Sunday, November 25, 2012

Welcome to the Mandulian Chapel from Crispy


     Whether you are a returning visitor to Synaps3 & Purple Reign, or if you’re new to The Mandulian Chapel, I’d like to welcome you and say hello.  My name is Chris Pelletier, and I go by Crispy or Warmaster Primus on various forums. I’ll be joining Hyv3mynd and Calypso2ts here at The Mandulian Chapel, discussing Warhammer 40K & Fantasy tactics, tournaments, fluff, and the hobby. I’ll be posting my thoughts from the 2012 Da Boyz GT 40K Team Tournament and the Fantasy GT in the coming weeks, but before that let me introduce myself.


     I’ve been a wargamer since the mid-90s, with a large hiatus that spanned part of 3rd and 4th edition. These days, my primary armies are Tyranids, Chaos Space Marines, and Orcs & Goblins, with Necrons on the horizon. Because my FLGS (Millennium Game in Rochester) is a couple hours away, the majority of my time is spent submerged in the hobby or fluff. I love converting and painting, but I try to get in as many tournaments as I can.

     These days, time is a bit of a precious commodity. I’m married and have a daughter, and in between cooking dinner & running the family around, I manage to get a few things done. Here’s a sample of some items I’ve been working on:

Fantasy O&G Pump Wagons
     In the past 9 months I’ve jumped into fantasy, and my most recent work has focused on Orcs & Goblins. When I bought my first GW pump wagon, I didn’t think the Orc Glyph on the model was large enough. It just didn’t look as cool as the picture in the army book, so I set out to make my own.

     Using green stuff and plasticard, this is what I came up with. A lot of the bitz are from the savage orc sprue.

40K Chaos Daemon Prince
     I started working on this model over a year ago. I wanted a Daemon Prince with a jump pack instead of wings, and this is what I came up with. 

     With the new Chaos dex out, this model is coming back to the forefront. I still need to finish the attachment between the Prince and the Pack.

40K Tyranid Swarmlord
     My main army over the last few years has been Tyranids, and when they released the plastic Tyrant kit, I was extremely excited. For those that haven’t picked this kit up, let me say that it’s completely re-cut, and fits together fantastically. 

     This is one of the most recent 40K models I painted, and I’ve magnetized the 4 limbs. The magnetization is more for ease of transport, as all those pointy bitz can get caught up on the storage foam.

     That’s it for now. Stay tuned in for our coverage of Da Boyz GT. Thanks for reading.

Crispy


6 comments:

  1. Hi, Crispy!
    I'm Erle from Belarus. I waited for a long time to see new tyranids content here, he-he:) Hope to see more bugs here now.
    My only army is Tyranids and I try to do my best at everything - painting, converting and tourneys. I'm happy to see that you'll be posting about team tournaments as I'm interestead in team-tournament Nidz nowadays. In my blog I deep into competetive executions of tyranids, so I'm looking for comrades in this uneasy task:)

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  2. Hey Erle, thanks for stopping by. What's your blog?

    Let me know what you'd like to see. Right now, I'm planning on covering Da Boyz GT, and an upcoming invitational tournament, but after that I'm open to what people would like to read about.

    In terms of Nids and the competitive environment, I have a few thoughts that I'll be adding to the next few posts.

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    1. http://hive-fleet-hyenna.blogspot.com/
      I've just turned it into English, so there are a lot in Russian yet. Feel free to ask me a translation of a posts you like.

      Today I'm trying out different tyranids builds in tourney environment in two directions at the same time: single nidz and team nidz.
      I'm going to take part in several team GT's soon:
      1. 15-16 of December is "Brothers in Arms-2012" in Moscow, Russia. ETC format 6-player team tourney.
      2. February 2013 - "The battle of four cities", Belarus national team championship, also ETC format.

      Also, I have a chance to take part in ETC team championship in Serbia if I manage to find some spare time:)

      At this point I'm trying to analize the international meta to find out the right place for tyranids in team tourneys. So I'm interested in any ideas on team tourney nidz and their role in a team:)

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  3. Very nice painting and conversions. I am very interested in some tyranid batreps and strategies

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  4. I like your work and advice in the guest posts from before. Looking forward to seeing more, Crispy.

    As for I'd like to see, here are nine ideas:

    1. Synergies
    This is one of the most important aspects of Tyranids in making an army that works together rather than separate parts.

    2. Building a better Unit
    Kind of like a part 2 to synergies. Highlight a few units and how they can work as an individual unit, for example, Prime with Gants near a Tervigon or various Hive Tyrant builds, etc.

    3. Adapting to 6th Edition
    How have you changed your play style after switching to 6th edition? What do you find works better now? Worst? The way forward? With 5/6 games objective based, nids should have an upper hand on paper, less so in the game (for me anyway).

    4. Crispy deals with [unit X]
    What scary combination do you hear people jibber-jabber about because they don't know how to deal with it? Flyers? Grey Knights? Dark Eldar poison? etc.

    5. Crispy's Critiquing Corner
    People send you in a list and what they're trying to accomplish with it and you let them know your thoughts and what changes (if any) you'd make.

    6. Casual Gaming, or How I learned to stop caring and use Provores
    Basically, list differences between tournament gaming and casual gaming.

    7. Tyranid painting guides, from basic to expert
    Your stuff is painted very well. Lets us know how you do it. There are also various levels of people who paint. Not everyone can spend hours (or wants to) getting the best job possible. Some people want to go for "looks good and I'll think about the next step later".

    8. Tyranid Conversion
    How do you make those Harpies? Primes? Doom? etc.

    9. Good allies combinations for Tyranids.
    Oh wait...

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  5. Erle, I'm going to try and cover a few of your points in my next article. Specifically, the team dynamic and pairing influences you a lot more than I anticipated.

    WarRoom - Those are great idea. I can see myself hitting many of them. Thanks for the feedback.

    ReplyDelete