A very BIG SIGH!!!!

Hi All

Well the cold turkey didn't go so well for me!  Seeing all the great models and people painting them got me pining too much for the act of painting models once again!

Well I have decided to start up my painting once again but this time to limit it down to around 30 mins to 1 hour only after doing at least 2 hours of work on my PhD!  However I do like to keep Sunday's free of 'work' due to the 10 commandments, and so started to paint one of my chosen Crimson Slaughter chaos warriors (already did 2 cultists last night).

But something has happened to make me cry like a little baby....my f***ing head nozzle of my Iwata CMC+ has started to kick up a big fuss with something called skipping.  I cannot find a big enough un-smily face to put on this page at the moment.

As you may remember I had to replace one of these tiny highly expensive pieces of metal a while ago due to one snapping at the thread.  Over £40 later got the new thing in and started to use it - so far sooooo good!

However, tonight the airbrush started skipping which is an intermittent pulsing of the airflow through the brush.  Not too bad I thought as this has happened before but after a quick clean to remove the offending piece of dried up paint, everything is ok....until now.  I have cleaned the airbrush more times than you can shake a stick at.  I have disassembled and reassembled the airbrush far too many times for comfort trying to find the problem.  After doing a quick lubrication test on the thread, air is leaking and causing the skip.

I would love to swear huge amounts of nasty words on this page but I won't.  I have just had to order what is known as a Fluid Head System which are all the parts which do the magic for the airbrush. £131 later and I'm not happy.

My advice....do NOT remove the head fluid nozzle ever!!!!  Not unless you have a stupid amount of paint stuck in it.

This Painting Abstinence is Hard!

Hi All

Release of the Dark Vengence box set, models screaming for paint, YouTube videos a plenty of people nicely painting models etc.!  Wow this not painting thing for a year is HHHAAAAAARRRRRDDDDDD!!!

Aaaaahhhhhhhhhhhh!  I know I must stay strong but I feel like I'm going through cold turkey or something!!!! I made the decision not to paint any models and to concentrate nearly all efforts on my PhD - makes perfect sense when you consider the final year of three years worth of work will help an awful lot to progress in the wider world (not to mention being a Dr!!), but the lure of the model and paint pot and GW staff can be awful!

Anyways I thought I would share this one with you and let you know that I am still here on the blog and still doing videos for my YouTube channel.

Catch you later and have fun painting - think of me and try not to laugh!!!

Cheers

After a little while....

Hi All

I have been able to put some more videos on my YouTube channel!
The latest is....http://youtu.be/N5aMabb0XNc

Cheers

Some more photos!

Hi All

Well I am stuck at home today as the money situation thanks to HBOS screwing up their computer systems has meant that I cannot obtain money from my bank accounts and fill the fuel tank!  So I though I would put a few piccies up on the latest models done!  I am trying to smash out my Dreadfleet models as soon as I can so I can start playing the game!
So here are some pictures of what has been done!

Cheers
Andy

Coming at You in HD!

Hi All

Well I managed finally to get a video on my channel in HD!  I did try earlier and was not successful due to not upgrading my upload limits!!!

Anyways it is the second part of the ethereal tutorial!

Cheers

http://youtu.be/vmVREQjzqAI

All Things Mini!

Hi All

Well I am making videos thick and fast and don't want to even think about the upload limit I am smashing!  I tried very much in vain to upload episode 4 in HD.  Had to go to normal view but I do hope to get some in HD on there.

Anyways episode 4  part one is a painting tutorial on ethereal painting with part two coming very shortly on the sea base.

http://youtu.be/hps9bzZLclk

If you watched and liked it, please do subscribe as I will know that some people are interested in what I have to say and do!


Cheers
Andy

Woo Hoo! The start of the YouTube channel!

Hi All

I uploaded my first video today onto YouTube!!!!!!

I hope to cover things such as airbrushing, modelling and the games in general! Please have a view and spread the news!
Cheers
Andy
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4WdXhq5FHGo&feature=plcp

Games Workshop Prices

Hi All

Now for those of you who implicitly uphold GW and their prices - look away now!

For those who may not know about what is going on - keep on reading!

Last year or so, GW in their wisdom decided to release a brand new form of model - fine'cast'.  The finecack models have had problems left, right and centre due to quality control but there are many fans of the stuff.  Give me the good 'ol metal!
Due to the release of the finecack range, GW decided to put their prices up by quite a lot e.g. battleforces going from £60 to £70 etc.
I have seen this before as many people who have been in the hobby as long as I have.  The time which resulted in me leaving the hobby for years was the release of white metal.  GW put the notion forward that doping the metal thereby cutting lead content would be safer (which is true) but needs a greater price (untrue).
Then the release of the complete paint range from GW only to be made redundant a few months later by the release of the new paint range?  Watching chat with Les (Lester Bursley's video on youtube) he did state that a lot of people were not happy with this.
The release of the 'eavy metal paint brush range - one GW worker was trying to sell me these brushes (over priced sable in my opinion) whilst at the same time painting a model with his Windsor and Newton brushes!

The list goes on and with the new price increases this coming 4th of June 2012, it is believed that GW will increase prices on the smaller items by up to 50% and a lower percentage on the big ticket items.  It has also been noted that battleforces/battalions could increase from £70 to £80!

One thing that did catch my eye and is a personal bug-bare for me is the going digital thing.  Whilst I love the idea of being able to read a codex and the like on iPad or iPhone etc. I cannot stomach the fact that they have increased (before the 4th) the price of the space marine codex from £20 printed BOOK to £24.99 eBook!!!!

Real books are printed from digital format (have been for a long time), but going digital means that companies cut-out the 'middle man' printers and give you a formatted version from the original digital master copy.  So here we have GW increasing the price on the space marine codex by NOT having to print the damn thing on paper, then get it to shops or sent to people, people having to box up and unbox codex orders and so on.

Where is the sense in this?  Business sense if quite sound really, why not increase the price and cut out loads of money costing things -  the profit would be rather large than by going the other way.  Customer focus?  Well we all know (apart from the misguided individuals who follow GW in a trance) that GW do not really care for customer focus; some of the staff in their shops do. 

I think that my time buying from GW is rapidly coming to an end.  I love their games, their models (except for finecack) are the best in the world but their prices when you think about it are becoming so steep that soon you'll need a mortgage to by an army!

eBay and online discount sellers such as Wayland Games  here I come!
Cheers
Andy 

Warhammer 40k Cityscape Terrain

Hi All

Well I have just finished a modular 40k cityscape and popped it on eBay.  I made it using a good 'goop' recipe from Viv at RubbishinRubbishout.  Search in youtube for his channel - good stuff there.  I added several finishing factors to the design of the cityscape such as bracing beams propping up buildings, flooring designs and posters from the imperium!!!

Anyways some photos!

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Warhammer-40k-cityscape-Terrain-Modular-/270989481531?pt=UK_Toys_Wargames_RL&hash=item3f183b563b

Cheers
Andy

War Machines in fantasy

Hi All

A post about some misconceptions regarding war machines.  Having fought against a few, many players have their own ideas on what can and cannot be done!

Tonight I fought against dark elves in a 3000 point standard battle.  My opponent had various nasty units such as witches and the like, but he also took along two cauldrons of blood.  My list in all fairness should have dealt with him fairly well but I lost due to several factors and one of the main factors was the fact that I still do not really know the rules that well!

I charged a 40+ strong unit of crypt ghouls into one of his cauldrons.  My opponent then told me that only a certain number of units can attack a war machine very much like fighting inside buildings.  It worked out that 9 of my ghouls could attack the war machine.  I was licking my lips at the prospect of 18 poisoned hits to be dealt out.

Misconception No.1

My opponent told me that after his dark elf warriors have finished slicing and dicing my ghouls (with their many attacks and higher initiative), there would be no rank at the front to fight the cauldron operators.  This is wrong!  The casualties are removed as in usual combat – from the rear and presuming there are enough models left in the unit.  The rear models basically climb over their dead comrades to continue the fight.

Misconception No.2

Only 6 models can attack and no more (of course on the understanding you have at least 6 models in the charging unit!).

Misconception No.3

You strike and attack the war machine itself and therefore use the stats of the war machine.  No this is not the case!  As far as I can see in the rules, you strike against the war machine as a unit but using the operator’s WS, S and T and not the machines stats.  This makes perfect sense when you consider the old days when a cavalry would “charge up the guns”.  They would go for the cannon men and not waste time in denting their sabres against the cannon muzzles!  Shooting at war machines might be different though due to their size.

Now if I knew this, I would have made mincemeat of his cauldron, which would have allowed me to crash my ghouls into the side of one of his nasty witch units.  The battle would have gone vvvvveeeeeerrrrrrrryyyyy differently!

Cheers

Andy

Basing for Warhammer

Hi All

Here is a quick post about basing warhammer movement trays.  The warhammer trays you get from Games Workshop are fantastic except for one thing, the models sitting on them are not attached and you have to be very careful in moving your units or else your models decide to fall over the place!

Anyways here is a technique I use to help keep the models in place.

I did a search on eBay for magnetic paint - basically it is paint which has iron filings mixed into it.  Of course I think you could do this yourself with the right stuff if you wanted to!  I bought a pot of magnetic paint called Marabu Magnetico for around £8.  Several coats are needed for a suitable amount of magnetic attraction and I also found that criss-crossing the layers of paint helped hugely.  Due to the iron filings, the paint is textured and makes a nice effect when painted and drybrushed.

 

Starting the layers of paint.

 

The magnets come from searching eBay once again. Here I show two different methods.  To ensure that the magnets adhere to the paint on the base, I had to use green stuff for the Games Workshop model (left).  I glued the skeleton base, stuck the green stuff onto it and then followed with gluing the magnets into place.  Care is needed because the magnets are normally neodium and therefore rather strong so they can ping into each other and if they have glue on them (as in super glue), it can be messy and tough to seperate them, not to mention the chance of gluing yourself somewhat!!!!

But as soon as one magnet was in place, I would push the model onto my cutting mat thereby pushing the magnet into the green stuff and ensuring the magnets were flush with the surface to be stuck to.  Repeat for the second magnet and then set aside so that the green stuff can cure.

The other model comes from my undead mantic set (right).  Mantic models have a very handy circular base attached to the model which sits into a square base compariable to GW bases.  This means all you have to do is drill the correct sizes holes for the magnets and then glue them into place.

And there you have it! The models will not shift around when moving the trays, although the magnetic bond will not be super strong.  In order to get that you need a source of sheet metal or perhaps some copper Euro coins (1 cent coin is best because it sits in the GW base perfectly) for the magnets to stick to.  Or you could have a tray full of opposing magnets but this can be fiddly due to having to remember that every single magnet on your trays will need to be one polarity and all of your models will need to have the opposite polarity, or else you might find some models being repelled by the magnets!  Using the paint allows the magnets just to go that little bit further!

Cheers
Andy

Work in Progress

Hi All
Just a quick post (really must do some more) on various projects I have on the go.  One aspect of my painting which I do endeavour to change is that I see a model or need a certain unit - build it then get roughly 70% through the paint job.  Then another model or project comes along and I start that one also!  Then another and so on, you get the picture!

I do apologise for the photos.  My friend says that I really should get a light box to help with lighting and removing distracting backgrounds.  I will get the lightbox asap!
So here are some photos of various models.

High Elves

Here are some high elves from the Blood Island box.  I managed to get my hands on two sets of the high elf models and will paint to sell them later on.  On these, I undercoated black (due to the level of armour) then airbrushed Vallejo model air gun metallizer (the only time I would ever put a 'z' where an 's' should really go!), then top spray gun and then finished off with a relatively heavy drybrushing of model air silver.

The cloth is layered with three blues from the vallejo model colour range - dark to light.  Faces are quite difficult because of the face guards and helmets.  Vallejo rosy flesh.

Dire Wolves

A useful unit of wolves for my Vampire Counts army.  Base coated in rosy flesh, highlighted with elf flesh then knocked back with GW ogryn flesh wash.  Beasty Brown on the fur, highlighted with bonewhite and then knocked back with GW Devlan Mud.  Gory red highlighted with GW foundation yellow then washed with Les Bursley's APJ softbody black wash.  One slight thing I would warn people about APJ softbody black wash is that leaves a sheen on areas it is painted.  In some of the videos from Les B, you will see him wash the softbody black wash into the recesses in the armour but clear away the excess.  This wash is fantastic as it will give depth without shading the whole paint job, but unless you want a slight shine from the wash, you will need to either remove as much from surfaces as you can or paint over the shiny bits!  Usual bonewhite for the exposed bone parts!

Strigoi Ghoul King on Terrorgheist (in the colours of a zombie dragon)

 This model is fantastic and a real centre piece for my Vampire Counts army.  I bought Zacharius the Everliving on a zombie dragon, so I thought I would not bother to magnetise this model to accomodate both builds.  Gory red blended into black for the wings.  Black blended into bonewhite for the spinal bones. Gory red highlighted with drybrushing GW foundation yellow then washed with APJ softbody black wash for the body sections.  Bonewhite for the bones etc.  I wish I could remember about the Strigoi on the back :(.  I cannot remember, although I remember something green, grey with a sepia wash!

Company of Misery Chaos Lord

My 40k chaos army consists mainly of Black Legion, but I didn't want him to be the boring black with golden highlights, so I looked in the codex and found the colour scheme of the Company of Misery - a sort of black armour with blood red splattered from one side.  Bloody red base coat, the other section basecoated with black.  The face (and skin sections) is basecoat purple with white layer topcoat then washed with APJ softbody black wash with make him look rather intimadating! Cloak has a purple basecoat and blue wash made from Magic Blue with GW Lahmian medium.  I really do like the Lahmian meduim, very useful in making you own washes out of normal colours.  The metal sections are gun metal followed by the usual silver drybrush highlight and wash with GW black wash.  Blue metallic model air was used on the backpack skulls then highlighted silver.  I wanted to the banner to be human skin with a chaos icon painted in human blood (well not really human but model human blood!!!!!).  Three skin colours were used from dark to light then washes with Vallejo skin ink watered down.

Lemartes, Guardian of the Lost

I really love the Blood Angel characters and the models GW has for them.  Black undercoat, grey edging with white further edging.  The edging is thick but will be trimmed to much thinner lines soon.  Left shoulder plate, bloody red blended into blazing orange at the top.  The right shoulder skull, usual bonewhite basecoat with white highlights then knocking it back with sepia ink watered down.  I prefer his eye lenses to be red and not blue so they are in the middle of being worked on to make them look optical.

Avatars of War model High Elf Sorceress

 Very nice model from AoW, two sets of blending going on here!  The top part of the dress has two different purples whilst the bottom part of the dress have two blended blues.  You will notice the failed attempt at adequate recess washing with APJ softbody black wash.  I think I will need to remedy this with a darker blue wash made using thr GW Lahmian Meduim!

Anyways, there you have it!  Some models in various levels of completeness!
Cheers
Me!

Warhammer Joey + serious bad luck!

Well a new phenonemon to hit youtube has arrived (albeit a while ago now) in the form of Joey and her Warhammer antics!!!  What a breath of fresh air!  I look over many many MANY videos on the wonderful world of youtube concerning warhammer and signed up to Joey's video blog thing right from the start! She adds such colour to the videos about the hobby.  I had just got into warhammer fantasy a little earlier than Joey but not much! It is very nice to see someone hitting the same road blocks etc. as myself in the game.

Her takes on the lores are fantastic with the metal lore being my favourite - especially at the end, cracks me up everytime!  It's nice to see her painting progressing very well indeed (one could say exponentially) and also her gaming coming on.  I wish I could say the same for my wargaming! Although I am not bad, I normally suffer the wrath of the dice imps!

Last Thursday I played against a friend and his Warriors of Chaos army at my local wargaming club.  I took a sizeable Vampire Counts army and within the ranks was my prized unit; the killing machine of 7, yes indeed 7 Bloodknights being lead by no other than the most expensive character choice in the whole VC codex; Count Mannsfred.

So there I am, happy, set up and ready to unlease plenty of undead death on my apponent......or so I thought!  He went first, during the magic phase he cast the infernal gateway with unstoppable force onto my uber killing unit and got 11 for the strength! For those of you who do not know about the infernal gateway, a score of 11 or 12 on the strength role removes that unit and characters from play because they are sucked into oblivion.  My face said AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!  My mind said NNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! I sank to the floor realising that in one magic spell I lost not only Mannfred but 1020 points in one!  I am still stinging over it!  Therapy is not helping my friends!!!!!!  Well some retribution on the miscast table - oh no not for me!  He rolled a 5 - takes a str 10 hit and saves with a 4+ ward save.  He did the damn gate two other times during the battle and saved his sorcerer EVERY TIME!!!!  Gutted isn't the word!  Probability of rolling the required strength for this case - 0.167, to save his sorcerer with a 5 miscast then 4+ ward - 0.01389.  To put this into perspective 0 is not likely and 1 is likely!  Moral of the story - KILL THE SORCERER ASAP!!!!!!!!!!!

So apart from that spleen vent(!) all I can say is SUBSCRIBE TO WARHAMMER JOEY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Also check out her blog, facebook thingy and tweets etc.!!!!!
http://thejoeyberry.blogspot.co.uk/
https://twitter.com/#!/JoeyBerry89
http://www.facebook.com/pages/TheJoeyberry/216670435089674

Warhammer/40K Commission Painting

Hi All!

Well a new post!  Been a little while with one thing and another!  But I was watching Warhammer Joey's youtube page on the Lore of Metal (hilarious and well worth a liking there!), and noticed some bloke put in the comments about an offer still standing for her from him and his team!

Of course the offer is for something commission related which got me to thinking (as usual) about the course of events in this hobby and how things have panned out over the years!

Back in the day when I was young and getting involved with the wonderful world of GW hobbying, not too many people were involved with the hobby and even less were advertising their painting skills.  Since coming back to the hobby after my break etc., I have noticed a MASSIVE increase in the number of 'studios' and people touting for business.  I have noticed that some people are sort of half bothered and will do commission work if it comes by and some people almost prostitute themselves for commission work.  But the worrying thing I have noticed is the range of painting on display from people who do commission work.  For example the other day someone posted on DakkaDakka pictures of a pre-heresy dreadnought they did for someone.  The first comment on the thread went along the lines of "and someone paid you for this?"!  Needless to say, the other threads were very similar in fashion.  The paint job which was done for this commission was terrible in all fairness.  The original poster then put up a picture of his best work - not much better to be completely honest.

It must not be forgotten that everyone including golden daemon winners and the such, can always improve on certain aspects.  There are some truly amazingly gifted people out there who can make us cry with one stroke of their paintbrush!  However there are some commission people who do make us cry with the brush strokes, thick paint, bad edges and layering etc.

So the moral of the story?  And why bother blogging about such things?  I'm old! I'm longer in the tooth than most Long Fangs!!!!  I do not like to see people being ripped off in this day and age of financial austerity.  So if you are in the position to look for some commission work, do a little research such as PHOTOS of their work, any kind of customer feedback, a run down of their skills, their level of experience in the hobby, their price and is it worth it? Just because someone says they do commission work does not necessarilymean they are any good - WHICH INCLUDES PEOPLE IN STUDIOS!!!!!!

Ultra Sonic Cleaner

Hi All

Yay! I now have my ultrasonic cleaner - Ultra 7000, what a name!  Well it is a small thing which works wonderfully!  Of course with ultrasonic cleaners you need to consider the job they are made to do and not what is hoped!  If you watch all the videos on Youtube concerning ultrasonic cleaners, you will see a lot of buzzing a not a huge amount otherwise, but afterwards you will see the amount of grime and dirt removed during the cleaning process.
I wasn't really someone who would meticulously clean a miniature before cleaning unless they really needed it – not a good habit to continue with really!  But I thought I would give the Ultra7000 a blast to see what it could get off some metal minis – see below

As you can see from the pictures, concentric rings are formed around the models where the dirt and manufacturing bits are pushed into sections called nodal points (standing wave physics).  The rings of dirt are enough to convince me that cleaning the minis through this method are a good idea. 
I have cleaned my airbrush through the ultra7000 and I was incredibly pleased/alarmed at the amount of paint coming from the individual nozzles!  The airbrush is good and clean and I have been blasting a base coat on 80 ultra marines for a friend at university who kindly gave me a load of zombies, a few wraith type things and a black coach!
Anyways I will stop there!
God Bless
Andy

GW Paints Old and New

Hi People
Just a little entry on the state of Games Workshop paints.

(From http://www.thehogsofwar.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/15321_sm-2nd-Edition-Citadel-Paints-History-Retro-Review.jpg?9d7bd4)

I just remember those old pots and the annoying lids!!!  Such memories!

Anyways, to move away from nostalgia I would like to give a quick post about what I have found about GW paints since coming back to the hobby.  Of course back in the day when the world was Sepia and I was knee height to a grasshopper, the GW range wasn't as extensive as it is now and the pots were different within certain respects!  However the price per pot then was £1.40 and expensive at the time - a far cry to nowadays!  But we mustn't forget the natural price increases over time as I am talking from 2nd ed 40k days till now!

However, with the advent of greater competition for paints from companies such as Vallejo and P3, GW have just released or should we say re-released a 'new' paint range.  I got the e-mail from GW today saying that some of the feedback on the 'new' paint range is just like "painting with magic" or something to that effect.  This does appear to be quite a statement, but a business would not do well if they were to release press captions such as "our paints apart from a few new things, are basically the same"!  The layer paints are re-named paints from the usual range and why re-named?  Because it helps with copyrighting the colours (info from an inside GW source), easier to keep tabs if other companies try to copy Abbadon Black or Calgar Blue rather than chaos black and ultramarine blue!

The new ranges look interesting though, such as the washes or glazes but one thing that does worry rather a lot is the drybrushing mush they have made. In all fairness (and I have to agree with several other gaming/painting friends) if you are unable to drybrush or at least drybrush heavily onto models using normal paints, then you are doing something wrong.  It isn't really that hard to dip your brush into a pot of paint, dry the majority (or practically all) of the paint off onto a paper towel and then lightly brush over the model! I know for people just starting out it may seem a little weird to do this, but the techniques once obtained definitely do give lovely effects.  However the main factor of the dry range of paints in the new release which does worry is the level of fluid in these paints.  As stated they are a mush, very thick indeed and therefore due to GW not going over to dropper bottles, I fear these dry paints will dry out quicker than the others such as the glazes or the layers.  We have all had paints do this from GW and maybe other companies also, so maybe something to watch out for!  Also the marketing of the products annoys somewhat - "Revolutionise your painting".  Tamiya paints and maybe others have marketed terrain or texture paints for years, Vallejo and others have glazes, mediums and washes and have had them for years, so where is the revolution?!?!?  The dry range?

Although this does seem very much like GW bashing and I suppose it is somewhat (although I like their models - definitely NOT finecack and love their games), I feel that sometimes things like this need to be said as they are desperately attempting to hold the monopoly on the hobby gaming world.  

However tonight I made a conscious decision to get rid of all of my GW paints (maybe keep one or two) and to move solely over to Vallejo. I have the whole range of Game Colour (sorry but I will not spell it the other way as it is not English!-no disrespect to Americans and the such who spell it incorrectly ;) ) range bought on eBay for such a low price each bottle comes out at £1.43 and of course with 5ml more per bottle! 

I like the old washes from GW but they dry up so quickly, I have had trouble left, right and centre over their other paints due to coverage when applied either thick or diluted and this includes the gloopy foundation paints – I have tested all to see the effects of coverage and they are not that good in my opinion.  I also heard some chaps at my local gaming club discussing the irony of photos from the ‘Eavy Metal team displaying (in the background) other companies’ paints!!!!!

However why tonight to decide, well, I was working on the wings for my Terrorgheist and after doing a rather nice job (if I may say so myself) on the membrane skin, I had to first undercoat a light grey onto the skeletal parts to be followed by bleached bone.  I want to do this model well and therefore I am watering down the paints and adding a few layers – the bleached bone decided to pool and collect in crevices.  Added slightly more paint and tried again – coverage very poor.  Added yet more paint almost getting neat and yet again coverage poor.  The brushes I use are Series 7 W and N – some of the best brushes money can buy and although I am not a Golden Daemon winner, my skill isn’t too bad!  So being the scientist I am, I went through a process of elimination and testing to see what was going on!  Painting skill – good, brushes – excellent, went through varying thickness of paint – suspect and needed testing.  I changed the paint over to my bone white Vallejo and found that when at the same dilution at the first stage, the results were slightly better coverage – not brilliant but did not pool.  Added to the paint mixture – covered well.  So conclusion although not based solely on tonight, was that Vallejo makes superior and cheaper paints.  

I think that I am just fed up with GW and their shoddy overpriced rubbish (not their models although they are vastly overpriced). 
The glue – over priced and not good.
The static grass – very nice but way over priced.
GW PVA glue – come on give me a break! How much does this cost??!?!!?!?!?!?! I bought from WHSmiths a pot of Art Attack PVA glue which was cheaper than GW’s own and had more in it! To give you the numbers GW PVA glue 120ml for £5.10.  Art Attack PVA glue 175ml for £2.99
Then I found something even better, Wickes sells 5 yes 5 LITRES of PVA for £8!!!!! That’s more PVA than you can shake a stick at!!!!!!!!
So anyways I will stop there and climb down from my soap box!
Cheers All!