40K Friendly Fire!

Some first class 40K to get you right into the festive spirit! We're warming our event engines and arranging a light-hearted hobby occasion to test the brand-new terrain sets and our casual gaming day concept. The event consists of two 40K Tempest of War gaming rounds that are accompanied by a compact painting technique demonstration. No competitive aspirations, just cozy dice rolling and friendly banter. Limited seats, get in touch!

+ War Head Friendly Fire: 40K Tempest of War Event +

+ Event Army List Compilation +

Forward march!

Our Horus Heresy campaign is set in a medieval world that has been influenced by some of humanity's technological developments - a peculiar mix of old and new, superstition and science. Although most battles are fought between the Loyalist and Traitor Legions, their campaign quest originally began as brothers-in-arms, collectively aiming to liberate Thracia Rex from a rebelling Governor and his insurgent forces. However, the timing of the galactic civil war was unfortunate, and the insurgency soon turned into an all-out civil war between humanity's finest.

For the first stages of the campaign all of our participants worked in co-operation against "non-player character" forces, more precisely the Thracian feudal guard as well as their alien and mercenary allies. To represent these detachments we've made dedicated models and vehicles, painted in the same palette and basing theme as our campaign board. We've had a really inspiring and relaxed approach with the militia forces with @wrhd_ollie, as we've just been crafting a unit here and there and completing the paintjob and basing in one sitting. Suddenly we've ended up with a small feudal guard army in our hands!

In the next posts we'll be showing some of the Feudal Guard units on our Instagram - hop on the Heresy train!

+++ Thracia Rex Feudal Guard Facebook Gallery +++

I am Kroot: The Surefoot Kabal

War Head's Kroot Mercenaries army was (like many others) a Ropecon project that we started way ahead of the main event in 2015. I think we spent around ten months planning the force, sourcing parts and models and finally building and painting the chosen units and their vehicles.

Our original idea was to create a rather traditional fieldcraft/ranger force to be used in combination with our greenside Tau Empire army, an uniform basing theme would've allowed them to be used as an independent detachment or as a part of a Tau army list. I however wanted to steer the theme to a renegade auxiliary force that would include darker shades and sharper edges - the moodboards included a lot of post-apocalyptic scenes, old and new Mad Max, some Gorkamorka elements, desert, pirates and a lot of scratchbuilding possibilities.

Army pictures and additional project musings in the War Head Facebook gallery below!

+++ I am Kroot: The Surefoot Kabal Facebook Gallery +++

Summer Landscraping

This is Ollie and Teemu for the past few weekends - a proper Servitor state of mind, slowly but purposefully planning and constructing new miniature scenery! We're only a few sessions away from being able to show you some new War Head tournament terrain and getting gaming events going again. Stay tuned!

Speaking of terrain building and miniature landscaping, these Chaos Space Marines are a prime example how some detailed basing can elevate (pun intended) an already cohesive force to another level of battlefield atmosphere. Here's a list of our "go to" basing elements in army building:

1) Cork or hard bark for crags and uneven surfaces. Watered down PVA glue underneath the primer helps preserve the fragile parts during gaming. Just use a modelling knife to remove any straight edges and lines and to break up the even surface texture in cork sheets to maintain a realistic look.

2) Texture paints. AK Interactive has awesome and affordable terrain pastes with which you can apply the basing material and its basecoat simultaneously. Ready-made effects such as Asphalt, Beach Sand or Muddy Ground can be a neat shortcut to shaping the lore and mood of your thematic army.

3) Grass tufts. A hassle-free addition to any bases and great for adding splashes of colour or tonal variation for contrast. I often go for slightly larger tufts and split these in two or three before attaching - one pack will last much longer! A slight drybrush or a matt varnish can help ground the tufts in the overall basing palette.

4) Pigment powders. Another great way of adding interesting hues and earthy look to one's basing game. These can also be applied to the models themselves to introduce additional narrative in the force - maybe they have already been patrolling for a long time? These can be fixed with pigment binder, isopropyl alcohol or varnish, but it's not a must if you brush them in the basing thoroughly and can live with a few specks of powder in your transportation foams.

5) Resin accessories. Details such as skulls, ruined statues, roots and more are available from Green Stuff World and are part of our usual assortment. Great for giving that extra oomph to your HQ choice or a special character!

As usual, shoot us a message or visit the store for technical tips and product ideas!

Ropecon-bound!

War Head is ready for Ropecon! We'll be around in Messukeskus as usual, enjoying the unique Con atmosphere again after couple of off-years. It wouldn't be a Ropecon without War Head's colourful Warhammer Classics Bazaar, but we've also got a treat for you -  we'll be having an open presentation for our feudal world terrain project. Come check out what went into the build and how Thracia Rex has been developed since for our Horus Heresy campaign!

"What does a medieval town look like in a science fiction setting? Dark fantasy merges into forgotten technology and ancient superstition in Thracia Rex, a feudal world terrain board created for Warhammer 40,000 and The Horus Heresy games. War Head's project took 15 months to be finished and the terrain was put into gaming use right away - the entire town and thoughts behind the project are now presented in Ropecon for the first time."

Our event preparations are in full swing and we're soon getting some of our store's product selection transported to the Ropecon venue. Especially the hobby accessories and certain miniature ranges in our assortment will for the most part be available from our booth in Messukeskus. This means that even if our webstore stock indicates a product is available from the store, it might be with us in Ropecon, and could temporarily not be available from the store in Hakaniemi. If you want to make sure something is in stock before your visit, please call us or send us an email, and we'll be happy to help out.

Thanks and see you in Ropecon!

Ropecon is usually a deadline for many painters looking to finish their armies in time for the tournaments.

This was the case for us as well, as we completed these two commission armies in time for the occasion!

Back in the game

Getting there! Our new store with Poromagia is now open for public in Hämeentie 1 - we're still moving stuff around and everything might not be up to speed, but you can now visit us (Mon-Fri 12-19, Sat 10-17) to satisfy your hobby needs! Lots of restocks will be coming in during the next couple of weeks as the address change is finalized and we start settling in.

There has been a lot of questions about the tournaments returning and this is firmly in our crosshairs! We're building a completely new, modern terrain reserve for the re-ignition of the War Head events and while this might ask for some patience, our aim is to return with a quality setup we can be proud of. Stay tuned!

Initiate Friendly Fire

It's been a while, but we're finally getting the tournament groove ignited. It will take some time for us to refurbish our terrain supply and get the hang of the current event climate, but rest assured that plans are in motion for more thrilling War Head wargaming tournaments! 

We're kicking things off in small scale with a Horus Heresy gaming day on 14th of May, catered for four two-player teams in an ultra-casual environment. It's the perfect occasion to say goodbye to the current rules edition and do battle in an inspiring setting and in good company. We're very excited about the events returning and have assembled the first completely new terrain set for the day! Stay tuned for traditional Combat Camera picture coverage.

+++ 30K Friendly Fire: Army List Compilation +++

+++ 30K Friendly Fire: Facebook Picture Gallery +++

Unearth the Betrayal

It was once again our collective hobby inspiration that sparked the idea for our latest gaming day - Ollie had created the insane Night Lords Apothecary some time ago and we knew the model deserved a proper story arch. Unfortunately the Chief Medicae Consul is quite a rare unit choice and Ollie's scratchbuild is a bit too epic to be run as a regular Apothecary - sadly he hadn't seen any gameplay. Therefore we wrote him a secret narrative of his own, incorporating the villain into Thracian Insurgency as a non-player character.

Since the early days of our gaming table build we'd been toying with the idea of creating some underground features for the terrain. These ambitions were boosted as the final construction took shape and we decided to use Ikea Kallax grid shelves as the legs for the table. These have been holding some of our studio armies and literature, but the shelves would also be perfect for some terrain integration - this way the underground terrain pieces would actually be stored underneath the streets and could be used in gameplay as a separate, modular scenery setup.

Our idea was to write a classic "mad scientist" story for the Night Lords Chief Medicae (now called Dr. Norman Bramm) and have this renegade character lead a clandestine operation from his makeshift underground laboratory. His hideous creations (inspired by both Horus Heresy Raven Guard tragedies as well as Fabius Bile's Enhanced Warriors project) would be too imposing for the Loyalist alliance to ignore and this would result in a subterranean manhunt. At first we discussed with Scott that it would be cool to build a simple dungeon corridor to surprise the other players with, but as per usual, we couldn't stop there...

Check out the entire subterranean terrain build and story arch via War Head Instagram or Facebook Gallery below!

+++ Thracia Rex Underground: Unearth the Betrayal +++

Night Fright - 30K Training Sessions

In the last few months we've had a few brilliant training games for Ollie's Night Lords - the Traitor performances in our campaign demanded some practice in the finer nuances of the Horus Heresy... Kidding aside, our games are not competitive in nature at all, and the gaming sprees in good company are most about enjoying the visual and narrative sides of the hobby. There's something special about this rules edition that I think will stay with us forever - it's the classic that we've grown up with and have the fondest memories of. Awesome battles like this always leave us inspired to paint more figs and to plan new gaming occasions in good company.

That being said, the games are often much more vivid and enjoyable when a player has got the hang of their army and knows how to use the troops in a tactical and efficient manner. This is not dependant on the final results really, just the feeling of playing the game and expressing oneself as the general of a personal collection. Therefore we've taken pleasure in arranging a couple of "training sessions" to test out new unit types, deployment ideas and combat tactics. I think me and Ollie both have got a lot of new ideas (and reinforced some of the old ones) on how to play our armies and learnt what we can expect from some of the more specialized units. The Night Raptors are a great example of a squad that lives and dies depending on how it's maneuvered, starting right from the deployment. Lots of little things with great impact one can do with model placement and movement. Taking these lessons with us I think we'll do well as our Thracian Insurgency campaign story progresses!

I've been so happy with our 1000 point campaign games and how well the Horus Heresy system has worked for us even with smaller armies. The custom scenarios combining Age of Darkness missions, Maelstrom of War card objectives and vanilla Eternal War scenarios have been very entertaining. We've only required a single Troops choice and this has given just enough room for balanced list building - 1000 points accommodates a nice combination of infantry, elites, characters and war machines. No space for much unit duplication either!

Follow our Horus Heresy campaign progress on War Head Instagram!

Chronicles of Thracia Rex

Starting to get hyped for our next Horus Heresy campaign day, the third episode in the Thracian Insurgency! A month from now we'll witness some fresh troops march in to experience completely new narrative in the feudal world of Thracia Rex!

In our previous story-driven scenarios we've left several plot devices open and provided many clues to the future events - it's soon time to start tying the strings together. All-out war seems inevitable and the campaign experience points the players have accumulated will be put to the test...

To recap the story so far we'll be posting "Chronicles of Thracia Rex" updates on Instagram and Facebook as we head towards the next campaign adventures in March. Check out what has happened on the feudal world so far!

Maru Skara

We only recently realized we haven't properly photographed Noa's original "Praetor's Orders" Emperor's Children army, which was made for Helsinki's Armies on Parade competition a few years ago. The initial Third Legion ensemble has since grown in size with additional units, heroes and most notably war machines having joined the original display based force. Taking advantage of some of the new lighting features in our studio we arranged a quick shoot to right the wrong and immortalized the collection for War Head archives. For the (false) Emperor!

Emperor's Children - Pride of the Legion Facebook Gallery

Scale and color!

Highlighting a few new additions to our store selections! Meanwhile our personal hobby endeavours are documented in detail at War Head Instagram, where new evidence from the Thracian Insurgency Horus Heresy campaign games is about to surface... Epic events in the horizon!

Harrastusvuosi käynnistyi myymälässämme värikkäissä merkeissä, kun kauan toivotut Scale75 Scalecolor -sävyt liittyivät valikoimaamme koko maalisarjan voimin! Riittoisat ja erityisen mattapintaiset miniatyyrimaalit ovat olleet meiltä saatavilla jo pidempään temaattisina maalisetteinä, mutta nyt sävyjä on mahdollista hankkia myös yksittäisinä 17:n millilitran purkkeina. Erityismaininnat kuuluvat ilman muuta Scale75:n huippupeittäville Metal and Alchemy -metallihilemaaleille sekä pimeässä ja UV-valossa hohtaville Fluor FX -väreille, joilla saa loihdittua tehokkaita neon-efektejä projektiin kuin projektiin!

Scale75 Scalecolor -maalipurkit ja maalisetit

Myös tarunhohtoisia Kimera Kolors -maaleja jakeleva Pegaso Models on saanut koneistostaan ulos uuden tuotantoerän perusmaalisettejä sekä ensimmäistä Pure Pigments Expansion -tuotepakkausta, joka tuo murrettuja sävyjä osaksi tuttua Kimera Kolors -väripalettia. Erityisen hyvin maalisävyjen sekoittamiseen sopivia, puhtaista pigmenteistä koostuvia maaleja voi käyttää itsenäisenä lisänä figumaalaajan työkalupakkiin, tai yhdistää Kimera Kolors -perusvärisettiin sävyvalikoimaa täydentämään. Odotamme kuormaa saapuvaksi ennen helmikuun loppua ja suosittelemme ennakkotilausta - koko erä saattaakin myydä loppuun ennen kuin ehdit sanoa "Copper Phthalocyanine"!

Kimera Kolors -maalipurkit, Signature Setit ja Pure Pigments -maalisetit

Figupelirintamalla on päästy intoilemaan uudistuvista armeijakirjoista ja taistelubokseista, joista viimeisimmät Age of Sigmar: Fury of the Deep ja Warhammer 40,000: Eldritch Omens sisältävät tehokkaat lähtökohdat muun muassa merenalaisen Idoneth Deepkin -kansan sekä pian päivittyvien Craftworld Aeldarien vahvistamiseen. Kevätlomat ovat mitä otollisinta maalausaikaa, joten tässä on hyvä mahdollisuus laittaa laatikko puoliksi kaverin kanssa ja saada pari uutta projektia vireille! Unohtaa ei kannata myöskään suosittuja ryhmätasolla pelattavia "skirmish"-pelejä, joiden seikkailut saa käyntiin esimerkiksi Necromundan Hive War -kahakalla tai Warcryn näyttävällä Red Harvest -aloitussetillä.

Mikäli veri vetäisi figutaistelukentille, mutta maalausaikaa ei vain tunnu riittävän, kannattaa muistaa mahdollisuus maalauttaa miniatyyrijoukot sotakuntoon! War Head tarjoaa maalauspalvelua miniatyyreille yksittäisistä sankareista armeijalaajuisiin kokonaisuuksiin, maastonkappaleita unohtamatta. Kevään maalauskalenterissa on vielä hyvin tilaa, joten ota sähköpostiyhteys osoitteeseen contact@gowarhead.com! Lisätietoja ja työnäytteitä löydät täältä.

Lopuksi vielä kauden oheistuotetärppi - AMMO:n elektroninen Paint Shaker! Pidennä maalivalikoimasi käyttöikää, ehkäise kynäruiskun tukkeutumista ja sekoita uudet värisävyt huipputehokkaasti! Tuote sopii kaikille maalipurkkimalleille ja sitä voi käyttää niin verkkovirralla kuin paristoillakin.

Näillä eväillä tuleviin maalaus- ja pelisessioihin!