Good stuff as always.

To me it seems the Kirhaxz will do best when it's kept cheap. A cartel marauder with glitterstim should be cheap and cheerful enough.

The long term effects remains to be seen but yeah most of the wave feels quite solid. However I do fear for the Kirhaxz. It's the cheapest 3 attack ship scum have so the PS2 pilot might find a place as filler but the pricier pilots might no see much play.

Is GW actually dying? Or is that just wishful thinking on your part? Their finances are public knowledge, they've lost 15.5 million in profit over the last two years in a sector that's both healthy and growing. The release age of sigmar limited edition books and two months on they haven't managed to sell them all and they only printed 2000 copies usually those go in hours or days at most but the reaction to the old world's death has angered so many they have wholesale rejected the new game. In comparison kings of war second edition has completely sold out on its first day, people are leaving GW behind big style. They've frozen staff wages even though they are still in the black as punishment for not selling enough, but really how are you supposed to run an entire shop with only one staff member and convince a parent £500 is a reasonable amount to start his kid playing 40k. This week they've released a winged sigmarine for £48, it's not made of gold just plastic only twice the size of regular infantry, the price increases are pants on head insane. Anyone on its own is meaningless but together it's a stark picture, they've alienated so many gamers with poor rules and high prices that they've reached a tipping point more people leave them behind than start, they constantly raise prices to compensate but even that's no longer enough. Someone on warseer did the maths and to build the recommended 100 model sigmarines army would cost $1,163.50(that's just models not glue or paints), would you start x-wing if that was the initial outlay? Yeah I've spent a few hundred over two years on x-wing but that's world's apart from £760 to do a single army for AoS. It's a slow painful demise but it's undeniable they are in their deaththrows. Age of Sigmar is a bloody joke and a truly bad one at that. And I for one couldn't be happier that it seems to be failing badly. It just might bring some positive changes, however unlikely that is.

Don't know exactly how much I've spent, though I'm certainly not the biggest X-wing consumer. One of each expansion is usually enough for me. As for justification, that's a simple one, it's not Warhammer. No matter how much X-wing stuff I buy, it will never amount to all the money I've poured into Games Workshop related crap and since I've been playing these types of games for the last 20 years, that amounts to quite a lot of cash.

Properly ugly! Strangely enough I would really hesitate to do that. Ask me to scratchbuild a Star Destroyer and I'll do it with joy but chopping up a finished model is somewhat problematic.

I tried stripping on my first few repaints and discovered that it wasn't really needed. The factory paintjob has proven to be a good base for repainting though I always use a primer (Vallejo's airbrush primer, black, white or grey depending on the requested paintjob) before I do any additional painting. Big shiny canopies (currently only the Firespray) can require some additional preparation. My solution is to gently sand down the black paint covering the window using a fine grit sanding stick normally used for polishing nails.

From what you describe, I wouldn't call it slow play. It sounds like it was a truly boring match but it seems to have been played correctly. Personally, I would hesitate to play against such a person again. I'm more of a 'fly casual' person and I'd rather avoid WAAC behaviour.

Autoblasters are just plain bad and doesn't help Keyan at all. He needs some way to stress himself if he's going to be useful and that is usually done with Stay on Target or PtL. SoT in particular is pretty **** nasty on Keyan.

Holy golden crap on a blue stick batman, that's a lot of gear! Yes it's a deadly combo but here's the thing, Ten dies just as fast as any other B-wing and for 44 points you can get two normal Blue B-wings. The cheapest build to utilize Ten's ability would be just to stick Calculation on him, just Lampyridae suggests above. FCS is optional but works great with Calc as well. Personally though I prefer Mangler Cannon and VI as that extra PS allows you to negate a lot of the arcdodging shenanigans that slippery targets like Soontir normally do.

The later shuttles has had much better wing depression. Perhaps not perfect but much improved. I was pretty late buying mine, so maybe the wings being perfectly horizontal was the improvement? Still, shouldn't have had to crack it open and cut some tabs to make it work as intended. That's what I like about pre-painted - I don't have to do any work on them! It's quite possible that you've gotten an early version, or that it was old stock that hadn't been sold until you bought it. But yes, those horisontal wings were a mess. Most people I know plays with the wings folded up to prevent the damned thing knocking everything over.

The later shuttles has had much better wing depression. Perhaps not perfect but much improved.

Actually, the models have not changed in the slightest, it's the far superior scum paintjob that tricks you into thinking that.

Wave 5 were the odd ball wave as there were something wrong with many mounting pegs. When talking actual quality degradation, I have noticed some of the older ships getting more noticeable mould lines and also some casting flaws are showing up, particularly on Y-wings. This isn't something most people will notice but as someone who paint the buggers, I've come to know the ships' peculiarites quite well.

I had to do some research on the brand you are using and I'm fairly confident it might be causing your problems. The brand you are using seems to be intended for large scale painting, not wargaming models. Paints specifically formulated for miniature painting are without a doubt better for the job. Yes, they are comparatively much more expensive but take it from someone who commission paints all year round, even the paints I use a lot I rarely have to restock more than once a year.

And here's the 17th and final ship. Another HWK, this time inspired by the legendary phoenix. The last picture shows all 17 ships together.

Unfortunately there are no easy answers to that question. Thinning paints is very much a process of trial and error, as not all paints are created equal. For instance, yellow paints generally have a low density of pigments but lots of medium. These you need to thin more than normal just to be able to paint them but thinning them too much mean you don't get much of a result. On the other end of the scale is black, which often do not need a lot of thinning but when heavily thinned, it usually give a good result regardless. And this assumes bog standard painting, no specialised techniques like glazing, drybrushing or washes. Not does it take into account different brands and makes of paint. The only thing I can truly say is that if you can see brushstrokes when the paint is dry, you must thin the paint more, I just can't say by how much. Also beware the dark side of not thinning your paints enough.

Bump Go to my blog or my forum thread for the rest of the pictures.

It's taken a few days but here is one of the last ships, a thunderbird HWK

Or you could do like me, never use a squad more than twice, outside of tournaments that is. That way I'm familiar with just about every ship, combo, pilot and ability there is. Why fly a certain list all the time when you can come up with new lists. Gotta try them all!

I paint them? You know, you are certainly not the first who have remarked upon my panel lines. Are they really that good?

The third and final Starviper. Go to my blog or my forum thread for the rest of the pictures.

I'm fairly certain that your sentence has never ever been spoken before in the history of mankind. Please, if you want to molest butterflies, do it in your own spare time. Here's the last Starviper. Only two ships left before the group photo.

Another Starviper Go to my blog or my forum thread for the rest of the pictures.

The 'fancy colour gradation' is neither fancy nor a gradient. I just stippled some colours using an old brush. I did this to achieve a mottled appearance and it's something that anyone can do. Here's the next Starviper. I call it the Rainbow Starviper. Now this one was a dog a of a female persuasion to get right and not something I want to repeat.