Two birds with one stone

A while back I picked up a Gerber Omnivore. This is a flashlight that has the interesting ability to run off either a single AAA, a single AA, or a single CR123 battery. It's a little expensive compared to the "supermarket brand", but nowhere near the price of some of the upper-end flashlights. And while the smaller model I bought doesn't have the lumens to compete with the heavy-duty models, for most of us it's easily bright enough for casual use (especially if you're using a CR123 cell), plus there's a slightly larger version that's supposed to be a lot brighter.

The convenience of being able to run it off any batteries you have lying around (AAs and AAAs are probably the only two "non-specialist" batteries most of us actually use these days) makes it a great flashlight for use around the house or garden, or leaving somewhere accessible in case of a power failure.

The Omnivore turned out to be a little larger than I expected, but this is dictated by the nature of the multi-battery mechanism. After using it for a while I decided it was just about the perfect size for using the "reverse" grip (that is, holding it with your thumb over the tailcap switch), which is the way this kind of flashlight is meant to be used. If it were any thinner it would be awkward to use the switch, and if it was any shorter there wouldn't be much room for your (or at least my) pinky finger.


So overall I really like the Omnivore. I do, however, have a couple of issues with it. First of all, it doesn't come with a lanyard, and I can't quite seem to pass a strand of paracord through the lanyard hole. Second, the surface is untextured and just doesn't feel very secure in my hand - I wish it had some stippling or something to give you a better grip.

However, I found a way to solve both problems with some paracord. Is there anything it can't do?

Now it feels a lot better in my hand and I can either wrap the lanyard around my wrist or just let it hang between my thumb and finger - that way if the flashlight slips out of my hand I can easily catch the lanyard by simply pinching my thumb in.

The wrap is almost the same as a koppo lanyard, but with both strands passing under the wrap instead of just one. I might undo it and try a regular koppo instead, depending on how much I like it in practice. Or I might get some "skateboard" tape and a regular lanyard instead, we'll see.

The Replacement Death

A while back I painted a Games Workshop Cairn Wraith. I mentioned that I broke a piece and so ended up buying another one and making a cast of the broken part. Well, a few weeks back that model disappeared. I kept it on top of my monitor at work; I suspect a member of the cleaning staff must have knocked it off and broken it by accident. I do wish they had left the broken pieces instead of vanishing the whole thing as I might have been able to fix it. Oh well, at least it gave me an impetus to finish this guy:

He came out a lot brighter this time, which is probably partly due to my avoiding the Army Painter Quickshade. He's probably a bit too bright, but I'm a little tired of dark models, which only really look good in bright lighting.

I actually rushed him a little bit. I'm a little tired of spending so long on each model and I seem to have even less time now than before, plus I figured he's not supposed to look pristine. In fact I deliberately stopped adding layers of Dark Angel's green to his cloak before achieving an even colour, in order to look a little worn and faded. I simply drybrushed white then washed with Thraka green and left it at that. The resulting hightlights look rougher than I had expected, but luckily that works for him so I left it.

The metal of his scythe is a little interesting I think; I drybrushed Boltgun Metal over Calthan brown to give a slightly subtle rust effect. I then washed with Devlan Mud and carefully brushed Boltgun back onto the edge to make it stand out without creating a neat line. The bone is just white washed with Gryphonne Sepia then very lightly drybrushed with white again - though I carefully added a black wash to a few spots on his skull, like his eyes - and I think it worked surprisingly well considering how quick and simple a technique it is.


But the paint took only a tiny fraction of the time that I spent on this model. You see, this is the first finished model I've managed that actually features lights! Check it out:

OK, it doesn't look like much in that photo. See, that isn't just a light, that's a UV light behind a glow-in-the dark skull. I used glow-in-the-dark clay in a cast of the original skull, to try to get an eerie glow rather than a bright light (this is actually why I used a simpler method for painting the bone - I didn't want to put too much light-blocking paint over the skull). The problem is the UV doesn't light up all the way to the front of the skull very well, so it looks a little weird. Still, I think it looks rather cool - especially in the dark of course:

In order to power the bulb I had to design a special base that could take a battery. This turned out to be incredibly hard to do, at least without making it very large and high in order to accommodate a battery holder, and I've actually been trying to find a solution for over a year now. In the end I found a way to do it in a 25mm base that's only 5mm high:

You can see the battery partially inserted in this shot.

To put that into perspective, a normal 25mm GW base is about 3mm high, and a 40mm base is about 4mm high, so it doesn't stand out. Basically I use PCB board as the base (and positive terminal) and a bent paperclip to hold the battery (and act as the negative terminal), building it up with plasticard and milliput. The PCB is a big deal as it let's me solder parts without melting the plastic base - a problem I was having before. I might post a bit of a how-to later, but for now here's some photos of the base:

In order to pass the current to the bulb I used two pins, which also supported and strengthened the model. I took the opportunity to reshape the part of the robe that touches the ground - I always thought it sweeps the wrong way in the original model. Unfortunately I didn't make it curve enough, so it almost seems to be weighted and just doesn't match the rest of the model as well as I'd hoped, but positioning the pins was trickier than it sounds. Here's a shot of the greenstuff covering the pins all the way up to the bulb (which is covered in blue tack in preparation for priming):

So yeah, not too bad overall. To be honest I'm just glad this guy is finally done. I'm still trying to improve the base; I've already got a base ready to go that incorporates a switch. Hopefully the next attempt will take less than a year though.

Slimmer Watchstrap

After wearing my watch with the Derweesh MkII strap for a few months, I decided it was just too bulky. Especially when wearing long sleeves. And especially when you wear gloves. Both of which you do when it's cold. Which it has been this winter.

What's more, the pattern I used has a flaw. The original Derweesh Mark II pattern has one working strand going in the opposite direction to the other (the best way I can think to describe this is that, when you start weaving, one of the strands initially comes out from under the belt, while the other goes in from over). This time, because of how I initially intended to pass the spine strands under the watch, it made sense to have the two working strands going in the same direction to make the join look uniform. This forced me to use a slightly different pattern in order to achieve the crossover. The difference is not obvious but it's a little less neat.

Anyway, I finally got around to weaving a traditional strap for the watch:

I forget the name of the weave, but it's basically a typical pattern for a watch strap. The two sides are separate straps, cutting the extra bulk up top, and the clasp removes the overlap and so cuts the extra bulk at the bottom. I did make the first piece a little too long, making the watch a little "unbalanced". I'm not sure if making the sides more even might have made it a little more comfortable or not.

This is the only type of suitable clasp I found that's actually adjustable to a degree, thought it is a pain to take on and off. Plus I think the watch is just generally a little less comfortable now (it's hard to say really), though I am enjoying the slimmer dimensions. I didn't undo the old strap, just slipped the watch off, I can always put it back on if I decide I don't like this one.

I'm contemplating using a one-piece strap like the old one with this kind of clasp and an ultra-thin watch. That should be comfortable without being too bulky, and would also have the (minor) benefit of using a single longer piece of cord rather than two shorter ones. I just can't seem to find a really thin watch that I actually like.

Master Chief model

When I first heard of Heroclix, I thought it was a great idea - miniatures of my favourite comic book characters? Yes please! Special bases that keep track of wounds and abilities? Brilliant! Then I saw the models and could not bring myself to buy as single one, they were that awful. At least to someone who'd seen plenty of brilliantly painted Games Workshop miniatures up close.

When Haloclix came out, the models looked a little better. Maybe this was because, between the full-helmed Spartans and the alien Covenant, there weren't many human faces - the part where we can most obviously see the lack of quality. Although to be honest I think they actually are of a slightly better quality. Anyway, I went ahead and picked up a few. It did occur to me a while back to try to touch them up a bit, but I just never got around to it.

Then I played Halo 4, and finally had the motivation to get myself a nicer looking Master Chief:

I forgot to take a "before" photo, but basically he looked something like this:

I didn't want to put too much time into this so I tried to keep it simple. After moving it to 25mm base (and removing the rather crap looking pistol and filling the hole with some liquid greenstuff), I carefully painted on a coat of Army Painter Quickshade (and moments later dropped it onto the carpet and had to spend the next quarter hour picking off minute carpet fibres with a pair of tweezers), then edge-highlighted the model with the appropriate colours. I did put a little more work into the shotgun, which I thought needed it, and washed all the metal and black areas with a black wash, plus I tried to make a couple of dodgy spots look like battle damage (I'm really not sure if that's what they were supposed to be or not), but that was about it. I didn't even paint over the liquid greenstuff; I figured it was close enough to the armour colour that I couldn't be bothered to try to mix up a better match.

I don't really like quickshade all that much, though it does work very well for a few things in my opinion. The reason why I used it here was because I didn't think paints and washes would stick very well to the miniature as is, but I figured a varnish should stick just fine and would give a better surface for painting. However, using a plain varnish would fill up the detail somewhat, and as it was already rather vague and shallow to begin with I was afraid this would significantly reduce the effect of washes. Quickshade, then, was the solution. It has a brownish colour, which worked well enough on the green but not quite so well on the black. Luckily a Badab Black wash over the black areas fixed that.

I coated the model with Games Workshop's Purity Seal. There was snow on the ground outside, so I was very worried about the notorious "sugar coated frosting of doom", but it came out perfectly - in fact I've never had any frosting effect with it. I've experimented with a number of brush-on matt varnishes, and none of them are as good as Purity Seal. When I look at the models that I know I varnished with it I don't see any evidence of any varnish at all, while on all my other models I can tell that there's an outer coat. That might be because, despite my best efforts I always end up brushing it on too thickly, or because it's never truly matt and always at least a little satin. I don't know, but regardless I'm done with them.

While the quickshade darkened the armour more than I would like, overall it came out better than I expected. Plus it took a whole lot less time than usual. This isn't my favourite Master Chief model; I consider this a practice piece, hopefully I'll get around to fixing up some other Haloclix figures eventually. Perhaps I'll try stripping off the existing paint and making a fresh start, or using purity seal and regular washes instead of quickshade (hopefully it will create such a thin layer that it won't fill any detail).


Just for the fun of it, I came up with some 40K rules for Master Chief:

Master Chief 140 pts
WS 5  BS 6  S4  T4  W 3  I 5  A 3  Ld 10  Sv 3+/4++
Unit Composition: 1 (unique)
Unit Type: Infantry
Wargear: Power Armour, Energy shield, Bolt gun, Bolt pistol, Frag and Krak grenades
Special Rules: Stubborn, Relentless, Eternal Warrior, It Will Not Die, ATSKNF, Combat Tactics, IC
Options:
- Replace bolt pistol and/or bolt gun with:
    * Shotgun, sniper rifle or combat knife: free
    * Plasma gun, plasma pistol, power weapon, or heavy bolter: +10 pts
    * Thunder hammer or missile launcher (with flakk missiles): +30 pts
- May take special issue ammunition: +10 pts
- May have one of the following:
    * Jump pack: +25 pts
    * Space Marine bike: +35 pts

Obviously he's a Space Marine. I basically gave him a Captain profile, but with an emphasis on shooting instead of close combat. I gave him stubborn and relentless because, well, those are two words that describe him pretty well (also relentless supports his shooty-ness). Eternal Warrior and It Will Not Die were an attempt to represent the way that he gets shot but then recovers in the games, and the basically the way that he's pretty unstoppable. Finally I gave him weapon and vehicle options to represent what he can use in the video games, including some more powerful ranged options than usual, like the plasma gun and heavy bolter. Basically, I thought he should be a shooty character.

The Vanishing Phase

There's something that bothers me a little about Warhammer 40K; the way the units can sometimes do a lot more than usual in the same time frame. For example; take two identical units. One moves and shoots, and that's all it can do that game turn. The other moves, shoots, then makes an assault move, then strikes blows in both player turns.

It's actually a lot more extreme than that. Let's consider how far a unit can move in one turn. First of all, let's say they are normal infantry, not jump or bike troops, so no special movement ability, just guys on foot. Now let's say they are Space Marines with ATSKNF, who were falling back last turn. They start by regrouping, which allows them to make a 3" move. ATSKNF allows them act as normal this turn, so they move, shoot, then assault - a maximum of 18" of movement. During the assault they can make 3" pile-in moves, if they lose they fall back at most 12" (let's say they were moving towards their own table edge from the beginning to keep things simple). Now if they get assaulted they can again potentially make 3" pile-in moves, and can fall back up to another 12" if they lose. This means that, unlikely as it is, according to the rules an individual model can move up to 51" (3" consolidation + 6" move + 12" assault + 3" pile-in + 12" fall back + 3" pile-in + 12" fall back) in a single game turn, while an identical model that didn't happen to be close enough to an enemy unit can move 12" at most, and that's by sacrificing their shooting.

So how is it that one unit was able to move over 4 times as far, and do so much more, than the other identical unit over the same time frame? What's the first unit doing while the second one was so busy? The conclusion is that there's a huge inconsistency in how much a unit is capable of achieving during a game turn. Is this a bad thing? Not really, the game has been developed and tweaked and balanced over many years to work in a certain way. It just seems strange when you think about; how we claim those two scenarios took the same amount of time?

My point is, I sometimes think this "vanishing" assault phase is strange. Personally it makes sense to me to combine the shooting and assault phases into a single "action" phase, and completely remove charging into assault, instead if you end your normal move in base contact you've just charged into assault. That way you have either a shooting phase or an assault phase, and the distance you move doesn't change unless you run in the action phase. Would this play better on the tabletop? Maybe not, there's certainly issues to be worked out and I'm afraid it might lead games to be pure shooting matches by weakening the assault phase, but perhaps with other tweaks it could work?

I always suspected that in 5th edition you were basically supposed to be able to either shoot or assault, as you couldn't assault after shooting some weapons (or running), and it was only special rules or circumstances that would have the "unusual effect" of allowing it. But with the current abundance of assault weapons and pistols, and the increased potential charge distance, plus overwatch in your opponent's turn, the assault phase in 6th edition just has the potential to add so much activity, or none at all.

Happy new year!

Yeah, so, 2013. Wow. I can't believe how long ago it was that we were so excited about the new millenium. I haven't even gotten around to thinking about new years resolutions, 2012 sped by so fast, and I've been so busy. I feel like it's been very eventful but at the same time I feel like I got nothing done. There's so much stuff I wanted to do, so many reviews I wanted to write, but just didn't have the time or energy. Maybe I'll do better this year. Fingers crossed!

Derweesh Mark II Watchstrap

It took me a while to find a watch I really liked, but I finally settled on the Timex Ironman Dualtech. I used the Derweesh Mark II belt weave with black 550 paracord, which for some reason seems to be "flatter" than other types (colours) I've tried. The buckle is from a women's belt I bought cheap from a charity shop, and the leather loop is from another belt I stole the buckle from for a previous paracord belt.

The Timex Dualtech is a nice, clean analogue watch...

... with all the advantages of a modern digital watch.

I used four spine strands, and weaved around each one, which turned out to be just about the right width for the buckle. I used one loop-back row per crossover row to create as many holes as possible so the length would be as adjustable as possible. I think there's around 20 feet of paracord in the strap, I'm not really sure but it's certainly a little more than most thanks to the extra length.

You can clearly see the holes in this picture.

Admittedly it's quite thick where the two straps overlap.

Initially I weaved up to the watch, pulled the strands unwoven through the pins and under the watch, then took up the weave on the other side, but I found that it actually didn't wrap around my hand as well that way. Instead I tried to continue the weave the whole way, and attach the watch using the two inner spine strands (using all four would have interrupted the weave). This turned out to be more comfortable, and I believe it will be easier to remove and reattach the watch when necessary. It does mean the watch sits a little higher, but I don't think it will be a big problem.

The end was a little tricky to tie off neatly, but I've found that if you push the ends through the final loops without actually pulling the weave tight it gives you some wiggle room to fit one more cord through (since each row has two cords you might find yourself a little tight on space at the end, as I did), and luckily I was able to weave it tight and get a neat end.

Overall I think this is quite a unique watch; while paracord straps are not uncommon, I've only ever seen ones with snap clasps that are obviously not adjustable, while mine has (what I believe is) a fairly unique weave and a buckle making it adjustable. Typically I find watches quite uncomfortable to wear, I'm hoping the single piece strap will help this one to be more tolerable, but time will tell.