How to Paint… an Imperial Guardsman

Last weekend I was in the middle of painting up my small Space Wolves army (I’ll throw photos of that up when I’m done sometime in the near future) when I decided I needed a break from painting all that grey and yellow. You’ll find that happens whenever you’re working on a lengthy project, especially one with continually uniform colours – you’ll just want to paint something different for a change. Well, anyway, I had a rummage through my bitz box and found that I had a fair few pieces left over from the last Imperial Guard army I put together. That being the case, I opted to create an Imperial Guard Veteran Sergeant and write a ‘How to…’ article around it. So here goes.

Okay, here’s a shot of the Sergeant all assembled and undercoated, ready to go. If you’re interested in what parts I used, here’s a list, starting from the bottom up.

• Base: I cut a circle of plasticard (I’ve found that a nickel is a perfect template for this as its size almost matches the top of the base) and then cut it into three lengths. I then cut thin strips off these so that there would be gaps between them when I stuck them on the base. Then I cut the lengths across to make square paving slabs (or the illusion of square on the curved edges). After distressing the plasticard a little (beveling the edges, cutting holes and cracks) I superglued all the pieces onto the base.
• Legs: These are the standard running legs from the Cadian sprue. I pinned up through the right leg to give the miniature some more stability. I also added a Kroot knife to the left ankle armor, with a thin strip of greenstuff folded around it to represent a leather strap. I would have preferred a straight bladed knife but GW’s sizes are always off and even the smallest Imperial knife I could find was way too big.
• Torso: Standard Cadian torso, although with a pouch attached to the right side of the chest armor. This pouch is from the curving set of three pouches you get on the Space Marine sprue; I just cut one off carefully.
• Left Arm: The standard Sergeant arm from the Cadian sprue.
• Right Arm: This is the Missile Launcher arm from the Cadian Heavy Weapons sprue, with the hand cleaned up a little and the gap in the shoulder pad filled in with greenstuff (although I’m not too happy with the end result). I used this arm because I wanted a different pose than the normal arms offered and although the regular Sergeant’s right arm would have been similar, the actual angle between the forearm and the shoulder pad is too tight to fit another weapon in there instead of the Laspistol. Speaking of which, the Bolt Pistol is just a Space Marine Bolt Pistol with the hand removed, glued and pinned to the Sergeant’s right hand, with greenstuff covering any gaps. I drilled the barrel out (as always) and added a purity seal (again from the Space Marine sprue).
• Backpack: The backpack is the Catachan voxcaster, which is such a better looking version than the Cadian version. I added some Kroot grenades to one side – they look more old-timey than regular Imperial grenades and I figured a Veteran would have picked up odds and ends of equipment, scavenging from the battlefield.
• Head: The head is the Cadian Sentinel Pilot’s head and as such is the only metal component in the entire miniature.

The overall impression I wanted here was a grizzled old veteran soldier with a variety of weapons and gear, but which was also still identifiably Cadian.

Onto painting. I decided to stick with the basic Cadian colors. Surprisingly, given that I’ve now built and painted three Imperial Guard armies, I’ve never painted the traditional Cadian color-scheme. So this would be a new experience for me and would be a more reliable guide for new/struggling painters (it’s better to stick with familiar/common paint schemes when you’re starting out, as they tend to be the simplest).

I always paint the base of a miniature first. The only reason I do this is because this usually involves drybrushing, which is a messy process and I tend to get paint over the feet of the miniature. That’s not a huge problem at this point, as you can use touch up the undercoat with black paint. But if the miniature was fully painted it would obviously be a lot more difficult.

This base was easy to paint. I made up a 50/50 mix of black and Codex Grey and heavily drybrushed the entire base. (‘Heavy’ drybrushing is exactly the same as regular drybrushing except you do more and more of it, so that you get almost an even color.) I then drybrushed over the base with regular Codex Grey. Finally I lined all the edges of the paving slabs with Fortress Grey.

Note that I left the edge of the base untouched, however. This is because I need to hold the miniature by the base while painting it and my fingers would rub off any paint there over time and continual handling. I always paint the edge of the base as the very last step.

And the reason I went for a grey, urban base? Because the base has to contrast with the miniature in order to make it stand out more. If the miniature is painted in browns and greens, then a grass/earth base would look awful (if sensible). Likewise, if the figure is painted in an urban camo scheme, then you actually want to shy away from grays and blacks on the base. You can do this, but you have to be very talented or very lucky to pull it off.

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Now, depending on what you read, painting guides will often tell you to start from the outside-in (i.e. paint the armor, then fabric, then flesh) or the inside-out (i.e. start with the skin, then fabric, then armor, etc.). Neither of these ways are wrong per se but I just tend to paint the easier and larger areas first. That being so, I started with the armor (helmet, chinguard, chest plate, shoulder pads, greaves, and Bolt Pistol casing).

I paint using the 3-Paint system, which is not only quick but very simple to master and I’d recommend it to anyone who’s starting to learn to paint. Basically, as its name suggests, this system involves only using three paints on any one given area of the miniature (although I do sometimes use four or five or more, depending on how much detail I want – but three is just fine for tabletop rank-and-file miniatures). These three colors are similar but are broken into shade, basecoat, and highlight. For example, if you were painting Ultramarines’ armor, you’d want a dark blue, a blue, and a light blue.

Although this is an easy way to paint (trust me, it really is!) the complexity lies in choosing the right colors for your shades and highlights. After all, the basecoat can be whatever you want it to be, but the others have to be a darker or lighter variation of that basecoat. And how easy that is depends on how limited the range of paints you’re using is. (Some paint systems, such as the Wargames Foundry’s, are actually marketed to appeal to 3-painters – you buy a three pack of paint which includes the shade, the basecoat, and the highlight.) Unfortunately, and believe it or not, Games Workshop’s range is a little limited in places.

On their website GW recommend Dark Angels Green for the basecoat of Cadian armor but I thought that was too… well, too Dark Angels-y. I chose Catachan Green instead (which is what GW recommends in the IG Codex… why two separate painting instructions with the same results? Who knows?). And that’s when I ran into a problem. There was no shade color. The only darker green in the GW range (ignoring the Foundation paints, which have the Knarloc Green, which might have worked) is Dark Angels Green and the two don’t work together. Dark Angels Green is a bright color, despite its darker hues, and looks very unnatural. Perfect for power armor, but not for regular armor. Catachan Green is a more natural green color, that’s duller despite being lighter in hue.

So I had to mix paints to get the darker shade of green I wanted. Again, be careful here. You should know that you can’t just add white to something and expect it to get lighter (try adding white to red, for example) and nor can you just add black and expect the same color only darker. The best way to darken greens is to add a similar brown, believe it or not, and so I rustled up a 50/50 mix of Catachan Green and Scorched Brown.

Here’s where the 3-paint system really shines. You slap the shade color all over the area first. You then carefully paint the basecoat color on the area too, but making sure to leave the shade in the recesses (the shade also helps build up the color when using a black undercoat, by the way). You then highlight the edges of the area with the highlight color. You see how easy it is? With this method you’ll find you’ll hardly ever use a wash or drybrush (both of which can be messy and daunting for newbie painters) and the end result is great (at least for tabletop quality).

So you see here I used the 50/50 mix to shade the armor first, then used straight Catachan Green to basecoat the armor, leaving the mixed shade in all the recesses (mostly on the chest plate). I then mixed up a 50/50 mix of Catachan Green and Camo Green and applied that as a highlight. (Some practical advice for newbies – don’t mix paints. Trust me, it’s not worth it. I’ll explain my reasoning if you’re interested but for right now suffice it to say, don’t do it.)

I actually don’t highlight per se. The technique I use is often called ‘extreme highlighting’ or (I prefer) ‘hard edging’. Basically, highlighting involves picturing where the light source is coming from and thus where it would hit the miniature and painting the correspondingly raised areas a lighter color. That looks great if you can do it but it is time-consuming and requires a lot of experience. Hard edging instead uses a single lighter color on all edges, not just where the imaginary light is hitting. Obviously this is much easier and quicker to do, and when combined with black-lining (we’ll come to that later) it gives the miniature an almost cartoony look, which I find ideal for the silliness that is tabletop wargaming.

Once the armor was done, I double-checked the miniature all over and retouched the undercoat wherever I’d been a little messy with the painting. You know how GW articles on painting also tell you neatness is the most important thing? Well, that’s true to an extent. But relax a little – neatness counts more as you go along and it’s a lot less important at the start of any paintjob. After all, if you’re using a black undercoat you can just paint black straight over any errors. When you start adding more colors, however, you will need to be neater as any mistakes will be harder to fix. So don’t worry at the start, just get the paint on the miniature. Try to be neat, but if you make mistakes, don’t panic.

The next step was the fabric of the soldier’s uniform. Again, I chose the base color first. You always want to do this, because the base color is obviously the final color you’ll see. For the tunic I chose Desert Yellow as the basecoat.

First of, however, I painted all the fabric with Graveyard Earth. It’s a nice, mild brown that has a yellow-color to it, and so it is perfect as the shade color for Desert Yellow. Unfortunately, Graveyard Earth is rather a thin paint and so you may have to do more than one coat to get an even finish. (I did three!) I actually made a couple of small mistakes here, splashing the Graveyard Earth color over green armor on the right should pad and the backplate. To fix these mistakes (which is harder, remember, than fixing mistakes over the black undercoat) I painted over them with Catachan Green and then re-highlighted the edges. Pretty simple, quick and easy.

And here’s a good opportunity to talk about black-lining. You’ll notice in the shots above that I left some space between the fabric and any other areas it meets, so that a thin line of the black undercoat shows. That’s called black-lining (although an alternative method with the same results is to paint the black lines on after painting the miniature) and it gives the miniature a more unrealistic, cartoony look. As a result, it’s not popular but it is an effective method of painting and helps miniatures stand out on the tabletop.

I then carefully painted the tunic with Desert Yellow (again, another thin paint, so I did several coats). As this was the basecoat I made sure to leave the Graveyard Earth shade in all the recesses. Patience and carefulness is the key here. This is tricky to do even with one coat but when you have to do several coats because the paint is thin, you really have to take your time and be as precise as possible. But always remember – if you screw this part up, just let the paint dry and then paint the recessed area again with the shade color. Let that dry and start where you left off with the basecoat.

Finally, I mixed a little Skull White into some Desert Yellow (about a 25/75 mix) and highlighted the fabric. Again, I edged everything, but fabric is harder to highlight that flat surfaces, so I also highlight any raised areas of cloth and bends (elbows and knees). When you’re doing this, just look at the miniature and follow the lines of the folds in the fabric. Keep the amount of paint on your brush small and paint thin lines. You can always add more thickness. And again, if you mess up, just repaint the area with your basecoat and try again.

Next up was all the leather areas. Basically this meant the knife strap, the variety of pouches, the goggles straps, the chinstrap, and the backpack. These were all painted with Bestial Brown first as the shade. I then painted Snakebite Leather as the basecoat, carefully leaving the darker color in all the recesses. Finally, I added a tiny bit of white to the Snakebite Leather (probably a 10/90 mix at the most – from experience I’ve learnt that Snakebite Leather is one of those colors that really changes the more white you add) and highlighted all the leather areas.

After that was completed I moved onto the metal areas. I usually paint the metal areas first on miniatures, because I’ll drybrush them (so as to speed up the painting process) and this is messy and gets the metallic paint everywhere. However, I intended from the get-go to be more careful with the metallics on this miniature and not drybrush, so I left it until now.

I started by carefully painting Boltgun Metal on all metal areas (the teeth and motor of the chainsword, the pommel, guard and blade of the knife, most of the Bolt Pistol, all the voxcaster, the goggles’ edges and clasps). With metallics, I always use the black undercoat as the shade. The alternative is to use a Black Ink wash on the metallics but not only is that time-consuming and potentially messy, I also think it doesn’t look as good.

You’ll note that I took a few seconds to tidy up any metal button areas (mostly on the pouches but also on the voxcaster) with black. This will make the metal button stand out more (blacklining again).

I then edged all the metallic areas with Mithril Silver. I also dotted all the buttons with Mithril Silver.

At this point I went back to the hilts of the two Close Combat Weapons – the knife on the boot and the chainsword. I shaded these with Scorched Brown, and then painted them with Bestial Brown. Adding a tiny bit of white to Bestial Brown made a highlight color, which I very carefully applied to just the “top” areas of each section of the hilts. I could have painted these in similar colors to the leather areas but doing different colors helps break the miniature up a little more.

The chainsword covering was going to be left black but I needed to highlight it. I mixed some Codex Grey with black (about 50/50) and very carefully lined all the edges of the chainsword. I then used Codex Grey on its own to highlight the corners very slightly. You’ll note that earlier I highlighted the Guardsman’s boots in the same manner.

Okay, onto the skin of the Veteran Sergeant. Before we actually start painting any flesh areas we have to paint the eyes. Now, sometimes I’ll paint the shade flesh color before doing the eyes – this gives a more natural look – but generally I find it easier to paint the eyes first, straight over the black undercoat. This enables me to fix mistakes more easily.

Eyes are simple and just take a steady hand and a small brush. Get a tiny bit of white paint on your brush tip and paint a horizontal line on each eye. If the eye shape seems too weird, large, or really bad, use black paint to shape it correctly. If you use too much black, try again with the white. Once you’re happy with the basic eye shape, use a little bit of black paint and either dot the eye (which can be tricky) or paint a vertical line. Usually you’ll want to do this in the center, although you can have your miniature looking left or right, or whatever.

Now you’ll want to paint the skin of the Guardsman. Start by applying a shade color – I invariably use Tanned Flesh (it’s less dark than Dark Flesh and looks better for Humans) – to the hands, face and neck. You have to be really careful here, making sure to get the shade color in all the recesses (including between the fingers) but also making sure not to get it on any other already painted part. On the face, be sure to leave a thin black line around the eyes and at the edges (wherever the skin meets another part, such as the interior of the helmet or the neckline).

I also tend to leave a thin black line between the lips of a miniature; although you can just use the shade color if you like (I just don’t think it looks as good).

Once the shade is done, move onto the basecoat, for which I use Dwarf Flesh. Again, you want to paint the entire area, avoiding the recesses.

For a highlight, I use Elf Flesh and I apply this to most of the skin, avoiding the recesses a little more this time. Personally, I add one more highlight for flesh, which is a 50/50 mix of Elf Flesh and white and which I apply only to the highest raised areas (nose, cheekbones, knuckles, etc.).

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You can relax, we’re almost done. And from here on in its all easy stuff.

Because the remaining areas are so small, I painted several of them at one time (this saves paint in the long run, honestly). So I started with a button on the back of the voxcaster and the wax seal of the purity seal. Both of these were going to be red. I painted them first with Mechrite Red (it’s one of the Foundation Paints and a fantastically good red, especially for basecoating over black). I then basecoated them both with Blood Red (although on the voxcaster button I painted the button more like a lens, so just a crescent shape of Blood Red and the bottom) and then highlighted them with a 50/50 mix of Blood Red and Blazing Orange (on the very top of the purity seal and a very thin crescent line on the bottom of the voxcaster button).

The remaining buttons on the voxcaster I painted using the same method but with blue instead of red. I painted the lenses of the goggles at the same time and in the same way (although because of their different shape you have to be more careful), using a 50/50 mix of Enchanted Blue and Regal Blue for the shade, then Enchanted Blue as the basecoat, and then adding increasing amounts of white for several subsequent highlights (the color gets lighter and the line gets thinner the closer I get to the bottom of the lenses).

I shaded the parchment of the purity seal with Graveyard Earth, and then painted it with Kommando Khaki. I then edged the parchment with a  50/50 mix of Kommando Khaki and Bleached Bone (and with just Bleached Bone for the corners). I then took a very thin brush and painted very thin lines of Graveyard Earth horizontally down the parchment to represent text (remember to keep them thin and even but of different lengths – that way they look more like words at a distance). The eagle on the chainsword was painted in the same way.

The Sergeant’s stripes on the left arm were both painted with Fortress Grey (leaving black lines between them), merely to act as a bright undercoat for the white paint. I then painted the stripes and the eagle on the chest plate with white. At the same time, I put a dot of white (or two) in the upper right corner of the lenses on the voxcaster and the goggles.

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Nearly complete now. All I had to do was to apply any transfers. These are pretty tough to do (at least on the Cadian armor, as more curved areas make transfers impossible to use, I’ve found – Space Marine shoulder pads are the worst). Once the transfers were in place, I used Catachan Green to paint over the glossy clear parts of the transfers. This helps blend the transfers in and makes them look more realistic.

Finally, I wasn’t happy with the highlighting on the armor – it seemed too subdued to me. So I went back and added a very thin highlight of Camo Green to the edges and then a 75/25 mix of Camo Green and white to the corners. I was also tempted to add some battle damage to the armor but decided not to in the end.

So, a quick splash of Codex Grey on the edge of the base and, once completely dry, a couple of coats of matt varnish, and we’re completely done!

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So there you have it. How to paint an Imperial Guardsman. All you need is a steady hand, lots of patience, the right paints. Anyone can paint this well, given time, believe me. And once you get this method down, you’ll be able to branch off into more complex techniques.

As always, comments are welcome. If you have questions, I’ll do my best to answer them. I’m always more than happy to help teach people paint (as best I can, I know I’m not the world’s greatest painter or anything).

Also, if anyone has anything that they’d like to see a ‘How to Paint…’ guide on, I’d be happy to hear suggestions. It depends on what bitz and miniatures I have lying around, of course.

Workbench (1)

Here’s what I’ve been working on recently (aside from the Space Wolves army, obviously).

Bretonnian Pegasus Knight

A straightforward model with no conversions, just a simplistic paintjob. I’ve almost completed his pegasus too.

Duel in the Desert

This is going to be a diorama, featuring a Dark Eldar warrior pouncing on a wary Imperial Guard trooper. The Dark Eldar has been pinned to the base at this point, and while the base has been painted (but not completed) the warrior is only undercoated (as is the Imperial canteen). The Dark Eldar miniature required a fair bit of conversion work – the left leg was cut and repositioned to create a running stance (those of you who have seen the Dark Eldar Warriors know they look pretty static) and sculpted back to resemble a leg with greenstuff. Additional icons were added (barbed stripes to match the other leg and a skull-kneepad) to the leg. The left arm is a standard arm from the sprue but the right arm is heavily converted and repositioned. It’s actually the arm holding a Shredder (or Blaster or whatever the Dark Eldar Heavy Weapons are called), with the weapon carefully removed, leaving just the fist (luckily Dark Eldar weapons apparently don’t have triggers…) and the guard. I then added the blade (taken from the same sprue) and a tiny skull (from my bitz box, I think it originally came from a Chaos sprue) as the knife’s pommel. The head is a standard Dark Eldar head although I shaved the stupid-lloking topknot and ponytail off.

The IG trooper will be added later, as he’s being painted separately for simplicity’s sake.

A Farewell to Arm(ie)s

So I’m quitting Warhammer 40,000. Now, anyone who knows me will tell you that I’ve said this countless times in the past but this time it’s for real. I’ve been thinking about quitting for a long time, but the latest White Dwarf (issue #342) and the revelations (both in the mag and online) and rumors about 5th Edition have finally made my mind up. I played only two games last month and before that there was a year-long gap in which I didn’t play even once. The game no longer holds my interest.

The reasons why I’m quitting are many and varied. Here’s a rough list:

Pros

• I have a lot of fun painting.
• I’m a good painter.
• The background/fluff/source material is fantastic.

Cons

• I have no fun playing anymore.
• I’m a crap gamer.
• The rules suck.
• 5th edition.
• GW treats it’s customers like shit.
• 90% of the miniatures are terrible.
• 40k gamers are assholes, generally speaking.

I’ll discuss each of these points in turn, in separate posts, just for shiggles. However, the more observant amongst you will notice that Games Workshop’s exorbitantly high prices, a constant source of whining and complaint online and elsewhere, doesn’t feature on my list. Why not? Well, because, primarily, GW is a business and can charge whatever they like and you either pay or you don’t (although that’s not to say you can’t whine about it). I may not like their prices and I may think they’re outrageous, but there’s no point complaining about it. Vote with your wallet, if you want to be heard. Besides, prices are now pretty similar across the range (or in some rare cases more expensive and it’s still relatively cheap compared to a lot of hobbies. I earn a decent living and can afford to buy these things, so while high prices may gall me and make me buy less, they’re not a factor in my stopping buying stuff altogether.

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There’s a tournament at the local store this Saturday (21st June) and I’m going to attended only because I want to show off my newly painted Space Wolves army (see future blog posts regarding that). I think I’ll make that my last hurrah.

For Tomorrow We Fight

So tomorrow the local gaming store is holding a 1,500 point Warhammer 40,000 tournament. As you’ve seen from yesterday’s blog entries, this is going to be my last hurrah with the game, having finally (after 21 years) decided to give GW the same attitude they’ve been giving me for the last decade or so, namely the finger. The other reason I’m going to attend is to show off my newly painted Space Wolves army (see a future post).

Here’s the list I’m taking:

HQ – Wolf Guard Battle Leader with Terminator Armour, Storm Bolter, Wolf Tooth Necklace, Wolf Tail Talisman, Wolf Pelt, Frost Blade, and Auspex (116 points).

HQ - Venerable Dreadnought with Assault Cannon and Extra Armour (160 points).

ELITES – 6 Wolf Guard Bodyguards in Terminator Armour, all with Wolf Tail Talismans. One has an Assault Cannon, one has a Storm Bolter and Power Sword, two have Lightning Claws, and two have Cyclone Missile Launchers (316 points).

TROOPS – 10 Grey Hunters. Seven have Boltguns and Close Combat Weapons, one has a Boltgun and a Powerfist, one has a Boltgun and a Power Sword, and one has a Meltagun (213 points).

TROOPS – 10 Grey Hunters. Seven have Boltguns and Close Combat Weapons, two have a Boltgun and a Power Sword, and one has a Meltagun (207 points).

FAST ATTACK - Land Speeder with Multi-Melta and Extra Armour (70 points).

HEAVY SUPPORT - Leman Russ Exterminator with Turret-Mounted Twinlinked Autocannon, Hull-Mounted Heavy Bolter, Sponson-Mounted Heavy Bolters, Extra Armour and Smoke Launchers (203 points).

HEAVY SUPPORT - Long Fangs Pack, consisting of one Pack leader with a Boltgun and Close Combat Weapon, and four Long Fangs each with a Heavy Weapon (one each of Heavy Bolter, Lascannon, Plasma Cannon and Missile Launcher) (214 points).

TOTAL: 1,499 points (18% on HQ, 21% on Elites, 28% on Troops, 5% on Fast Attack and 28% on Heavy Support).

Yeah, I know it’s not an optimum army, or even vaguely competitive, but it should be fun list to play. Besides which, my options were limited as I bought this army second-hand (and unpainted, of course) on eBay a while back. The only other things I could add would be Ulrik Runeslayer, Ragnar Blackmane, an Iron Priest and four Thralls, and/or a few more Terminators. So this is probably the best list possible from what miniatures I have.

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As for a battleplan, well I have a rough idea. The Long Fangs will hang back and hit heavy vehicles/monstrous creatures first, followed by light vehicles and then take on an anti-infantry role. They’ll also be useful for drawing enemy fire. They’re a small unit and a valuable one, so I know my opponents will be hitting them first.

Meanwhile, the Leman Russ Exterminator will be heading up one flank, hitting light vehicles and infantry. The ability to fire all three Heavy Bolters and the Autocannon while moving is fantastic. The tank will be supported by the Dreadnought and by both squads of Grey Hunters, who will either be protected by the tank or be protecting it, depending on the opponent and what’s happening at that particular time.

My two flexible units are the Land Speeder, which will either speed around on suicide missions trying to take out tough targets (heavy vehicles/monsterous creatures) or hide out for the whole game in order to grab/contest objectives in the last turn, depending on the mission, and the Lord and his Bodyguards, which will either hang back and soak up damage, firing their Cyclone Missile Launchers and Assault Cannon in support of the Long Fangs (and they also make a good counter-attack unit) or advance with the main thrust or even advance elsewhere as a diversion.

Of course, this is open to change at any time. I don’t want the Leman Russ to get too close to some enemies, after all. And if the enemy is a killer horde (like Orks or Tyranids), then I’ll just hang back and shoot, hopefully having the opportunity to counter-attack if need be.

And before anyone says it, I’m not deepstriking anything because the rules don’t permit Space Wolves to do so. Yes, I’m well aware that many people do but most of the time they’re breaking the rules.

There is a section dedicated to Space Wolves and deepstriking in the old Codex. The newer Space Wolves FAQ tells players to use the rules for Droppod Assault in Codex: Space Marines. That’s fine, but what most players miss is the rule in that section stating that only units that can purchase droppods may deepstrike during the game. No Space Wolves unit can purchase a droppod as per their Codex. Therefore, technically, Space Wolves can never deepstrike.

However, looking back at the Space Wolves section there is a list of which units can deepstrike. Assuming most players use this list as the basis for which units can ‘purchase’ droppods then the problem is solved, correct? Almost. It’s still technically illegal to do so and the rules also state that the entire Space Wolves army must deepstrike. You cannot take anything that cannot deepstrike if you wish to deepstrike anything else (i.e. no Bikes, Attack Bikes, Land Raiders, Exterminators, Iron Priests, etc.). So even if you break the rules in one place, you still have to obey them elsewhere and thus a Space Wolves army that deepstrikes must consist of all deepstriking forces.

And as I really wanted to field my Leman Russ Exterminator, obviously I couldn’t deepstrike (by either interpretation of the rules).

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Stay tuned for a tournament report, complete with photos and round-by-round batreps.

When a Mad Old Woman Tells You to Leave, You Leave

My wife and I were unfortunate enough to see M. Night Shamalyan’s new movie, The Happening, over the weekend. I say unfortunate because that’s how I felt during most of the movie. I was unlucky enough (or dumb enough, depending on your point of view) to be tricked into paying $30+ to see yet another dismal failure by this over-rated, over-hyped, and over-egotistical so-called auteur.

Good news for M. Night Shamalyan: the movie theatre was packed. Bad news for M. Night Shamalyan: as we left everyone we passed was bitching about how bad the movie was.

It’s a shame it was so terrible, really it is. It has such a great premise (that could truly be frightening if handled by a halfway-competent director) that obviously appealed to large numbers of people. I know that many, many people were talking excitedly about this movie months ago.

So what went wrong?

Well, let’s start with the plot. Oh, I suppose I should give the obligatory SPOILERS warning here. The basic plot is that people start freezing, acting disoriented, and then committing mass suicide. Survivors flee the big cities and eventually it is revealed that it is the plants causing this behavior, releasing a chemical in revenge for humanity abusing the planet. It’s also strongly hinted that the mass disappearance of bees is either responsible for this or the final straw that makes the plant-life finally snap and go postal. We follow the desperate attempts of one couple to survive.

Okay. So far, not so bad. Not great, as it reads like as if someone had ghostwritten a novel synopsis Al Gore had written on a napkin during a really heavy lunch, but not terrible.

But the script lets it down so badly. The opening scenes are pretty good, with people jumping off construction sites and tearing their own skin off. But almost immediately, something doesn’t add up. We’re in the park, the trees start rustling, and everyone freezes. Of the two women on a bench we’ve been focusing on, one gets disoriented and stabs herself in the throat. The other is unaffected. In fact, she’s the only person unaffected. How? Why? It’s never explained. And it’s repeated at the end of the movie too, so it’s not a one-time only forgivable mistake. If she’s immune to the chemicals the plants are now suddenly pumping out, then how come? Why isn’t she all over the news? Why isn’t someone doing something? The same thing happens on the construction site – why is it only workers at the top are affected? They’re further away from plants and the wind would be stronger, so there would be fewer chemicals in the air. It makes no sense whatsoever.

We meet Mark Wahlberg at this point, who is a science teacher in a school. Handy, right? And if that weren’t coincidence enough, he’s teaching a class on the ramifications of acts of nature. Wow, spooky. Now, coincidences (and I use the term loosely) like this can be okay, if handled well (see The Day of the Triffids novel, for a perfect example which also has killer vegetation as the enemy*) but here they’re thrown at the audience in such a ham-fisted manner it’s just embarrassing.

We also learn that his best friend is the math teacher (John Leguizamo) and that his girlfriend (the ever-vacant Zooey Deschanel) is cheating on him (and she and the best friend hate each other). I think we’re supposed to believe that this ‘cheating’ is okay as they only ate dessert together (which we find out later) but it still makes her out to be a total bitch and a very unsympathetic character. John Leguizamo, meanwhile, is a devoted husband, father and son, and the script shows us how good of a best friend he is too. Needless to say, the bitch lives, the good guy dies. Just goes to show that despite all his ego, M. Night Shamalyan has bought totally into the Hollywood line of crap.

Wahlberg isn’t aware of this cheating but does become so during the movie. He takes it in stride and keeps going, which is probably just as well as if this movie had another ten minutes of mindless dialogue or vacant staring the audience would be killing themselves just like the fictional people on-screen. The script subtly hints – and by subtly I mean it’s pretty blatant and by hints I mean Shamalyan hits you over the head with a neon rock with the appropriate dialogue on it – that this is because of his resolute, never-say-die character. Unfortunately, through a combination of bad lines, awful direction and Wahlberg’s limited acting skills, it actually comes across as the character being a pathetic doormat who can’t stand up for himself and with little or no redeemable or likeable features.

The three main characters flee the city via train, with John Leguizamo’s snot-nosed daughter (Ashlyn Sanchez) in tow. During the train trip, we discover that girlfriend isn’t really committed to the cheating (so she’s flakey, as well as untrustworthy) and that other cities are now “under attack”. The train stops in the middle of nowhere and the passengers obligingly stand around for a while. Yep, I’m not kidding. Now we see why Mark Wahlberg is the main character. He’s the only one with enough intelligence to actually ask the railroad employees why they’ve stopped and where they are. Come on, for fuck’s sake! Even in ordinary, everyday circumstances, if a train just stops then every damn passenger would be clustered around the staff. And then the staff replies that they’ve lost contact. With who, asks Wahlberg? With everyone. Oooh… spooky. Great line, delivered well. You can see why they used it for the trailer. Unfortunately, it makes no sense. Who have they lost contact with? Their bosses? How? Other people are still using cellphones, so there’s no reason they can’t get in touch with someone. Lost contact with the terminal, yes. Lost contact with the railroad company, yes. Lost contact with everyone, no. Don’t be idiotic.

So this huge crowd of people crams into the small village diner and learn on the news that this death attack is spreading and it’s gradually targeting smaller and smaller groups of people. They panic and all leave in cars. No, I don’t know where they got the cars from – they all came on the train, so this makes no sense either. (Oh and there’s an important – or totally trivial but the director wants us to notice it – bit in this scene regarding Wahlberg’s mood ring. It has no relevance to the plot and is supposed to indicate character but in reality it’s just a distraction. It is also hammered into the script as a supposedly poignant ending later, in the same way a tantrum-throwing three-year-old hammers a square peg into a round hole in his plastic toy toolset.) Wahlberg and Deschanel are stranded until the last car offers them a lift. It’s from psychotic old man (Frank Collison) and his wife who own a greenhouse/nursery nearby. Collison can’t act to save his life and was obviously cast because he looks creepy. Anyway, Leguizamo decides at this point to go looking for his wife, who happens to be in one of the areas hit by the effect. Yeah, really sensible. Still, to its credit the script does make a decent enough effort of explaining his actions, although abandoning your young daughter seems a little stupid. True, his best friend is there to take care of her, but so is his bitch of a girlfriend who hates you.

(Oh, and no review of the movie can go by without commenting at this point on the iPod scene. While in the diner, a woman shows a video taken by someone elsewhere in a zoo on her iPod. Now, not only is this scene really badly filmed – it’s obvious that the picture has been superimposed on the iPod – but it’s also bad. Basically a guy (presumably a zookeeper) walks into the lion cage and offers himself up to be eaten. And two lions proceed to pull his arms off. Yep, you read that right. They pull his arms off while he’s standing. And he doesn’t even tug against them. Now,I don’t know much about African wildlife, but I’m pretty sure an adult lion could apply enough pressure with its jaws to bite through a human arm easily enough. But they don’t bite through the arms. They gingerly take hold of the hands and then just pull, and the arms come off much higher up. Also, a lion could probably tear an arm off, provided it had leverage. If the man was down on the ground and the lion had its weight pressing against him to hold him still, then yes, the arm could be torn off. But that’s now what happens. Instead, the lions just gently tug, the man doesn’t move (he doesn’t stagger, isn’t pulled towards the lions, or anything) and the arm separates from the body with an explosion of fake blood. It’s meant to be shocking but it’s just shockingly bad.)

(And jumping ahead a little, John Leguizamo dies – in one of the few truly shocking moments in the movie, although it is strongly signposted – after reaching the town where his wife was supposed to be. Big whoop. Why bother even having this character in the movie? Or the actor even? I think Leguizamo’s great, but he was way underused here. Cast some unknown, who’s cheaper. And needless to say the way he dies is stupid. He and his new buddies are in a cloth-covered convertible Jeep and so the chemical in the air is going to get in, yet we focus on a tiny rip in the fabric. Sigh.)

Anyway, Collison and wife run back to their nursery to get a few things for the road. Now we know Collison is crazy because of the way he looks, but just in case we don’t he harps on about hot dogs and how plants respond to stimuli. Yep, liking one food type and thing it’s cool to talk to plants makes you crazy, apparently. Nice to see how bigoted a writer/director can be these days. He also explains the plot to the audience, which is handy. Oh, and there’s a shot when the car pulls up with the greenhouses in the foreground and two big cooling towers in the background. Subtle, eh?

So off our merry fivesome (Wahlberg, Deschanel, Collison, his wife, and snotty kid) go. They stop at a four-way junction in the middle of nowhere due to some bodies being up ahead. A scared army private arrives behind them and tells them that that way is cut off. Then more people arrive from the other two directions, saying the same thing. This was a reasonably well-handled scene actually. Shame it didn’t last. See what Shamalyan did there? We just got rid of a bunch of people and now we have a flimsy excuse to get the group big again. Can you say lazy writing? Sigh.

Eventually, the group splits up into two groups and heads across country. The larger group, led by the army private, is affected and everyone dies (off-screen). Wahlberg figures out (again, bearing in mind he’s already figured it out once and been told it by Collison earlier) that the plants only release their chemical when there’s a large group of people. His group splits up further. Now it’s just him, his Deschanel, snotty kid, and two other snotty teenage kids. This, of course, makes no sense. If this was true, then why wasn’t everyone attacked back at the crossroads when they where in a much larger group? Why does splitting up into smaller groups save them when they’re running (and failing) away from the wind that’s already carrying the chemical? And why are groups of five safe now when they’re not earlier (see Leguizamo’s death)?

Much later (about half-an-hour or more into the movie but nothing happens of any consequence whatsoever), the group tries to take refuge at a house only to have the two teenage brats act like assholes (which is pretty much a true representation of the youth of today, sadly) and end up getting shot for their troubles. The trio (Wahlberg, Deschanel and snotty kid) then find refuge with an old woman (Betty Buckley) who invites them to stay but acts crazy (see, in Shamalyan’s twisted head if you’re old, you’re crazy). The next morning, she discovers Wahlberg creeping about her bedroom (where he mistakes a small doll lying in full view for her – I’m not making this shit up, honestly, it really is that stupid…) and yells straight at the camera: “Leave now!” This is supposed to be a big shocking moment but I swear to God the only reaction it got from the audience was for at least half to shuffle to their feet before sitting again.

Buckley walks out of her house (yep, when you want someone to leave the best way to achieve that is leave them in the house and leave yourself) and walks in her garden. The plants are now really pissed off and start targeting single people (why they didn’t do that from the beginning is beyond me). Buckley goes really crazy and smashes the house windows with her head, which lets the chemical/wind in. Wahlberg takes refuge in a cellar-like room. Meanwhile, Deschanel and snotty kid are in a shed outside, but luckily they can all hear each other due to underground pipes (and yes, these were laboriously revealed in an info-dump earlier). There’s an oh-so-meaningful conversation about their relationship and the mood ring, which includes one of those lines you never want to write just in case your movie sucks (“Is this really the end?” – at which point half the audience can be heard muttering “I fucking well hope so…”), then all three of them agree to commit suicide and be with each other when they die (even though the distance involved clearly means they won’t be, even if they run, which of course they’re too stupid to do – and dragging the poor kid along seems a mite unfair to me).

Needless to say, and much to the chagrin of the audience, they don’t die. Three months (or something like it) later and we have a long section focusing on a news report that explains the plot one more time (just in case the audience are really dumb). We also have a far too long section of Deschanel trying to act nervous and finding out she’s pregnant, then Wahlberg walks down the street and finds out. Yay! Happy ending. Although I imagine most of the people in the theatre were expecting to see Wahlberg stop and start walking backwards. But then if I saw Deschanel in the street, I’d personally stop and start running.

But wait, this is a M. Night Shamalyan movie. So there must be a twist ending, right? Well, yes, there is. That news report came down to no one believing the plants were responsible (despite all the scientific evidence there would be to the contrary, obviously) because it only happened in one place. And lo and behold, after Wahlberg gets the bad news, we cut to a park in Paris , where the opening scene is reshot (complete with one stupid immune plot-hole, sorry, character). Spooky. Little advice, M. Night, if you’re going to have a twist ending, you have to set up the twist as soon as possible and disguise it to make it effective. You don’t bring it up in the penultimate scene and then make it blatantly obvious. That’s not a twist ending. It’s an ending. And a damn poor one. You knew this in The Sixth Sense, you even knew it in The Village (as obvious as that plot was), why not do it here?

So that’s the plot, such as it is. And as you can see it makes little or no sense. Is it the wind that’s dangerous? Or just an indication that the chemical is coming towards you? Does the chemical hang in one area, as the movie often suggests? Or does it come from anywhere the plants detect large groups of people, as the movie also suggests? Which is it? If it’s the wind, then Leguizamo shouldn’t have died. If it’s an indication, then people inside houses shouldn’t die – but sometimes they do, sometime they don’t. If it’s a chemical, it shouldn’t hang in the air. And it should also affect anyone touching a plant – which everyone does – regardless of the wind. There’s no consistency or logic to the plot anywhere and it drives you insane after a while.

Other stuff I should note is that the acting was mediocre at best and terrible at worst. When Mark Wahlberg is the best actor you have in the cast, you know you have problems. I like him, I like his movies generally, but he’s no great shakes as an actor. John Leguizamo needn’t have bothered showing up. The Deschanel can’t act her way out of a wet paper bag (she’s one of the many things that ruined The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy too) and the remainder of the cast are weak to non-interesting.

Why the hell was this rated R? Can anyone tell me that? I mean, what do you see that’s so gory or shocking? There’s no sex, so it has to be violence. Okay, bodies dropping from the sky, a single car crash, hanged bodies, the two kids getting shot, etc. etc., that’s all true, but you don’t see much. Most of the blood, gore and even violence happens off screen. The worst scene is when a guy lies down beneath a lawnmower (yep, again I stress that I’m not making this up) and you see a ton of blood – but that’s it and it’s shot from some distance away. I guess the Betty Buckley’s face stuck with glass shards might be gory too, but I doubt it. I’d be hard-pressed to give this an NC-17 rating in all honesty.

And am I the only one who thinks M. Night Shamalyan is beginning to believe the hype that he is the next Alfred Hitchcock? Listen to the music used for the train journey. Not only is it far too loud, it also sounds like a bad homage to a Hitchcock movie score. And then after the two snot-nosed brats get shot and killed, we get a scene that just reminds of old movies, we get the girl running, crying, with the sun behind her and the camera down low in front of her. It just seemed so out of place and yet such a desperate plea for attention by the director.

I did think during the movie that M. Night Shamalyan should write a comedy. Seriously. Yes, most of the audience was laughing at the wrong (and inappropriate) places, due to the bad acting and writing. But, there were several scenes in there that were actually funny (mostly featuring Mark Wahlberg – his talking to the rubber plant, for example, or his claim of flirting with the pharmacist). Not that I think Shamalyan should ever make another feature film in his life but if he did, a comedy would be out of the box for him and might actually benefit his career.

In summary (finally, right?) M. Night Shamalyan has lost the plot. Truly. If you thought The Village was disappointing and The Lady in the Lake was pathetic, then you’ll need to be prepared to further lower your expectations. Why this over-rated hack keeps getting money thrown at him to make such mediocre trash is beyond me. Avoid The Happening at all costs.

First post! Woo-hoo! … oh… wait…

Yep, there’s not much point in celebrating having the first post in your own blog. And even if you were so inclined to do so (and sad enough), WordPress automatically beats you to it.  Oh well.

Anyway, new blog, so kudos to me. Pop champagne cork, throw streamers, behave stupidly. This blog, in case you were wondering, and in case anyone out there is reading it, is just a cheap (you can’t get much cheaper than free) and easy way of me getting my thoughts out there in intranetworld.com. I have been saying for years now that I should make my own website – depending on the day and my mood it has varied from a comic book site to a movie review site to a wargaming/painting site – but I never get around to it. Plus, even though I’m old and was taught SGML before HTML, my webfu skills are weak. So any webpage I created would be fairly crappy.

So here we are. This blog will focus on my thoughts and rants on television, movies, comics, books, music, wargaming, painting, and more, and hopefully I will update and maintain it regularly.

We shall see.