Thanks guys. I do enjoy doing the hazard stripes. Not sure what I'll do with regard to them on the 30k-style squad I'm planning as they don't really seem to have any?
Azazelx wrote: Thanks guys. I do enjoy doing the hazard stripes. Not sure what I'll do with regard to them on the 30k-style squad I'm planning as they don't really seem to have any?
They do have them, though I think it's not quite as much of a thing in 30k.
Thanks, ZS!
That doesn't look bad at all, AoV. Works nicely on the kneepad, and I've already done that on the faceplate, though I probably wouldn't use it on all of them.
Today we have the next pair of my “Legacy” Iron Warriors – what these two have in common is the use of Necromunda Pit Slave arms as Close Combat Cybernetics. Much like their fellow reaching for the sky with his chainsaw arm in the very first set of finished close combat Iron Warriors.
Hammer guy is a pretty straightforward build. Being simply CSM parts with a SM left arm with bolt pistol and the nondescript SM breastplate that lacks any form of Aquila. And the Hammer-arm, of course.
I figure that the hydraulic hammer-arm can be used as a CC weapon, or in a pinch as a power weapon or even a Thunder Hammer. I guess I’ll just have to see how 8th pans out. The IV Legion badge is about as subtle as his hammer.
The IW badge is on his left shoulder this time. I’ve added some hazard stripes to his backpack. I just find I need to be a little bit careful with those on models’ backpacks as I don’t want them to look like Bees or Wasps! Surely that’s a different Space Marine Chapter!
His partner in causing chaos also features a lot of standard CSM parts – legs, torso and chainsword-wielding arm, along with one shoulder. The arm is again from the Necromunda Pit Slaves and his cybernetically-enhanced metal head comes from the Iron Hands kit. The backpack is from the 3rd edition SM kit, and finally, the left shoulder is a metal CSM pad from the 2nd-3rd Edition era. Being an Iron-painted skull, it serves as the Chapter Badge in this case.
The rear view really just shows the plastic SM Backpack. If anything, I think it helps to illustrate how well a mix of modern parts has always worked with the CSM kit when building Traitor and Renegade marines. The Long War would create a convoluted and logistics situation between the 5 marks of post-thunder armour that was worn by the combatants during the Heresy, since-corrupted armour, Legion-made Artificer armour and that built by individual Astartes (especially in a chapter like the IW), armour fabricated in captured Forge Worlds and by their Dark Mechanicum allies – not to mention that taken as battlefield trophies/loot. Which makes me think. I should add some Imperial Fists (and successors) trophies in with my IW somewhere.
I like to think of this guy as having just recently had this huge claw installed. So the slightly odd pose represents him taking the time to admire his new limb through his many, many lenses, before using it to wrench the head off some unfortunate foe. The size of it looks like it could wrap itself pretty well around a head, or a Marine’s helmet..
For the penultimate post in this little series on my "Legacy" Iron Warriors, we have a pair of models rebuilt from what was a single model. Originally, Berserker legs, Iron Hands chest, Iron Warriors Head, along with the flamer, the attached arms and shoulders and the chaos backpack. When getting the model ready to complete, I noticed the somewhat unique Iron Hands chest was almost completely hidden from view by the flamer and the arms wielding it. I felt that was a shame, and broke apart the model, finding another marine's worth of part-bitz to make the previous Iron Warrior into two, one with the flamer as before and one that would show off the IH chest plate.
I think the use of a BaC MKIV helmet adds a lot to this figure. It helps to tie him in much more with the Heresy, and with these Iron Warriors being Veterans of the Long War. It will also help to tie him and by virtue, the rest of his squad in with any subsequent Iron Warriors I build as they will include parts from close to a decade of intermittent Forge World orders, not to mention Calth and Prospero.
The crenellated shoulder pad is a metal Iron Hands one, with the IH badge filed off. The flamer is a metal chaos one, from that era when so many kits were simply plastic + metal add-ons. A shame the basic CSM kit is still the same one. Speaking of the same kit, the legs here are from the Khorne Berserkers.
Left shoulder is a plastic CSM pad, and the skull in it's midst works as a second Chapter Icon, as does the one on his kneepad. It's a relatively simple model, but I really do like it myself. I kept the charging pose, and the addition of the MKIV head (and pack) really works for me personally.
The other half of the original model has been elevated to an Aspiring Champion - unless I use these older, individually converted models as Chosen, in which case he'd be a Chosen Champion. A pair of running Assault Marine legs from the Blood Angels I got from Nerdfest had some glue residue left on the upper thigh which worked for me as subtle battle damage - slightly warped metal. Damaged but serviceable.
Both shoulder pads came from the MKIV Calth marines. The shoulder studs also work as a callback to the original RT marines, so I naturally went with the old-school combo of chapter badge right, studs left. I also added some guitar wire cabling to his power fist arm.
Hopefully the motion of the figure, plus the rigidity of the ammo belt link explains the orientation of the bolt pistol's ammo belt. (Belt-fed pistols? /facepalm). I've also just noticed that brown spot on his left calf greave. Rest assured that he's now safely back on my paint desk to have that touched up.
I still love seeing these IW guys Az! they look so damn good, and every time I see them I want to work on my IF so I've an excuse to fly over and say G'day to you and have a game! :-)
@Josh I like being able to evoke the feel of RT-era models, though I'm saving those for a specific project that I'll (hopefully) get around to building and painting sometime... being bale to use "modern" plastic parts to do so works for me though!
@AoV - Group shots will be soon. At least of this squad. I'll hold off on the army-in-progress shot until I finish the last three models that date from slightly more recently than the guys I've built here (but are still old)
@Brook thanks - I do like the flamer guy. He's got that look of running in to torch someone rather than the "marine firing" or "marine looking at the enemy" pose they usually have.
@Mymearan - that's the plan. Any suggestions on what to paint next for them? That's something I've been mulling over on lately. I'm painting a different chapter's squad right now, but that's because I've been going through some of my old stuff with a view to finishing long-dormant models.
@nerdfest - thanks mate! It'll probably be awhile before I've got anything sorted enough that could go up against all the Fists you've got painted. I need to get out some of the heavy stuff just to counter your Land Raiders and Contemptors and such!
Maybe all those marines could use a Rhino to ride around in? If not that, what about a Terminator Squad? Would love to see what you would come up with for some badass-looking IWTDA.
I actually have the basilisk section of the army safely purchased, but they're not in the queue yet. I've got two vehicles from when I first started the army out of a dusty vehicle transport bag and so they'll be the two things that get restored and finished next in terms of vehicles. I may have to pack the two of them away again for awhile since vehicles take up so much damned pace on my cramped desk, so I'll need to finish up a whole lot of other crap first.
I've got some Termies for the IW on the way, but it'll be a little while until the base models get here. There's another squad type I've wanted to make since the inception of the army, but again I need space since I want to basically kitbash the crap out of each one of them. I may actually throw these guys on the back burner once I've got the stuff that's started done, and work my way through some of my other started-but-in-limbo power armour models.
Having tons of models (and armies) but no actual list to build to is great in terms of freedom (I have ideas for all sorts of stuff for this army!), but makes things difficult when trying to work out what to do next, since there's no "need" to get X, Y or Z finshed. Hopefully the coming of 8th edition will help to make 40k's rules and lists less of a fething swamp. I'm all for having a million different army lists, it's simply the execution and layers of special rules that make trying to form something up into such a nightmare.
I think we better both get onto them in that case, Damo. Though I've gotten distracted again now by an attempt to finish off some of the dozens of marines from other chapters that I've started and then let rot in limbo for years. You know, kinda like these guys had been!
And now the final pair of my “Legacy” Iron Warriors. We have the original Aspiring Champion/unit leader, along with the Champion/Lord kitbashed from the original metal Iron Warriors Warsmith model, who is still actually available from GW.
The leader (at present) of the entire motley crew is this guy. As mentioned, the base model is the Iron Warriors Warsmith. The head was removed and replaced with one from the 2nd edition noise marines. The marine’s entire head and visage has become an Iron Skull, reflecting the chapter icon, with the Xenomorph-esque tongue tying in with the copper cabling found across these models. A Fleshmetal Exoskeleton under the current ruleset.
The left arm comes from an Assault Marine, capped with the metal 2e Iron Warriors Shoulder pad.
The backpack’s trophy spike comes from a 2e-era Chaos Terminator.
The right arm of the Warsmith was completely removed. It was replaced with a slightly-dodgy-by-today’s-standards rebuild, made of a Berserker arm and a glove, hand and Hammer from a Chronopia model. The guitar wire cabling was added to help sell it as a powered weapon – a Thunder Hammer of unique fabrication with a rather wicked looking rear spike. In-hand, the hammer and hazard-striped chestplate draw the eye away from the dodgy join. Thankfully, it doesn’t stand out nearly as much in-hand as it does in these photographs.
The breastplate and bionic legs on the original Aspiring Champion are from the Iron Hands upgrade pack, an excellent source of “official” bionics for any Astartes, and especially so for heavily-augmented Chapters and Legions such as the Iron Warriors. The rest of the model is pretty much stock, excepting the trophy spike that once again comes from a metal Chaos Terminator and the head, which is a Khorne Berserker head with some bionics cut from a SM helmet grafted onto the side. Damn, I missed that lens. I’ll have to paint that in now.
Like I said, the rest of him is pretty much stock. Well, arms, shoulderpads and backpack, anyway.
Since taking these photos, I’ve cleaned up the base edging and fixed the odd lens I’ve missed on these and the others in this series. Along with their “red dot” targeters on their weapons. Not that this helps you.
I took some group shots the other day alongside these. I might hold off posting them and take some new ones today to post tomorrow, now that I’ve touched these guys up. I also re-black-rimmed their bases and darkened the metallics on the bases slightly to help distinguish the metallic models from their metallic flooring, which was another thing I’d missed in my haste to complete them and excitement to photograph them.
Another nice set. I had to look really closely to see the offending join on the hammer arm. I suspect that it will be invisible on the tabletop.
It's no fault of yours, but the fangs on the berzerker head are more than a little derpy. That's a problem with every vampire-like model, and I don't know a good way around it.
Yeah, the fangs are a bit silly when you look closely or see them in pics this size, but in practice/on the tabletop they can only just be seen - I guess that's why they do them like that, since it's difficult otherwise to distinguish them from pointy teeth
Thanks guys. Sadly, most of the current parts available for Chaos power armour are the same ones as the ones I used back in the oughties for these guys, with the exception of the Raptor Kit.
Everything else that's new for use is Loyalist or HH
I’d planned to take new, better group photos of the Iron Warriors for today’s post, but unfortunately I was feeling under the weather yesterday, and am still that way now – so it didn’t happen. With a solid week of work ahead of me, it’ll hopefully happen next weekend!
In the meantime, here’s a model where I already had the photographs ready. This guy is another of my renovated models. Having been painted back some number of years ago, the overall palette I’d used was more than a little too garish and had a few too many colours for my modern, more refined taste. The solution? Repaint parts of the model, tone some of it down, and give it a new base. Ergo! A new lease on life for this previously rather sad model.
The slotta dates this model as sculpted back in 1995. It’s a hella-chunky model, and the huge shoulderpads really give him some heft. I think the rather plain helmet could have been a lot nicer, though. As with much of the old-school stuff in my collection, I purchased this model back in the 1990’s. Part of Kev Adams’ post-GW output, I find it odd that someone like RPE hasn’t re-released it alongside the other Heartbreaker stuff that they have.
Originally I’d painted him as a Black Orc, which means I started him before the current line of plastics or their predecessors that share the current aesthetic in metal. I rebased him onto a 32mm base, which fits the figure much more betterer. I also lightened up his skin from the near-black that it was and repainted many of the “soft parts”, making his leather and cloth accessories much more appropriate. Purple pouch? Yellow wristbands? Ugh! Much nicer this way…
Another seriously Oldhammer blast from the past is this guy. Known as “Cyclops” in the old catalogues for rather obvious reasons, this Orc was sculpted by the Perry Twins, and the earliest reference I can find to it is in the Autumn 1985 Citadel Journal. It also turns out that this guy was also the designated model for Fangor Gripe, Chieftain of the vile Rune Orcs in the classic WHFB 2nd Edition Campaign Blood Bath at Orc’s Drift.
I was rooting around in my metal O&G box for some more models to paint after completing the previous batch (which I haven’t fully shown yet, but soon!) and this guy stuck out to me. He’d previously been overlooked as a ratty old figure that never especially appealed, but since Nostalgia is the new black, and more importantly, he’d clearly paint up pretty quickly I fished him out and made him have the colours. I tried to do something interesting with his breastplate and the metals, mixing both a brown and blue tone. but I fear it’s too subtle in these photos, let alone in person. Something to folllow up on down the line, though!
A simple and straightforward paintjob here. It’s not a flashy model, and most of it’s interest comes from its cyclopean nature (and his named spot in the Orc’s Drift Scenario.) If it had two eyes, it wouldn’t even have a whole lot of that nostalgia-based “character” and would be a pretty unassuming and generic orc for the middle or back rank of some unit. Still, it’s another one down, and it’s enough of a curio that it gets it’s own blog entry today. It’d be pretty funny to use him in an AoS game, though – so I’ll have to do that whenever I get around to trying out the game.
Yeah, he's certainly got the pose and "feel" in common with the early Fimir, though there's a lot of interesting writing around their origins on the web:
Sadly I don't have any of the original Fimir, but I've got some of the FW ones around here somewhere. I was going to paint them to use as Ogre Berserkers in KoW, got them out, put them somewhere safe, and I don't think I've seen them since...
In other news, I got thinking about Terminators for the Iron Warriors. I've found two sets of CSM Terminators, and as I think I mentioned I may have a third (if I can find the Chaos Army box from 3.5). Plus original metals. I was holding off on turning any of those into IW, because I may need them for other CSM armies, so I started a list, Archer-style to work out what SM/CSM armies and smaller forces I actually plan to build - so I can then work out where to allocate those Chaos Terminator models..
I've worked out that there's basically going to be three tiers - "Armies", which will be decently large and have lots of mans and toys. "Detatchments" (not the 40k rules term), which will be 2-3 squads plus maybe a dreadnought and a character or three. Maybe one vehicle. And then "Squads" which will generally speaking be 1 or maybe 2 squads - they'll be rolled into other armies in practical terms and simply give me an excuse to paint something a bit different. So like an Imperial Fists squad assigned to fight alongside/as part of the Crimson Fists army.
There's also 30k and 40k, though I want to be able to use whatever 30k stuff in 40k, whenever I get around to playing it.
Traitor/Chaos Armies:
Sons of Horus Legion
Black Legion CSM (SoH variant)
(Traitor Raven Guard Blackshield CSM)
- Basically, a Black Legion splinter "Army" in SoH Legion colours rather than in black and gold. This is where I'll also throw random individuals or squads from CSM Legions that won't make the grade for full armies or even detachments.
Iron Warriors Legion
Iron Warriors Traitor CSM - "Legion" stuff will be played as CSM when needed - just the hardcore non-chaos corrupted, but "betrayed by the Emperor and Imperium and holding a huge grudge" element of the IW Legion.
Death Guard CSM/Traitor Legion
- I'll just mix everything together. Some guys will have MKIII in dirty green and white, some will be actual Plaguemarine models in greens and browns. Some will be Rogue Trader-era models. I think it'll look good/work.
Thousand Sons Legion
Thousand Sons Traitor CSM - Again, I'd like to have some in red with the and some in blue. Because I think both look awesome, and would look good on the table together.
Detatchments:
Word Bearers CSM/Traitor Legion
Alpha Legion Traitor CSM - Both of these guys have some cool looking models and I have some fun ideas for models, but I'm not interested in full, large armies. Word Bearers might end up with a lot of the really chaosy 40k models, while the Alphas have MKIV and a mixture of pre-heresy look along with some non-chaos-looking MKVII with some specific other markings on them..
Squads: World Eaters CSM Emperor's Children Legion Squads - sword guys and noise marines/kakophoni
Night Lords Raptors CSM (Black Legion)
Fallen Raven Guard Raptors
Basically, interesting bits and pieces. Some (WE? I have a fair few models!) might end up as more than a couple of squads or even detachment sized depending on model numbers, but I don't intend to make any of them especially big.
I've got no interest in the other traitor legions, or the Red Corsairs, or the Crimson Slaughter, or the.... and pretty much any original warbands I come up with would be incorporated into paint schemes for the above forces. I honestly don't have any interest in the Night Lords, but I've got that Captain/Champion model, so I may as well paint him a squad to go alongside - and probably a couple of raptors. But it'll be low on the priority scale.
Loyalist Armies:
Dark Angels Chapter (GW, DW, RW)
- I've got the core of a DA army already painted. I just need to rebase them, add some extra models to complete some squads, and then work out what to add.
Also, many models bought for DW and RW but unassembled/on sprue
Space Wolves Chapter
- I started a Long Fangs Squad long ago. I never finished them. I've also got lots of 2e metals and tons of mode recent plastics.
Mentor Legion
- My first 3e army. I need to print transfers and finish them, and then work out what to add.
Crimson Fists
- The eventual repository for a bunch of RT-era miniatures for a very RT-book feel. Plus some more modern extras with fists embossed on them.
Minotaurs
- Have been working on them a bit over the last year. I've got more resin bits to use, so I need to make more squads and paint.
Blood Angels Chapter } - Combined
Flesh Tearers }
Ultramarines Legion } - Combined
Ultramarines Chapter }
- Will include my original RT-era models and army, brought up to 2017/8 spec, and an attempt to un-feth the models I fethed up in my hubris about 10 years ago.
Grey Knights
Deathwatch
Black Templars
- That stuff is all pretty straightforward. I've got armies worth of the special snowflake models for all of the above, and so it's simply a matter of assembling, painting and in some cases, restoring and completing.
Detatchments:
Raven Guard Legion/Chapter Squads
Dark Angels Legion } - Combined
Fallen (Dark Angels) }
- I've got some RT-era models for this, that I've had earmarked as Fallen since the AoD codex in 2e, and just never gotten around to compelting. I'll supplement them with some HH models, probably the ones painted as DA Legion because that's what they'd look like...
Legion of the Damned
- I've got a squad or two of these guys painted. They need to be rebased, but I've also got lots of their specific models. Their rules are kinda a complete mess, though. Still, worth painting!
Squads:
Imperial Fist Squad(s)
- Will be added to the Crimson Fists as a painting variation.
Salamanders Legion/Chapter Squads
- No army, just a chance to paint some cool specific models. They might get bumped to small detachment based on the number of models.
Carcharodons
- Tyberos plus a squad or two. Mostly (all?) in MKV armour, because it fits them and looks very cool on them.
Astral Claws?
- Lufgt Huron model plus a squad or two. Again because they look cool.
Archer wrote: Plan looks solid. Would definitely look amazing when they are all grouped together.
It'll take a few years at this rate, I reckon. On the other hand, I'm at least getting gak done lately. And there's enough solid variety there to keep me interested for quite awhile...
angelofvengeance wrote: Speaking of Death Guard... you may wish to go check out the little YouTube video at the Warhammer Community page .
Yeah, I just saw that. I'm really starting to hate the "new" GW. The one we had 2-4 years ago was much, much cheaper for me.
It'll be impressive if I actually manage to start getting it done. Of course that doesn't count any of the other Imperium or Xenos forces, or the Fantasy/AoS ones, or the LotR, or the Historicals, or....
Januine wrote: Iron Warriors are looking fantastic man. Really great work
Thanks Jan. I'm going to get the Dread's base primed tomorrow so I can get to work on it, as well as a 10th for the Tactical squad who I've just built and another character model and the 2 vehicles I got back in the day. Nothing super-exciting, but I'll be happy to get the base of the force "completed". Then I can target another thing from the big list of Powered Armour above.
Following on from those dreadful greenskins, we have a pair of heroic dwarves. This time, another duo from the Stonehaven Miniatures Dwarf Kickstarter. These are the Dwarf Fighter (Female) and Dwarf Paladin (Male) – though let’s face it – either of the pair could fill either role.
As I’ve noted before, these aren’t the very best dwarf sculpts on the market, though they do fill in a nice alternative source of non-standard and RPG-ish dwarves with a solid old-school charm to them, along with enough character to endear them.
I’ve painted the pair of them with a touch of blue in their armour and similar enough blue cloth so that they can fit in with the Dwarves I’ve been painting for the KoW army. They also make a decent enough pair for any other RPG or adventure game. I kind of get a father-daughter vibe from the pair of them. The headstrong young dwarf woman and her grumpy old man father. Both quite adept in caving in the heads of greenskins.
Now I'm headed outside to spray some Iron Warriors Bits...
I really like those Dwarves! They would be very good for RPG purposes as they have plenty of character.
Also I'm jealous that you're able to go outside and spray prime right now. The weather where I'm at has warmed up nicely but for the last week or two there's been 15+ mph winds.
@ZS - Yeah, it gets really windy here quite often. I tend to prime and varnish n quick bursts when it briefly dies down when it's like that.
@nerdfest - thanks for the offer mate, but it seems it's Chaos Termies I'm short of, at least for the moment. I'll let you know if I'm short of loyalists at any point, though.
Another quite old model today – one of the 2-part Zoats for Warhammer Fantasy circa early 3rd Edition. There were at least three designs of the original Zoats – this one, the “Mage”. “The Warrior” with a mace-axe and also the original one-piece casting, which was a fair bit smaller. I’ve just read about the existence of a “Baby Zoat“, though I’m a little dubious, as the sculpt looks a little …modern? There are certainly more modern takes on the concept though, especially with the popularity of “Oldhammer”.
While the paint here is nothing special, this guy was actually painted back in the 1990’s, and I’ve learned enough by this time to know when to not strip down the models from my youth – especially when I’m sure I could find another on eBay if I want another go ’round. I don’t think it’s terrible – the drybrushing works on the rough, lizard-scaled skin, and I gave the more coarse scales on his back and flanks a slightly more pale/rough look. All I’ve done “today” was to tear him off the old green-flocked horse base and cut a slotta into a modern AoS-style cavalry base, and add some base clutter. I think it adds a huge amount to the presentation of this old model.
For anyone wondering “WTF is a Zoat?”, they were Bryan Ansell’s attempt to add some uniqueness to Warhammer, back in the early-ish days. Not a terrible motivation, especially given just how cribbed Warhammer is from everything else and how generic it was back in those days of 2nd and early 3rd edition. The story goes that the Design team of the day hated them and instead came up with the almost-as-ill-fated Fimir who were also lost and forgotten, but made a small, Forge World/Warhammer Forge comeback a few years ago. After all, what’s “Dark Fantasy” about a ripped, lizard-rhino-centaur sorcerer who looks he could tear the limbs off your torso without a second thought? Uh-huh.
Sure, the concept art looks a little goofy and weaksauce, but the models certainly don’t! It appears that the design team won out, and quite quickly as I cannot find the Fantasy Zoats listed in the old Catalogues at all, even the ’88 and ’89 catalogues list the Fimir, but no sign of the poor old Zoats! (Aside from the 40k ones.) Their genesis and demise is discussed briefly here as a side note to a discussion on Fimir. Worth a read.
I did at one point have the 40k Zoat models, which were tied in as larger Tyranid creatures and which recycled the same body piece as the fantasy models, though I thought they were fairly poor executions of the superior-looking fantasy versions, I do at this stage wish I hadn’t traded them away back in the mid-90’s. In fact, after writing the previous sentence, I took a moment to have a quick look, and in a couple of weeks now, I should have two of the three 40k models arriving in my lap. So that’s going to be a thing, then.
Love the nostalgia kick and history lesson! Zoats I first discovered were the 40k variety whilst reading Ian Watson's 'Space marine' that pivotal Novel that firmly entrenched my mindset in this hobby and I still have a hope that the Zoat will make a return perhaps with the Genestealer cults?
That sculpt for its age is actually pretty good, details are clean and the musculature looks imposing, i'll be waiting for your next 'toys' to arrive.
Thanks guys! I'm also hopeful to see them brought back in some form or another. I've got plans to work out a card for WQ:ST for that very Zoat model. Eventually.
Dark Elf Assassins, WHFB 7th Edition Khainite Dark Elf Assassin #2, 4th Edition WHFB Dark Elf Assassin, 1995
The two models being shared today are a pair that have been around for some time. The older model on the right, skulking with the rather chunky sword is from WHFB 4th Edition, circa 1995 – just when huge chunks of WHFB were getting a bit too chunky and Morley. I never especially liked this model, having picked him up to use with my 3rd Edition Blood Bowl Dark Elf team (which I still haven’t painted) and so he sat in limbo for… you know… twenty years. (feth, I am getting old!)
The much nicer model on the left is from 7th Edition. Apparently known as Khainite Assassin #2. I probably got him secondhand from eBay as well, and Stuff of Legends becomes useless the further into the 2000’s you head. He’s pretty clearly the precursor to the current plastic kit of an Assassin (Shadowblade?) leaping off a spire-rock because dynamic posing.
Despite being purchased for Blood Bowl, this guy had actually gotten to the point of being almost-painted. I’d painted him with D&D/Pathfinder in mind, and so he had been given dark blue (Drow) skin, and deep red-browns for his leather gloves and boots. When he got reassigned to the Dark Elf army, I needed to redo the deep blue shading I’d started on his cloak with a more sea green, and change his leathergoods to Aqua/Turquoise shades – and obviously redo his face as well.
Nothing fancy on his cloak. He’s an assassin, after all – and his cloak is there for practical purposes. I think the Turquoise shades have worked better than the dark blues that were there originally, and having come up this pleasingly, I know of some other purposes I’ll be using the same highlights in the near-ish future. The flowers are a feature that I intend to use on figures from all of my Elven armies, which will be a small, unifying factor across the Dark, High and Wood brethren. Despite my snide remarks about Gary Morley, this model is actually an Aly Morrison sculpt.
The second model was started way back in 2013, shortly after we moved into this place and long before The War Room was converted into such, featuring a light box. A much more dynamic model, but without going to the point of ridiculousness, it was also a pleasure to paint – and the impetus for the repaint on the older model as well. I’m not 100% sure of the sculptor (Chris Fitzpatrick?), since GW stopped crediting their artists by this point. If anyone knows for sure, please do LMK and I’ll edit it in! Since he’s a 7th Edition figure, and GW released most of the models for an army alongside the Warhammer Armies volume, I’d say he’s pretty safely a 2008 release.
Having said that, the two of them sat on my painting desk for literally years until earlier this month, when I looked at the pair of them, each three-quarters-painted and made myself pull my finger out and get them both done. Which I managed to do in a very reasonable amount of time. That’s the trouble – I’m not playing Warhammer or KoW, etc very much at all these days, and so then my desk is covered in models – none of which have a particular pressing “need” to get finished and so I flit between a few minutes on this or that, and taking the 30 minutes or hour to finish a particular model or two becomes “too hard”, despite the pleasure that comes from completing a model.
Most of my Fantasy work over 2016 was focused on the Undead and Gondor armies – both of which now have tons of painted models and units, yet have tons still unpainted and unassembled – and two units of cavalry each half-painted). This year, I’ve made inroads on getting a Dwarf force to the point of functionality while mucking about with Orcs. I’ve got to get some lists written up again and focus on completing units to have more “finished” fantasy armies for Kings of War. Maybe then I can have the Elves up and running, even if only as a combined, pan-Elven force to start with.
In the meantime, if we need a Druchii or Drow Assassin for anything, at least we’re covered…
You can play KoW without as many models, though. When my son and I play, we generally use standard size movement trays but put only half as many minis on each. If you take one wound, you replace a mini with a casualty (or lie him down if you don't have a casualty mini).
Our main reason for the tweak is practicality -- most of our minis are on round bases for aesthetic reasons, and you can't fit the full amount on a standard size KoW movement tray...
I actually like the older assassin slightly better than the new, though I agree that his sword doesn't look very subtle.
Llamahead wrote: KoW maybe isn't the best game to aim for to begin with due to the huge model count.....Maybe try for Dragon Rampant or something then move up to KoW?
I've got a Pan-Elven army built (and tons more models unbuilt/not started), they're just not especially finished. A lot is 3/4 painted, some is completed, some is undercoated black and blu-taced to movement trays. As I complete more Wood/Dark/High Elf models, I'll slowly move towards splitting them into three distinct armies.
These are the "big" armies I've got built and painted so far, though these pics are 9 months out of date. More pics if you click the pics.
Like Ian, I have my models based on round 25mm bases, though I just fit 12 onto a normal movement tray, which is legit as far as the official rules go anyway, and besides, I'm not playing in any tourneys! I just use a D10/12/20 to keep track of wounds.
I'm probably going to do a lot more on 40k models in the coming months - as well as finishing off various models on the desk - so there won't be a lot more in terms of Elves for a little while. Maybe I'll finally finish off those Swordmasters and Halberdiers Units, though...
evildrcheese wrote: Nice work on everything. You sure do seem to get through a lot of stuff between the times I drop in.
EDC
Thanks mate - I had a really productive January (off work), so between that and painting new stuff (and making myself finish things!) I've worked up a decent little backlog of stuff to show off.
Cheers mate. Now I need to get them onto the table more now - and do something like that to some of my 40k forces.
Speaking of my 40k forces, can you say 2nd Edition with me? Can you say 1990’s? Can you say mining old blog posts for recycled content? *cough* Well, as I noted above, I’ve actually still got plenty of new stuff ready to show after I pull the photos from the camera, and go through the resize-and-crop process, but I was looking at the Detolf I have in the room where I do my painting and spotted this guy – and realised that the last (and only) time I showed this figure was on the Wordpress blog 7 years ago, when I made a total of 9 posts and had fewer viewers for the year than I have in 2 weeks today. That was also a solid three years before I started this Plog - So… not many people will have seen this one, comparatively.
This fine fellow is (was) a Slaaneshi/Emperor’s Children Champion. Converted many years ago for me by Dave M. The base is a Kharn the Betrayer body, with a 2nd-gen Daemonette claw (the only thing that range of Daemonettes were good for, in my opinion), a head from same and a RT-era Chaos Terminator weapon arm – the original Chaos Autocannon – which looked similar enough to one of the 2nd-Gen Sonic Blasters once the chaos skull shoulder pad was glued onto the base of it – from back when such things could be taken by Slaaneshi Champions. Backpack is from the metal Ahriman of the day.
In current terms, he’d probably be a Chaos Lord, Mark of Slaanesh, Shriekwave or Bolts of Ecstatic Vexation to represent the Sonic Blaster, Power Fist or Lighting Claw for the crab claw… I imagine it’d probably be a terribly inefficient combination, but all I can say to that is Second Edition, Rule of Cool, and Who Cares? 8th Is Almost Upon Us Anyway.
Painted in 2009, when I’d just gotten back into painting miniatures after a bit of a hiatus, these photographs were actually taken back in 2010. The only additon since then being a tuft of grass and a tuft of flowers – things not easily accessible back in the day. I certainly didn’t have any, anyway!
Looking back at this figure now, I feel like I might have overdone the pastel colours – I’d skip the baby blue and the pale green tassels. By the same token, I’m happy enough with the paintwork on this figure and… I guess respect it enough to feel no need at all to back in and touch it up. I actually added Prince’s “Love Symbol” as the shoulder badge, though it can’t be seen here. I thought it looked quite cool and felt the Androgynous nature of the symbol to be appropriate for this particular champion of Slaanesh. I’ll take a pic later and add it in (it’s 7am and rainy here atm!)
Anyway – I hope you enjoyed this blast from my past!
I really, really like the posing on that figure. posing is one of, if not the, most important factors in taking a conversion from good to great. Very dynamic and I love the classic Daemonette claw.
Thanks, I can't take credit for the posing, though I agree that Dave did a great job on this guy - and yes, it's a very '90's miniature. I need to work my way through all those '90's special characters that have been sitting around for all these years.
Today's model is the Reaper Bones Hydra, from their first Kickstarter. This model is one that I started about 14 months ago. I wanted it to work decently both as a display model as well as a wargaming piece. I used a few pieces of slate, carefully placed, including a nice sized piece in order to elevate the model - both literally and figuratively. During the process of painting this model and the time that it spent sitting on my desk waiting for some attention, I noticed that the heads of this Bones hydra tend to get a bit lost amongst one another.
These first two photographs serve well to illustrate a couple of things about how Games Workshop/Citadel paint and pose their multi-headed models. Workshop seem to either carefully split the heads, avoiding having any in almost-identical side-by-side poses as the two rear ones on the Bones model are. With other models, such as Archaon, GW design their models specifically to have the heads painted in different colours or styles - which again helps them to stand out from one another. Which isn't to say that this sculpt, by Sandra Garrity is a bad one. Just that the way that the model is posed compared to other, more recent models which are sculpted perhaps it's fair to say - with the finished, painted product more in mind became apparent. I think simply changing the pose of either the middle rear or middle left head head/neck would elevate this model further.
I've been painting for a long time now, and I've been able to turn out things to a nice standard for a lot of that time. I was commission painting when I was 16, and at 18 I won Best Figure and Best 40k figure at Cancon. (Before they gave trophies, unfortunately - assuming that they do now? I got a pair of certificates which are well lost at this point.) While that's all well and good, what it really means is that as a painter I hit my plateau pretty early, and improving further from there has been a long, slow process.
Since I started blogging again as a way to share my models and motivate me to paint more, I've also been trying to improve and add new skills to my bow. Part of that is risk-taking and experimenting with new methods, materials and techniques. I have more than one of these models, since Bones 1 was in the days I went quite heavy on Kickstarters. Knowing that I had another one up my sleeve allowed me the freedom to try something I probably would not ordinarily have tried - that is instead of painting the Hydra in a shade of green, or even a turquoise/teal that fits my overall Dark Elf scheme, I went for what I wanted to be more naturalistic browns. I also played around with my airbrush (which I am awful with!) to try and achieve some nice looking gradients. While that actually worked(!), I felt that the rather deep scales sculpted onto this model demanded more contrast since the airbrushing was so smooth and the sculpted scales didn't stand out at all.
A Dark Elf provides a comparison for our scale shot.
My (attempted) solution - which in my opinion didn't work well - and is the reason that the model then spent a year (or two?) sitting on my desk unfinished until recently was to try a mix of Minitaire's Airbrush Paints - specifically, their Ghost Tints. I've used them before, though never on a model this size. Now coming to the model for the first time and seeing it finished in these pics, it might look fine to the reader. But you know when you have a picture in your head about how you'd like something to look? Now imagine that, and imagine it coming along nicely, and then imagine it all coming undone once it dries. Now if I'd gone for Oil Washes, I probably could have removed it all due to the way that oil paints dry much more slowly and can still be removed and cleaned up with spirits.
I think the base worked out well, but in the end, the model fell short of what I'd envisioned for it. Could I go back and try to fix it up and redo elements of the model? Sure, but at the same time, I have another one to paint that would be a better use of my time than repainting this one, and my enthusiasm for this particular model waned to the point where it literally sat in front of me for over a year before I made myself finish it off. Sometimes you've just got to call something good enough for what it is, and call it done. In the end, the model looks decent and perfectly fine for a wargaming model.
In gaming terms, the model will have a home in the Pan-Elven army to start with (using the Dark Elf/Twilight Kin list), and eventually find a home with the Mythological Greek Army.
Mythological Greek Army? Oh yeah the Spartans. I'm planning on one of those when Mythic Battles Pantheon finally drops. The Hydra looks good and naturalistic to me a "sciency" dinosaur book illustrationr rather than a kiddy one.....
Yeah, I was going for a more natural look rather than a typical bright Warhammer dragon/monster look. I only got about 70% of what I'd pictured, but maybe what I pictured didn't work well with this particular sculpt.
The Mythological Greeks are kind of back-burner army, (and yes, a huge bump when Mythic arrives) and I need to get more actual Greeks finished, but this is what I have so far - aside from the Hydra:
Yep, originally I was going to patchwork them together from whichever army lists for KoW, but now I'll patchwork them together from whichever army lists plus the KoW Historical Ancient Greeks list.
So I sold my Imperial Fists and bought everything I needed to do a full Minotaurs army now. so would you mind just dialing in a little more of yours so I can get inspired again! :-)
Yes, believe it or not, these rather weedy little fellows were originally sold as Orc Champions. From the old WHFB days when command group blisters included a Standard, Musician, Champion and a Leader. From the 1988 catalogue, who we have here are two of #13 Champion and #14 Champion. They were obviously sculpted by Kev Adams once he had started to hit his stride with the consistent Warhammer Orc style that pretty much continues to this day. The days of experimentation with really weird concepts were now over. Not counting what they did with squigs for everything in 2nd Edition 40k, at least…
The interesting thing (possibly the only interesting thing) about these sculpts is that they share a “base” model with the troopers from the RTB02 Space Ork Raiders boxed set, which was the first ever Space Ork boxed set for 40k, also released in 1988.
I painted the duplicates of #13 with slightly different coloured gear, and different shields. I do intend to use several different styles to paint my orcs’ green skin over time, and a more coherent plan would have had me hold off painting one of them now to do later with a different shade of green, but frankly there are so many of these figures to do, that doing near-identical figures in pair or trios is simply much more efficient in getting me to actually start and finish the models. As in, I’m great at starting models, but not quite as good at finishing them off. The more complex something becomes, the longer it lingers on the desk – and regular readers will have seen how often I write about figures that got started months, years or even more than a decade ago before being finished. I don’t need to add to that particular pile more than I already do…
Now that they’re done, they’ll be dropped into the small but slowly-growing “unit” of old-school orcs that I have, and be used in KoW, AoS or whatever else I happen to be playing that needs some less-imposing orcs.
At some point in the past when reading the 3rd edition Codex Battlezone: Cityfight and Codex: Catachans, I became taken with the idea of making some cool looking booby traps for 40k. I know it was around the era of the Battle for Macragge and when we were living in the rental at Carlisle.
Anyway, I got inspired, and got started. Then later I got distracted. Then we had to move, and like so much, this stuff got boxed up again for years. When we moved in here, they came out again, but got lost in the shuffle until a few weeks ago, when I spied them on the desk and had one of those “just finish those fething things” moments, so I bumped them to the front of the queue and did just that.
The idea behind both of these models is that explosives have been placed behind an object, and a servo-skull has been programmed to watch and wait until the enemy is close enough, and then detonate, probably annihilating itself in the process. Another glorious sacrifice to the God-Emperor.
These make a nice 40k-accompaniment to the Minefield that I sorted out a couple of years ago. I guess I can also get some use out of them if I ever manage to get back into Necromunda/Inq28munda/Shadow War Armageddon. Honestly, I can’t remember the rules for this sort of thing, so I imagine I’d probably need another 4-6 of them to work as “counters” to allow some of them to be actual booby traps and some to be dummies. If I have to make some more, I certainly hope I can get the damned things done a hell of a lot faster!
Shadow War is a bit of a sore point right now. I'd planned to pick up 2 copies this week and possibly a third or fourth etc down the line, but we got royally screwed there! I'm hoping that they reissue it, but in the meantime I'll probably pick up an *ahem* digital copy of the rules because I'm pretty pissed off with how they handled it when I wanted to throw money at them. I like to buy the actual books and boxed sets, so it's annoying.
Having said all that, I'll probably do a few more of these. I just need to think of ways to make them look interesting and unique. How many do you need to use as counters in these things? I've forgotten.
And now for some models - Another small post in my slow burn Viking project. Just a pair of axemen today.
These guys are essentially a pair of the guys that we use to fill out units. Nothing terrible nor anything special about them. Armed with axes and shields, the most noteworthy thing on them is the halved shield on the one. Sometime ago, I read something about how Vikings and others of the period would paint the designs on their shields in a way that the lines of the paintwork were “off” from the lines of the actual planks of wood that were used to create their shields. This in turn meant that enemies would not know where to aim blows on a shield to be able to split it – as that would be bad for your defence.
Similarly, this pair have no emblems or knotwork on their shields – just plain halving and quartering. Some guys have to have the plain shields so the more fancy ones stand out, and that’s the job of these fellows. Similarly, their clothing is mostly in muted earth tones, and even the red shirt is a deep, earthy. browny red. (yeah, I know reds would have been much more pale, but hey!)
At work a while back we discussed something similar about the prehistoric habit of having dress metal shields and real working wood and leather shields. Saw a saxon shield boss recently with a triskelion worked into it beautiful bronze detail.
Vikings provide “human scale”, while the side-by-by-side of the tents shows their own size variation.
By now, regular readers will know of my fondness for scatter terrain and especially terrain that is reasonably generic, so that it can be used in a variety of settings. With that in mind, and an eye to “fill in” a bit of a hole in my scenic collection, I picked up a set of Renedra’s Saxon Tents and 2 sets of Mixed Tents awhile back, in June of last year. This combination of purchases giving me two of each tents open, and two closed – enough for a couple of small camps or one large non-uniform encampment.
I finally decided to get them done and batch painted them during January, with a base of cream spray paint, drybrushes of bone, a spray of Plastic Soldier Company’s weathering spray and an alcohol wipe-off, another drybrush and some brown lining for tent flaps, and then doing the pegs. Pretty simple overall, but unfortunately they came out a fair bit more yellowed than I’d planned. I went for a yellowish linen because again – I wanted them to be generic rather than tied to Vikings or Saxons or WWII GIs or whomever. For the same reason, I declined to base them. This way I can lay them down on whatever tabletop surface I’m playing on and they’ll still look decent. Here they are on the Badlands Mat I recently reviewed.
A feral and savage wolfpack attacks a Viking encampment.
Insert “Who let the dogs out?” joke here.
Just a couple of shots showing them set up on a table. I actually remembered to add in the little campfires here as well.
They are really nice, and yes, look useful for all sorts of settings. I like the colour you've ended up with, even if it's not quite what you originally intended
Great-looking tents. I've been eyeing those on the Renedra website for a while and may well pick some up having seen what you've done with them.
The Orc champions are lush, too! I always worry about trying to convert identical minis so they no longer look identical, but you seem to manage to make them look distinctive enough just by swapping a shield and tweaking the paint job slightly. Very impressive.
Thank you guys. As for the Orcs and conversions - usually I'm the same in terms of wanting to convert identical models. (See below) it's just that in the case of such old, OOP models, I'm really hesitant to cut them up - As I used to do without a thought at the time they they were current! In fact, at the time my thought process on anything I wanted to convert was "one to keep pristine, one to convert".
On the other hand, if something is still current, or there's no problem getting access to them, I'm more than happy to convert and kitbash:
Today we have a couple more of Kev Adams' Orcs that I've recently painted. These figures are from the 1992-93 period, or the early days of WHFB 4th edition.
Unlike the big'uns that I painted a little while ago and placed on 32mm bases, these figures fit nicely on standard 25mm bases.
I've painted them to broadly match the other Orcs I've been painting recently. Once again, the grinning goblin-faced shield is from the Warhammer Fantasy Regiments plastic boxed set from early 3rd edition. I haven't got a lot of other commentary on them for the time being. A couple more orcs for the pile!
Back in 2014 I painted up a batch of the walls that came with Rackham’s Plastic Confrontation starter sets. A couple of months ago, I found a few more walls inside some sets I hadn’t noticed the first time, so I got them out and put them in a box. And then forgot/lost them for months, then found them, let them sit there for more months, and just recently made myself get them done.
Pretty simple to do – Spray paint grey, then a few layers of drybrushing various greys culminating in an off-white. Add some weathering powder, then a heavy varnish of gloss, then matt to ensure solid protection.
A Viking, a Space Marine and a Dwarf (walk into a bar) all provide scale and show how well such generic scenery works with figures across the gaming spectrum. I really need to get some WW2 and/or Moderns painted up to join in on these sorts of scale pics.
As with the last set, the complete lot of them has four “full” walls and four of the broken down walls. Obviously this is just five of the eight in this set. I’ll get some proper photos of the full set combined with the previous set up shortly.
I frickin love scatter terrain! and everyone Else's always seems to look better than mine! this is not fair by any means and I will need to remedy the situation!
Very nice mate. I have those tents as well, the mini camp beds don't quite seem long enough, but they make for a great scene on the table. Would be good to see some pics of the gaming table next time you play, if you get a chance.
Yeah, I remember your stance on old school minis that are out of production. I tend to agree -- it's made me somewhat regret taking some of my 80s Citadel minis and give them different weapons to make them more useful for Inquisitorial retinues...
Loving the simple but effective work on the wall pieces. I have a load of work to do on my Frostgrave table so will be trying out the weathering powder idea, which I'd not thought of for scenery before for some reason.
Thanks guys. Yep, I’ve had a real focus on getting my battlefields sorted this year, and scatter terrain is something that really adds those little details in and around the larger centrepiece bits of scenery. Not much you can do about chopping up you've done int he past, Ian. And I guess a lot of them can still be found on eBay if you're so inclined, so I don't stress about most of the figures I chopped up back in the day (except for that Chaos Warrior Bear Centaur). I just try not to chop the old figures up these days, unless they're broken - in which case have at it!
Speaking of scatter terrain, a year (or two? three? I seem to lose track so easily!) or so ago I got a whole bunch of resin scenery bits along with some secondhand models from a local guy (not Damo, this time!) As seems to always happen, I put some of the terrain away to one side with the intention of quickly painting them up, and then naturally lost track of where I’d put the damned things for literally months. Over my Christmas/Summer break – which is when I tend to like doing scenery due to good spraying and drying weather along with time off work, I found them again and this time got them out and knocked them out. Mostly drybrushing with greys, painting the metal parts and then painting Army Painter Dip over the lot before a matt varnish.
Here they are “in action” on my Urbanmatz Badlands Mat, alongside my Imperial Guard, along with the recently-painted Sedition Wars barricades and crates. Yep, I’ve had a real focus on getting my battlefields sorted this year, and scatter terrain is something that really adds those little details in and around the larger centrepiece bits of scenery. These also work as a nice denial-of-area set, and by not basing them, they can work on any table and are completely modular in terms of deployment options.
I’m not sure who the manufacturer of these is. They look like they might be OOP Forge World pieces(?) but I haven’t been able to confirm. They could just as easily be from one of the many other UK or Polish scenery outfits. Either way, they’re pretty nice looking and fit 40k very well, and could probably even pass muster for a historical or moderns game. If you squint a little.
- Update! Thanks to Dr.Mathias and also Richard Cowen via Wordpress for pointing out that they’re actually Secret Weapon Miniatures‘ Gothic Tank Traps. Which is great since I now know where I can get more, and also now you know where to get some from!) Either way, they’re pretty nice looking and fit 40k very well, and could probably even pass muster for a historical or moderns game. If you squint a little.
Thanks gents - and thanks to Dr.Mathias for the info on the tank traps' origin. I've updated my Wordpress entry on them, given you and the person there who pointed it out credit and also linked to Justin's pages. And now I can potentially buy more of them...
@Archer - Not having them based means that can be bumped around a little, but also they're much easier to store and fit in well on any type of terrain/table. Hell, you could have them up on a walkway if you wanted to!
@Nerdfest - thanks mate, though I'm not sure how cool it could be!
@Josh & Slinky - it still exists. It's nothing special though. It's an early conversion made and painted when I was a late teenager or perhaps just hitting 20 or so. It's been sitting in a kind of limbo as I've been unsure of what to do with it. Not bad enough to bin but not good enough to show off. Maybe I'll post it up and see what the consensus is on whether I should rebuild it with a new Chaos Warrior on the Bear parts, try to rework the join or simply rebase it and leave it be...
Anyway - more models!
As I steam (or limp) towards the end of my collection of metal slayers, we have two of the last four Marauder ones – unless I find more in a baggie or box that have been there for years or buy some more off eBay in that never-ending search for “at least one of each sculpt”.
I think I might have gone a little too faded on the tattoos on this pair, particularly Mr.Redstripes.
The second model seems a little goofy to me. Goofier than normal, then. Or worse proportions than normal. Still, put him in a crowd or view him from standing-gamer height and he looks fine.
I gave his kilt (or short skirt) the same tartan that Rowdy Roddy Piper used in his heel heyday against Hulk Hogan during the first Wrestlemania. I’ve used it before on a WarZone figure that I evidently never photographed – I’ll have to fix that shortly. Anyway, it’s simple and effective from a distance. Probably the reason that Hot Rod used it back in the day.
One more pair to go and the Marauder Slayers are done! Then it’s full-pelt into the ’93-94 Giant Slayers, then the character models, then the AoW characters, then…. well, that’s still to be decided…
Those Marauder Slayers are kind goofy-looking, but it's hard to articulate exactly why. Didn't the Citadel slayers have sore of evil grins on their faces? That might be it-- these guys don't seem quite so twisted. Still, you did a great job on them, particularly the stripey pants.
Here we have the only two of the Eeza Ugezod’s Mother Crushers that I managed to paint over the years, since purchasing them back in the late 1980’s. The motivation for painting them was actually my Blood Bowl team (Da Blak Flag) – which then became the name of my Orc Army/Tribe. Hence there’s a bit of appropriate iconography on his Black Flag.
Aside from obviously rebasing them onto 32mm round bases from their previous 25mm squares, there’s been a little bit of touch up. Dulling down some of the excessive colour, as I did some time ago with my other Regiment of Renown unit – Golfag’s (Golgfag’s) Ogres. Note the ogres also have the Black Flag iconography, since my Ogres were originally bought and painted to be part of the Orcish army. The slightly awkward twin moons on the top of the banner were originally painted in yellow – you know, how most Orc & Goblin moons are painted in that stylised manner. Unfortunately, they looked like a pair of bananas awkwardly perched on top of the banner. I repainted them in a silver-grey, though a beaten copper could also have looked good and appropriate. The skulls were also repainted from an overly-dark yellow-brown.
The musician with cymbals had similar treatment – overly bright pants toned down, and a bit of edge highlighting added to his instruments.
I thought I’d throw in a group shot of all the orcs I’ve completed recently. Not quite an army, or even a proper unit for Kings of War yet, but a reasonable little gang so far, and there’s enough here to cause a little bit of bother using the AoS rules. I should dig out the rest of the Mother Crushers and get them painted, I guess. So much to paint, though…
Lovely band of Orcs there. At some point you need to set up a showdown between those guys and all the Slayers you've painted over the last few months and take some action shots of that!
That band of orcs makes me all fuzzy inside. Those minis jut ooze charm. I've been tempted by the recent Kev Adams green skin Kickstarters (think there's a hobgoblin one atm?) but it's hard to justify buying them when I have no real use for them, no matter how lovely they are...
Btw Az, I would love to see some bigger display set ups from you, like a whole table worth of terrain covered in lovely minis... obviously that's a ton of work, but maybe someday!
Para - I do have that planned. A few more Slayers to finish up first, though. I think the Orcs will need backup...
Mymearan - I'll set up something down the line with proper, attractive shots of the figures - probably when I have a week off in June/July. The trouble is I have limited height-modifying terrain at the moment, and very little in the way of centrepiece terrain built/painted. Anyway, here's a couple of shots I took for Batreps that I never ended up writing. The first is from a SAGA game from ages ago where the Orcs were Vikings and the Gondor guys were... Welsh? I think? The second is from a learn-the-rules AoS game using the GHB from a couple of weeks ago. I think we used forces that were too large for the LTR focus of the game, and by the time we got to the second session I was SO tired of prompting my opponent for the rules for her guys that all passion for writing a BatRep had gone. We got to the end of Turn 4 and I called the game, it turned out that on both sides we still had some of the nastiest units pretty much intact. A bit of stuff in that photo I haven't blogged about yet, as well...
It's one of the reasons I'm not that interested in AoS. Lots of individual special rules for every single unit annoys me I prefer the USR system where I don't need to know individual special rules for dozens of different units but instead about half a dozen rules which are applied in different combinations.
I have to say, it wasn't the AOS unit special rules' fault for the most part. There are so many times you can tell your opponent "you hit on threes, wound on fours, please just roll the fething dice" before it wears thin...
Today’s models come from Descent: Journeys in the Dark 1st Edition. I picked it up secondhand several years ago, when I heard about how great a game it was, blurring the lines between RPG and miniatures boardgame. Shortly afterwards, the Second Edition came out, though I did pick up the official conversion kit, I’ve never gotten around to playing either of the things yet.
A month or so I got the idea to paint the Giant Spiders out of the 1e box. While I was poking around in there, I found these Hellhounds. Figuring that they’d paint up pretty quickly, I ended up putting the Spiders back and working on these instead. They didn’t take too long to get done, and being pretty rough figures I wan’t going to knock myself out over getting the absolute best paintjobs on them, either. Tabletop is good enough!
Descent uses two different “types” of each monster: “White” ones, which are normal, or trooper-types and “Red” ones which are champion-level and tougher. So the sculpts come in two colours of plastic – Red and White (actually, more of a cream, but I digress). In order to be able to identify the two types, I painted the “White” ones with brighter orangey-red and red-to-yellow flame-fur, while the “Red” ones were painted in a slightly deeper, darker red and have yellow-to-black flame-fur. Enough to distinguish them when needed, but close enough that they still work in a pack for other games.
Speaking of other games, I knocked up a multi-base for them so that they can be used as a regiment in Kings of War. They’d be used as Proxy Hellhounds in my Khorne Chaos Daemons army, which in turn will be using the Forces of the Abyss/Hellhounds entry. Which I’ve just noticed while looking it up to write this only come in units of 5. And naturally, this base is made for a nominal unit of 10. Feck. That’s annoying, especially as they’re actual Hellhounds. Though the Mantic models also come on pissy little 25mm bases from Dungeon Saga, so perhaps the more appropriate proxy entry for these models will actually be a regiment of Abyssal Horsemen.
Not seen any of the Descent models before - I think you've made the best of them, agree they probably aren't worth more than a "tabletop" job, but with the basing and the movement tray they look decent
Love those battle report pics Az and very much looking forward to more. Can't say I'm a fan of those hellhound models but you at least improved them with that paint job.
Thanks guys, and yeah, those Descent models are simply tabletop quality paintjobs, which is all those models are worth - but at least they'll look better than bare plastic when I do play the game.
Those of you who are regular readers may have noticed I've not been posting for a bit. The short version why is that after several months of lining up a post every two days, I burnt out on blogging for awhile and needed a break. So anyway, I've still been painting, I'm back again, and I'll attempt to get a post up at least once and ideally twice a week again. During my "time off" I haven't really been following others' blogs, either here on Dakka or over on Wordpress, excepting the odd WP one that pops in my inbox. I've been reading through the 8th edition 40k threads, which has quickly added at least 5 more people to my ignore list. feth there are some dumb and entitled fethers in those threads. I'll catch up on the blogs here where it's nicer, but I have been finding that just keeping up to date on other people's work takes a good few hours each week, and when you're tired anyway it can become quite draining. I'll catch up guys, just give me some time.
Anyway, enough of my bitching and on to why people actually visit this plog. Models!
Well, one model.
What we have here is the Ninja model from Talisman: Adventure, circa 1986. I picked this model up in the deep dark mists of time alongside several others that never got painted (or finished at least), including the TL9 Talisman Troll, who has also been showcased here a couple of years ago. Let's face it, I probably got them all off Dave (who I still haven't managed to track down!)
Nothing especially exciting about the paint scheme here. I've gone for black highlighted with blue instead of grey because that's how blending in at night works, and painted his blade with a couple of dark metal tones from Vallejo. I've avoided the "highlight to white" look, because as awesome as it can be on other people's figures, it's generally not my own chosen look outside of hard armour edges on Marines, Eldar and such. There's a sort-of zenithal thing going with more highlighting on his shoulders and hood than his lower half, but unfortunately for these photos, the satin varnish I chose to use on this model - which gives the model a really nice, subtle, look in hand - makes him look like he's been swimming in gloss varnish in these photos, so these things are much harder to see here.
There's not much else to add about this guy. He's a Ninja model from an old edition of a game I'm not likely to spend much time with, because (despite owning almost all of the GW2e and most of the FFG stuff) Talisman is bloody tedious - and more a way to burn away an afternoon talking and such before deciding to pack it away unfinished than a good game, especially by today's board game standards. With that in mind, it's pretty much a figure that might be pulled out for the odd RPG or custom miniatures scenario, like that Scooby-Doo 7TV one I've had in my head for the past several years. Or... Imperial Assassin, anyone? Still, done is done!
Yet another model I have never seen. I have fond memories of Talisman as the game we played to kill time waiting for the enemy player to finish his turns in a game of WHFBv2. I suspect most of that fondness is nostalgia.
Yeah, there's not a whole lot of color (or place to feasibly put color) on ninjas. I think he looks good. I found Talisman made an okay Steam game and a once ever only as a board game. There's easily a hundred games out there that do the same thing better.
Oooh I do love it when you get snarky! :-) but at any rate I'm glad you are still doing hobby stuff, burn out is a thing that effects all of us and it's the edge where some claw back into it while some jump off and never return! you I think just needed a break.
Thanks guys. I agree that the Steam/PC/Mobile version of Talisman is probably a better actual game in many respects, simply by virtue of the boardgame bar on those platforms being so much lower (and solo). One reason for my burnout was having such a backlog of stuff to show that I pretty much needed to post really frequently to get it all out there. I didn't even get all of that done. Of course, in my month off, I've increased that backlog even more, so...
Today we have the next couple of figures from my Viking project.
I'm not sure of the origin of three of these models, as once again I got them from Cannon at work. They're smaller than the Foundry models, so I know that much. As per usual, painting the shields was one of the more enjoyable parts of these models, despite being a slow process of researching appropriate designs that look good and are achievable. The guy on the left is my first attempt at painting knotwork at this scale, within the arms of the cross. I also figured I probably needed at least one more Raven shield in the mix, so there's that as well.
The figure with the knotted cross on his shield is actually a conversion. Cannon had replaced the original head with the one with braids and domed helm, and also sculpted the fur cloak over his shoulders. He'd also changed the weapon to the (plastic) axe. If you can't tell it's a conversion, it speaks to what a good job he did with it. It looks pretty seamless to me!
Clothing colours are always hard for me with these Viking figures. Wanting to strike a balance between clean, colourful clothes (as we believe they favoured) with not getting too bright and "90's Games Workshop" and being aware of the limitations of the natural dyes of the day, and the fact that they (naturally) faded over time, while wanting to retain some earthy tones in there, which would have presumably been the colours of majority of the easily-produced cloth... We know that for much of history, reds and purples were signs of wealth - especially strong tones. Blondie here obviously spent most of his money on his luxurious crimson cloak!
The lad looking a little mode berserker-ish here than the others, with the honking great axe is from Eureka Miniatures' Beowulf line. I mentioned the fur that was sculpted on the guy with the knotwork shield above; I think he'd also sculpted the fur on baldy here as well. I honestly can't remember since he's been undercoated and WIP for so long now, but I remember a couple of them had sculpted fur on them, and without knowing their origin to look them up to check, I really cannot tell. Update! - It turns out not, as "baldy" is actually Gripping Beast's own Jarl Sigvaldi, Jomsviking Hero. Are any of the other models I have here amongst the three hearthguard that he comes with? I have no way of knowing since, uselessly, Gripping Beast's website doesn't show them at all.
Obviously one of these guys is well suited to the Berserker role, while the other is set up more nicely to be a Hearthguard. I was in two minds on going so bright with the blue cloak, but decided that he looked like a veteran of many battles who would in turn have earned enough wealth for a nice looking cloak.
Finally, the group shot of this small cohort of axemen. More vikings to come, soon!
I was outside yesterday evening taking some photos of models I've finished recently. When I came inside and started moving photos off the camera to crop, I noticed quite a few photos that I'd taken for posts before my little break. So I'm going to share a couple of these first. As it happens, there's so much stuff between the stuff I still hadn't shown, game mats to review, and the models I've painted in my month off from blogging I'll have to go back to posting every two days again just to have a chance to get through them! I guess I could post up models 10 at a time or something, but I much prefer to show them in smaller numbers, which is closer to how I actually get things painted - in groups of 1-4 at a time - outside of the occasional whole-unit batch like the BFSP Dwarves or the Spartans from last January.
More stripey trousers and[/url] swirly tattoos. On one hand, it's just what I do with Slayers. On the other hand it does get a bit boring after awhile, so I'm tending to try and figure out ways to make them a little different in each pair. Here we have slightly wider and slightly narrower blue stripes than usual. CREATIVITY!
As far as the Marauder Slayers go, this pair is pretty good. Not overblown, and enough individuality that each of them is a unique enough character. Once again this pair's tattoos look a little faded in spots, but they still look nice enough in person.
This guy seems a little more aware of his station in life than most of our miniatures...
Having displayed this pair, I'm left with one final Marauder MM16 Slayer to show off. Expect to see it very soon!
All these dwarves look great, the old school models were so much more characterful. You've done a superb job bringing them to life, and I love the striped pants
Thanks guys. I appreciate the comments. Really helps to keep me motivated.
Just as with the dwarves I’ve slowly been cranking out, I’ve been trying to keep a few old-school goblinoids on my painting plate. I’ve tended to choose them based on the criteria of how easy they look like they would be to get painted, so simple clothing and/or lots of armour drives them to the top of the list when I browse my box of metal greenskins.
The orc on our left is one from that crossover period between WHFB2nd and 3rd editions. A Kev Adams sculpt with the fetching identifier of “Orcs with Dual Weapons 05”. Despite his rather awkward posing, it’s a decent model. I used some ochre brown in the skin mix of the two orcs here in an attempt to start varying the skin tones of these guys a bit. While it (obviously) adds more yellow to the overall look, I’m hopeful that it’s not too garish. I’ve opted to use a metal Foundry Viking shield instead of a plastic, though I’ve kept the design to simply block colour.
Speaking of garish… the Goblin is from the C12 range circa the mid-late 1980’s, though I’m not sure of the exact year as the catalogues are spotty from that era.the cast I have here is pretty rough, so it was a matter of doing the best I could within a reasonable amount of effort for a tiny model. It’s a Kev sculpt, but predates his “signature” goblin look, with smaller, tighter facial features and an integral shield rather than a boss for plastic ones. He actually sat in a case half-painted for many years before I noticed him recently and decided to get him done. Which also took awhile…
The central model on the 32mm base is the newest of this trio – a 4th Edition Orc listed in the Black Catalogue 4 (1994 filled with 1993 models) as “Orc with Sword 3”, though he’s a bit bigger in stature than his fellow, “Orc with Sword 3” painted awhile ago which is what led to me mounting him onto the larger base. He’s not as big as the actual Big’Uns, but he’s not far off.
…which kind of leads to my question for you, dear reader. While I’ve been working casually on these Fantasy Orcs, With the promise of 8th Edition looming, I’ve also been eyeing off my old-school RT Orks and the more recent 40k Brian Nelson Orcs that I started working on in 2005. (OK, recent is relative). The 40k plastics I mentioned, being larger certainly overhang their 32mm bases, though the “official” size remains 25mm. I feel that they’ll look better on the 32mm bases, just as their classic counterparts, Space Marines do. I’m not yet convinced either way on which way to go – the better aesthetic choice? The “official” choice? Wait and see what conventions on basing that 8th brings on release? At this stage it would not involve a terribly large amount of rebasing. Any thoughts?
Lots of great models, coming along faster than I am able to comment. The vikings, in particular, are fantastic.
I can only speak for myself, but I tend to use the smallest base I can, as long as the models feet to hang over the edge. I'm not a tournament player, so variation in base size doesn't bother me at all.
Orc with sword 3 is my prototypical mental image of how a fantasy Orc should look and, as ever, your paint work has more than done him justice.
I say put the minis on whatever base you want, your collection, your rules. I tend to agree that the 32mm bases look great for so many models, makes you wonder why we did not see them sooner.
@Josh - Not so much that I'm suddenly churning them out, but trying to get past the backlog from the times when I am productive, or get a lot of stuff finally finished. Having said that, I'm going to try and get a batch of 20 (mostly ex-Citadel) Vikings done from start to finished this weekend. Wish me luck! I'm leaning towards the 32mm bases for the Orks, but I think I'll go for a test model first.
@Alpharius - thanks! I've got some figures that should be right up your alley on my desk that I'm hoping to start soon*. I just need to finish enough other figures to make space to start on them. (yes, seriously, it's a bloody mess!) *"soon" is a relative term.
@JamesY - thank you mate!
@Theophone - high praise indeed, Theo. Thank you.
@ListenToMeWarriors - I agree with you on that particular orc. He's got the right balance of stance, balance, brutal confidence and a gnarly enough face. As for the bases, I’m with you there. I’m not worried about tournaments or opponents. I just have a touch of OCD that makes me (generally) like to have the right base size, so it’s that versus aesthetics (I think I prefer the larger ones). I'll have to get right onto that test model...
@evildrcheese - thank you sir. I'll endeavour to get more finished before too long.
Now, today's model!
This guy is the final one of my Marauder Slayers. *As far as I know, at least. Clearly, the reason he’s lagging behind by himself isn’t because I forgot to photograph him at the same time as the previous pair of slayers and only had one left to do… Oh no! It’s because of other reasons. Clearly, someone stole his moustache and he had to investigate!
Since he’s wearing not only a kilt but a fly plaid over his shoulder, I went for a simple tartan using a dark, muted green. Since that’s all he appears to be wearing, aside from some jewelry, the rest is simply tattoos, skin and tattoos. I’m happy with the look of the tattoos here for a change, and that’s something that I can at least say I’ve improved on to a point of satisfaction as I’ve worked my way through these slayers. Tattoo colour and stubble. Tattoos. I certainly used that word a lot here.
Tattoos.
In the past, I never liked this particular figure, probably because of his lack of moustache to go with the beard, but having painted him I now quite like him, and the chin curtain he sports is one of the main reasons why. He’s one of the more sensible of the Marauder Slayers, and could easily be used as a Roleplaying figure or a character of some sort. Yes, he absolutely has an oversized head, even by the standards of Citadel’s macrocephalic dwarves, but he does at least have a lot of character in that noggin and face.
While this guy marks the end of my Marauder Slayers, he’s far from the last of my overall Slayer contingent. Just for starters, there’s a bunch more of those Citadel ones, plus the ones I found in a pile, bathing in Simple Green, waiting to be stripped. Then there are the Avatars of War models…
In the last couple of years under the direction of new CEO, Kevin Rountree, Games Workshop has seemingly remembered that it’s a games company. The results of that has been a flood of new boxed games, most of which have been for the dual purpose of bundling models – i.e: Discounting their overpriced models without actually, officially discounting and also to produce games, which are giving their rules writers some chops and experience in, you know, rules writing. Happily, many of these products are actually good games by all reports.
One of these games I’ve picked up is Gorechosen. The game where Khorne’s champions beat one another to death in an arena setting in a very-much-beer-and-pretzels style game that’s reminiscent of a WWE Royal Rumble kind of thing. Well, more like a Fatal Four-Way Elimination match to nitpick, but I digress. It’s quite a good, light, fast game. So for me it was a no-brainer to pick up since I only had one of the models included (via an eBay secondhand thing) and their individual prices are, frankly, horrific (remember, I’m an Aussie – so take your local prices and make them even worse!)
What sucks is that in several regions (including my own), the game appears to not only be sold out, but hit with the dreaded dual “No Longer Available” and “Sold Out Online” stamp, which is a real shame, but speaks as to the way GW is pumping out these games with a very limited and defined shelf life. It also means we’re up a certain creek if we need to replace any components due to loss or damage. Bah. If the game sounds interesting, I’d get thee to a demo game or pick it up while you can. I’m sure there should be copies of it for cheap on eBay with the models stripped out, and as you can see, those are easy to proxy in – so as I said – a worthwhile fun, simple game to add to the collection for a varied session.
Anyway, the models are (too) sweet, and not having painted any Khorne in quite some time, I decided instead of getting right into them, I’d choose a few other models as proxies, that while still looking impressive, aren’t quite as expensive or involved as the official models. That way I’d have some things to play the game with while getting my Khorne Mojo going again – and then I can paint the proper models. In the meantime, this guy in WIP form, the Champion of Khorne, Champion of Nurgle, and Khorngor Champion (and a couple of others) have been getting some playtime in.
Colour scheme is pretty close to the “official” one, whicn in turn is pretty much Khorne-standard as established over the last 30 years. When I paint more of these guys and turn them into units for AoS/KoW/etc I’ll probably start to vary them more into something approaching different “uniform” schemes and effects (lacquered armour, etc) for every 8 or 16 of them. Without being too uniform of course, because chaos. I’ve added the little skull to the base not only as an aesthetic choice, but as a “front” marker. Miniatures (and GW’s ones in particular) often seem to have their bodies facing one direction while their heads face another – which is fine – but Gorechosen is a game where facing is a thing, so I’m using skulls to mark the “front” of the models that will be used in the game. The rest of the base is painted in keeping with the arena floor used in the game.
Those Khorne dudes are very cool. I think you're right about Gorechosen too -- plays fast, needs some skill, good fun. I've been thinking about making an arena terrain piece to go with mine but fear it might not get much use outside of that game.
Dammit - don't you hate it when you type half a reply, then forget it's there and do something else with that tab?
So rewriting it... thanks guys, More Bloodgorechosenreavers to come in the future as well, though probably piecemeal for the time being - they can fit into my "bare-chested humans" slot - and Ian - I think that's a great idea! I say go for it on the terrain piece. You could use it as a building with a detailed interior for any number of other games like WHF/AoS/40k, and it's such a good idea that when I (eventually) get myself some Hirst Arts moulds, I may well do the same. I'd love to see what you can come up with for inspiration!
And now for something completely different, with no relation to pro wrestling at all....
Welcome to another “final models in the set” post, following up from completing my Marauder Slayers recently. This is the final post in the saga that has chronicled me working my way through the Vikings given to me by Cannon last year. I feel like if he hadn’t applied friendly pressure on me to take them, I wouldn’t have then felt so obliged to paint them, and they’d have instead ended up in my Lead Pile, with the best of intentions – alongside all of these 1980’s and 1990’s Warhammer/Oldhammer models I keep pulling out to paint. As it happens, painting them 2 or 3 at a time has been an enjoyable palette cleanser as I work my way through my many other projects, and now I have quite a nice looking little warband of Vikings all painted up (which I’ll sort out a group shot of, soon!)
The first pair are from Wargames Foundry. I even managed to identify them. The swordman is “Bue the Pious“, who received a shield featuring a second knotted cross.
The second of these two, armed with an axe is officially “Valdemar Snorreson“, Viking Berserker Character – but when I saw the sculpt, I decided that the sculpt bore a striking (to me) resemblance to crazy-eyed WWE wrestler Luke Harper.
Luke Harper, Viking Berserker.
Given that his ring attire at the time was comprised of blue jeans and a (dirty) white singlet, I echoed these choices in his clothing. Marouda also pointed out to me that his girdle-belt looked like a wrestling championship belt, so I painted it in the colours of the WWE Smackdown Tag belt, which he sort-of held around that time under the Freebird rule with Bray Wyatt and Randy Orton…
Luke Harper as part of the Wyatt Family, holding aloft the Smackdown Tag Team Titles. The miniature is wearing his instead.
What’s that?
Why yes, I have gotten back into Professional Wrestling in the last year or so. Thanks for asking. I know it’s not a mature, grown-up hobby like the SRS BZNSS of painting and playing with toy soldiers or video gaming, but I manage to make do… And let's face it, if we rewound a thousand years (or any number more or fewer) there's a very good chance that most of these big blokes would be wielding axes and swords on a battlefield somewhere...
I’m not sure of the origin(s?) of the second pair here. The mustachioed model has a age and authority to the sculpt that I felt needed to be complimented by appropriate hair and gear. Hence he’s greying, and his equipment features richer, brighter colours than I’ve tended to use with my vikings, especially for multiple pieces of gear. His left hand was a “lego” hand, and since he already has both a shortsword and dagger sheathed, I felt that giving him a daneaxe filled him out nicely, adding to both his authority and menace – as does his harsh, intent stare.
The blond of the pair has a sculpt that made me think the figure might originally be a Gaulish Celt or similar. While the sculpt could easily be another warchief, not every model can be the boss, so I painted him in much more muted colours so that he can fulfill the role of a veteran warrior.
One thing I have attempted to do through this Viking project is to challenge myself to improve my freehand. I’ve been confident for a long time in doing things like script, tattoos, and “paintings” like skulls and whatnot, but patterns that often need to be more uniform, or repeated is something I’ve let fall by the wayside, especially since I want real uniformity in things like Space Marine and Imperial Guard insignia, and so it’s been many, many years since I freehanded Ultramarines’ inverted omegas on models on a regular basis. Obviously, not every viking features something like this, since I still want to have a lot of variety and individuality in the warband, but I’ve been pushing myself to try different designs on them. Sometimes it works out a little wonky, such as the knotwork on the cross above, and other times it works out quite pleasingly, as on the dragon above.
Here’s the group shot of this batch. I’d planned to also include the full group shot of all my vikings here and took some photos, but I then saw another pair of models that I’d missed for some reason, so I added them into the group and took some more photos and then packed up. When I got back inside the house, I found another one on my desk. At that point I gave up and decided the group shot could be its own post since it was cold, wet and dark by that point.
As a little bonus, I added some freehand knotwork to one of the viking axemen I painted awhile ago. I know bisected shields are fine, but it bothered me every time I looked at him, especially as my plan has always been to predominantly have nicer, freehand shields on my metals, while the plastics that I haven’t started get either transfers or more plain shields.
So this draws us to the conclusion of Cannon’s Vikings. No fear! Just as I have many more Dwarf Slayers lined up, I’ve got my own Wargames Foundry purchases to paint, including the ex-Citadel Perry miniatures, and of course, way too many plastics. The warband shall one day become an army…
You certainly have managed to improve your freehand, those Viking shields are lovely! So are the rest of the minis for that matter. Looking forward to the group shot
The Vikings and the Khorne guys are fantastic. interesting that GW has managed to snare you recently. They seem to be doing things a fair bit differently of late and I am interested to see if it will continue.
@Brook - Suffering through the replay of Extreme Rules right now that I'm home from work. Not entirely sure why I'm even watching this as it's pretty terrible so far.
@Slinky - the "preferred" spelling for Six in the particular Old Norse dictionary I've been using would have it as "Sex". I thought better of calling the post "Vikings Sex", though... @Mymearan & AOV - thanks gents. I'll have some other cool freehand up inside the next couple of weeks. On some 40k-themed stuff in particular... @Archer - thanks mate. I've been on board for a couple of years now, since Rountree's changes like Start Collecting started rolling in. I've just been painting a lot of half-painted old stuff, and not motivated for much 40k given the state of 6th and 7th. Hopefully that'll be changing now.
Those readers who have been following this blog for awhile might recall the Painting December project (which still lives in my sig for some reason), where in December 2015 I attempted to put aside the normal-scale models I usually work on in favour of getting some larger, more centrepiece models done. I managed to complete the Mierce’s Talos, before moving onto both the Marauder Giant and Be’Lakor. – Neither of whom I managed to finish, and both of whom still lay on my desk, sadly buried under other projects…
Ashoka, from the now-discontinued Hell Dorado game’s “The Lost” range was a figure I picked up several years ago. I got a pile of figures in their Kickstarter, and another pile via retail, though I never got around to reading the rules or playing it. Still, as you can see – it’s a bloody nice figure, and one I decided was going to be a “bonus, secret stretch goal” for the Painting December project. Like the other two, he sat forgotten and unfinished for a couple of years (despite a couple of false starts that kept ending when his arms broke off) until recently, when I just had one of those “just finish that fething thing” moments, and so that weekend, I did. As it happens, it worked out nicely, since his dual-wielded axes helped him get proxied into our first games of Gorechosen as one of the champions. Despite not being an obvious champion of Khorne, I think his aesthetic fits into a game of gladiatorial combat just fine. So he came back inside to get his base-skull added. I based Ashoka on a rolled-lip 50mm base because a 40mm GW base was too small, and 60mm was too large. 50mm just seems to be the right balanced size for some figures, and mounting him on some cork allowed enough clearance for his tail to not be scraping the base edge. It also makes an already-imposing model even moreso, so there’s that as well.
I dunno if I’ll ever actually play Hell Dorado. I’ve certainly got enough models, and I’m not too fussed about the lore, but it’s yet another ruleset to learn, and it’s one of those games that comes with printed cards for the miniatures. Anyone reading this have any idea where I left Ashoka’s card? Yeah. That’s my problem with card-based unit stat systems. Give me a codex-style book-based system any day of the week.
So aside from Gorechosen, what does the future hold for Ashoka? Well, I figure he’ll find a home alongside either or both of my eventual Chaos Beastmen and Lizardmen forces, as he fits both aesthetics nicely enough. Especially now that GW are starting to recognise beastman sub-races other than Gors again.
Nicely done colors of blue and green on this monster . I looked at hell dorado, but ultimately decided against it, too many option s out there and this one didn't strike me enough, though there were lots of really cool models in the range.
Thanks Theo - it was the figures that sold me - All of the models I picked up can be dropped into WH/AoS/KoW forces, so even if I never play (which, let's be honest....) I can still get some use out of them - which is why I chose those specific ones!
Yeah, I went through a bit of a phase (for a few years) buying cool figures and boxed games when I felt they would provide me with a bunch of figures I could fit into other existing games. Kinda started post-WarZone, when the game died and I felt I could still give the cool figures in their ranges some life by drafting them into the Imperial Guard...
Thanks, Zerg. I'm still trying to catch up on everyone else's blogs after my month off. Need more models that can pass as wrasslers. Maybe I can Finn Balor up a Bloodreaver or something?
This piece is the very last of the bits I got off Cannon. A two-part metal… model(?) of a Viking Runestone. It’s nice but also a little slack in some ways.
I have no idea who the manufacturer of this thing is, but if you’ve guessed that the slack I mentioned refers to the visible print lines on the runestone… then you’re right. While it’s true that I could have tried to scrape them off myself, or putty over – it’d frankly be more effort that it’s worth, especially as the thing is cast in metal. The fact that whoever made this thing didn’t bother to do so on their 3-d printed master, and then went straight to casting it in two parts in metal just boggles the mind…
It didn’t actually fit together all that well, either. I had to do quite a lot of gap filling between the two halves. Interestingly, the back half of the thing didn’t feature a lot of mould lines, making me think that only the front was 3-d printed. Personally, I don’t feel it would be too difficult to make something like this (including runes) out of foam or the like for the average hobbyist, or out of milliput or other putties for a producer. It’s a bit of an odd piece, but hey, it’s painted and based, and passes the 4-foot test alright. I even remembered to take a shot for scale this time…
It is very strange with the print lines, but as I've been looking at natural slate for my grandmothers sun room floor it does look like the machined side of the tile with the grooves they cut into it to get good adhesion to the floor. Maybe these wrestlers are contractors on the weekend and are about to glue this rock down on something.....or someone
That may be, Theo And yeah Grim, it's a bit of a time-consuming process to catch up on such a long break. I mean, it's hard to keep up when I'm here all the time!
Another quick one today, and a follow-up of sorts to a similar post from last year.
At some stage during our long, hot, dry March this year, I found two separate zip-lock bags stuffed with ladders from Citadel’s Lord of the Rings Uruk-Hai Siege Troops set. One of them also had several of the bombs in it. Given that I find summer weather a great time for spraying and terrain, large and small, it was time to get the bloody things done. So I did.
The job (I hesitate to call it a “project”) was on the wrong side of tedious, mostly because my OCD forced me to clean the mould lines off each and every one of the ladders, so I sat out on the concrete outside the War Room and listened to some podcasts for an hour or so while doing so. Then it was spray time for the ladders, followed by drybrush-a-rama the following day, and then a couple of coats of varnish. I’ve got no idea how or when I’d ever use so many ladders, but regardless, they’re done and dusted now and I don’t need to worry about them ever again outside of gaming with them. Maybe this coming summer I’ll finally paint up my Mighty Fortress(es)?
That's a metric ton of little plastic ladders . When they finish taking your castle they can circle it with the ladders because they look a lot like picket fences.
Now Hopefully Mantic's kickstarter will provide me with all of the tables and chairs I need! In a year to 18 months...
Still hoping to get some group shots done this weekend, though there might now be a small delay on posting them since I've got a ton of other stuff to photograph and post, and I'm going to change theme a little shortly... edit - just spray varnished 24 figures. SO MUCH BACKLOG to photograph and post up.
Another quick and easy post today – On a little bit of scenery from Reaper Bones’ 1st Kickstarter. It’s a nice enough piece, sculpted by Bob Ridolfi, though I think the name “Well of Chaos” is a little overblown for what it actually is.
It’s a little bigger than your standard 28mm figure (sorry, I forgot to get a scale shot!) I decided to KISS and keep the scheme nice and simple. Grey stone with a touch of dirtiness to it. Faded, aged bronze for the accoutrements, and a few layers of Vallejo’s Realistic Water for the, well, well water. The water looks a little weaksauce in these photos, but it looks fine in hand. I wanted to keep it to just clear water rather than getting funky by making it red or green or whatever.
I’ve probably got a few more random-ish bits of scatter terrain around from Bones 1 where I went all-in. I know they did some more in Bones 2 and 3, though I was much more conservative in my pledges for both of those. In a year or so, I’ll have a ton more of this sort of thing from the recent Mantic Terrain Crate Kickstarter, which I backed despite my misgivings around Mantic these days. I backed it with the knowledge that it’ll probably be 6 months to a year late, shipped in unintentional waves, and also mismanaged in some hilariously clownshoes manner. So forewarned is forearmed, I guess? As for this thing, it’s a decent piece of dungeon furniture, costs like three bucks, and does what it says on the tin. Can’t go wrong!
No-one likes my poor little Bones Well? Bah! I should make this blog All Space Marines All The Time. Then I bet people would start to care!
Having finished the last of the Marauder Slayers the other week, we move to another pair of the Citadel Giant Slayers.
This pair has gotten a slightly more natural shade of orange for their hair than many of the others. Whether they used a different dye or theirs has simply washed out somewhat, when mixed into the units, they’ll help to offer some variance while still maintaining the visual coherency with the others.
As with the last half-dozen or so slayers that I’ve finished, I’ve attempted to again vary the stripey trouser just slightly from the neverending run of identical blue stripes. Clearly not by a lot, but again it’s simply about adding a little bit of variation into the unit so they still look like a unit but not entirely homogenised and uniform. They’re not a freshly-raised unit of Napoleonic Chasseurs, after all.
I’m quite pleased with how the tattoos came out on this pair as well. That’s one thing that this project has really helped me with. Well, two. I can now paint many variations of orange-to-ginger hair pretty much with my eyes closed. I’ll have some command guys photographed and posted hopefully within a few days, and then I need to start getting some group shots of the Slayers (and Vikings, and others) taken and posted!
Looks good to me. Your slayers are just fantastic and really makes me wish I had included some in one of the dwarf armies I want to do. Although I think I do have a random dragon slayer (who will ably be played by the Mordheim trollslayer model) in one of them. I am sure he will do a Stirling job of being a pub cushion to the enemy.
The funny thing about the dwarves is that while I liked the models, I never saw myself having an army of them. They were SO SLOW back in 3rd edition WHFB, and I don't think they really improved much in later editions. In a game that lives and dies on hand to hand and mobility, it was such a huge disadvantage, and more importantly, less fun. I've not yet run them in Kings of War, but at least in Age of Sigmar, they're not quite as crippled by movement speed (at least in the limited number of games I've had with the system.) There are more dwarves and other things to show, but with 8th coming out in a few days, I think it's time to shift gears for a week or so and show off some of the more 40k-oriented stuff I've been sitting on/recently finished and/or asked to show. Besides, the Dwarves and Vikings seem to have no end to them right now!
A little over 10 or so years ago, I’d returned to full-time study, with all of the financial awesome that comes with. I wanted more models, so I decided to sell off some old stuff I wasn’t using to finance it. I attempted to sell off a box of Chaos Terminators and a set of Original RT Terminators, but no-one was interested in these old models (this was in the days before “Oldhammer” was cool!) Right, I thought. If no-one is interested in them unpainted, maybe they’ll be interested if I paint them. Since we were in the era of 3rd/4th edition 40k and new rules, I decided that Black Templars would be a good choice, since black would be easy to paint, and they were riding a wave of popularity, being relatively new and shiny. So yeah. I got one figure almost finished, lost one, started on a replacement, and into the figure case they went for a decade, forgotten.
A couple of months ago, with the rumours of 40k 8th Edition starting to flow and right after painting some Minotaurs or Iron Warriors, I decided to have a look through some of my old figure cases to see what was in there in terms of Power Armour. I figured it was better to try and finish some older stuff before moving onto starting new squads for the Minos or IWs. Besides, it’d give me something different to paint. One of the things I found was the squad of (now 6) Black Templars. Missing a couple of arms, and based on 25mm rounds, but there they were. All but one needed a lot of work, and the one that didn’t needed a decent amount anyway.
So I decided to finish them, and did. I ordered some various cross transfers from Ginfritter’s Gnomish Workshop/Armorcast that I used on some of the models (review to come shortly). while keeping some freehand on them. I’ll post up the other half of the squad (need to check the new rules) tomorrow, along with some discussion on my (limited) colour choices.
Theophony wrote: Those look fantastic. Love the heraldry on the shoulders. I didn't like when they started to add chains and stuff to the black templars .
I have a whole box of METAL marines that I don't even count amongst my marine totals, seeing these makes me jealous and want to break them out.
I'm not sold on the chains (though I'll use them) but I did like the tabards and little shields and such. Made them a bit more like crusading knights in a lot of ways, and importantly, optional. Now I want to see you break out the metals. Or failing that, I know a guy in Australia who'd take them off your hands...
Ah, the first ever metal miniatures I bought. Love the individual heraldry on the right shoulder pad, the red is a really nice spot colour for them as well. They look cool on the 40mm bases as well.
Another nice set of various things. The cthulhu well-thing turned out great--I'll have to dig out mine sometime soon. Did you have a lot of trouble with the realistic water? I had to scrap and restart a fountain project because the stuff just wouldn't set for me.
The dwarfs are great, as always, as are those Oldhammer termies. Slinky is right, they look much better on the bigger bases.
Thanks guys, I'm glad that you think the decision to go with a bit of colour and heraldry worked out for the best.I had no problems with the realistic water, though I did it in several layers, so I let it dry for a couple of days each time.
As I mentioned yesterday, when these models were fished out of a figure case they were all mounted on 25mm rounds. Since 40mm bases are now standard for Terminators, this presented a bit of a quandary, given how much smaller these original Indomitus Pattern models are to the current range after nearly 30 years of scale creep. I took inspiration from my RTB01 model that I painted as a Mega-City Judge and rebased onto a 32mm, and, well, he looks good – so I decided to just go for it. I also thought that if I added some slate, then it would help to “fill” the bases as opposed to if I left them plain. I think they worked out quite nicely in the end. I think the "trick" to the 40mm bases was making sure they aren't empty nor too busy. Adding the rocks, tufts, and a little static flock seems to have hit the right balance.
When it came to the modelling options, I wanted to keep them really unadorned, as befits the original models – so only original parts used here. I’ve got plenty of BT terminator bits and BT bling I can glue to models, but that can go on a subsequent squad. In keeping with the whole “old school” thing, I originally planned to keep the paint scheme pretty much only to black and white. No red outside of eye lenses and such. In the end I decided to do a bit more to the models. This was based on wanting to do something small with the Sergeant’s shield along with recognition of the fact that Black Templar Terminators are “Sword Brethren”, and as with other chapters’ terminators, they’re veteran elites with a penchant for personal heraldry, and such individuality is even more of a thing in Templars forces.
Because of this, I decided to allow myself to use a limited amount of red in each marine’s chapter iconography, and also that each marine’s shoulder pad would be different. I used a mix of freehand and decals, some of which turned out to be messed up, necessitating extra time to fix them -which I could have done without.
I chose a metallic for the Crux Terminatus on these, rather than the usual bone I’ve used in the past in single Terminators. Both to differentiate the Templars further from my other models, and to give them more of their own distinct look with a kind of polished iron. Again, the Sergeant was allowed a little more colour, with a touch of brass/gold and some gemstone paints for ruby inlay to his sword and sergeant’s icon.
So here we are. Seven editions and almost 30 years on and I’ve finally completed my first Terminator Squad. Let’s hope I can improve on that workrate or I’ll be dead before I get my next squad done. At least these guys are still 100% legal in 8th!
Those Termies look great! I couldn't tell in the pics that they were even the wrong scale until I saw you mention it, and even then they don't look too far off.
Brilliant work! You have been painting fast. I love the vikings and those old terminators (they are still slow to sell even now, I guess because of the static poses). Keep on trucking.
Yeah, they're not blinged out like the new ones, but ultimately I'm happy they never sold, because now I have these finished and will get some use out of them. Actually, I think a few of them saw a fair bit of action back in Rogue Trader, though they would have been "grey legion" blu-taced together back then, so it's still a nice upgrade for them.
Another couple pieces of simple sci-fi terrain today, again dating from the 1990’s. These are Armorcast’s “Short” Sci-Fi Walls. Fairly simple casts, and rather simply painted by my good self back in the ’90s. These were a matter of spray black, drybrush gunmetal/chainmail/etc, and then pick out some parts using copper and brass before finally adding some burnt metal around the blast holes and a few decals for interest.
They look a little plain to me today. If anything, I think they could do with a wash of Army Painter Dark Tone (Black) to emphasise the panel lines and rivets followed by a bit of a detail pick-type drybrush of a brighter steel. Then a bit of either oil wash or rust. I might mentally file that as something to get done once the weather warms up again in November/December as it’s a horrible time of year for working on scenery right now. Then I can show these again!
Despite their simplicity and their age, I think these are still pretty nice pieces. Both the 4″ and 6″ versions are still available from Armorcast, and for a pretty reasonable price. If not for the current cost of shipping from the U.S., I’d probably drop a couple of hundred on some more of these and some of their other good looking stuff. There’s a July coupon with 10% off and free shipping over $200, which apparently also works for people outside the U.S.
As always, I’m not receiving anything for pimping their stuff, I paid full retail for these (in the 1990’s) and my opinions are my own.
This pair was (as so often happens) part-painted for a good decade or more before I finally forced myself to complete them earlier this year. Originally these were Empire Flagellant figures, and I might potentially use them as such one day, but due to their robed, completely mental nature, I co-opted them years ago to be Preachers alongside my Imperial Guard squads, in a previous edition of Warhammer 40k. I didn’t feel a pressing need to convert them or glue laspistols to their hips, as I felt they passed muster for the Ecclesiarchy simply by looking flying rodent gak insane.
They’re far from the first of my models to feature these flame patterns on their clothing. It originated with my Legion of the Damned models, worked its way to my Necromunda Cawdor and Redemptionists (which I’ll also get around to showing sometime) and then to my official Imperial Preacher models, finally jumping over to these guys. They look demented enough that I’d also consider them part of my not-properly-participating contribution to Heresy of Us’ The Chapel project.
Whichever they are, they are awesome characterful models. Sure way of keeping gene-enhanced troops in like is to have a crazy nut job in charge with a stick.
They look great. Would work well with a Bretonnian Grail Reliquary as well. Can't shake the feeling that Flagella t G has a dwarf slayer counterpart.......
The Marauder stuff just kinda rolled in with the Citadel stuff of the day here, especially since they mostly just filled holes in other ranges. Before they got officially just rolled into the Citadel range proper.
Thanks, Doc - more flames to come soon, as well!
I think they would do, Archer - and good spot. Once I find and paint that particular Flagellant (assuming I have that one? I think I do...) I'll photograph him in a side-by-side with his Slayer Twin.
So that Iron Warriors “Tactical” squad that I got up to 9 guys last August? Well, I finally finished their 10th man. Because I’m fast and focused like that.
I used a mix of parts, which was why I started buying “Historical” armour sets from Forge World in the first place, long before 30k was even a thing. It just took years for me to get interested in 40k enough to motivate me to finish the half-done squad, let alone build and paint the last man.
My 40k Iron Warriors are going to be much more hybrids of 30k-and-up armour sets than Blanche’s early sketches of “Space Barbarian Vikings” covered in fur and horns and spikes. Those things might make an occasional subtle accessory appearance here and there, but they won’t be the main show. While I’m happy to add some decoration and flourish, I also want to keep them cold and businesslike. As always, transfers for the Chapter Badge and Legion Number, and freehand for the hazard striping.
The other model today is “Hammer Time” from the Iron Warriors “Assault” Squad from a few months ago. D&B, Mikko and I had a brief discussion on the pun-tastic options for this guy and I eventually decided to do it. “Writing” legible script in paint at this size is always a challenge, and I found that using metallic paint (even really nice, thin, well pigmented stuff like VMA) to do so instead of black makes it all the more sketchy. Blown up like this, it looks a bit crap, but in hand it looks decent.
Yep, they look like a pair of Muppets. In the Jim Henson sense. Well, maybe a bit of both...
Those two models are terrible, horrible, worst models i've ever seen! ..... how can you even call them painted?, except for that one bit.........yeah, that bit's o.k I suppose!...... actually that bits quite good, not too bad at all......kinda makes them look pretty good.......in fact they are pretty good. yeah, .......really good........some of the best painted models i've ever seen!......I love them, they're the best....Bravo Bravo!
The 10th man looks awesome .also loving the "hammer time" nice throw back to the old ganger style marines where they had graffiti on their armor and heavy metal songs.
Cheers Nerdy - there is a bit of a Statler and Waldorf vibe to them, isn't there? (And yes, I did had to look up their names!)
Thanks Theo and Grim - hopefully the 10th Man works nicely with his finally-finished squad.
So, it's the 17th - Happy 40k Day, all!
I need to check on my order and make sure it's been sent/ask for a tracking number. OK, done!
A couple of people have asked for group shots of my IW over the past couple of months. I finally got around to it last weekend, spurred by the impending 8th edition, so here we are!
Happy 40k Day! With the release of 8th Edition today, I’ve got a few pics of my completed Iron Warriors force so far. Nominally 43 Power Rating right here (I’m short 3 cultists and 1 Obliterator to “properly” be 43). I haven’t looked into “proper” points values of the force yet. That will come later on.
The “First” Squad of my Iron Warriors is the “Tactical” Squad. I used to have names for all of these guys written down, so I’ll edit them in if and when I ever find my old lists. These guys are PR9. And yes, I am working out the “simple” PL value of this army as I write the text of this post!
These “discount terminators” are a bunch of Legions of Steel “Nightmares” that I painted earlier this year. I figure they look like perfect Chaos Cultists for an Iron Warriors army. Obviously less “cultists” than “automatons created by an allied Dark Mechanicus Forgeworld”, they fit the IW aesthetic and are a portent of some other WIP stuff yet to join this army. They’re PR3 for 10, so I’ll combine the leftovers with the ones that you’ll see in a little while. There’s one with a chunkier weapon, so that can be the squad’s Heavy Stubber, and I’ll probably have to glue a skull to one of their bases to mark the “champion”. Or find a slightly fancier looking robo-skellyman from somewhere to lead them. So just the skull for now.
The Obliterators. Sorta-illegal at this point, they’re now purchased in units of 3 for 10PR. So it’s simply going to be a matter of finding my other models, and getting at least one of them painted in the same manner as these guys. And then deciding if the others become Iron Warriors or go to a different Legion from my long-term plan… In the interim, I’m sure friendly games will happily let me run them at 7PR.
For the time being, my former Exalted Champion becomes a PR5 Iron Warriors Lord. I guess his “Thunder Hammer” gets to “officially” be a lowly Power Maul, though I’m also sure that friends and casual opponents will be fine with letting me use the TH stats.
My second Iron Warriors squad appears to be illegal now, due to the presence of two power weapons – the sword and the fist. That’s without even considering “Tempus Malleus” might have a Thunder Hammer rather than a Hydraulic Hammer (aka CCW – though in this case I think they’re all “chainswords” now). I’m fine with that.
Oddly, because of the extra Power Weapon, it seems that the way to run this unit “legally” is simply to split it in twain. Instead of one 10-man, PR9 CSM “Assault” squad, I now have two 5-man PR5 CSM “Assault” squads. Again, that’s easy, so I’m fine with it. I can bump them “both” up to 10 later by building and painting more models. Simply looking at the figures I’ve got completed, perhaps I’ll visually lean one more towards “Chaos Marines” while the other will lean towards “Horus Heresy Traitors” in terms of armour makeup.
What’s this? Terminators of the Arnie kind rather than of the Space Marine kind? Yes. These guys are from River Horse/Warlord’s Terminator Genisys game. Why are they here? The same reason that the Legions of Steel Nightmares are, of course. Proxy “cultists”. I’m not sure which one is the “champion”. The one with 2 skulls, probably. I’ll convert up a TG heavy weapon down the line and that can then fill in their Heavy Weapon slot. Another PR3.
These Terminator models are obviously feeling a little under the weather. Obviously without any ballistic weapons, these are the ones armed with an autopistol and brutal assault weapon. Just squint and I’m sure it’ll make sense! I’ll add them to one of the other “cultist” automaton units, along with the pair of extra Nightmares for +3PR.
There’s still a lot to add to this force. More Warriors, Chosen, Havocs, Raptors, Khorne Berserkers, a Warpsmith, Sorcerers, Obliterators, Terminators, Dreadnoughts, Contemptors, a Vindicator or two, transports, FW tanks… The army may have been born over a decade ago, but This Tale of Iron has barely begun…
Looking good! love a nice shot of the army, it's just hard to get them all in :-) you've done more than I thought with them but I still want to see more, they are some of my favorite IW I see which you know, the style and technique is just perfect on them.
Power levels huh? I wonder how much of a thing that'll be. I suppose if everyone is doing it. Seems flawed at first glance when it often doesn't consider squad upgrades. I can take gear for SM scouts of a points value rivaling their own 5 man squad cost without bumping the power level at all. Devastators too. I wonder if they calculated the power levels based on no upgrades, moderate, or full upgrades?
I guess it's one of those, if everyone is on the same page it'll work out kinda things.
Army shot is fantastic. Really great looking force you have there on a great looking board too. But it needs big guns. A couple of Bailisks or vindicators just cause would be great.
Excellent army especially the Cyborg cultists Azazelx. GrimDork the power levels are a useful rough guide if you want a game in 10 minutes rather than 45 minutes due to forgotten armies left behind models etc. It's also useful for collection lists like this where you'll change wargear from time to time.
Love those army shots, the force looks great on the table all together. I also very much like the terrain you've got there, especially that platform-thingie with hazard striping behind the wall.
JamesY wrote: Very nice looking force there Az. The terminators work well
angelofvengeance wrote: That's a nice lil force you've got there Azazel . Solid stuff. I like the re-purposed robots for cultists.
Theophony wrote: Nicely done . And it's great you found a use for those terminators.
Thanks guys, I may possibly play the Terminator game one day, though I can't say the same for Legions of Steel!
Archer wrote: Army shot is fantastic. Really great looking force you have there on a great looking board too. But it needs big guns. A couple of Bailisks or vindicators just cause would be great.
nerdfest09 wrote: Looking good! love a nice shot of the army, it's just hard to get them all in :-) you've done more than I thought with them but I still want to see more, they are some of my favorite IW I see which you know, the style and technique is just perfect on them.
There's more to come eventually. I just need to clear the desk off of all these Vikings and Slayers and other randoms. I've got a Dreadnought (Helbrute), and another Iron Lord on the desk, and a Rhino and Vindicator in the cabinet, both waiting for more space to become available on the cramped desk. That's without getting into the collection of yet-unbuilt big guns. They can never tire if they're never assembled, right?
GrimDork wrote: Very nice gang of heretics you've got there Power levels huh? I wonder how much of a thing that'll be. I suppose if everyone is doing it. Seems flawed at first glance when it often doesn't consider squad upgrades. I can take gear for SM scouts of a points value rivaling their own 5 man squad cost without bumping the power level at all. Devastators too. I wonder if they calculated the power levels based on no upgrades, moderate, or full upgrades?
I guess it's one of those, if everyone is on the same page it'll work out kinda things.
Any Armor planned for these metal marines?
Llamahead wrote: Excellent army especially the Cyborg cultists Azazelx. GrimDork the power levels are a useful rough guide if you want a game in 10 minutes rather than 45 minutes due to forgotten armies left behind models etc. It's also useful for collection lists like this where you'll change wargear from time to time.
Thanks! And yeah, that's the thing about Power Levels. I'm not too fussed on what other people are using, but they're a quick, rough and ready way to work out approximate values. As I mentioned, I was tallying these as I wrote up the post (and the same below). I was also working off a leaked PDF, so I'll worry about proper points once I have my Indices in hand. I'll probably play the first few games of "learn the rules" using PR anyway to KISS.
I read somewhere (designer's notes?) that PR is based around the average values of all of the weapon options available to a squad or unit, so it's not based on a "Naked" squad, though it's still really not something for hyper-competitive games, but it should be close enough for casual friendlies and also provides a way to work out rough values for narrative and open play.
Mymearan wrote: Love those army shots, the force looks great on the table all together. I also very much like the terrain you've got there, especially that platform-thingie with hazard striping behind the wall.
Cheers! I'll have some more terrain focus posts soon, and hopefully I'll finish that big platform bastard which I started back in the days of Necromunda being a regular game.
As I mentioned a day or two ago, last weekend, I finally got a chance to take some photos, so here are my Minotaurs.
Yeah, I know. I need to get some command units finished since the force is technically leaderless at this point. I’ve got that Librarian who is WIP still, and a Captain who is mostly blu-taced together.
At least Dreadnoughts look to be as effective as they should be in 8th Edition. I should get moving on the other Ancients as well. Oh wait, that means something else, now!
All in all these guys add up to a Power Rating of 25 under the 8th Edition rules, so it’s pretty safe to say that they’d get their shiny brass arses kicked by the Iron Warriors right now. So what am I working on? I’ve started selecting/putting together the models for a third Tactical Squad and a Devastator Squad. I probably “should” be working on more exotic stuff and things like transports, but there you go…
I'm gonna give dreads a thorough look today, given the consensus that predators are tough but expensive, and that razorbacksare the thing to beat points wise I'll have to see how they stand. Ironclads sound beastly but alas dark angels have no love for them.
Yeah, for the Devs I'm thinking a pair of Lascannon and a Pair of Missile Launchers. That way I can go all-out on hurting big nasties, or split fire and do some damage to infantry/lighter troops/vehicles as well. I've gotten distracted by some rebasing, though I don't get much painting done during weeknights, so simple, more "craft"-y aspects are often easier to work on.
Honestly, my photo setup can range from this (rarely):
Spoiler:
To (mostly) my makeshift light box, which I can't find any pictures of right now - I'll take some this weekend, but it's made of one "cube" worth of a cheap plastic shelf unit with some baking paper over the top and three cheap lamps from the hardware store with white LED globes in them. The army shots from the last couple of posts are just on my game table with the flouro lights on, the spotlights on (cheap purchase and easy install from a sparky) and my wife holding one of the light box lamps at a low angle to bounce some light off the table to act as a fill light
Spoiler:
And now for something New-Old!
Last week I shared some photos of Armorcast’s “Short” Sci-Fi Walls that I picked up during the ’90s. This time it’s the “High Tech Walls” from the same era. Back in the day they had three sets, all of which I picked up, and even got them painted! You might have spotted them in the background of the previous two “Army so far” posts.
Once again, these were painted in a quick and dirty manner back in the day, and could probably use a bit of a touch-up today using some of my more modern techniques and materials. Some more detailing, a bit of a wash, edge highlight, some powders, etc. Tone down the coloured metallics a little and make a few more bits pop a little more.
Obviously, these are perfect for games like Necromunda, Shadow War Armageddon (aka Necromunda V2) and of course – 40k. As well as many other sci-fi and post-apoc games. Given their low-end-high-tech look, they wouldn’t look out of place for DUST, Konflikt ’47 or This Is Not A Test/Fallout.
I think the random transfers I used throughout these sets of walls also improves their look a fair bit over the simple paint I applied. While these are no showcase models, either in terms of their sculpts or my rather basic paintjob of the 1990’s, even like this they look good on the table, particularly when paired with other complimentary scenery pieces. Perhaps I’ll buy some more?
Oh, and here’s a scale shot of these walls along with the Short Sci-Fi walls.
Thanks guys. I've also started rebasing my few squads of finished Dark Angels over the past few days, and finally cracked open my copies of Dark Vengeance to paint those DAs as well.
While the painted stuff is similar to the IWs and Minos, when you count all the DV models, it turns out I have ...quite a lot of Dark Angels. Like way more than a full company of "greenwing", and possibly three companies. So I need to decide what to do with them all. Ideally before I start spraying them black and green.
Successor chapter using the Winged Sword icon? But if so, what's the point if I already have a bunch of "proper" DAs? Fallen don't sit with me since the DV armour is too new for guys with their roots in the Heresy, so I'm a little stumped.
Yeah. I'll build at least a full company of DAs - 6 Tac and 2 each of Ass and Devs (though I won't likely have 10 transports for them). I've easily got more than 2 dreads, though I can start with two. (Not counting DW/RW - they can come later)
It's just what's worthwhile beyond that first company which concerns me, as I'll have a lot left over and aren't really sure if it would be worth painting them since I dunno if I'll ever field that many? Like, will I ever field 2 full companies (or more?) of Dark Angels? That's gonna be a lot of points, after all!
Can you hear the lulling sweet voice just floating on the wind just outside your hearing?.......*Giiiiiive them to Damoooooo, Giiiiiive them to Damooooo*
Yeah I can just hear something, trying to tell me important stuff.... ;-)
I'm not trying to get rid of them, Damo - I'm trying to work out how to paint them! Though if I do decide to clear some of them out, you'll be first on the list. In fact, some more of the red-primed marines I bought off you are in the process of being reconfigured for either green or bronze armour. Not many of those left, now!
Oh, and I've restarted on my Flesh Tearers as well. I'm not quite All Marines All The Time, but right now there are eight different liveries of Powered Armour on my painting desk, with another four just off to the side, long ago started but waiting for some space to clear. Then I get into those that haven't been started yet...
So I spent a bit of time last night rebasing my existing Dark Angels. Cutting slots into 32mm bases for older metal models ain't a lot of fun! Still got to do a bunch of Assault Marines, because I needed a break from all the drilling and cutting.
I also glued 50 washers onto the bottom of 32mm bases out in the war room. Went back in there a bit later and the cyanoacrylate fumes in there were enough to make my eyes water.
So now I'm looking at my long-unfinished Robed Marines. I've got 6 metals on new bases, and of course there's any number of plastics. At the moment I'm looking at 2x 5-man squads of Company Veterans as Command Squads no longer seem to exist. Thinking one as a CC based squad, and the other as a special weapon type, all with either pure specials, or Combis. The question is: 5x Combi-Melta, 5x Combi-Plasma, skipping the "combi" part of that, or some sort of a mix? Any thoughts?
Oh, and I have NFI at this stage what to stick on the CCW version of the squad, either - especially as they won't have Jump Packs
I've been toying with doing storm bolter + storm shield on a squad of five... I'm pretty sure that's a legal gear selection.
Storm bolter on it's on is 4 shots a model at double tap range for 2 points which isn't bad at all.
Plasma combis seem good if you're podding or otherwise able to "deep strike", they do well at that 9" range you're stick with and if you have reroll support you could always choose to fire both guns. Overcharged plasma hits for 2 damage and wounds more stuff on 2 also, but only in desperation or with reroll support. If you're driving up you may be able to hit flamer range... dual firing those would be a slew of hits, and the flamers would ignore the penalty for shooting both. Melta seems expensive.
Stormshields on melee guys seems pretty autoinclude for 5 points each, or at least take a few for high AP shots.
The various power weapons are all similar and cheap, maybe take a variety. Fists/thunderhammers are awful expensive and feel like you're trying to make budget DW Knights, but maybe one?
Looking forward to seeing you do some Dark Angels! As for the slotted bases, I cut the tabs off the bottoms of old minis. That's what I did with my DV guys when I rebased them on 32mm bases. Then all you have to do is possibly file the bottoms of the feet flat, and you're set.
Well, this week quickly turned upside down and into horrific. I'll write something about that later, and just stick to models for today, though.
I've already gotten hold of a ton of non-cut 32mm bases. It would have been great to be able to get hold of the BB ones earlier, but c'est la vie. I prefer to cut the bases over the models. Just not wanting to chop up my older models when it's almost as easy to cut the bases which then means less wear and tear on the paint of those being rebased after being finished at one point. Not needing to pin them to the bases also helps!
Thanks for the kind words, Ustrello.
I haven't had a chance to consider the Vet weapons in the last few days. At the moment I'll just rebase them on autopilot and have a proper read through. I have a few unbuilt pods somewhere - the plan for those is to eventually paint them without any chapter iconography, probably in plain, weathered imperial greys with Aquilas as their only icons, so I can use them across my many PA armies, since I'm not taken with the idea of buying a dozen or however many more pods when there'll only ever be a few in use. I know we can say the same about actual marines in PA, but the different armies will have character and be built differently, and I see the pods are merely a one-off delivery system for the odd squad in games rather than as units in their own right - so less even than Rhinos or Razorbacks. I suppose I could magnetise some chapter icons. I'll worry about that when I get to it. As long as I make sure they look good, I don't think there'd be any bitching.
I thought I’d share some more of my older paintjobs today and over the next while – only now “updated” in the past few weeks with new 32mm bases. Specifically, three of my old Rogue Trader Space Marine models painted as Legion of the Damned. As can be seen, these models are from the days before everything was covered in sculpted details, and ironically, before 90% of those details were skulls. Hence, all of the flames and skulls on this trip are entirely freehand. Oh, and I know that their flames “should” be yellow at the base and red at the ends, but on my models it depicts paint on armour, not actual flames (as sometimes retconned in Black Library). I don’t care what was written in an eBook or short story in 2015 or 2016, my guys have a direct lineage to White Dwarf 99.
The first model, on our left has 1987 on his tab, as well as “Medic”. It’s based off of “Brother Harris” from WD 99 in March ’88. The range in this particular advert are listed as having been sculpted by Michael and Alan Perry. Amusingly, Brother Harris in this particular advert is painted as a Legionnaire of the Damned, but I declined to do so myself as he had his helmet off. This model obviously predates the Medics that came later, as it completely lacks any medic gear or even an embossed caduceus on his pauldron, though interestingly there was a designated medic model (via sculpt, as opposed to the ones defined by paint that everyone just copied) from the very early RT01 Imperial Space Marines batch of sculpts.
The central model of this trio is one of the initial range of Space Marine Chaplains, circa 1988/89. Three of the initial six Chaplains had what we know as the Crozius Arcanum, though the other three did not. One having a Bolter and (crazily thin) Power Sword, one with a Bolt Pistol and Chainsword, and this fellow, with what I presume was/is an early combi-weapon. Note the “gatling”-style barrels behind the “regular” bolter detail. His armament, early skull-helm and especially his nifty shoulderpads got this guy drafted into my Legion of the Damned, where he has served as the squad’s sergeant for many years.
Finally, the model on our right. He is listed as Brother A Skull in the advertisement for the RT01 range of Marines from White Dwarf 98 in September ’87, back when they still gave models interesting names. I chose him to be a LotD figure because of his unique, skull-like helmet. Years after painting these guys, I came across the sculpted LotD backpacks from the Second Edition squad box, and so pried off several of the original backpacks that some of my LotD had, replacing them with the skull-sculpted versions.
Aside from the backpacks, Brother A Skull and the Chaplain’s old-school helms, and obviously the Chaplain’s sculpted shoulders, the rest of the skull, flame and bone detail on these guys is all freehand. Even today I’m particularly proud of the pauldron-skulls and the skull-helm that you can see here. And yes, I know that the colours in actual flame work the other way, but here it’s based on contrast and rule of cool. Some of the more recent writers and artists have taken things like the flame iconography way too literally, so I'm happy to Highlander 2 those, and ignore them in my own head-canon...
Thank you, Damo. I find the bit of information, and doing a bit of research makes things a bit more interesting for myself, and hopefully for the reader.
And thanks, AoV and Weety. I always figured if the figure fits, in they go. It helps that I started on these guys long before any official models existed, but even so, it ties them in with the older side of the fluff. I hope I can one day find some of my old RTB01 LotD (or even their parts!) to fix up and add to these guys.
Today we’ll look at a trio of the often-maligned 2nd edition, MK7 “Aquila” Power Armoured models, painted as Legion of the Damned.
The first model on the left is the 2nd Edition starter box Space Marine trooper. A simple, push-fit model made of the same three parts (bolter, backpack, everything else) that even the most recent of his kind, the marines from Dark Vengeance 6th/7th edition are. These guys are looked down on today mostly because of the rather static pose and the complete lack of variation in their pose. Yes, all 14 of the basic troopers were identikit models, the specialists were the same model again with a flamer instead of a bolter, leaving the two sergeants and two missile launchers for “variety”. Truth be told, I quite like the Missile Launcher guy, and think that model stands up quite well even today. The trooper is pretty workmanlike, and I feel can most effectively be used as a single model mixed into squads of other marines that have a lot of MK6 in them. Like this Minotaurs squad that hosts two troopers and a Missile Launcher from the 2nd Edition box.
Anyway. One guy in my LotD. I gave him fingerbone gloves before they were cool, shaved the skull off his forehead (little skulls were hard to get back then!) and went with an all-bones, no flames motif on his armour. I think the freehand skull I painted on his shoulder looks cooler than the sculpted one on his battle-brother, though!
The next one of our little friends, in the middle is one of the first multi-part plastic marines since the venerable RTB01 box. Space Marines: Warriors of the Imperium was released in ’93-94 and was the direct precursor to the 3rd edition MK7 multiparts, and therefore, to all modern Space Marine infantry kits and even the Forge World HH infantry kits. Basically, six models made of one repeated torso, two leg sculpts – again repeated, and a couple of the 2nd edition metal marines’ Backpacks-and-bolters-and-shoulders, and arm sprues. Pretty bloody simple, but well enough for making some troopers. I only got one of those boxes from memory and never even painted them all, but one of them is here. I replaced the left shoulderpad with a “proper” Legion of the Damned one after that boxed set was released during 2e (pried the old one off his arm) – so the scroll and skull are sculpted, but the “kill” is freehanded onto the scroll.
This guy in the middle has much more extensive bonework on him than many of the others, I’m still very fond of the long spinal pattern that runs the length of his left leg.
The final model of this second triptych of the Damned was originally a 2nd Edition Death Company marine. Released in late ’92 or early ’93, I never got around to painting or using any of them as Blood Angels. Instead a couple of them, with their death iconography got drafted into the Legion. Some blood drops carved away and others repainted as bone charms. In the second picture you can see that the skull on his right shoulder is a little different. A nod there to the Legion’s past, and specifically the one that appeals to me the most. The right shoulder on two of these guys is an attempt at a flaming tactical arrow, again a nod to their past. The break-up of the upper triangle’s shape may have been too much and rendered them a little too subtle, which is why I bother to point it out here.
A big part of updating my old Legion of the Damned has been rebasing them onto 32mm bases. Their previous 25mm bases were in my usual “brown dirt and static flock” style, and so I wanted to go a bit more extreme with these ones. A bit of slate, two types of GW “cracked earth” paints, drybrushed and washed and some tufts. I also went to town with skulls on almost all of their bases. I usually try to avoid the overuse of skulls everywhere, as I typically find it rather silly and more than a little camp in that GW way.
In the case of Legion of the Damned though, I felt it appropriate. To answer Theo's question - Perhaps their sheer presence on a battlefield somehow adorns it with the skulls of the truly damned, their past opponents, or those who have died before on those same battlefields. Do the skulls appear when the Legion arrives, only to disappear when they suddenly depart? Fluffwise, I think that these skulls do. Practically, of course they do! - they're glued to the models, innit?
I love the flames tactical arrows . Also the leg with the spine on it is great. Makes me want to redo the song "the footbone is connected to the ankle bone." Into something like "the traitors spine is connected to my power armor, his face is splattered on my boot "
I'd love to see what you can do with them, Damo. But finish the Minotaurs first. And then don't sell them! Then do a squad or two that can be legit allied to the Minos. And then make sure they've got the same glasses as the skull in your avatar...
Those RT/2ed models look great. I never really liked the unorthodox Marines back when they were new, which I regret now. Lots of crazy weirdness before GW exploded in popularity.
Oh, those damned Legionnaires, always showing up unlooked for! (see what I did there? )
It's always nice to see old models get some love. I'm lucky enough to have a few old-school models hanging around myself, but nothing that goes back to Rogue Trader! The sculpts had so much more character back then! Not that the current ones are bad or anything, but you get my drift.
You've done some impressive stuff here lately Az, so I'm looking forward to more as always!
youve been putting out some serious awesomeness Az! Love your IW. great job all those walls too. LoD are straight out of Eavy Metal of yesteryear - gorgeous work
@Josh - I used to collect all of the different marine sculpts, so I went out of my way back in the day to get as many as I could. There's only a few of the RT ones that I never had, though sadly some of them have been lost to time. Plans for them are to put them into the old-school type armies, so a couple might make it to the IW, others into LotD, a couple to Fallen, but most will go to a specific old-school project I've been planning for nigh on 5-10 years, if I ever get enough other stuff done and out of the way first...
@ZergSmasher - cheers mate. I love the old stuff but you're right, a lot of the older models had a lot more individuality to them, being hand-sculpted as one-piece metals (and by a variety of sculptors) helped a lot with that, methinks! I've got plenty more to show and work my way through...
@Einibbus - Thanks mate! It was good to see how well the old Termies came out. I won't have any issue using them alongside the newer models.
@Januine - Thank you - The walls are merely okay - workmanlike jobs from the '90s. I'll probably order some more and then paint those while overhauling the old ones once spring or summer hits and we have some nice mild weather again. As an aside - I keep hearing about the UK's "heatwave" with weather in the mid-20's and nights around 15. That's what we consider nice, mild weather here. I wish it was like that all of the time, especially right now! 30's into 40 (and 22+ at night) is where it gets unpleasant.
For anyone not around at the time or otherwise not aware, the Warhammer 40,000 of Rogue Trader days was fething nuts. One of the many, many weird ideas of the time were the Jokaero. Essentially super-smart space Orangutans who were the creators of the much-sought-after “digital weapons” available to some heroes of various types. Or Jokaero Digital Weapons, as they were then known. The “digital” this was in reference to wasn’t zeroes and ones, but our digits – fingers. Basically, we were talking ring-lasers.
Finger-bang, Rogue Trader style.
While the Games Workshop of the last couple of years has done a good job of recognising and bringing back old, neglected parts of the lore, like Deathwatch, Genestealer Cults, Tzaangor and so forth, the Jokaero were brought back(?), well, into the game with an actual model back in 2011 with the 5th edition Grey Knights Codex. I know they’d gotten a mention with the earlier Necrons Codex, making it 15 years before being mentioned again after RT, and 24 years before getting their first model. Will 8th Edition give us a second Jokaero model? Only time will tell, but I can’t see them investing in plastic tooling for something like this unless it’s included on a sprue alongside a plastic Inquisitor or some such.
I gave him pinkish flesh for his hands and feet, mostly because I forgot to check out reference photos of either actual Orangutangs or GW’s model before painting that part of the figure. Ah well, still looks good! I pretty much copied the official GW scheme for the electronics. I went over the white/grey of the accessories with a pearlescent paint, giving it a nice, subtle, shimmery effect that can be seen in hand and not at all in photographs.
Something pretty cool is that the indices for 40k 8th edition feature rules for all of their currently-produced/available models, which includes this guy. This means there’s a decent chance that this model will actually hit my table at some stage in the near future. Who’d’a thunk it?
Jokaero. Such a classic 40K concept. If I recall, their rules in RT were wild. If you gave them enough time and parts they could craft a planetary defense laser, right?
I wonder if he reacts violently to being called a monkey...
Great stuff! Gotta love digital weapons!
Automatically Appended Next Post:
nerdfest09 wrote: Cool, i'm painting one for Gits I found although I did give his closed hand a banana.........
interesting to see his rules.
He's a pretty decent shot with a BS 4+, but terrible in close combat. His digital weapons are AWESOME. 24" Heavy 1 S7 AP -3 D3 damage. Or at 12" Assault 5 S4 AP -1, 1 damage. Also augments shooting for friendlies within 3"
Damn, so I'm going to have to get an Inquisitor painted up now, I guess. I haven't even been looking at those models (or entries) as I slog through my half-painted models in Power Armour...
Their were a bunch of great inquisitor figs in the past too. I think you painted up a terminator armored one with a bionic leg if I remember correctly.
Super looking (don't call him a monkey AOV!) Space Orang there, I really like the warmth of the fur and skin on him. Your LOTD look great as well, they seem very easy to slot into an army in 8th edition as well.
I've got that figure, Theo - and a converted one as well, but never finished either. You're thinking of the "standard" Terminator Captain that I showed off awhile back. That or someone else posted the bionic-leg guy!
I'll have a few more LotD up this weekend. Still need to crop the photos and do the write-ups, though.
Not really a content post today as much as a SUPPLY DROP! one. – Part 1 of my 8th Edition stuff – the Dark Imperium boxes arrived, finally. I’m expecting Part 2 (Indices, dice, ruler, etc) and Part 3 (Forge World Indices, HH Book 7, transfers, some models, etc) in the next day or two. Don’t worry – I won’t be posting about each and every new toy that I get. And yes, I will be figuring out a way to sell a few spare rulebooks locally for less than the retail price.
The top box had 3 sets worth of figures inside! Win!
With 8th coming, I dug out my DV boxes a couple of weeks ago. I’d decided to finally get the Dark Angels I’d accumulated over the last few years painted. Starting with the starter box models. The Chaos models have been put aside for now, but will make up the core of a solid force of Word Bearers with a few being siphoned off to other Legions.
Instead of painting at work during my lunch break, this is what I’d been doing for the past few weeks. Mould line cleaning! I figured it might be the kind of tedious-at-home job that could be bearable at work in short bursts while listening to a podcast or something, and luckily – I was right. This how I started getting through the few extra squads I’d eBayed before getting out the DV boxes. Yes, they sat sealed for years since 6th and 7th were not friendly to returning players. I won’t go on and on, I’ve made my opinion on 7th well known by now.
Here’s part of the production line. Weighting down the 32mm bases with washers before clipping the slottas off the DV models, and then gluing them down. I’ll end up with at least a Battle Company for starters – probably two. I’ll get to the Ravenwing and Deathwing components later. In the meantime, I’ve been going through the rebasing process for my existing DAs, moving them from 25s to 32s, and needing to build a bunch of extras to bulk out my old squads from 7 and 8 marines to 10s.
I’ll have some actual painted and finished models from the DA army soon. While I’m working on those, I can start figuring out how to distribute the Primaris marines amongst my Astartes armies. I won’t be doing a “Primaris Army”, but splitting them amongst my other forces instead.
Can't wait to see you get stuck into these! and that's a LOT of sets! what's on the cards for them all? and when are you starting to get them assembled?
@Nerdfest - PM me about the rulebook - I'm sure we can come to some arrangement that benefits m̶e̶ us both greatly. I'm in the process of mass mould line removal. Then it's gluing onto 32mm bases in batches every so often, then adding their fancy-pants DA backpacks in a decent mix (and keeping some aside for other projects). Blu-tac over the gun/wrist joins, then a mass spraying of black, then brunswick green. Then a test-zenithal with a lighter green spray, then mass edge highlighting, aquilas, purity seals, DA icons, tactical arrows, eyes, etc etc. Then do all their bolters seperately, glue 'em on. Sand, slate and paint their bases. Once they're all done excepting squad markings and company markings, I'll break them down into squads and mix in some other special and heavy weapons and sergeants for variety, probably use a couple of the plasma cannon in tactical squads and swap a couple of them for other heavies into a dev squad - that kind of thing.
The Chaos models I have much wider, more involved plans for. A lot of them will go into my Word Bearers, but a lot of them will also be converted and find homes in my Death Guard and World Eaters armies. Some will become non-rubric, Thousand Sons - basically post-Rubric marines that have fallen to Tzeentch and been recruited by the Cabals as c̶a̶n̶n̶o̶n̶ ̶f̶o̶d̶d̶e̶r̶ useful and valued members of the warband. Some of the less-mutated ones will undoubtedly become Iron Warriors, and even mixed in with units like Raptors and ...those other Raptors.
The cultists will be painted in a pretty generic style, so that they can be used by any Traitor army that I happen to be fielding at the time. Lots of neutral, earthy tones and even the odd red or blue will be muted down. KInda like the way I've been painting (most of) my vikings.
@Theo - I shouldn't take a photo of the room where my GW sets are kept. I really shouldn't.
@evildrcheese - Thank you mate - there's more to come in the next day or two. I finally cropped some photos for the next post, so I just need to do the write-up still. And retake some other photos for what will have to be the following one, because one key photo turned out blurry.
@angelofvengeance - excellent. Link me your company shots to keep me inspired (or post them in this thread - I don't mind!)
@OneManNoodles - It is mate, but they're not really going to be impressive until they're built and painted. Until then, they're just plastic...
@aku-chan - thanks mate! Freehand things like that are probably my most favourite part of miniature painting, so Legion of the Damned are great since they give me so much scope and freedom to cut loose.
And now, some (sorta) new stuff!
Following up on the group shots I’ve been doing of some of my models recently, here’s one of the Marauder Miniatures Dwarf Slayers that I’ve painted. I think they come up nicely as a group, actually, despite the goofiness that some of them have. I’ll do another group shot of the Citadel Giant Slayers sometime down the line – after I’ve finished all of them, so don’t hold your breath for it right now…
(WD scan via Stuff of Legends)
Here’s the full range on release, which I am missing three models from. Of course, there’s also a variation on one of these guys, plus a scattered few from other Marauder Ranges, and then an expanded but separate range of MM Troll Slayers. While I’d really like to get the missing three (and every other Citadel and Marauder Slayer model that I don’t own), I’m not going to kill myself over it, instead I’ll keep an eye out on eBay for them at reasonable prices. Wish me luck!
The most striking thing to me from these two side-by-side pictures is that my models come up pretty nicely against the “official” ones here. Not too shabby.
Those slayer look good all lined up like that. I think I like yours better than the studio versions. The shading, especially on the metallics, is much smoother, and the shodows not nearly so deep.
It seems it's slowly creeping across and affecting more and more people. I've fixed the Slayer post, and I'll slowly work backwards, fixing what I can. I've unfortunately found that Imgur doesn't allow pics hosted on their site to be used on Blogs, which means I now have to host each image twice, once for Dakka, and once for Wordpress. What a fething nightmare.
Feels like it's the start of their business going down the tubes, to be honest. They started out pretty much specialising in providing "third party hosting". Unfortunately, it's a bit of a hobbyist apocalypse across so many forums and blogs.
Anyway, I've been working backwards all day, rehosting my images posted here to Imgur and the wordpress ones onto wordpress itself. While doing so, I found this post from the 10th of last month (on wordpress, sometimes/often they get out of sync), which I don't seem to have posted here. So I'm posting it here, now.
So we have a have a blast from the past. A quonset-style sci-fi bunker that dates from the 1990’s. I assume that it originated from either Amorcast or Epicast, though I can’t find it in Armorcast’s current online catalogue and it’s not made from the weird, expanded foam-like material that a bunch of my other Epicast buildings are made from, so…. dunno? I know if I could find it available again, I might be tempted to pick another one or two up.
With the recent release of Shadow War: Armageddon (aka Necromunda: Redux), my copy of the hardcover finally winging it’s way over to me, and the impending release of 40k 8th Edition, I thought it appropriate to share some of my older scenery pieces that perfectly fit both games. Of course, it's already been seen here on Dakka in the background to my Iron Warriors and Minotaurs army shots.
I actually painted this thing back in the day when I got it, which means it’s also been used in any number of games through the years. I picked it up and painted it during the days of Necromunda, which explains the blue-grey of the base, and the hazard stripes around the door. Which to be fair, does look like it’d cut you in half pretty easily. At least it’s got some warning lights!
The rear view shows the sloppiness of what was considered good enough by many terrain makers of the day, especially for larger pieces like this. Not to mention my own indifference to filling small bubble holes. It looks like a Tamiya product lid of some description was added in by the original “sculptor” for some detail.
A Minotaur Space Marine provides us with scale for the terrain piece. Looks like it’d be a little crowded in there. Perfectly in keeping with Warhammer 40,000, then!
It might not be too crowded if it enters to a stairwell leading down to a facility . Cool piece, I remember seeing them as well, but not sure from where. As for going through old pics, I just rearranged the basement and hooked up a computer that has windows 95 on it. Lots of old family photos including a beloved dog who has been gone almost 10 years now .
So with your Dark Imperium haul you have about 5500 points of Primaris Marines...insane stuff. What do you estimate your amount of painted and unfinished/unmade miniatures to be...and how many homes do you own to store them in ?
Uh... thousands, if not tens of thousands unpainted. I'm pretty much have OCD (seriously). Painted... somewhere between one and two thousand, at a guess - counting scenery objects, etc. I've been painting and collecting for 30-odd years, but have really cranked it up in the last several years. In 2014 I started keeping track of how many figures (from giants to each bit of scatter terrain) I get done every year:
2014: 319
2015: 388
2016: 368
2017 so far: 346
So given my output of the past few years has been WAY more coordinated and productive then in the past, I'd say around 1500-1700 painted at a guess.
I'll get some pics up at some stage.
Anywho. Here's a post showcasing a single model.
I’ve always found the background of “The Fallen” of the Dark Angels quite an interesting one. While some seemed to treate them as just another flavour of Chaos Space Marines, I always preferred the angle of them being fugitives from the Dark Angels, but still basically loyal to the Emperor and Humanity, of not the Imperium proper. One of the positives that came from The Gathering Storm series (aka 40k End Times) was the release of Cypher and a bit more of an exploration of The Fallen as a tabletop force beyond bland CSM, with rules and a bit of fluff explaining how they pretty much fall on all points of the spectrum – from loyalists to die hard chaos worshippers.
This suited me well. I’ve got a lot of the old metal Rogue Trader-era Space Marines, though most are earmarked for other projects, but there’s a few of them that I’ve always wanted to turn into Fallen. Something about Brother Holt (so named in that first catalogue from 1988) always struck me as being a perfect Fallen Angel. The damaged, incomplete armour, scarred visage, and just something about the overall sculpt just placed him there for me.
So like so, so, many other models in my collection, he sat barely started for a solid decade or more until recently. Spurred by reading through The Gathering Storm books and once again – the imminent (at the time) coming of 8th edition, I went looking for this guy in my old figure cases, got him out, rebased him and finally got him finished. Well, completely repainted him from the little that was barely started. I went for original Dark Angels livery, but scratched up, weathered and damaged in the extreme of the Forge World style that I usually eschew in favour of the cleaner look, which I did retain on his bare skin.
I will build at least one squad of Fallen Angels, and possibly/probably expand that to a small “warband” style “army” that can run in smaller 40k games, and serve as an ally to non-DA imperial forces in larger games. I like the idea that they would openly declare themselves to be a mobile, Crusading force of Dark Angels (sometimes joined by Cypher) when assisting human forces/IG/PDF or even other Marines – and given their clear stature as Astartes, their livery and their gear – generally speaking, who would know to question them more deeply?
I don't even remember seeing that guy in catalogs, a true blast from the past .
I haven't been keeping up with GW fluff for the past year of two, I stopped reading the HH series at Vulcan lives of unremembered empire. So the fallen are a mix of the good, the bad and the chaotic? A ragtag fugitive faction? I can live with that. Better than half a legion of butt hurt marines who just need a hug from papa Lionel.
Yeah, pretty much - though like the Traitor Legions, they've been shattered and scattered, so my army of Fallen might be loyalists on the lam from the law, while yours have gone full chaos worship, or whatever. There was also some stuff about how they were fighting their own civil war on Caliban before Lionel's boys turned back up, and even those lines aren't drawn strictly on the Calibanite or Terran Legion side - or even the Lutherian side and the side who was what fighting with Luther side.
Just catching up after a while away, very excited to see you started a viking project! You've been very productive, I can't believe how much stuff you've done to such a high standard.
Seems like some of the pictures aren't showing up for me due to photobucket, so I'm going to go check stuff out on your blog now.
Edit: On checking out you blog, I saw what is going on with Photobucket. What a crock of gak!
Yeah, it's bs. I'm making my way back through my stuff slowly on both the blog and here. I've gotten as far as partway through P71 here so far, and working on March in the Wordpress. I've got to take my wife to the doctors today, and then we have friends coming over, so I probably won't get much time to repair a lot more until tomorrow, though I might try to fix a few entries now.
Because I'd much rather be pouring all these hours into fixing my blogs instead of something worthwhile like painting! Bunch of pricks!
Brother Holt is lovely. He and your recent Terminators, where you take classic models, avoid or minimise conversions, but then paint them with contemporary techniques, are always a treat. They remind me of what my favourite tattooist calls "New School" -- taking traditional "Old School" tattoo motifs (skulls, hearts, the lot!) and inking them with modern techniques such as water-shading etc.
Holt in particular reminds me of some of the characters in the Bloodquest graphic novel trilogy: former Space Marines, mostly Blood Angels but I think there's at least one Dark Angel in there, with varying degrees of... codex non-compliance. Everything from, "still trying to do the right thing but would probably be regarded as traitors" to full-on converts to the Chaos Powers. I've not read the Gathering Storm fluff but am intrigued by the prospect of more variability in Fallen makeup.
Thanks guys, and I really appreciate the comments there, Ian. I'd never really thought of it like that or at least in that level of depth, but it really is what I've been aiming to do with a lot of the old-school models that I've been painting in the last couple of years. Josh has been doing very much the same kind of work with his endless series of Oldhammer Elves, painted in his much more modern style.
New models!
Back in April, I reviewed a pair of Russian Alternative's Fire Canyon Berserker Dwarfs - essentially Chaos Dwarf Slayers. At the time I was very happy with the sculpts and their quality. Recently, I managed to finish off painting that pair, and so I present them to you today.
The palette I've chosen to use is influenced both by previous Chaos Dwarfs - as I'll explain - and also GW's Dwarf Slayers with a few tweaks, as I want them to be immediately recognisable as a mutation of the Slayer Cult, while also being distinct in their own right. So I've gone for deep red hair and beards rather than orangey-ginger. The tattoos on these Berserkers are in a different, angular style rather than the rounded, Maori/Tribal/Celtic style of my Slayers, and the colour used is a deep turquoise/sea green (Vallejo Panzer Colours "Periscopes") rather than the deep blues used on the Slayers.
Similarly, both the Berserkers' weapons and their bling are done in a cold brass, shaded with a hint of green rather than the warmer tones I use on the Slayers. The green is carried across to their pants, as I decided that going for stripey trousers was just too close, and too jaunty for Chaos Dwarfs. I could have gone for other patterns, triangles or whatnot, but again - I decided against it on these guys. Simple, grim and functional.
NOT MY WORK! - Khazek Doomlord painted by Qiao Zhong
While the Chaos Dwarfs of the past few decades have had very much an "official" scheme of Red, Black and Brass, I have a strong and influential memory of a Model from the old Chaos Dwarf Renegades box, released in 1986, that has stuck with me. Specifically Khazek Doomlord, in his deep green armour. I can't locate the decent-quality 'eavy Metal White Dwarf pic right now, and the SoL image is unfortunately poor quality, but Qiao Zhong's modern interpretation of the original scheme shows the overall "feel" pretty well.
The original really has stuck with me through all these years, and was echoed in my Chaos Ogre that I painted a couple of years ago (link to be inserted after I fix those posts), and the vision I have for my Chaos Dwarf army is one that will incorporate both the red/black/brass of modern Chaos Dwarfs and the red/green/brass typified by Khazek.
The second of the two Berserker Dwarfs of Fire Canyon is painted in pretty much the same scheme as his fellow. With his more "open" back, there was space to go a little further with his tattoos, which, as with his fellow, are a mixture of the various dwarven runes conveniently compiled over at Chaos Dwarf Online.
Basing was done with GW's "Martian" basing paints, and slate painted dark grey/black to represent obsidian. I felt that the parched grass was needed to add a little bit of additional contrast in texture. The skulls on both figures provide interest, and also direction when they get used as champions in our games of Gorechosen.
L-R: Warhammer Quest Slayer, Daemonslayer, Fire Canyon #2, Skull Pass Warrior, Fire Canyon #1, Giant Slayer.
To finish up, a scale shot comparing them to some of the most appropriate and one of the most common figures from the Dwarf range. Unfortunately, I only have one other Chaos Dwarf painted, and he's one that dates from that Renegades boxed set, so he's useless for modern scale pics. I've been slowly working on this pair alongside my regular dwarf Slayers, as it seemed the easiest way to do it. Unfortunately, I'd misplaced the box with the unit of regular Bersekers - as well as their awesome looking trolls, both of which I had intended to review and then paint by now, but I found 'em after typing this up!
Thanks mate - and yep, that's GW's Martian Ironearth and Martian Ironcrust on the bases. It involves a bit of playing around,m but gives a pleasing effect. I also used it on the Legion of the Damned (though that was the other ones - Agrellan I believe)
Not a huge fan of the chaos dwarf berserkers, paint scheme is great, but the models and style don't strike me. I think it's the confrontation style dwarf aesthetic that I'm just not a fan of. That and silly weapon design. I do really like the green dwarf though.
They're ugly bastards, all right - but being chaos dwarfs I can accept it. The troopers, which I'll be starting soon - are much more "traditional" looking and could probably pass as regular slayers with just a different style of axe and the odd filed tooth.
Yeah, I'm probably going to try and at least do the Greenwing portion of the DV sets before doing any Primaris. They'll be my reward. I also need to figure out how I'm going to portion them out to my PA armies (no Primaris Army here!)
How are they going to get around the whole "we have a secret" Schtick of the DA? Or will they be initiated as well? They don't have the DA geneseed, so will they be trusted with "the truth"?
Nice work on those CD berzerkers. They are truly ugly models, but in the best, Chaos-y sense of the word. I had a bunch of veyr od Chaos Dwarves that I sold off (which I regret to this day), and these guys would have made a lovely addition. Do yo uhave enough of these guys to make a unit?
Theophony wrote: How are they going to get around the whole "we have a secret" Schtick of the DA? Or will they be initiated as well? They don't have the DA geneseed, so will they be trusted with "the truth"?
They've thought about that. Chapters have been given the means to embiggen their own guys. It makes as much sense as the rest of the handwavium of the plot here, so I'm ok with it.
JoshInJapan wrote: Nice work on those CD berzerkers. They are truly ugly models, but in the best, Chaos-y sense of the word. I had a bunch of veyr od Chaos Dwarves that I sold off (which I regret to this day), and these guys would have made a lovely addition. Do yo uhave enough of these guys to make a unit?
Thanks Theo. I found the boxed set that contains 10 of their grunts, so pretty much. I've also got that Mantic Army Box from a few years ago that I got super cheap which apparently has some berserkers in it as well, so I should be able to fill out one or even two KoW regiments of them. The RA ones are surprisingly cheap anyway. so I could always buy a second box if I had to.
New models!
"He wondered what the man's name was and where he came from; and if he was really evil of heart, or what lies or threats had led him on the long march from his home; and if he would not really rather have stayed there in peace..."
Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers Book 4 Ch. 3 "Of Herbs and Stewed Rabbit"
Amongst my many projects that are theoretically on the go at any given time are usually a bunch of "one at a time"-type things, where I have randomly gotten enthusiastic about a model or even a unit from an army that I haven't really even begun on, and started painting them. These Harad Abrakhân Guard are an example of that. They took me about 6 months, on and off to get painted - mostly because I'm easily distracted and small amounts of indecision on how to paint an accoutrement can result in literally months of delay before getting back to a model.
The colour scheme was pretty simple. I wanted to avoid the purple and turquoise seen in GW's scheme entirely, and instead go for black with a splash of bright red on the sash. I think black keffiyeh/shemaghs always look sharp, so again, that was a no-brainer for me. A bit of gold retained for bling, and the clothing looks pretty good. I painted the flesh tones in a light brown tone, similar to people of Lebanese and Jordanian descent that I work with, since unlike GW until just a couple of years ago, I don't think everyone in the world has caucasian skin pigmentation. My Tallarn (if I ever finish them) have similar skin colouration to my Haradrim. (I get the TE Lawrence/SAS reference, but I prefer the Bedouin one for them.)
As with a lot of the LotR metal range, these figures do suffer a bit from GW's "three poses only!" policy, but mixed together in a unit they still manage to look decent.
Finally, the Kings of War-oriented unit shots. Until I get a lot more Haradrim painted - which won't be anytime soon - these guys will get shoved into one KoW force or another as a unit of some sort of elite humans who hit hard but have light armour. I may also be able to use them as proxies for something in games of SAGA - Crescent and the Cross. Honestly, I haven't looked hard at that since I've got very little Crusade-Era stuff painted right now.
But hey - these guys are done, and I think they turned out pretty well, so it's all good!
Thank you guys, I'm really happy with how they came out. I've got a unit of Watchers of Karna hovering around my table, but they're still in their blisters, so need cleanup and everything else before we get near the painting. I might try to do the prep work done in the next couple of weeks, and then do the actual painting at work during my lunchtimes. Pretty much entirely black robes there. Or I could do a careful drybrush and knock them out in a fraction of that time...
We have another trio of my old Legion of the Damned models today.
The first of this trio, from WD 102 in June '88 is from the RT103 Space Marine Heavy Weapons set, sculpted by (I believe) Mark Copplestone, as he and the other sculptor listed, Aly Morrison had distinctively different sculpting styles of marine helmet. This one was simply "Gunner 2" and he's armed with an early model Lascannon, from the relaunch of Imperial Army as Imperial Guard, from a year or two later. Of course, with Index: Imperium 1 being designed entirely around "Models currently available for sale", the Lascannon option is technically illegal, as LotD can only have Multi-Meltas and Heavy Flamers. I guess I'll be prying apart my classic model that's been painted for a deca.. I had you there, huh? feth no. I'll just work out the points difference between the Melta or Flamer and a Lascannon and run it like that. I don't play in tourneys or even PUGs in game stores, so I don't have to worry about people being TFG.
Anyway, lots of bone on this guy and a complete lack of flames. A freehand skull on one shoulder, and a ribcage on the other, because why not?
The middle guy here is an official Legion of the Damned model from their first official model release in 3rd Edition, 1998/9. They're from the days of metal models with plastic arms. The Legion are essentially the late-Rogue Trader (1.5) edition metal-bodied space marines with skully and firey bits sculpted on. I think I managed to purchase them all, yet this guy is the only one of them that I've actually painted. Once I get the Minotaurs and Dark Angels I've got on the go out of the way, I'll try and rectify that.
I found this one to be a particularly nice model, I chose to paint it because I really liked the sculpted ribcage. No true freehand on this guy, either. The flames, crossbones and the shoulder pad's detail are all sculpted.
The final model of this trio is a "Death Eagle" Space Marine, from 1989. These three were released with no real explanation of what a "Death Eagle" actually was. A new chapter? An armour variant? A unit type? What we can see is that Mark Copplestone's trio are the forebears of MkVII Aquila Armour, predating even the 1990/91 exploration into Archival and Artificer armour variants by a couple of years. Anyway, this guy got inducted into the Legion and like several others had his backpack replaced later on with one from the '98/99 set. All of his flames and most of his bone work are freehand - with the exception of the bone eagle on his left shoulder - which was the main reason he was chosen for the Legion - and again, I'm quite happy with the ribcage that he wears, this time on his left greave.
I do have a (un)healthy collection of Legion of the Damned models from the various releases through the years still sitting around in boxes, from 2nd Edition through to the newest ones - which admittedly aren't especially new anymore unless you're an old grognard like myself. Once I've finished rebasing and touching up my old/painted LotD models (there's 3 more unfinished old-school models on my painting desk right now), the collection will give me another set of models I can paint a few more of from time to time for interest and enjoyment. Who knows, maybe at some point in 8th they'll become an independent force again, as they briefly were in 3rd via a Chapter Approved supplement? But I guess that would only come alongside a new plastic kit, so less likely than a whole lot of other things...
Of course that doesn't count any of the other Imperium or Xenos forces, or the Fantasy/
. When they finish taking your castle they can circle it with the ladders because they look a lot like picket fences.
Bah! I should make this blog All Space Marines All The Time. Then I bet people would start to care! 
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