Space Marine Review



Chaos Lord Nemeroth

Recently I have been suffering from a paintersblock. A unit of Ork Stormboyz have been sitting half painted on my desk for ages. Hence the lack of posts here on my blog. So when I saw the latest THQ-Relic video game release "Space Marine" I thought it would be a nice way to get some 40K flavour and inspiration. I have played Dawn of War, Company of Heroes and Dawn of War 2 which are all from the same company as their latest release. I loved the first two games but was really let down by DoW2, it simply wasn't my thing but I still play it sometimes to get that 40K feeling. The enviroment in the game is stunning and overal I think the game looks pretty solid. Because I only had one slightly negative experience with THQ so I thought I'd bust my wallet to get the game.


Now for those of you that have been living under a rock, "Space Marine" is a third person shooter set in the 40K universe. You get to play a campaign as Captain Titus from the Ultramarines or play an online multiplayer game.

Captain Titus overseeing the IG defences

Let's start with the single player campaign. At first you have to get used the the third person camera view but once you hack and slash your way through the first wave of Orks you get used to it. At first you only get a bolterpistol and combat knife but as you progress you get to have a go with all the space marine weapons you can think of. My personal favourites are the Stalker Boltgun, Lascanon and Stormbolter but blasting away with the meltagun can also be a lot of fun. The close combat weapons like the chainsword, power axe and thunderhammer all work in the same way but each does a bit more damage then the previous.

The Ork Warboss

Now without spoiling the storyline for those of you that still want to play the campaign I can say that the storyline is pretty predictable but fun. In this game it isn't about the story or interaction with other characters, it's about killing as many xenos as possible and there are a couple of cool ways to do that. For each enemy you kill you get some xp-points and when you have enough you can unleash your "Fury". It either let's makes you ultra strong in close combat or gives you a kind of matrix effect bullit-time so you can pick off your enemy's one by one in slowmotion with your gun of choice.The other cool thing to finish off your enemies is to first stun them in close combat and then kill them with a special move like we first saw in Mortal Combat.The extra benefit you get from that is that your lifebar will fill back up when you're wounded if you use these special combo's.

Stormboyz on the attack

The campaign was a real blast to play through and takes you through different levels and setting. The game was never really hard but when you die you get to respawn at a save point that is never too far back. It also has a couple of different levels between the normal "shoot'em up"levels where you fly on board a Valkery or ride on the back of a train. The last level when you face off with Chaos Lord Nemeroth is also something different as well and I don't want to spoil it but the ending was a bit dissapointing to me. For me the single player mode was all about soaking up the atmosphere and looking at the cool scenery. The only dissapointing thing to me were the dead guardsmen lying everywhere but they all looking the same.

Then to the Multiplayer. This is where the game is a giant let down to me. I love playing MPG's like CoD Modern Warfare and Battlefield bad company 2 so I had high hopes for this game as I was going to be able to run araound as a Space Marine. But now that I have tried it a good couple of times I think I won't bother anymore and this is why:
1. You have to use steam....
2. There are only 2 MP gaming modes, seize ground and anihilation.
3. There are only a couple of maps to play on, I believe 4 or 5
4. You can't pick the game from a list, steam will find you a spot in some game.
5. It's lagggggggggy most of the times.
6. It get's boring pretty quick

Now I have a decent gaming pc and good internet connection but still I get very laggy games most of the time. I shoot someone in the head with my lascanon but instead of dying it disapears and the enemy pops up next to my and kills me... I really hate the the game fins me a spot in an ongoing game instead of letting me pick one that I like from a list that.

Now there is a cool feature called the customiser. You can play in multiplayer games as any of the main space marine chapters or you can create your own. If you want to unlock all the choices though you have to gain levels in the multiplayer game. Therefor you are very limited in your choices from the start. It's a fun feature for a short while and I liked to create a space marine simular to my own miniture DIY chapter but it's also a very confusing factor in the game. everyone in the MP is using different skins so it's hard to see if it's a thousand sons chaos marine, ultra marine or someones DYI customised skin.

All and all I think every 40K player should have this game but I think you shouldn't have it just now for top dollar/pound/euro. Wait for it to end up in the budget bin and get it cheap a couple of months from now. The game will still lool just as good and you'll have fun playing the campaign. The campaign is good but not hard or challenging so once you're done with that there isn't really anything left to play as I think the MP is just a pain in the neck.

My rating 5 out of 10 because half of the game (single player) was very good.

Cheers,
Seb

Painting Ork Skin Tutorial

Click to enlarge

Over the past months I have been asked the same question over and over: "How do you paint Ork Skin". I have replied to those questions but I thought it would be nice of me to make a dedicated article on how I do it.
The way I do it you get a light colored skin tone but it isn't bright. The key to this is GW's foundation paint "gretchin Green" and normal plain water. I can't say it enough that you need to water down your paints to get the best result. undiluted paints tend to look "thick"and messy and most of all they obscure the finest detail of your models specially if you use multiple layers.



So here's my step by step recipe:

-First basecoat all the Ork's skin with watered down Gretchin Green. I use 60%GG & 40% water, because it's a foundation paint it has loads of pigment and diluting it will not make it transparent but will make it flow easily and will give you a thin layer.

-Then I wash all of the skin with Devlan Mud wash. I also dilute this to 50/50. You don't have to dilute it but I prefer it so it doesn't look too thick.

-Next I paint all the raised areas like muscles with the same paint I used in the first step.Make sure the wash is completely dry or it will become messy. just leave the deepest areas as they are. this will create the first bit of definition.

-The next step is mixing up Gretchin Green with Bleached Bone and again dilute the mixture it water. I use about 60%Gretchin Green and 40% Bleached bone and water this down again to get a nice flowy paint. I use this mixture to paint the higher areas leaving just a bit of the previous layer visible.

-The 5th step is highlighting the most raised areas and edges. For this I use a mixture of 30%Gretchin Green and 70% Bleached Bone but I water it down quite a bit so it becomes a bit transparent and blends with the previous layer.

-The last step is to blend it all together a bit and for this I use Thraka Green wash that I water down a lot. 20% Thraka and 80% water. If you leave the Thraka too thick it will puddle in the deepest areas and Thraka Green has the nasty habit of leaving a very light color. If you dilute it like me it will blend all your layers together nicely without any nasty side effects

As an alternative you could experiment with the color of washes. I sometimes wash a model with Greyphone Sepia to finish it up or use a purple wash instead of devlan Mud in the 2nd step.

This is a very simple guide on Ork Skin. Of course you can add extra detail by painting in the veins or tattoos.

Cheers,
Seb

July Round up

The fact that I'm writing up July's news round up on the 4th of August really sums up my blogging activity at the moment. Somehow I have lost momentum and I'm struggling to get back into it all. I have a ton of work on my hobby desk and I have finished a couple of projects but I find it hard to find some time to make some nice articles of it all.

I'm working on my Waaagh almost daily but the sheer numbers and the level of detail I want to put in every model makes it a slow process. In July I finished 10 Boyz and 2 Nobz, I have acquired some new models and assembled and based those.

My blog is still attracting a lot of people thanks to Google. People look for something that happens to be on my blog and they then stick around to have a look at all my other stuff. The Linked-within widget is priceless! I also had some of my articles linked on some forum so all and all it wasn't a bad month considering I only posted three articles for the whole month.

I got a lot of nice feedback on my Boyz and Nobs but my video on "Zagstruk"hardly got any hits nor comments. I guess I took a chance of actually putting my first video together but no one is interested. I have therefor seized recording the project.It's too much work recording and editing, time I can better spend working on models. Too bad but lesson learned.

In august I hope to complete Zagstruk and his 10 men Vulcha squad and I'll get some conversion work done on an old War buggy.

Cheers,
Seb

Moonshine Boyz finished

It's been pretty quiet here recently. I have focussed on painting and modelling this past month instead of blogging. So don't worry, I'm just building up more content for the next few weeks. I got a lot of things done and took a lot of pictures but I just haven't had the time or will to make articles out of it all.

One thing I do want to share with you already is the unit of Ork Boyz. I painted them up like I did the rest of my WAAAGH and I even did an extra Nob as a bonus.

I hope you like them all, let me know what you think.

Cheers,

Seb

Skrapsmacka's Moonshine Boyz FLUFF (prologue)

The planet Belis Alta was once a thriving and prosperous planet but after a vicious attack from a kraken fleet of thousands of tyranid swarms it could now only be classified as a dead world. The tyranids had killed every living thing on the planet and like a swarm of locust moved on to another unfortunate solar system. All that was left were the ruined hives in the middle of vast deserts.

For a dead world there was a lot of noise and racket coming from the ruined manufactorum. Grots scouring for scrap were wildly squealing with pleaasure when they found something they could use. The grots were so busy and imagined themselves safe that they didn't hear the creaky sound of armour tracks that were approaching them. It was only when the imperial Chimera had come to a 100 meters from the old manufactorum that one of the grots happened to look up from his scrapheap and saw the outline of the transport. Immediately he screamed in high pitched tone "HUMIEZ!!!". The rest of the grots looked up and froze at the sight of the imperial Chimera, confused they stood completely still but then fled leaving all their valued collections behind. For creatures with such small legs they were incredibly fast and within a second there wasn't a grot left to be seen.

The Chimera halted it's approach as the top hatch opened. Clouds of dust carried by the hot winds swept over the vehicle obscuring the drivers vision. It couldn't safely get any closer to the ruins without knowing what lied waiting for them ahead. From the vehicle some figures appeared. It was a small inquisitorial force sent out to investigate. A couple of days ago an imperial drone had picked up a scan of some life forms but they were too small to identify. The inq. grey knights came with few but were well prepared to face anyone or anything....This was a simple recon mission, if it were humans they had to be captured, if it was anything else it had to be killed.

 In an old and abandoned bunker nearby a pair of red glowing eyes glistened in the dark doorway. The large figure slowly moved out in the open muthering some words:"..pesky... humiez..". Like a troop of awakening wolves some more large Ork Nobz came out of their lair. They gazed at the chimera that was still far away at the far end of the ruin. They stretched their backs and arms wide in the air holding their heavy and rusted weapons high above their head. "Finally sum aktion!" their leader shouted to his companions.One of the slightly smaller Orks reminded the Big Nob that their warboss Skrapsmacka had forbidden any contact with enemies if any presented themselves. In true ork fashion the big Nob punched the smaller ork in the face and ordered the immediate attack.They started running from cover to cover to get as close to the enemy without being seen.They were gloating with the thought of the opportunity to slash their rusty blades through some human spines.

 Meanwhile all but one of the grey knights had left the chimera. A grey knight warrior with a meltagun was to stay with the chimera and give the others cover as the others would causiously move through the ruins. These humans showed no fear and even when they eventually saw the ork Nobz only meters away instead of looking for cover they kept advancing but spread out.

 Two of the crusaders with an agro flagelant went wide close to the edge of the ruin whist the other crusader advanced though the middle accompanied by 2 Death Cult Assassins and an agro flagelant, the warrior in the chimera remained in possition overlooking the site. The dust winds made it hard for him to see what happened in the ruins and all the chimera's shots  missed their targets as they could only see them for a split second.

The Ork Nobz were confused when they realised that their opponents seemed unfaced by them. Maybe it was because of that then when the two forces colided that the first nob was slew with ease. When his body fell to the ground the other Orks went crazy and with furious anger they hacked away at their opponents. Although the grey knights seemed without fear they were no match for the primal power of the orks. One by one they were slaughtered in close combat. The grots that had been hiding in the ruins saw with great pleasure that the grey knights were no match for the Nobz. Their eyes started glowing bright red with excitement and they hastely came from their hiding places. Cowardly they singled out one of the last two remaining crusaders and raised their blasta's at him. The grey knight crusader stared down at the vile green grots, this was not how a noble grey knight should die. Nevertheless, before he could react the grots unleashed a hail of bullets from a save distance and the crusader was struck down. When he fell to his knees, blood spilling from his mouth he held his hands to his chest. Quickly his dark red blood was spilling through his fingers and he fell over, dead!. The grots screamed for joy and hopped from one leg to the other when they realised that they had managed to kill the mighty crusader. The only remaining crusader saw that all was lost and tried to get back to the chimera.

When he was only 10 meters away from the chimera he could finaly see his transport through the clouds of whirling dust. He smirked and then tried to warn those who stood there waiting for him. "QUICKLY, FALL BACK! THIS PLACE IS ........ARGHHH!"... The crusader stopped running and his legs caried him a few more steps before he fell down with his face in the sand. A huge axe was sticking out from his back. The warrior tried to look through the dust to see what had thrown the axe but he saw nothing. A second later he jumped in the chimera and shouted at the driver to head for the extraction point as fast as possible.

Back on the battle barge the surviving warrior was immediately summoned to the comms room for debriefing. All he could tell his superiors was the confirmed sighting of grots, nothing else. The commander fumed with anger and sent out a high altitude drone to the site that had been appointed by the Chimera driver. The recon footage showed nothing, no enemies, no bodies ,nothing. Could this have been simple feral orks and grots or was it something else, something bigger, something more dangerous? What could live on a dead world like Belis Alta, it was a planet of no importance whatsoever so surely no organised enemy force would risk living there. It was nothing like it's neighbouring dead world planet "Belis Corona" other then it's harsh climat.

The actual battlefield (200 points kill Team)

This was an actual 200 points Kill Team game that was turned into a battle report/story by myself. The fluff of my "Boyz" will largely be based on further battles I play and some background and history in between.  This is a very fun way to get a real feel and connection with the army I'm building.

June Round Up

OMG OMG !!! I really can't believe how fast May has come and gone. It almost seems as if i was hibernating and the whole month went by me.

So what have I been up to last month?
- Well I painted up a small number of Orks for my Tale of 4 gamers challenge. I painted a bit of a mixed bag, 1 Killa can, 4 Boyz and 4 Grotz. I have to admit that because I had spent almost 3 weeks on painting the killa kan I had to opt for the easy way out and quickly painted some smaller models so I could achieve my target for May.

This might need some explaining. 3 other gamers and me set up a "tale of four gamers" challenge in which we have to paint 10 points every month. We broke down the models into different brackets because for example 1 guy is painting Grey knights and I'm doing Orks. If we would use the points for units I would have to paint about 40 boyz whilst the Grey Knight player only has to paint 10. We broke down the models like this:

- 25mm bases: 1 point per model
- 40mm bases: 2 points per model
- 60mm bases/bike bases/small flying bases: 3 points per model
- vehicle / large oval/large flyingbase: 10 points per model

This way every player has to invest about the same amount of time every month to reach their targets.

My greenskins for May

 I have also fielded my greenskins in a couple of 200pnt Kill Team games. I came out on top vs the Grey knights but the dark Eldar were too fast for me and almost tabled me. I also had a game vs Nids and lost that to.

As part of our "To4G"challenge I also had to write a battle report on my game vs the grey knights.I will be using that batrep as a prologue for my Fluff and I'm thinking of posting it hare too but writing in English isn't my strong point.

Anything else happened in June?
Yes, I bought my first finecast model, Another lovely greenskin. I'm not telling which model yet because I'm saving it up for next month when I'm doing a "special" on him and his unit.More later...

So what's in store for this month?
Well, I have to paint up more Boyz but I've started well. I'm painting them in an assembly line fashion now and things are going faster. I have good hope I'll finish my 10 Boyz + nob well before the end of this month so I can start on some ork Kommandos as a treat for myself.

First Killa Kan

Click to enlarge

No Waaagh is complete without some Killa Kanz so I have some to and I just got the first one done. I really love these models and they are Orky to the max I think. Full of little detail and a lot of different parts to mix and match.

I want my vehicles and armour bits to look like rusted old metal that used to be bright yellow. A bit like the background image of my blog. To create that look I painted it golden yellow and added rush and weathering layers with dark flesh. I used the sponge technique the most because I like the result the best but I couldn't reach everywhere with tha sponge so I had to do a lot by brush as well.


All and all this model took me three weeks to complete but that said I didn't have a lot of painting time in the past few weeks.

Click to enlarge

Here's a shot of the complete model. As you can see it has a close combat weapon and Grotzooka. I really like the detail on the grotzooka and the idea behind it. hurling pieces of scrap towards the enemy can have quite devasting results. (so I have heard) . I haven't had time to play this model so I have no idea if it's any good.

Here's a shot of the close combat weapon. I like how it turned out but I think I should have added more scratches. looks scary anyway..

And on the left you can see the Grotzooka side a bit better. If you want to see all the little details and the effect the special crackle paint had that I used on this model then have a look at my earlier article on A Cracking Crackled Paintjob.