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It's been a while since I graced you all with an update; wedding planning got in the way. So here's a few, rather looooong, updates for you

The fall of Kalan IV

Every now and then, Ordos Calixis receives reports of events that are far too fantastical for anyone to ever believe truthful. The most documented of these is event that took place on Kalf, commonly referred to as the “Dance of the Dead” ++ For more on these events, see Disciples of the Dark Gods, Pages 63-64 ++ . Official reports state that there was one rogue psyker with the ability to reanimate a couple of corpses and that an ex Arbite Marshall, Valadimar Haek, panicked; calling it in as a full scale rising of the dead. The fact isn’t alive to refute this point has led to the report being taken truthfully; despite the wholesale destruction wrought upon the planet tracking down this one “witch”.

Haek was, in fact, part of Inquisitor Nonoro’s personal retinue, scouting for trouble; which he seemed to have found on Kalf. He wasn’t known for overstating things; nor was he the type to panic under fire. This has led Inquisitor Nonoro to denounce the report as falsehood, which has led to conflict with his former collegues; most especially the originator of the report, Witch Hunter Sennacherib.

Officially the current whereabouts of Nonoro is unknown; there are rumours floating around the higher levels of the Conclave that he is now in possession of recordings made by Haek before his death and is now waging some secret war to uncover the threats they revealed.

Nonoro wasn’t the only person to vanish during this time period; two of Nonoro’s former acolytes, Ravion and Kalerii, now Inquisitors themselves, were also reported missing. Occasional reports surface about their locations or actions, to many they seem random and, in some cases, very Radical in approach. None are quite sure what they are up to, but many guess that they are both working closely with Nonoro to track down whatever it is they are looking for.

+++ Ravion : Personal log +++
While investigating Heretek activities on 88 Tansa, a psychic distress call came through from a ship’s navigator who had just left the mining colony of Kalan IV, a large mining asteroid around Junos in the Fydae region. They had recently picked up a shipment of ores for delivery to JXM A18Z. Shortly after launch, the quartermaster was down in the hold, securing the inventory, when he was attacked by something. None of the available reports are sure what it was, but within a short period of time, the crew had apparently turned violent and slaughtered each other; the navigator managed to get out a short distress call before they broke into his chamber and all contact was lost with the ship. While disturbing, this was originally put down to Hull Ghasts and an overexaggerating navigator. We all know what taking things for granted can lead to. The official view quickly changed when a day or two later all contact with Kalan IV was lost. Kalerii has gone to investigate while I finalise the assault on the kult in Jenn…
+++

And now onto my forces. As we're entering a tournament soon, I've actually got something to aim for. My share of the doubles tournament is as follows :

HQ : Primaris Psyker : 70pts
Elite : Psyker Battle Squad w. Chimera, +3 psykers (7 psykers in total + Overseer) : 145pts
Troop : Veteran Guard w. shotguns, 3 Meltas & Chimera w. Hvy Flamer : 155pts
Troop : Veteran Guard w. shotguns, 2 flamers & Chimera w. Hvy Flamer : 130pts

Red - Parts ordered/to be cast
Orange - Unit built, needs paint
Green - Complete

And now onto the models

First up is the PBS


And then we have the first casts of the legs. Originally I was clamping the casts with a lego framework. Switching to a proper clamp has increased the quality of the casting process *yay!*. Saldy I now need to remake the cast as the last lot of resin didn't set, it turned to goo instead. I can only assume some water got mixed in somehow... anyway. I've always found it kind of amusing that guard have larger special weapons than Marines, despite being weaker. Sooooo combining this with mining environments I've decided to create underslung special weapons :

All looks good so far.

It will be good to see how you are fixing those underslung weapons in place. I have a couple of underslung weapons with my orks (I ran out of ork weapons and had to convert some IG ones), so I know it can look good, but I can't see on your guy exactly how you are going to do it.

I think I love the bottom middle psyker (as well as the two wit him) best. The running one I am not so sure about... looks a little strange to me.

Edit: The casted parts look pretty good, though obviously will await final judgement until they are painted

Having seen the cast parts in person, I don't think they will be disappointing anyone. The latest batch are a marked improvement! Congrats!

endtransmission, how much did it cost you to get all the necessary equipment to start casting your own pieces, just out of interest?

I think it cost me about £40 for all the bits, including postage. That included enough rubber to create about 8 moulds and a huge number of cast pieces

You'll want :

RTV Rubber for making the moulds
and some fast cast resin. Tomps also sell boxes of stirring sticks and plasticine.

You'll also need some lego bricks, a base, some talc, a couple of pieces of thin wood to put around the mould when you put it into a vice.

Thats not bad, I might look into doing that at some point then.

I take it you got everything from tomps?

I was going to ask at some point where you got everything from, as it is always good to go to somewhere you know someone has got stuff from before.

Yeah pretty much. They were very helpful as I had no clue what to order from them, so they carefully put together a starter pack for me with everything I needed. It arrived within 2 days too, so I can't praise them highly enough

Sounds cool, I will save the address and put an order in at a later date when I get round to doing up an army that requires lots of casting (which will be my IG).

Those psykers look great and I'd love to see a picture of the cast guy showing more detail. Also thanks a lot for the idea of the Bullpup style Lasguns I may have to do a few!

An idea I just came across on another thread on DakkaDakka for your mining lights - Spacemarine backpack vents to add shoulder lamps?

Hmmm interesting. I'll have a play with the few packs I have left and see how it looks. Thanks

The lack of green on your list scare's me.

Good luck.

DC

Damn. I just went to check the Tournament site and they have corrected an error in original advert. We've got to pick an extra 250 points each... *argh*

I could be mean and stick a second PBS in as well as topping up the current squad to maximum... but somehow that feels like being really powergamer-y; which goes against the "playing for fun" thing.

I think topping up the current PBS to maximum and adding a Leman Russ of some sort would be rather useful. There may be some points left for some ratlings... I can't remember the points values as my book is at home.

The models are coming along very slowly. The bodies are too fat for Cadian arms (bit of bad planning there!), so each one is having to have new bits of arm sculpted on which is ever so boring and tome consuming. I've also run out of bases to put them on... now to decide if I've got time to make and cast a load of bases as well, or if I should just buy a load of resin bases from elsewhere...

I have about half my Vampire Counts army on thick card bases which I cut to size. With some grass and sand on top, you can't really tell the difference.

Just a thought, though it will probably be less than acceptable in a tournament, so perhaps not the best idea...

endtransmission wrote:Damn. I just went to check the Tournament site and they have corrected an error in original advert. We've got to pick an extra 250 points each... *argh*

I could be mean and stick a second PBS in as well as topping up the current squad to maximum... but somehow that feels like being really powergamer-y; which goes against the "playing for fun" thing.

I think topping up the current PBS to maximum and adding a Leman Russ of some sort would be rather useful. There may be some points left for some ratlings... I can't remember the points values as my book is at home.

The models are coming along very slowly. The bodies are too fat for Cadian arms (bit of bad planning there!), so each one is having to have new bits of arm sculpted on which is ever so boring and tome consuming. I've also run out of bases to put them on... now to decide if I've got time to make and cast a load of bases as well, or if I should just buy a load of resin bases from elsewhere...

Buy the bases I should. They're cheap and look good. I recommend darkartminiatures.com. They do a big pack where you get 20 25mm, 5 40mm and a 60mm all for about £9.

Damn. Seems we missed getting tickets to the tournament... who'd a thunk that they would sell out so quickly? Still... this is probably a good thing given that we've not actually played in years

Wednesday should see the arrival of our massive order from Wayland Games with everything we needed to finish the lists. I may have to take photos as it's going to be a rather large box! I think we're going to try to still try and get everything finished by January so we can go play against people and get in some practice

Ork taktikal error that was :( Its wot 'appens when orks can't decide if dey be orks or space marines...

I've not seen these mentioned on Dakka before, but has anyone tried the 1-48 WW2 Combat miniatures? They have some rather nice looking figures that could make nice guard (assuming scale is ok)

http://1-48combat.com/russian.htm
http://1-48combat.com/german.htm

I would order one to try, but the postage to the UK is €14.50, with the figures only being €8.50!

Some other useful figures in my lunchtime wander...

For Catachan Whiteshields there are these Somali Pirates : http://www.cavalcadewargames.com/cavalcade/Somali_Pirates.html

Grizzled veteran heads : http://shop.ramshacklegames.co.uk/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=19&products_id=216

Monowheel bike. Could be used for Sentinels or Rough Riders : http://www.tobsen77.de/index.php?lan=en&show=gallery&id=1

If your interested in alternative figures and bits and bobs TAG The Assault Group is worth a look they've got some great items to play around with!

Ok, it's been rather a long time since I last updated... I blame the wedding, honeymoon and the Xbox for that little lapse in concentration. Thanks for being so patient

So what's been happening?
Myself and Arakasi did an order for all the bits towards our tournament forces, which included three Chimera and the psyker for my Guard.

The Chassis of the chimera are now together, in a slightly different configuration to normal, with the turrent towards the back of the tank rather than the front right corner.



I like this far more than the standard pattern... unfortunately it means that I'm three turret hatches short as I uncovered the front ring by moving the top layer of the chassis. Originally I wanted to use the Artemia Hellhound turret, as you can see in the photo... it looks a bit chunkier than the normal turret; unfortunately Forge World won't sell me just the turret from these kits (even though I wanted 9 of them)... so I need to think of something else to do...

Then there's my Psyker to lead them all into damnation



The Psyker battle squad is together and part way through being painted blue, so you may actually get some photos of a finished squad soon, won't that be nice!

As for the vet squads... they are taking longer than expected as only some of the Cadian arms fit my bodies properly (doh!), so I'm having absolutely no fun trying to get the damn bits to match up properly. Eventually I need to make some of my own that do fit; it's just a case of trying to make them so they don't stuck to the bodies when sculpting them.

I also hit a problem with the moulds doing odd things, which means I need to redo the moulds... again; which I'm getting a little sick of, let's be honest. It's very tempting to see if someone else will cast them for me so I don't need to worry about it any more.

A Christmas present to myself is to start up a little Daemonhunter force as well by adding an Inquisitor and a unit of marines in a Razorback to my current Guard setup. FW should be delivering some Red Scorpion bits next week *fingers crossed*

Nice Psyker...

What head it this?

Nice chimera's.... You could always plasticard the turrets of course, I did it with mine and they're pretty easy. Pics in the gallery

Yggdrasil wrote:Nice Psyker...
What head it this?

Thanks
The head is one of the bare, hooded heads from the Dark Angels sprue

CommissarKhaine wrote:Nice chimera's.... You could always plasticard the turrets of course, I did it with mine and they're pretty easy. Pics in the gallery

That turret looks great, the side mounted cannon is what I'm aiming for too. I guess if I can get one right I can cast the rest... I'll give it a go over the weekend and see

Interesting army, I'm glad I found this thread again, will subscribe it now. btw congratulations to your wedding!

Having been having lots of fun with plasticard and deffkoptas, I reckon you could get exactly what you want - if not better - with plasticard. I don't think you would even need to cast any of them

I have three ideas to solve your cupola dilema.

1. Make castings of the cupolas you have.

2. The 3rd edition IG Leman Russ and Hellhound sprues came with two cupolas per tank (The Hellhound and Executioner each came with an extra pewter variant.) Perhaps you could ply the members of this forum and/or your gaming community to search through their bits boxes for extras. They'll look a wee bit different, but they'll fit.

3. Cover it up with plasticard! The turret looks too dinky for anyone to suspect that a man might want to fit throught there anyway...

My only question is, how will you represent firing points?

I LOVE the psyker.

I like the chimera configuration too.

looks very APC-ey

DC

I'm not sure how to deal with the firing points. I may add some ports on the sides of the raised area (tank's left hand side only as the turret will be in the way, obviously!)

My Squa... um. WD "Dwarf in Space" arrived a couple of days ago; it's a really nice model, though I think he's going to be hacked apart to become part of my =I= bodyguard... when I remember where the heck my saw went!

On another point, does anyone have suggestions on building nice looking cybernetic arms/legs? My attempts using plastic rods don't look all that great and I'm loathed to shell out for Necron bits just to make the occasional arm/leg that will look... Necron-y. Show me your bionics!

I used bits of spru (sp) to form the basis of my ork bionics, then used the millions of spare wheel nuts from my ork vehicles to form joints and motorise pulleys etc, and added some wires and other gubbins.

I could suggest using spru as the main building block of your limbs, then add some thinner rods to the back (I would wrap one end of the rod in a few turns of paper to simulate a piston rod) and stick them to the back of the spru limb.

Then perhaps add on some armour plates to the shin/forearm and thigh/upper arm (to hide the spru), as well as some kind of articulating joint (a round horizontal plug of green stuff?) and some wires etc.

I am sure you can experiment with that basic idea and get something that looks pretty cool... certainly judging from your general level of greatness