hyv3mynd's Hectic World - Painting, Playing, and Prepping

I'm going to throw a lot at you this week.  The approaching summer brings on the "slow season" for my day job.  On the horizon also is Parkhammer '13 which is the first official "event" of The Grand Strategery, the gaming club founded by authors of this blog.  While it's not a formal tournament, it will be a fun day of gaming and barbequing with friends and family.  DaBoyz have also announced the dates and venue for their 2013 GT so I'll toss in some list ideas for your review.

First off is a tutorial/WIP for my Sorceror of Tzeentch.  This model was chosen to be the focus of a painting competition at Parkhammer.  This will be my first entry into a painting competition (aside from trying for "best painted" at local events) and I'm pretty excited to spend some serious time on a single model.  This portion of the WIP will also serve as a tutorial for airbrushing small infantry models.  Since it's a competition model, I'll be taking steps that I normally wouldn't when painting an entire army.

First, I drilled and pinned the individual parts.  I normally airbrush assembled models, but this time I want to make sure it's very clean and minimize overspray.  I primed black lightly and patched the rest with vellejo black.  I'm finding black is the best primer for airbrushing if you want to work it into your shading.

Next, I isolated the flesh areas by masking with poster tac (bluetac or a generic version).  The first pass of color was a 50/50 mix of black and camo green.  I know tzeentch usually features blues, pinks, and purples, but I don't want this army to be a rainbow so all models will feature the same palette despite their deity of choice.  This airbrushing pass covers the widest angles and fades from the horns on the head down to the toes of the feet.

The next pass is pure camo green, with less coverage than the first and higher angles (from where the top of the model would be) leading towards zenithal highlighting.

I finished this step with a 50/50 mix of camo green and white airbrushed onto the face, fingers, and rear leg joint.  This pass was fired from the highest zenith.  It's hard to see on such a small model, but layered over the previous coats, it creates highlights and shadows in the fine details like cheekbones and fingers.

With the flesh tones done, I removed the poster tac and masked off the flesh so I can work on the armor without ruining what I've done.  My first color layer on the armor is dark fleshtone.

With the same method I used on the fleshtones, my next pass was with a 50/50 mix of dark fleshtone and white from a higher angle.

Then I finished with pure white just on the highest points.  If you look closely at the chest and right arm, you can see shadows forming from black to brown to white thanks to airbrushing from increasing angles.

Skipping ahead, I've used the same process to add yellows to the staff and blues to the loincloth.

And here's the model assembled.  All painting thus far is with the airbrush.  The reason I wanted to show this process is to showcase how airbrushing can make basecoating models quite quick and easy.  If you look closely at the hands, you can see how the individual fingers have been shaded and highlighted just by using 3 different colors and airbrushing from different angles.  The next steps will be washes, glazes, wet palette blending, and dry brushing.  I'm going to keep those steps under wraps until after the painting contest so I don't spoil the surprise!

Next up are a few shots from a demo game.  Grubnards and Crimthaan ran a 40k demo day at the local shop to try and interest new players.  They also brought along some painted forces to showcase.

Some of Grubnard's Eldar.

And his Tau.

Some of Grubnard's CSM and Crimthaan's Crimson Fists.

While they were running small demo games and chatting with passers by, I ran a 1500pt game against a friend who wanted to take my Tyranids for a test drive.

I used the Typhus list I took to Syracuse in April.  I built him a TAC list with flyrant, hive guard, 30 gaunts, tervigon, warriors, and tyrannofex.  He wasted no time coming at me with the flyrant which easily handled my maulerfiend with smashes.

My jugger lord came over and put 3 wounds on the tyrant with his daemon axe, but ate a smash and went down.  My spawn escorts never landed the final wound and also went down to smashes.

I got a little revenge when my possessed rolled up the ap3 mutation and finished the wounded tervigon, but it was too little too late.  My friend had me down to 2 models (Typhus and an Aspiring Champion) by the end.

It's actually a lot of fun to pit two of your own armies against each other, especially with another person taking charge of one army.  You learn a lot about how to handle potential pairings and possible tactics to try in the future.  I'm a staunch proponent of practicing as much as possible, and always learn more from losses than wins.

As stated in the beginning of this post, DaBoyz announced their annual GT so my gears have started turning towards a final GT list.  It seems they're dropping comp scores for a second year in a row so I want to try a list with more repetition than I normally use.  Here is the core of what I'd like to play:

Typhus
Herald of Tzeentch + ml2, locus of conjuration
Zombies x30
Zombies x30
Horrors x11
Plaguebearers x10
Spawn x5 + MoN
Spawn x5 + MoN
Maulerfiend
Maulerfiend + lashers
Bastion + quad gun

This comes in at 1519 so I'd have about 330pts to play with.  Plaguebearers would take the quad gun on top of the bastion and have 2+ cover.  Horrors would be inside the bastion to use the av14, hvy bolters, and throw out flickering flames with prescience from the herald.  Spawn and maulerfiends would lead the offensive push with Typhus and zombies behind to mop up.

I'm still torn with how to use the last 330pts.  Some things I've considered are:
Plague Marine melta hunters in a rhino - even more scoring fearless bodies
Obliterators - more long range firepower and flexibility
Land Raider + 10 zombies - another av14 target with a cheap, fearless scoring unit
6 plague drones - another fast assault unit that can glance any vehicle and tarpit/contest late game
CSM bikers w/ melta - another fast vehicle hunter unit

What do you guys think will complement my core list the most in a non-comp GT setting?