready for it yet. You can read about doing things and watch tutorials until your blue in the face, but you're not going to really learn anything until you try to do it yourself. Remember, "What we have to learn to do, we learn by doing." - Aristotle.

I've finally gotten started on some modeling. I started assembling the box of Chaos Space Marines I purchased last week. I've decided to only put six together so far, as I have plans to magnetize the other four. Hopefully, I will get started on that magnetization project later this week.

Putting together Space Marines is really pretty simple. There's basically eight steps to doing it and Games Workshop has an instruction page on it that you can find here. The eight steps are:

Step 1: Glue the legs to the base.
Step 2: Glue the torso halves together.
Step 3: Glue the torso to the legs.
Step 4: Glue the weapons to the arms.
Step 5: Glues the arms to the torso.
Step 6: Glue the head to the torso.
Step 7: Glue the shoulder pads to the arms.
Step 8: Glue the backpack to the torso.

That's all there is to it. I made a tutorial video of me putting mine together. It's not much, I just wanted to get my feet wet with Windows Movie Maker more than anything.



There are a few things to remember. Try to clean up any flash or mold lines before gluing the pieces together. It's okay if you miss a few, it's just easier to do before the model is completely put together. You can see that I missed a few on the arms and weapons.





That's it for this week. I'll see you next week with a new budget article. Hopefully sooner if my magnetization project comes together.

The List
After making my way through the CSM Codex, I wanted to start working on an army list. My goal is to get something together so I'll at least have an idea of what models I should pick up on the next budget. I wanted to select units that I thought were interesting, in both game mechanic and model aesthetics. Here's the first list I came up with.

Army #1
HQ
Chaos Sorcerer - 145
-Mark of Slaanesh, Lash of Submission, Jump Pack

Troops
9 x Thousand Sons - 274
-Aspiring Sorcerer, Bolt of Change; Personal Icon

8 x Noise Marines - 275
- Champion, Power Fist; 6 x Sonic Blasters, Blastmaster, Personal Icon

Fast Attack
5 x Chaos Biker - 235
- Biker Champion, Power Fist; 2 x Meltagun, Icon of Chaos Glory

Heavy Support
Chaos Defiler - 150
- Close Combat Arm

Chaos Predator - 120
- Demonic Possession, Heavy Bolters

2 x Obliterator Cult - 150

2 x Obliterator Cult - 150

Total Points - 1499
Models - 29

I wasn't too sure about putting Slaanesh and Tzeentch into the same army, but with the way the Codex is set up it seems to work for a Black Legion army. I also wanted to try out both the Noise Marines and Thousand Sons and then maybe make a choice between the two. I went with the Choas Sorcerer out of fluff, thinking this is a unit put together by Abaddon to try and locate artifacts and ancient technologies. Although, I'm thinking a Demon Prince may be a better choice.

I went with the Chaos Bikers because I liked the look of their models. I'd like to mod the Champions's bike and make it into a chopper. I also thought giving them the meltaguns would allow them to swoop in fast and hit any armor of the enemy. I've been told that it's a good theory but doesn't always work out.

As for the Obliterators, I thought I would try deep striking them in, which is why the two infantry units have a personal icon. As for the rest, I just liked the look of the models. Anyway, I went ahead and put the list up on a few message boards to get some feedback.

http://www.heresy-online.net/forums/showthread.php?t=5582
http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/index.php?showtopic=129486
http://warseer.com/forums/showthread.php?t=127023

After reading the feedback, I decided to make a few changes. Here are the results of that.

Army #2
HQ
Chaos Sorcerer - 125
- Mark of Slaanesh, Lash of Submission

Elite
5 x Chaos Terminators - 170
- 2 x Power Fist

Troops
9 x Thousand Sons - 269
- Aspiring Sorcerer, Bolt of Change

8 x Noise Marines - 230
- 6 x Sonic Blasters, Blastmaster

10 x Chaos Space Marines - 220
- Meltagun, Missile Launcher, Chaos Rhino, Extra Armor

Fast Attack
5 x Chaos Biker - 235
- Biker Champion, Power Fist; 2 x Meltagun, Icon of Chaos Glory

Heavy Support
Chaos Defiler - 150
- Close Combat Arm

Chaos Predator - 100
- Heavy Bolters

Total Points - 1499
Models - 40

Playing A Game
I went to my FLGS on Sunday and met up with The Hoder to play my first full game. He was playing Orks and I used his Chaos models to put together Army #2 with a few proxies. Seeing as this was my first game, it went kind of slow and I thank Hoder for his patience. I was asking a lot of questions, we only made it through 1.5 turns and that alone took almost 3.5 hours.

I learned a lot of things though. For one, rolling double 1's when using a Psychic power is not a good thing. My Aspiring Sorcerer bit the dust trying to use Bolt of Change at the beginning of the second turn. During the first turn I lost my Chaos Sorcerer to an instant kill. I don't remember exactly what it was, but it was a nice big blast that took out a couple of Noise Marines as well. As for the Bikers, I'm still not sure about them. I had to hide them behind terrain the whole time, because they are fragile. Maybe next time.

Overall, it was a lot of fun. I'll probably make a few changes, possibly drop the Bikers for Raptors, but I'd like to get a full game in with the Bikers before I decide. I think I will definitely trade out the Chaos Sorcerer for a Demon Prince, as well as drop the Thousand Sons in favor of another Noise Marine squad. I'm working on another idea now, more of a mobile force, with the infantry all having a Rhino.

I'll see ya next week. I'm really excited, another budget blog coming up and I'll get my first models and start working on them. I can't wait.

What did I choose?
When I first started doing my research, I only wanted to concern myself with what the models looked like. If I thought they were cool looking and had a nice paint scheme then that would be good enough for me. I started looking at all the different army types over at Games Workshop's website and the two that stood out were Space Marines and Witch Hunters. I was really gravitating towards the Witch Hunters.

The more research I did, the more I realized I'm going to eventually have to play with whatever army I chose. So, I started looking for game related things concerning Witch Hunters. I found this post over on Warseer. It talks about rating the armies in regards of how difficult they are to play for a new person starting the game. It seems that most people rated Space Marines, Necrons, Choas Space Marines, and Orks somewhere in their top 5 of easiest to play for beginners. Witch Hunters were always near the bottom. I decided not to go with Witch Hunters because of that and instead go with something in the top 5 from that post.

I started looking at Space Marines next. They were great looking models, but seemed a little generic. They weren't really grabbing me as they were before. So, I started looking at Chaos Space Marines. Now that was more like it. They didn't have a generic look, lots of spikes and other strange things. Also, the possibility of using demons. Seemed like a lot of diversity with CSM, I liked it. To be fair though, I took a look at the Orks. I wasn't so sure about Orks in Space, seemed kind of strange to me. I guess I'm just used to Orks only being in fantasy settings. The more I looked at them though, the more they grew on me. I was back to two, but I was leaning heavily on CSM.



What, more choices?
After deciding to go with CSM, it looked as though I needed to pick a specific Legion. I looked through all the legions of the CSM and tried to decide based on the paint scheme and their role in the game. I liked the look of the World Eaters and Black Legion the most. After reading some of the game mechanics I decided I liked Black Legion the best. The only problem I had was that the paint scheme seemed really basic. My friend Hoder pointed out to me though, that you don't have to go with straight black as you can see here of Matt Birdoff's BL army. I'm going to try to incorporate some deep purple or dark blue into mine when I paint them.



I did find out later on though, that you could mix different legion units in one army with the new Codex. That's a relief, as I think I'd tire of painting black all the time. Speaking of the codex, I'll be picking that up on the next budget, as well as some basic modeling tools. See ya then.

There are many reasons why people choose to play a specific army in the 40k universe. Some just like the look of that army's particular models or paint scheme. Others like the fluff of their chosen army. Having the most advantage in a game of 40k is still another reason for some and there is nothing wrong with that line of thinking. Whatever your reason, you still have to choose and the best thing to do first, is a little research.

Research
These days the best way to research just about anything is on the internet. There are plenty of websites that pop up if you do a Google search of Warhammer 40k. The first one you should check out, of course, is Games Workshop. They do make the game, you know. ;)

Over on the 40k page of GW, you can select any of the armies available from the top bar by selecting that armies icon. From there you can go to many pages devoted to painting, modeling, the history, gaming, and many more subjects on that particular army. You can also get even further in on some of the armies if they have specific clans, legions, or chapters. While you're there go to their online store and check out the prices of any army your interested in starting.


If you're really into the fluff of 40k one of the best places I've found is Wikipedia. For instance, if you search Wikipedia for Chaos Space Marines, it will bring up a page that tells you the history as well as the difference between CSM and regular Space Marines. From that page, via links, you can also go to each CSM Legion page and Chaos Gods page to read more fluff about them. You do have to take what you read on Wiki with a grain of salt though. It's an open encyclopedia, meaning just about anyone can make entries, but it's usually pretty good.

Also on the internet, there are plenty of forums, blogs (just like this one), and fan sites. One forum in particular that stands out is Warseer. Warseer is huge with over 33,000 members and has subjects on just about anything to do with the hobby. Don't be afraid to go on there and ask questions. The worst problem you may have is finding your post later on, as the amount of posts per day over there tend to make them scroll pretty fast. Another good site is Mini Wargaming, it seems to be a relatively new site. It has quite a few how to videos, a forum, and a store. It's really a great site and I hope they do well and grow. There are also a ton of blogs out there, all the blog links to the left there <--- are highly recommended. Last but not least, don't forget about your FLGS - favorite local game store. More than likely these are the people you're going to be playing the game with, you might as well get to know them. :P Don't be afraid to introduce yourself and ask questions, everyone was a noob at one time. You'll find 99% of them are normal friendly guys and gals that are willing to help you out. My FLSG is Grand Adventures in Murfreesboro, TN. They also have a webpage and a forum for talking about gaming while not at the store. I've recently been talking with The Hoder over there and he plays an army that I'm interested in playing. Hoder is going to let me play a game or two with his army to see how I like it.

What am I choosing?
I haven't decided yet. I'm on the fence between two armies. I'll be back and let you know after I check out Hoder's army this Thursday.