Well, if they're magnetised, then you're golden. I'm just plodding away on basic marines myself right now as I try to bump some more undersized 3rd ed units up to 10-man squads and some basic characters for the time being. I'm happy to "break" the rules for existing models in my collection where I think it's appropriate, but when building new ones, I'm going to try and keep them legal (if not optimised.)

I like where this build is going! Consider me on board and subbed for the duration! Floating boulders, indeed!

As, I'm kinda in the same place but I've been magnetizing marines for so long it's just automatic now. I have some Enforcers built in one pose, but almost every marine has at least one magnet. It's nice for painting too.

Meer_cat, welcome aboard! Always nice to have new faces about. I'm fast tracking these boulders and then it's likely post apocalyptic terrain and any figures I can get myself to paint.

.Bases textured, about halfway through on top. Then spray, paint, jungle plants, and maybe some kind of mud made from a mutated snow recipe

That's a nifty idea. I may have to copy it.

If you do, let me know if you find a practical use for them haha. I can't think of much call for them beyond the current scenario.

 GrimDork wrote:
If you do, let me know if you find a practical use for them haha. I can't think of much call for them beyond the current scenario.

X-wing

hmmm.....

But but they're not tournament regulation size Theo!

I may try to hang enough vines off of them such that the ground floor could provide cover as well as difficult terrain. And the vines would also suggest a way for foot troops to get up top so they're kinda work like ruins.

Trying to update more often. Kind of a slow progress weekend especially given that I need the boulders for this coming week. WIP below. All based now. Need to wash and seal them tonight if I can so I can try to flock them tomorrow. Vines too. I want a lot of vines. Would like the bottom region to be dense enough to count as forest.

Also, bonus, I rebased 22 of my z-corp marines to clear acrylics. I've got three more who were gunners. I took the gun arms off and will finish them with mantic sci-fi/fantasy zombie arms down the road. I have two spare kneeling GCPS dudes and maybe I can swap the arms from some extant kneeling dudes to finish them off. Someday, literally zero urgency.

Rocky floaty things are looking good. I would say go with hotglue for sticking the vines, any thready bits will add nicely to the affect. Are you hoping to have troops stood on top of these!

Really interesting, when do you need them by?

Haven't nailed anything down but we were talking about the next few days.

Gonna try PVA+twine+flock for vines so I probably will hotglue them down.

And yes, the models are meant to go on top. Anyone on the ground in the last three turns or so is just taken out of play as lava boils out of the craters these rocks left.

I've tried to make them sturdy to keep model damage to a minimum.

I think it would be cool if you could get the amount of vines you are looking for so there is cover underneath. Not sure I'd stand under giant floating rock though, someone might turn gravity back on.

Yeah, risky. But so is standing in the open when you're getting shot to pieces

Further WIP included. Wanted to texture the bottoms similar to the ground but I'm settling with painting a similar color on them to indicate the rocks used to be in the ground.

Vines are pretty thick so I dunno about having as many as I wanted. Still need to seal and add some flock and plants.

They look awesome. An idea I had for vines is those furry pipe cleaners from my childhood.

Those could work.

I may get some thread and try for some skinnier vines to go with these. Game got delayed so I have more time.

Need more vines, flock, and plants... But that didn't stop scout squad Ramiel from calling in terminators squad Mendriel to deal with some mutants that have been reported in the area...

The terminators aren't afraid of big rocks falling on them . It's like one of the GW old stories where a Titan steps on a space wolf in terminator armor and keeps going, only for the space wolf to get up with all the armor buckling and cracked to keep on fighting.

They're built Mars tough (tm).

I'm thinking of marrying my rekindled enthusiasm for 40k with TNT which we'll be playing next.

Make an order machinum Inquisitor, a mini magos/Mars middle management d00d, keep the miners and robot from that last team, eventually include a spesh mahreen and a mechanicus robit or similar. Using the preservers rules.

Would need an Inquisitor, maybe infinity Sforza?

Have you considered using some Warmahordes Casters for those units? Some of them would make pretty good Mechanicus types, like Mortenebra.

Now that's just HERESY Barzam, heresy! They'd make some sick dark eldar haemonculi. I guess if you replace the scary face they aren't much different than those new mechanicus bosses either. Hmm.

Those floating boulders definitely have an Avatar vibe to them with all the vines. Of course that was probably what you were going for, huh? They look good so far and should make some fun terrain to play with.

I had not considered it. I've seen it and see what you mean though.

I started with the scenario parameters, then I got the can of great stuff. Hacked them down, stuck them on nails, and decided i wanted them to match the jungle terrain I'd made previously and that we had also used in the campaign. Some scenery I plan, some is fairly serendipitous. I was likely guided subconsciously by remembering Avatar and similar though.

Hmm. Avatar, maybe some inspiration in there for how to segue these in for dnd terrain.

Love the floating boulders. Very cool indeed.

EDC

Cool little vignette photos there, Grim. On with the Inquisitorial warband?

The boulders are looking awesome. The vines have come up really, really well. Makes me think I could hide all of my modelling sins on ruins I make with a few vines.

Thanks guys . Calling them done, photos with more vines attached below.

May do an TNT/Inquisitor band Az, may just keep it purely post apocalyptic. Can't decide if it's a peanut butter and chocolate situation or something best left alone. I also know I'm not steeped enough in 40k lore and imagery to really make one of those excellent INQ28 style bands anyway, the essence probably won't be there.

Been looking over marines to paint, and trying to get back in the TNT mood with scene and figures etc.

They look excellent and cast a nice shadow on the battlefield. It would be fun to see a couple of imperial knights fighting on a field of these. It would look like a strange soccer match.

Yeah I imagine most of them are at the right height to get supermega cannoned to rubble.

I suppose they could be gravitic mines tethered by cables disguised as vines and set as Knight traps

I always like seeing those photos of X a day for a year so I'm sideways copycatting that by doing a photo of painting progress a day. As of today. Lol. We'll see how long that lasts . May not post every day since yknow, may not be a lot of change.

As part of that, I am gonna try to put down at least one pick of paint a day. May or may not include prepping models. In the name of progress i may.

Man that new bigass dread is sweet. Unlike knights or the massive Tau suits though it's familiar. I think, aside from the price tag on the primaris characters, I actually really like everything that's come out for them so far. Rievers, agressors, the big box dudes, not to mention shots I've seen of I'm assuming hellblasters and intercessors from the eventual multipart kit. Well I don't love the tank, though I do like it's capacity of 10. Not sure I need a double box by any means but both halves are sounding attractive. If i could manage to make 3 deathguard from existing marines, I could do two squads of 5 marines and I have a crap ton of plastic sci-fi friendly zomboids. Anyway I'm carrying on, I'm still at least 30 models away from being caught up enough to work on that box. Till then I save my amazon points and bide my time. Gotta say though, he may need some of the plastic deamon prince armor bits, and a greenstuff plague belly...but one of those stage 1 plague lords may make a nice nurgle prince

Speaking of primaris...which one of the following four would you get to go with Dark Imperium, if you were only gonna get one within the next six or so months:
Rievers
Aggressors
Redemptor Dreadnought
Repulsor tank

I've got ~59 dollars to spend to hit free shipping in my MM cart and I'm gonna buy Dark Imperium once I hit critical mass in bonus points on my cards (probably from Amazon though). So I wanna get this order shipped and thought I may compliment the primarines with an actual "off the shelf" purchase. But I can't just buy one of all the new things on one go.

So for my consideration, which new box would you guys prefer to see join my Angels Ascendant?

The creepy skull face terror troops with their bevy of extra skull faces ripe for conversions?

The Centurions we need *and* deserve?

The badass new mega Dreadnought?

The new "what if Land's raider and skimmer had a baby and sent it to predator school" hovertank with it's massive carrying capacity and horde of weaponry?

I wasn't considering the Repulsor at first because it's $68, but that's only 9 dollars over the mark and I'm gonna have to add a few dollars to the other three to make $100 anyway. The aggressors actually allow for upwards of $20 to spend but on what I dunno.

The Rievers kit would add some numbers to my ranks and the extra heads supposedly for conversions.

The aggressors feel like Centurions done right, and I kinda like the idea of the big chunky bastards sprinting forth on their toes to unleash short ranged mayhem before punching things to death.

The new dread is just buckets of awesome. Too big for traditional weapons, it gets its own batch of brutal kill cannons and is supposedly a great kit with which to work.

Thoughts?

Your Hellblasters from the Dark Imperium box really need a ride to be most effective, so I'd say go with the Repulsor. I myself plan to get one as of my next paycheck. Plus the Repulsor's also very cool looking (at least to me).

I guess know no fear comes in at the same as the Repulsor and would chunk up both factions from Dark Imperium though it seems like a bit less of a bargain compared. I think the main think you miss out on is the second intercessors squad and 10 plague walker things. Well it's like 21 models less.... So.. well I think you lose the characters who aren't the captain/Lord of corruption and maybe a couple death guard. You do still get the drone and inceptors.

Actually disregarding the rule book, First strike does a decent job on $$ per model. If you prorate the book DI slays it but still


Automatically Appended Next Post:
How many guys fit in that Repulsor? I feel like the hellblasters need hit support to really shine (and to confidently blaze away full tilt).

 GrimDork wrote:
How many guys fit in that Repulsor? I feel like the hellblasters need hit support to really shine (and to confidently blaze away full tilt).

Repulsor fits 10 Primaris guys, with Gravis-armored models like the DI captain and Aggressors taking up 2 slots. So stick in the Gravis captain for rerolling 1's and the 5 Hellblasters from the starter and go nuts! You could even throw in a Lieutenant for rerolling 1's to wound.

Cheers! Any word on if it can have normal marines in it?

I've been looking and been able to stay clear of buying any of them. But I am a dreadnought whore . I leave the tanks to shaso.

Yeah Redempty tugs at my heart strings. The Repulsor is *kinda* growing on me. I wish there was a dedicated primaris assault unit to cram in there though. Rievers are more of s skirmish/distraction unit. Like melee Aggressors. Err... More melee even. Also not sure I need a second land raider style tank, would be madness to field them simultaneously.

That dread though, I think I saw him with a helmeted sarcophagus. Heart melts. Of course I could probably talk myself into another small/budget box to go with Aggressors since they'd put me nearly $20 down from free shipping. Not sure what is even in that range though...scouts?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Holy gak. Think I found the stats for the Repulsor. What a bullet hose!! You can swap things around to get up to 5 fragstorm grenade launchers if I'm reading it right... That's... 5d6 bolter shots at 18" eesh. And that's not counting the 12 shot s5 -1 save cannon, and the 6 shot pintle variant. Oh and two heavy bolters...

Or you can take lascannons and a last talon and still most of the grenades. It's like all the firepower of a classic land raider from 3 guns and then there's still 3-5 left lol. I don't even care if it's good or cost effective anymore...soooo many dice thrown

Zomg... Give it 3 Aggressors, the gravis Captain, and a lieutenant... Soooo many shots with reroll 1 to hit and wound

I was kinda on the fence about it but all of the missile/grenades it gaks out... It's like s freaking anime battleship.

Damn now I gotta think about this..

Ok slightly lighter grey Terminators. I think I'll wait for the finished product lol.

In other news I managed to dig out my scouts. I have a potential maximum of 21 though it's probably easiest to go with 20.

I've got my painted batch with 4 scoped and suppressed bolters and the heavy bolter, 10 happy to hack things up with blades and bolt pistols (may convert sgt to have blade+chainsword or dual chainswords for max attacks), and 5 with sniper rifle..if I can find three.

I could go with the HB in the sniper squad but it dilutes their purpose as it can't snipe characters..even with split fire, a unified approach is appealing. I'm also considering a heavy bolter for the melee scouts since it's just 10 points..but they may end up running around and advancing to threaten charges so maybe not.

They give a nice range band of points to slot into lists: 65 for the bolter scouts, 75-90(if they take camo cloaks) for the snipers, and 110 for the cheap as chips basic equipment melee scouts. I suppose the bolter scouts could take cloaks too at 80, no need to discriminate.

Would be a nice easy 15 minis to paint after my terminators. The terms would bring me to 28 painted/finished for the Angels Ascendant, so 15 more scouts would bump them to 43. Then I'd be within 10 minis of my DI equivalency target.

Gotta hunt down some arms though. May be raiding my enforcer Pathfinders for rifles but we'll see. Modern scout laser snipers look a lot like lasguns with extensions.

Photos when I have them ready .


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also side note, if I do the scouts next I'm basically throwing our my "make a 2000 point list and build+paint it" plan out the window. But I'll wind up with 2000 painted points eventually.

Well, well, you had it lurking there in the background all along didn't you, your dark side.......Speesh MAArines.

Fantastic work bud, they are looking good and by the sound of it you will have a nice army soon. Great work bud.

Yeah I mean I had a few back in 3rd edition from the starter but favored dark eldar then tyranids. Got some guardsmen that never made traction and eventually started hoarding space marine bits and eBay rescues in 2011. I've still never really had a painted 40k army. I had damn near to 2000 points of fantasy empire painted though many got sold or traded. But never more than a bit of 40k at a time.

So looking forward to having a big fat space marine army just cause I never did lol.

 GrimDork wrote:
Speaking of primaris...which one of the following four would you get to go with Dark Imperium, if you were only gonna get one within the next six or so months:
Rievers
Aggressors
Redemptor Dreadnought
Repulsor tank

I've got ~59 dollars to spend to hit free shipping in my MM cart and I'm gonna buy Dark Imperium once I hit critical mass in bonus points on my cards (probably from Amazon though). So I wanna get this order shipped and thought I may compliment the primarines with an actual "off the shelf" purchase. But I can't just buy one of all the new things on one go.

So for my consideration, which new box would you guys prefer to see join my Angels Ascendant?
The creepy skull face terror troops with their bevy of extra skull faces ripe for conversions?
The Centurions we need *and* deserve?
The badass new mega Dreadnought?
The new "what if Land's raider and skimmer had a baby and sent it to predator school" hovertank with it's massive carrying capacity and horde of weaponry?
I wasn't considering the Repulsor at first because it's $68, but that's only 9 dollars over the mark and I'm gonna have to add a few dollars to the other three to make $100 anyway. The aggressors actually allow for upwards of $20 to spend but on what I dunno.
The Rievers kit would add some numbers to my ranks and the extra heads supposedly for conversions.
The aggressors feel like Centurions done right, and I kinda like the idea of the big chunky bastards sprinting forth on their toes to unleash short ranged mayhem before punching things to death.
The new dread is just buckets of awesome. Too big for traditional weapons, it gets its own batch of brutal kill cannons and is supposedly a great kit with which to work.

Thoughts?

Well, personally...

I'm very keen on that New Dreadnought. But then I've always loved the Dread kits and they pretty much just seem to keep getting better. I plan to get a pair (at least).
The Repulsor I'm a bit more indifferent to. I'll get one eventually, I'm sure - but it might be a long ways off. I also intend to completely ignore the Primaris/non-Primaris transport restrictions in our games here as they clearly only exist to push the sale of new transport models.
Reivers I'm also a bit cool on. I'll get one box at least, and some of the push-fit ones. I'm more interested in them for the bits and the 10-man squad makes it a bit more of a value purchase.
Aggressors I really like, model-wise at least. They're pretty expensive though at only 3 in the box for models I'd want a ton of.

So what, exactly, was your suggestion? That's kinda where I am, not for each item exactly but, I like them all and can't decide lol.

The dread is beefy and cool for sure, though I have several dreads I could paint ready so dunno.

The rievers look cool and may have extra bits. A distraction/disruption unit is neat too.

The Aggressors are just a ridiculously chunky gun laden group that can both advance and shoot or dog in and shoot better. Plus eventual punching.

The Repulsor is a land raider class tank from what I can see and has just buckets of dice if you want to load it that way.

If I'm honest for my scheme, given the drybrush and thick glaze...it leads to inconsistency that's more forgivable on infantry than tanks (drop pod is a clear example of this) so I'm off two minds on the dread and tank...

On one hand, they're less viable for my paint scheme. On the other, tanks and walkers and so on are what make 40k the game it is. I don't get those kinds of units in TNT, pulp alley, infinity, or so on. So it's like... They're what make the game cool/distinct but I also know I'll be less happy with the finished paint work.

The two infantry options will take the scheme better but won't help to give the Primaris dudes a sense of ownership over any of the vehicles they're gonna be fielded with.

Normally I'd be able to easily pick but these four options are all cool and I'd like to pick em all up eventually lol. I guess I should consider what is going to be the most likely to get painted too.. I need to maintain forward momentum and I fear a big tank or dread may bog me down...though either would make a sweet centerpiece haha.

I'm going round in circles. On the bright side, I did get the terminators to the blue stage and those 15 scouts are almost sorted out in terms of bits.

Ok so I didn't manage any more steps on the Terminators, but I did 95% finish the build for the scouts. So what I've got now is 15 cadian legged scouts and 5 full SM bodied scouts. Some have all scout arms and there are a few cadian arms as well as a couple space marine arms sans pauldron.

I've got them built as 5 bolter scouts with heavy bolter, 5 sniper scouts with folded camo cloaks for the option, and 10 pistol/blade combat scouts. I also have a power fist and a storm bolter ready, but I need to find a missing arm for one bolter scout and find an arm to pair with the storm bolter.

May add a few Gubbins to the melee scouts but they're probably fine. Oh, a note, I modded the land speeder storm crew into 5 regular scouts. One will need a tactical rocks upon which to sit.

I like the custom sniper rifles! They make me think of the sniper rifle from the Halo games.

Thanks . It's probably the non-space marine esque geometry on the scopes. I think they were guardsman binoculars.

Agreed with Zerg - the snipers look great, and the scopes do have a Halo-esque look to them. Very cool.

As for your purchases. If I'm going purely on "best model" I would get the Dreadnought and/or the Aggressors. I'll probably buy one of each together, and first when I get to buying new Primaris models, so take your pick from one of that pair based on your own preferences.

Hmm food for thought.


Scouts got primed. Even the eBay rescues look alright with a fresh undercoat. May be a little soft detail in some spots but mostly they're fine.

Probably could have nearly finished those terminators today but surprise plumbing issues have kept me from being productive.

So what do you folks think? It's the snow mix but with red/orange instead of white.

If i we're gonna do something that could conceivably be earth sand, should I mix about half tan into that or should I just go with fully tan? Thinking I'd like something suggestive of alien landscape as well as fallout desert. Thoughts?

Terminators coming along.

Necromunda coming... Wonder if I should wait on Dark Imperium...

Well I love the red earth, maybe a very fine drybrush with the tan to make it pop.

I like the effect you got with the snow. I like the idea of more of a pink color for alien landscape, but that might be from the book Titanicus where they talk about the pink sand.

Necromunda announcement this morning was a nice surprise to wake up too. Plastic multiparty gangers . Just decided not to buy the dark age figures or back green horde. GW just learned how to get my money.

I do like the red too hmm. I guess it can be some kind of wild Wasteland explanation.

Yeah I have admired necro from afar. SWA wasn't doing it for me, but maybe nu-necro. Would love an Inquisitor faction though that's a bit of a stretch lol.

WIP Not-Azreal and a techmarine on a bike. Techmarine needs to have some mods to the servo-thingy because he was *going* to be a servoharness dude, and those are expensive now so we're just going with one servo arm, storm bolter, and bike. I think he's less than 100 points, preeeety sturdy, and may make a fine addition to an Azreal Parking lot set up. Fistivius Fistigar has become Not-Azreal. Though the original parts exist.

Terminator squad Rubiel reporting in. Photo of both squads so you can tell there are actually two separate entities

I'm done for awhile. I like the DV terminators but they're festooned with detail and i may burn out on another batch haha.

I've got six scouts in the tray now, they should be much simpler and I reckon they'll take quite a bit less time overall. Doing half the melee scouts and the odd-man heavy bolter scout. 3 original metal, 3 cadianlegs scouts.

New terminators look great , take a break if they are wearing you out, you don't need to get burned out.

Tech marines can have mechandrites made out of guitar string to count as servo arms.

That's what he has . I just put some plastic tube over them in sections. I need to adjust them so they can be driving the bike though haha.

Nice job on the terminators

Really digging the Scout conversions too.

EDC

Cool paint scheme on those Terminators!

Looking fantastic all round bud, think you are upping your game here. That tentacle tube idea is stolen.

Thanks folks

Those termies look really good. The turquoise-and-black works really well.

Thanks Josh, I stumbled on the color and like it.

 GrimDork wrote:
So what do you folks think? It's the snow mix but with red/orange instead of white.

If i we're gonna do something that could conceivably be earth sand, should I mix about half tan into that or should I just go with fully tan? Thinking I'd like something suggestive of alien landscape as well as fallout desert. Thoughts?

Terminators coming along.

Necromunda coming... Wonder if I should wait on Dark Imperium...

The Red Earth looks great. You know that many parts of Australia genuinely look like that as well, right? (just google "australia red earth" instead of me clogging up the thread with images).


Finished Termies look great, and I love the biker conversion. I may have to rip that off. Need to finish more stuff before I start something new, though. I've got a figure selected to (hopefully) ignore all else and just start-to-finish this weekend, but I need to build and prime it first.
I'd love to see that biker Techmarine finished, but if you're needing a break from fiddly bits he might not be the best choice. Take a break with the Scouts maybe?

I did not know that about Australia. Cool. I knew somewhere had to be at least modestly orange red but to know that something similar to that shade actively exists is cool. I think I'm just gonna make a huge batch and coat a 4x4' sheet of insulation foam. Kinda like the snow board but with no hills or features attached. Then I'll do the more standard slightly based terrain and maybe a little red dust on some cars and buildings. Maybe, some time.

I think the techmarine would be ok. He'll be a different color and while between him and the bike there are a lot of tedious bits, it's just a single model and even after I throw on some DA iconography he still won't be as bad as two more terminators. Does a techmarine's bike match his chapter or his own red armor? Hmmmm... I also need to adjust his mechandrites, he was originally gonna have a servo harness but I think in basic terms the single arm he comes with and a storm bolter will keep him cheaper. The harness doesn't make you any better at repairing this edition.

I do have 6 scouts in the painting box, almost too simple but I'll not complain. Never painted a bike before so I'm kinda interested in seeing how that goes.

Looking forward to your project.

More good work here! your Marines grow in strength!

Thanks

Yeah I think they're up between 1100-1200 points right now. Hardly optimised but ehh its whatever.

I've asked elsewhere but I'll ask here too.

Land raider, see below.

Is it gonna be for the Angels Ascendant or for the Death Guard from DI?

I think the DG need the lascannons more and the conversion would be fun plus it *did* start life as a chaos land raider.

Of course, converting it to a DA crusader would mean I could cart around 5 terminators (knights), 5 veterans, and Asmodai as a nasty little beatdown crew.

What do you even put in a chaos land raider? I wonder if DG vehicles will get disgustingly resilient?

What do you guys think, does the never completed chaosraider get reclaimed and purified or does it go back to its roots?

Nurgle is getting its own tank, so I think purify this one with lots of soap .

If you want to DG it, then I'd wait a month or so until the DG codex comes out and see how it looks there. I can't imagine it not being one of the next pair.

I guess you'd also consider the overall transport situation with the Angels. How are you for Rhinos/Razorbacks, and do you want to be able to drive the Termies around?

Reclaim it for the God-Emperor!

EDC

Hmm the readers here seem to lean loyalist huh?

Good call Az, I wasn't likely to get to it sooner anyway. I have upwards of six rhino chassis with one predator turret, two predator sponson sets, and a number of guns I could get to pass for razorbacks.

I imagine deathguard would claim 2-3 rhinos as well.

Do we even know what DG will have access to, vehicle-wise? I wouldn't put it past GW to either remove an option, like Land Raiders (since they're getting new vehicles after all) or straight up nerfing the ones they do have access to. I say stick to keeping things loyalist for now, hang on to a couple arhinos for the DG and wait and see what GW decides to allow them to use.

Yeah, we don't know. Hoepfully they wouldn't remove DG Land Raiders, what with the Legion origins and all - not to mention the number of people's existing armies out there, but the wait-and-see approach is best for the Death Guard right now. And Thousand Sons for that matter.

Good advice. I think I'll put it up on a shelf to wait till I know more. I'll reconfigure my DA list without one to be safe.

Meh painting scouts is crawling even as simple as they are. I think I may have to take a break after them. Maybe do some terrain..or something I can do with very simple basecoats and washes...like some zombies/plague or I dunno something.

Doing the silver has m a bit less pessimistic, barely any work after that.

Eclipse day here, traveled a bit south to a relatives to catch about 1.3 minutes of totality. Will try to paint tonight if we get back before too late.

I'm worried about traffic, St. Louis is shutting down sections of highway because people have "camped out" spots where there are open stretches of road to get wider views.

We had a bit of traffic on the way down. Gonna back road it on the way home I think.

Grim got abducted by shadowmen during the eclipse, normal service will resume once they realise just what they have.

Yeah nobody would wanna keep me around once they figure out how boring I am

But really I've just been rather unproductive. That will likely continue. In addition to the eclipse, the stars may have lined up enough for me to swing a dnd session this weekend. Just the boring old library game day, but I'll take whatever. Even if a group doesn't form I may stick around to do random board games just to have done something.

Of course that means making sure I have something to run so I'll be digging through my mimic chest for characters and adventures to murder them with instead of painting

Did run D&D, fun enough. May focus on stuff for that for awhile. Nothing cool to show off now though.

As usual enthusiasm tends to spike for whatever I've most recently done so of course I'm contemplating more D&D books over Dark Imperium.

I dunno though DI is a preeety stellar deal and I probably wouldn't really *have* to expand it after the fact. I could convert a few plague guys and give them the Land Raider and be done.

I do want to finish out 2000+ points of Angels Ascendant just because I never really finished a full painted 2k army but after that I'm starting to wonder about making another force of something. Either Enforcers or idontknowwhat. Just thinking on what I have... Forge fathers? I've probably got better than 50 total infantry with a unit or two of the squat terminators, a decent 5-10 man brokkrs squad, some militia etc. They'd Basically be more space marines but yknow.

I guess it could be deathguard too lol.

Save your pennies for Necromunda in November you know you want to. New previews of the figs just popped up in N&R.

We'll see. The preview video made it look halfway like a a boardgame. If it doesn't promise to play like old necro, I've got plenty of gangs from other sources to use.

I'm thinking of drafting the Joker crew and about half of the suicide squad from the BMG starter to be a TNT remnant mutant/raider warband. Raiders would work except Mr J would be super easy to kill. Make him s mutant with carapace (diamond skin maybe?) And it's not so bad. Harlies a raider brute, most of the rest are raiders. Croc is a mutant alpha with carapace and some kind of melee mutation. Etc.

Not saying no to necro, just hedging my bets till I know more.

Think those figures would make good proxies across many settings, even Necro gang if and when. I am with you on the wait and see, I really want Necromunda back, but this might not be Necromunda, just have to wait and see.

 Camkierhi wrote:
Think those figures would make good proxies across many settings, even Necro gang if and when. I am with you on the wait and see, I really want Necromunda back, but this might not be Necromunda, just have to wait and see.

I like the look of the figs, but it's worrisome that it's 2D out of the box. Some have said that it's to interest board gamers, but board gamers HATE having to assemble figures. I see it as just the way to get the initial price point down. Supposedly there are rules for multi level fighting but the base game is being fought in the sewers.

Yeah Necro is a very wait and see subject for me.

Hmm...

Haven't been random enough lately.

Sooo...

30*20" cellar/dungeon map converted to glorious 3d?

That seems like a quick and easy project for you to knock out in a weekend!

Weekend? Pfft give me a day and a half tops.







Automatically Appended Next Post:
Oh and on the off chance any of you d00ds like podcasts of tabletop RPG live play or whatever, check out the Glass Cannon Podcast. It's Pathfinder, but even I got over that in all of my 5e fanatasism. It's been very entertaining vying for (and winning) my attention from the also awesome Critical Role (especially since they are a twitch thing and podcasts come up *eventually*).

I just watched Adam savage (myth busters) make a scale model of his childhood home out of foamcore. He did the whole house in a day with time lapse photography. It was really interesting, and this would be a perfect style to do that in.

Well I'm no Adam Savage haha. I'll probably use extruded foam and maybe paperboard for the thin walls.

That was pretty cool I watched a bit of it.

Well y'know it really didn't take too long after all.

I mean I need to paint some more barrels, doors, and so on...and badguys to populate it... But really the hideout is more or less done.

Learned a couple lessons working with the materials so a future project should go more smoothly. Maybe a more modular setup with the upper wall sections being free and just I dunno bluetacked down per session.

I found a quick and easy way to paint those wooden barrels from hobby lobby. Just get a medium brown marker to lightly paint them which kinda stains them letting the grain show through. Micron pen to draw lines for the boards. Silver sharpie for the bands. Done. Need to do a touch of rust so they don't all look brand new.

That's a cool dungeon setup. What materials did you use?

Thanks. It's largely that 1" extruded insulation foam. Bottom layer with 1" gridlines and top layer cut to fit dungeon map.

Also the thin walls are printed paper spray glued to paperboard. Had them from another cancelled project and upcycled them.

Little Spackle on the natural walls. Bit of paint.

Crate painted on to a cube. Thoughts? Acceptable or replace with proper 3d?

Acceptable for D&D as it will get handled a lot.

You certainly didn't mess around with getting that dungeon put together!

As for the cube, it depends on your criteria. It's certainly good enough to game with in most any context. It's not up to the standard of a lot of the other terrain projects that you've shared on here over the years, but as a purely gaming bit of scatter, it's fine.

It's a simple process and I got some extra time last weekend. The walls were already made too.

I agree on the crate. I'll probably make a few but not many.

There's a defunct castle in the same adventure that's almost the sa.e footprint so I may make it too eventually.

Looking forward to your castle build.

That one will take some more scheming as there's technically an outside and players could potentially be out there. Gonna need something easy for round tower walls like those project bricks or something.

The first cave/dungeon/whatever is also a similar size but has an awkward sloped situation with certain rooms on top of others kind of. I didn't do that one though I'll consider it if I run this for another group someday. The last dungeon is significantly larger so I'm not as sure about that.

Fast and effective work bud. Looks spot on for gaming. The box is certainly good enough, it does it's job perfectly.

Thanks.

Did a couple more in more reasonable sizes. Also added some red to some old free companies and now I've got a small gang of bandits.

Bandits look cool . The crates will be great in mass quantities too.

Thanks. All about the easy stuff lately

Randomly bought two six shooter heavy walker tanks from dust tactics for $8 each. Price was right, they come with two turrets even. May try to tread them into tanks or just leave them alone dunno. The six shooter guns look like a great start for rifleman dreads. I'll get them whenever I spend another 43 or so dollars at mm lol.


Seriously considering gutting my Dark Imperium budget (which is nearly matured) to buy D&D books. DI is an insane value but I am in doubt of getting to play and both factions are dangerous slippery slopes of future purchases. I still plan to paint Dark Angels I own, of course, I need *need* that 2000 pt army completely painted achievement lol.

Was anyone *really* looking forward to me painting DI anyway?

But looking over my hoard of minis I have a fat army of forge fathers and at least as many enforcers. I think both offer at least as much as numarines or nurgled00ds. Of course doing those would make me want mantic tanks to go with

Anywho, for the moment I'm working on a couple of bugbears and an evil mage to go with those bandits.

I may do a mini-challenge for kicks. Would like to complete the monster list for the dnd starter Lost Mines of Phandelver.

Ooookay. Weeel... It's not that mini. 119 d00ds I think. Could probably shave off upwards of 11 if I re-weighted the encounter tables and didn't paint unnecessary NPCs but still... An of course I've got some of it painted already like orcs and goblins etc. May just have to use orcs as hobgoblins since I have none of those...

Hmm I'll draw up a list.

Keep DI for a reward when you finish a bunch of that stuff, then. You don't need the D&D books - I'm sure someone else you know has any that you'd really need. Or buy a couple of the most useful/interesting D&D books and keep on trucking towards DI. I'm wanting to see you paint them up, for one...

You underestimate the smallness of my town goodsir . If I want a dnd manual it's on me. I do play rarely and they're not necessary, but fun/inspirational to have around.

But if people really are wanting to see me paint DI hmm...

I almost bought one of thos, I might still snag one as the guns may fit the dreamforge leviathan fists.

I still kinda want one of those. Ultimate enforcer robot or something. Maybe I'll try to catch one on a black Friday sale, I like it better than the 40k knights generally speaking.

I'm hoping the guns translate well to autocannons on dreads. I always wanted a couple of riflemen and effectiveness/continuation in the codex be damned. Maybe say screw it all and keep the triple guns

Rifleman Dreads are still a (Legal) thing, it's just that they're via the Forge World indices now.

Also, log onto Steam and message me when you get on.

Yeah I remember hearing non box options fell out of the codex and ended up index only or whatever.

And I shall do that

Dreamforge was just having a sale on the leviathans with the holiday this last week, $45 for the 28mm fig. Insane.

Was it sans arms? Jeepers that's cheap.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Yeah 70 now. I think I'd rather get a Tau Ghostkeel.

 GrimDork wrote:
Was it sans arms? Jeepers that's cheap.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Yeah 70 now. I think I'd rather get a Tau Ghostkeel.

It always comes with the Gatling arm and sword arm in the box. The killer is shipping, since he doesn't have a distribution chain. The Morris version was $4 more I think and comes with scythe arm and fist.

Yeah that price is bonkers. I'm kinda glad I didn't see it haha.

 GrimDork wrote:
Yeah that price is bonkers. I'm kinda glad I didn't see it haha.

He's warehousing everything himself and doing all the work, so around Labor Day and Memorial Day he always has a huge sale. If you plan on it you can save big, but shipping usually kills it for most people. He had the old WGF 28mm Russian and American troops for around $10.

Damn I wish you were in the area for some D&D, would love to make use of those 3D dungeons you have made.

Theo- no no noooooo keep the good sales away from me

Archer-would be a treat. Too bad the only way is roll20 (or equivalent) and that precludes the dungeons

I really like those free company guys, it was a great kit and still holds up.

Yep, I think I may have to scavenge for some more. Kinda have that disenfranchised soldier look as opposed to the classic Robinhood style bandits.


I need to seal them but here's the bandit leader Glasstaff and two bugbear minions on loan from cragmaw castle.

Also included is my WIP Nothic, a crazy former wizard who got mutated after some failed magic, a dug too deep kinda situation.

Glasstaff? I guess he has to be careful with the ladies

Bugbear enforcers mean no ones fooling around

Also I picked up my six shooter/bulldog today. It's freakin huge.

Nah, it's magically hardened

Yeah, I have a feeling they're there to watch the bandits for the BBEG wizard who's in charge of them and their little wizard as much as they are to help.

Big huh? Cool, maybe glad I ordered two then haha.

Needs more gnolls. Sadly, there's no good Gnoll models I'm aware of. :T

I have the reaper gnolls. They're a little big but pretty fierce looking.

Nothic has a very cool Plaguebearer look to him, actually...

The ball bearing as a cyclopean eye has been considered for future conversions.

 Kepora wrote:
Needs more gnolls. Sadly, there's no good Gnoll models I'm aware of. :T

Have you seen the frostgrave gnolls? I've only seen a couple pics, and they look okay, maybe not great but good horde gnolls.

IMO the frostgrave gnolls make decent beastmen, or 20-25mm gnolls I guess. For me, gnolls should be 7-8 feet tall and fairly burly. The reaper gnolls are a little big honestly, more like ogre sized gnolls (flinds?) But the frostgrave seem pretty man-sized.

May have to give them a look though, using the reaper gnolls as flinds and the frostgrave as regular *could* work.

I'm pretty sure they are same size as the humans cause I've seen conversions with their other sets.

I can confirm that they are man-sized. The Wizkids unpainted D&D/Pathfinder gnolls are a lot bigger. Probably bigger than the Reaper Bones ones. The old D&D Chainmail line had some pretty big gnolls, too.

Do you mean thr nolzurs line? Those are bigger than the reaper gnolls? Man maybe gnolls are bigger than I remember lol.

Yeah, those ones. They're more upright than the Reaper ones. I haven't got either in front of me at the moment, but I believe the Nolzur ones are taller. I'm pretty sure gnolls are supposed to be taller than humans though. The Chainmail ones certainly were.

Yeah, I've seen the Reaper and Frostgrave ones. It just feels like the sculptors have never seen what a hyena looks like!

Feel like I haven't been random enough lately.

Anyone remember this old thing?



From back when I act uploaded to the gallery instead of appending images to posts . Saw it in person the other day at my sister's house, still kicking.

Love that ball bearing in the skull , such a simple idea executed so well on Nothic. Your Dungeon set up looks excellent as well.

Thanks

Just primed him, an ogre, and a couple of ghosty things so expect paint reasonably soon.

Sorry folks, it's been forever.

We've gotten sick a few times, stomach bug that kinda thing, and other stuff.

The coolest other stuff is meeting a local nerd with a gaming friendly wife and two children in the same age band as my own. So we've been letting the kids play while we play D&D. I imagine there will be breaks for board game nights and so on...but I've been essentially trying to keep up with nothing less than a weekly game and I'm not as young as I once was lol. I mean we probably play closer to 2-3 times a week but the intent for weekly meetings is there.

Suffice it to say, I've been terribly busy trying to keep material written ahead of the group and haven't had time to paint diddly squat. I still feel remiss for going radio silent and especially for not swinging through to check everyone's progress on their own pages, gonna have to rectify that a bit.

And so I finally have stockpiled enough bonus points on my cash back cards...but now I'm probably gonna buy D&D books instead of Dark Imperium, whoops!

Oh here's a shot from last night's game at least..

That's cool that you've found some locals to play with. The closest gamers to me that I'm aware of are my brother and BobtheInquisitor, and he's close to an hour or so away. Even better that you get to use your minis, though. Are you DMing?

Great to see you, really happy you have a new friend. Getting games in. All good. Understand the commitment though. Be great to hear from you.

Good to hear you are getting games in. Always a plus!

Barzam--yep, DMing. Usually that's the hardest seat to fill but I like doing it anyway.

Thanks folks, I'll be trying to update more.

Good to see you're ok. Keep on keeping on, mate!

Out of curiosity (on a fellow DM professional level) how do you handle using the 3D dungeon? Do you lay out the whole map or do you only put out the areas that the adventurers have reached?

Cheers.

Archer, this one was one fill piece so I had to cover it up but it was hard not to metagame s bit given obvious size lol. In future I wanna do pieces and build as we go.

Still alive lol.

Needed hobgoblins. Improvised.

Oops had a better one...

Bit blurry, but here are some walls. 6x3" walls for magical summoned walls and s ruined wall section for frostgrave. I think we're adopting it as a backup game for low turnout and nights.

Nifty. Did you cut those blocks yourself?

Just the halves and broken bits, they come as blocks. Project Bricks, idk about other countries but a lot of hobby shops around here have them.

 GrimDork wrote:
Feel like I haven't been random enough lately.

Anyone remember this old thing?



From back when I act uploaded to the gallery instead of appending images to posts . Saw it in person the other day at my sister's house, still kicking.

I remember this one, still a big fan of it mate, have you seen the realities edge rules? The diorama fits in perfectly with it.

I haven't looked into reality's edge properly yet, but it is intriguing.

I never realized how hard it was to keep up with a weekly D&D group while also doing the Adulting thing. I guess the last weekly game I ran before this was back in high school.

So yeah, probably should have posted something to the effect of not posting much going forward. Apologies for falling off the map. I would not be opposed to opening a new hobby blog but i've been so overrun lately I've had to resort to papercraft haha.

It happens to all of us at different times! I am sure you will find some more hobby time in the future. Hope things chill out for you before too long. I had several years like that recently.

I think we have all had periods like that mate. Would be happy to hear about your D&D adventures however.

Papercraft is cool. Also, feel free to share tales of your D&D adventures.

Gee and here I thought the mods finally got the permanent ban hammer and hit you with it. Nice to know you are still floating around out there.

I was more worried that his wife saw his full collection and hid his body under the weight of his models .

It is heartening to see all the kind responses after so long away. Once I have a moment I may see about a new hobby blog or something.

 GrimDork wrote:
It is heartening to see all the kind responses after so long away. Once I have a moment I may see about a new hobby blog or something.

You were clearly missed...... with every lasgun shot so far

Papercraft is perfectly acceptable. Pix of some of your work. We expect this, of course.

And yes D&D is a major time sponge.

Good to see you back.

Paint rack. Just cleared off the desks and decided to put this together. Cutting PVC straight is hard. Fortunately I found a ~25 dollar adjustable rotating pipe cutter for about 6 bucks on clearance, yay.

The fit is too tight but it'll be easier to keep track now.

I'll probably make a new hobby blog and put a link here when that happens but I may wait till fall, prepping to run these con games is eating my spare time.

Once the paint rack was set up, I wanted to try it out.

I'm running a few D&D sessions for Salukicon, a local con which happens to take place at my alma mater. I found my collection of PC minis somewhat lacking, especially in the newer races like tieflings and dragonborn. Also, not many halflings or lady dwarves. So I bought some. Also, they had Minsc and and his new friend from the comics so I had to get those too.

Colors chosen somewhat inline with the theme of the pregens i'll be handing out, somewhat randomly. Staged in an Inn/building built out of foamcore with some mantic scatter bits. Need to get a photo setup again.




More later, but aside from some dungeon tiles, I'm gonna be neck deep in story/statblocks/less visually appealing paper (or, increasingly, digital in my case) for awhile.

Very nice group shots! Love seeing the set ups.

I always give some colour theming to my PCs too, it just makes them much easier to identify from a distance.

Yeah, color helps.

I saw there was a new bones Kickstarter coming but honestly I'd almost rather dump a hundred bucks on ~20 nolzurs/Pathfinder deep cuts packs. They're sharper (sometimes) and often a little truer in scale vs reaper.

Wanted some wood floor tiles for various interiors. Didn't like my foam effect so I got some printed wood grain paper and added more lines, pasted, and trimmed. Then worked the grid back in. The walls were around before though the wallpaper one is new. Gonna switch from foamcore for them to just cutting 2"x5"x1/8" strips of insulation foam. The proxxon makes all things possible. Also way faster, can mill a bunch of pieces in steps way quicker than measuring and hobbyknifing the foamcore.

So some more minis and the floors and walls. Only need interiors, I splurged on battle systems latest Kickstarter so my town/outdoors is gonna be super solid (got a lot of trees already).


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Looking at the pictures, I either need to cut some walls to incorporate Mantic doors or make some hanging bits to go over the top.

Good effect on the floors even though the squares for the map make my flooring design skills cry.

Yeah they look better without a grid but something about DND scenery makes me want one. I mean I grew up on 40k, tapes and rulers are no strangers to me but for some reason I like the little squares for RPGs.

Something like... Why am I making tiles if they don't have a grid. I should just make a full building. Of course that's an entirely different kettle of fish, doesn't pack as well, and doesn't have the grid I seem to want.

Switching gears to keep up with a weekly game (and a couple of con games) has left my hobbying in a weird place really.

I nearly always forget to take photos while playing, too much else going on. Here's one though.

You just need to add a new phase into your game system. The take photo phase. It goes right after combat resolution but before removing casualties.

The printed wood grain is very effective, I thought it had been carved in. The alternative is piles of work, so kudos for trying something a bit simpler and more effective.

I just need to remember to snap photos sometimes, can interrupt the narrative flow just to take pictures in an organized fashion. Best to fit it in when someone is hemming and hawing on their turn. D&D here, I've not played anything else in awhile.

Da Boss, thanks . Running a weekly game has led me to be quite stingy with my time. Anything that saves me some time I can spend elsewhere is desirable.

Finally got some nuln oil to try, and one of those new fangled contrasts. May finally get to use them next month.

Hemming and Hawing ought to beget a wandering monster roll... with a handful of dice.

I started playing D&D way back in '78. That's how we rolled BITD. A very different style of play than what one generally encounters nowadays.

Those are some effective bits of terrain. The lower walls are almost a necessity for D&D and related RPGs.

Yeah, a lot of RPGs focus on story over the classic adventuring though you see a healthy mix in some groups. In combats that average 3 turns, losing one to indecision (my default when try to keep big groups moving) is fairly brutal.

A lot of DND tiles eschew walls entirely, or use short little half inch bits to give the impression of them.

I prefer 1.5-2" walls. These are 2, but the tiles are about .5 so just about head level for standard 28mm minis .

Walls I think are nice touch, helps make the players see how much a confined space a hallway is for combat so the honking big sword is useless compared to short swords and daggers or axes meant for close quarters combat

Very much also shows the need for a good wizard or cleric to help buff the group and de-buff the enemy.

So I got through the semi-local con intact, smaller scale thing so no con crud overcoming my immune system or anything haha. I didn't get a lot of photos that aren't of people playing in my games with me, but I did have a blast. The time spent toiling over the adventure prep as well spent and I hope to attend next year. The good news for this medium, however, is that now I have a little less demand on my free time so I'll probably be building/painting again soon. I'll probably get a little surplus built up and start up a new blog, this one has gotten ancient and needs replacing methinks.


One high point of the weekend though, I'll share below. Such a cool dude. I just got the picture, wasn't willing the spend the cash on the sword experience thing.



Of course Adrian Paul looks great, but this was my second day of running games and my volunteer shirt had suffered a taco bell related stain and it was hot

You should never stand to close to anyone who might say “There can be only one”

Yeah, I got a signed photo for my mom and dad and it says there can only be one on it... so it kind of sounds like a death threat bwahaha.

Decided to try out my contrast Blood angel red (or whatever you call it) on a couple of dark eldar.





The wych was painted from the basecoat and I kinda went with the old school box colors, more or less. I like him, I think I'll see about painting nine of his friends eventually. The Warrior I just put the red over leadbelcher so I'm not as sure about her. Kinda dark. May try one with the same red as the wych and the black leggings and gun etc.

Idunno that I'm making a push in this direction, just wanted to paint a couple of the old dark eldars. That new Phoenix Rising box does look *amazing* though.

I have never painted them but I am a fan of Eldar and Dark Eldar.

The rumored $240 usd price tag of the new drazhar vs jain zar box makes me sad, I would have liked painting through that one... but not at that price.

I *still* want to get some of the fancy plastic dark eldar kits, but I have other responsibilities and they would just sit around.

Yeah that feels a little too pricey. Especially considering the backlog already have and the limited painting time I get. Maybe keep an eye out for someone selling the half they dont want. Or someone who buys them then never paints them and ebays them later?

The red-over-metallic looks pretty good to me, but I suspect it would benefit from black-lining around some of the plates to make them stand out more.

Probably right Josh. I think I may just try it over white like the Wyches first, differentiate the cult/Kabal with the warriors having black leggings still.

Finished up a 5 body squad of Wyches, along with a Haemonculus. Idunno that I'm going anywhere with them, I've just had them forever and felt like painting them. Kinda nice going back to metals after doing so many bones and heroclix touchups for D&D, and the older metals weren't as busy as the newer GW stuff.



I'm working on getting the rangers of shadowdeep campaign set up to run with a couple of people, I may make a separate post for that stuff, we'll see.

Awesome seeing some work here.

Cheers Cam

So, yeah, I haven't been around for some time. Shifting priorities and all that. Sorry for disappearing for a long while. Nearly a year again? Oof.

Anyway, this thing is almost 200 pages long and spans five years. I won't be updating it any longer. I'm still puttering around tinkering on stuff. With a wargaming-friendly local gamestore opening up in town, I may even be getting back into the hobby properly. Somehow, between running a weekly (remote) game of D&D...and foolishly resubbing to WoW of all things... surely I'll find the time *somewhere*.

But I will be making a new hobby blog. Same name even, probably.

Let's just say... mistakes may have been made..

It's good to know you're still around. Your P&M blog inspired me to keep up with my own. I look forward to seeing where you go next.

Thanks, I always enjoyed looking at everyone else's as well. I feel bad for dropping off the face of the Earth I think it's a habit of mine that has been hard to break over the years. I just don't people well typically.

Glad to see you about again.

Indomitus keeps whispering to me as well, but I have far too many other things in the fire right now.

I’m working in Edwardsville now, I forget where in Illinois you are, but I figure it was close by.

Heyo. Yeah, Edwardsville is about an hour or so.

The Indomitus was a goof, I was looking at ways to get the rulebook and actually planning on getting it from the local store.. I was looking at the current starter sets and thinking wow that one I remember them previewing earlier in the year was so much neater and then I happened to Google it thinking oh I'm sure if there are any they're being sold for hundreds of dollars, but I happen to see one on Amazon. Which I know, Big bad evil company but yeah anyway, Not only did they have it in stock but it was slightly discounted and there was like one of them. Assuming I had super lucked out on such an item I went ahead and ordered it.

Of course now I see that they're back in stock and don't even have a number so probably pretty attainable from whoever has them there.

But it's here and I opened it and it's going to live in my house now.

Also, pardon the poor punctuation in any grammatical errors I'm currently holding a baby and speech to text and I have an awkward relationship at best. I'll try to fix them later lol.

It's a neat set though and I needed a rulebook anyway and after the discount that made 2,000 points of models cost $100... I mean after scrimping and scavenging things off of eBay for years being able to get legitimate GW sprues for that price was a heady feeling. When I slog through these, any expansions I will have to patronize the local store for. of course... I've already been snooping on eBay for arm swaps to update my other Marines to be meta-friendly lol.

I had no idea I needed these necrons until I got them and wow they are neat.

Honestly, I had really intended to get into kill team instead and may still... It kind of depends on what kind of product they deploy early next year. It's all hearsay at The moment, it might just be updates for the indomitus stuff, or it might be kill team 2.0. Holding off on any investments beyond models for the moment though in case there is a new rule book or something.

When I get the new blog up and running I might set a goal to finish indomitus by the end of 2021 with the hopes of going faster but the hobby time is leaner than it has ever been haha. I need to learn me some zenithal highlighting and see if I can do some work with these contrast pants I've been buying.

Congrats on another little one it sounds like .

Never worry about punctuation and grammar on a website with folk from around the world, makes us look like real ‘Mericans .

I have only managed to not buy Indomitus by the fact other things pop up for sale and I don’t have the cash when I could buy it.

Good to see you make a comeback pal! Indomitus was mighty tempting for me as well, though I managed to resist, so I look forward to vicariously enjoying it on your new blog!

@Theo- Yeah, last one lol. I thought it was carrying a gun everywhere and resorting to violence?

@Paradigm thanks Aww man, now I've got pressure on!

Kinda bad timing, the window for proper rattlecan priming is pretty much gone. Actually getting snow today. Need to figure out how to do it properly with my airbrush anyway though, all those crisp details on the new stuff.

You seriously have no idea how hard it is to resist right now . It’s such a good price and I keep seeing more necron things I like. Then I look at my mountain range of things and my printer , and think of all the lovely necron terrain I can print .

Ahahahaha! Ouch. I have stayed out of the 3DP game but it is intriguing to say the least.

I didn't know I liked the necrons until I really looked at them. Plus, when you think of the bosses being basically tomb kings in spaaa'aaace with insane personalities... its neat.

 GrimDork wrote:
Ahahahaha! Ouch. I have stayed out of the 3DP game but it is intriguing to say the least.

I thought that once, then Theo got to me. He has this really crafty pitch where he tells you how awesome they are! Resistance is futile...

 Paradigm wrote:

 GrimDork wrote:
Ahahahaha! Ouch. I have stayed out of the 3DP game but it is intriguing to say the least.

I thought that once, then Theo got to me. He has this really crafty pitch where he tells you how awesome they are! Resistance is futile...

That Theo. He’s an .plus he’s keeping an eye out for cheap resin printers now. Though I almost ordered Indomitus this morning . I must resist.

Ahaha.

I am probably some weeks out from really cracking into indomitus myself, I have to get the house in order and then optimize my hobby space and that's a chore in itself.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Hmm... I think I'm going to do dark angels. I was headed that way when I stopped, and if I run DA I can play them as actual dark angels a DA successor chapter, or chaos. Oooh see what I did there? Do I win the internet? Har har.

Anyway, I have some Marines painted for them already a light blue with black and white shoulder pads IIRC, although I painted the terminators in the same scheme I guess at the time I had decided that I wasn't going to differentiate them. That feels a short sighted in retrospect. Then I saw somebody say that they painted their first and second company dudes in their successor chapter like their regular guys but they painted the helmets to match the death and Raven wings. So I'd have to do is paint 10 blue Terminator faces to be white, and remember to paint any bikers with black helmets. Including the blade guard agents and outriders from indomitus.

Easy fix right?

Grimdork, welcome back to the dark side. You know this was probably the first blog I actually started following when I signed up to Dakkadakka and you are also one of the first to have commented on my own stuff when I started keeping a blog.

It is good to see you still floating around and will keep an eye out for future posts.

@Archer, glad to have drug you into it
I really need to catch up, I swear the number of armies remaining is... considerably smaller than I remember
I'll definitely put a post here when I make the new blog, but it may not be till January+ before I even get into the basics of it.

We had a baby a couple-three months ago and while we didn't move house for this one (as with the last two), things are still massively in disarray. I've got to help my wife get the house in order and then get 'round to overhauling my hobby space.

It's gonna be a project unto itself, with two phases. Phase one is just getting stuff to go places. I'm gonna build myself a custom computer desk to fit my battle station now that I've finally got a proper set-up again, but I'm stashing that in the game room and evacuating the office to give the space to the family in general. So stuff is everywhere. Gonna have to do an organizational and cleaning pass. But, eventually, I need to actually go through all of my boxes. Like... i've got a box of skaven and goblin sprues from old school warhammer that could be condensed into a couple of slots in a bits divider and the sprues recycled. There are many similar examples. Plus scenery boxes, both kits and boxes of recycled scraps etc.

But yeah, I'll get around to it, and make a point to include photos here (or in the new one probably). I've got a big honking game table to show off, some workstation improvements, and lots of fun things to get into.

Did I say mistakes were made before? Cause I think now is a more appropriate time to say that...

It's totally for my birthday..or something.

Looking through the kits... The immortals/deathmarks and lychguard/praetorians will be an absolute terror to magnetize. So guess who's got two thumbs and will eventually be beating their head against that challenge?

Gonna put it up as soon as I quality control check that I got all my sprues etc.

Whoops.

Guess I'm playing necrons guys.

That's a big box! The new Necron line is so good, there's going to be an epic army at the end of this.

Oh, and you're going to have a blast with that Pathfinder Pit Devil as well, painting my own at the moment and it's a wonderfully over the top model!

Heh. Hobby for the hobby God, spures for the Pile of shame! There is no escape, only the next shiny army.

I’ve got the Necron half of my box lurking. Someday, it will awaken. But for now, just marines and ‘Nids.

Hobby when you can, blog when you are able. Whatever keeps you happy and sane.

@Paradigm
Yeah, there's some right chonky bits in there. Like Indomitus, I didn't know I needed it until I had a close look. The battleforce is actually some of the older stuff, but most all of it looks good, and it does have the updated warriors!

My D&D group is currently adventuring in hell, but we're full remote ATM, so he's just kinda gathering dust. But he has such a pose, perfect for showing stuff off! I will have to get to him eventually though.

@Nevelon
Good quote, words to live and die by
That's a great way to think about necrons in the shamepile though, they're sleeping and biding their time Good on you for keeping your focus though!

Sanity is always something to keep in mind!
Especially when I'm trying to magnetize some of the dissimilar dual-kits. I mean the Death/Night Scythe is as easy to magnetize as it is to type the names together.. but some of those boys... I'm gonna have fun with.

Besides which... I'm definitely doing the Canoptek Reanimator ---> Spyder conversion since the former is ruleswise garbage and the later is a solid pick. And 'twould give me two, so just another 18 or so dollars on ebay for a trio...

I wasn't gonna do any modeling until I had my space sorted but I had a thought and had to try it out. Calling this a solid success. Bit tedious to do 29 more times but not bad overall.

Magnets!!! Advanced technology as befitting our metal overlords.

*edit*
Not too bad of a conversion, overall. It was a little fiddly getting the arms posed correctly, but one of them sockets into a single stiff position and the right one wiggles. You do the magnets, and then seat a gun once they're dried, line up the right arm and glue it in place. Should be universal this way, any gun should fit any pair of arms as the handle and secondary bracing arm are all the same distance. I think. Small 1mm magnet on the left arm, larger ... hmm... 3mm? I think its 3mm. Anyway the gun has a slightly bigger magnet in it so there's a wee bit of wiggle room. And the guns should mount and hold strongly as well, same size I use for marine shoulder mounts. I'm not sure what else in Indomitus really needs magnetized, I may do some work on the marine characters that have variable wargear where it is convenient. I'll see if the necron characters can take things that require arm swaps. So far it is just warriors. Although... the components of the Eradication Legion are a different story. To fully realize the immortals/deathmarks and praetorians/lychguard I'll have to do some high-level chicanery. But that's the fun of it right? Got some paint en route, though it may still be weeks before I get anytyhing that far along, there's a lot of picking up to do.

Wait .

So the small magnet is in the left hand handle and the other magnets are on the different guns? I’m confused, are the arms in a stiff position and both guns fit the space? Sorry for being dense, but it’s 2:48a.m. When I’m reading this and I happen to be up and possibly be ordering Indomitus in a failed sleep check .

Wait, are magentizing basic grunts? That's hardcore, dude.

Theo- the arms are static and the guns pop into place. The guns are identical between the handle and where the left hand attaches to anchor them. In the prototype, the space is equal, I'm assuming all are the same because why have multiple sculpts of the two base guns.

Josh- I like magnets . But they only have two options ever and both are viable in game. This saves me from buying and painting double the d00ds.

Hardcore will be when I magnetize the dual kits that have different aesthetics!


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I should perhaps clarify that there is by default a peg that secures the left arm to the gun which is attached to the right arm. I replaced this mechanism with magnets and cut the gun off the arm at the handle. Did that for both guns, and now they happily swap. Mild friction at the handle keeps the gun gently in place but I wouldn't be surprised if sometimes they get knocked askew moving through scenery.

I was really hoping to get it to work this way though, I like that the arms stay with the models. I'll probably make some kind of round pseudo scenery piece that holds 10 guns, like a weapon node. Could use for objectives and will look attractive in a case.

Welcome back to Dakka! I also disappear from time to time, I don't think it's anything to feel ashamed of. We've all got stuff going on.

Looking forward to getting back into following blogs.

Thanks

nothing more 40k than skulls

Necron weapons are known to kill everything but don’t damage skulls

I blame you for me buying Indomitus and 2 of the elite editions .

@Kaptin- well said

@Theo- Could be, I still need to fetch their codex. But lots of things killing other things leads to lots of skulls littered around

I may(?) have influenced to you get Indomitus..maybe? But I said nothing about any elite edition. That's on you goodsir!

Assembly line batch of fences to donate to FLGS.

Well these are the way I'm going to try for something a little bit taller I think.

Fences look good, Granny grating with popsicle sticks .

You know that it is an unwritten challenge to build bigger armies around here . I was really going to go all Necrons like you, but I really wanted to paint up the characters out of that box . After painting the first one (First marine since the GW Primarisizing everything), I was hooked. Someone really needs to do a chemical analysis of the plastic GW uses to see if their is some sort of contact crack in the mix.

I am hoping that I like painting the primaris. I have a reasonably long history of being somewhat enthusiastic about space Marines but never really finding a way I like to paint them. I'm hoping to teach myself xenithal highlighting and then contrast them, I'm not looking at a lot of vehicles so I should be able to use contrast without getting into its weaknesses of large flat planes.

The necrons look awesome and I'm very excited to mess with them, I'm hoping I can hit on my scheme first to try because it always slows me down making five or six things and liking none of them.

Also, the bases are chipboard, my popsicle sticks were 8 in and really wavy so I just effectively replicated them with the chipboard instead. Kind of a waste of time but I'm trying not to buy any more hobby stuff for a while and those popsicle sticks were fugly.

I'm working on the tin can fuel refinery / Depot thing now.

Use the contrasts on the models, but use regular paint (thinned) for the vehicles. Even if the colors are different you can always find a rationalization for why later.

For the Necrons I really want to stay away from the dark colors that I have seen them painted in. I know they are the "Bad Guys", but I think at some point they thought they were doing the right thing and made themselves look pristine and pretty before they went to sleep. So I will most likely have Shine-crons, possibly with big happy trees.

Chrome! And candy gloss colors!

I seriously considered getting some tomb kings parts for mine and really working the TK in spaa'aaace angle but. I think I'm just gonna try till i get a metal I like and a nice shiny off color like green/orange/blue for the guns and such.

I am really liking the Iron Hands steel.

here is one coat of it on the bare grey plastic (sword)

I'm thinking that with Wraithbone white as the main colors and either the Aethermatic Blue contrast or the Sunlight yellow for the contrast paints for energy. I'm leaning more towards yellow as they like eating stars and such.

Yeah mephrit rocks yellow iirc. I'll be doing a custom dynasty that falls somewhere between the classic silver/black/green nihilak and the newest szarakan copper, whatever strikes me in the moment and I feel like I can put across an army. And I'm okay with green death ray energy nodule thingies but I might try blue and orange and maybe even purple.

Fuel tanks or oil or what have you. Need some kinda spout or receptacle for the lower end of each.

Considering railings but honestly they'd mostly get in the way for game play so idk.

In the grim darkness of the far future, there are no OSHA regs.

What did you do to get those weld lines? Thinking of making some storage tanks myself out of old coffee cans.

Oh yes OSHA, a lesser known branch of the Inquisition.

I'm including the video that I'm using for inspiration, but TLDR draw lines with pencil and cover lines with narrow bead of hot glue.

It's funny, because this is the first time where I could see that stupid 3D pen I got being useful it could have made narrower lines than the glue gun... However it jammed or broke and has since been entombed in a drawer of apathy and shame.

https://youtu.be/y6M4GLP_ooI

I still need some valves or what not to make the tanks look semi-functional, but I went ahead and primed them so I could work on them tomorrow I could always hand paint The gubbins later.

Decided to take the easy way out on the walkways because Penny hazard stripes is a pain in the butt and look they're even pre-weathered.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Painting hazard stripes, do you think speech to text.

Finished storage tanks.

Think I'll make the new blog soon with this focus on terrain.

Pipes! But do I bother riveting them or just stick to the simpler band?

Rivets all the way!

They won't stay together without rivets.

Sending up the League of Extraordinary Riveters Signal to determine if you are a heretic or not

My laziness is getting outvoted? Oof. Pretty sure you don't need an inquisition to know I'm a heretic

Always Rivet!

I've clearly been outvoted! Put one together and primed it, we'll see how it looks tomorrow.

Pipes!

Riveting work!

Really though, they look good!

I think they'll get the job done.

Three sections done, I think I'm going to work on something else for a while, these are a little tedious.

Such excellent progress, I have been away too long.

Magnets on Necron Warriors is crazy, way more than my dedication level aspires too.

Keen to see the results of your contrast paint endeavors.

Pipe network looks awesome.

Ehh, I've only really started back up recently.

I just don't like the idea of locking myself into one set of weapons and it's really pretty easy. I've got my heart set on making a little display piece that can mount 10-20 of the weapons like an armory rack, but probably circular and scifi.

I'm not sure where I'll use them yet, but I like them in theory and want to apply some of them to save me some time. Given we're in the dead of winter (not that it is a very cold one here), I've ordered some vallejo surface primer and a couple of metal sprays to try out on the necrons. I may try a zenithal base for them, and I may not bother, time will tell.

Thanks, the pipes are going to the local gamestore, I hope they'll like them. It has been kinda nice making the scenery and then not having to find a place to store it

Got three pieces to the point where I could prime them tonight, pretty pleased with that stride in progress. Will update when they are complete.

I like the works, Fences are , storage cylinders , and the pipelines Loving the stuff!

Rivets were definitely the way to go.

What local shop is this for?

Thanks Shaso

I agree Theo. It's a place called Colossus Comics, just opened in Mt Vernon in the last month or so.

 GrimDork wrote:
Thanks Shaso

I agree Theo. It's a place called Colossus Comics, just opened in Mt Vernon in the last month or so.

I will be very disappointed if I go there and the employee isn't painted silver and speaking in a bad Russian accent . Also will not use the soap dispenser

Hmm... I'll have to suggest a wardrobe change

Got the codex for Necrons as we've downgraded to tier 1 for now and the shop could conceivably host games now.

Toying with lists. Looking at 25 power/500pt combat patrols. IDK what people will want to play, but patrol is the size with which I'd like to ease into 9th ed. My darling is:

Canoptek Swarm
1 technomancer (bare bones, either canoptek cloak or the control node if i can scrape points)
5 immortals - gauss
3 canoptek spyders with the guns
8 canoptek scarabs
100% custom dynasty with the 6" pre-game move and army-wide objective secured.

This is 6 infantry 8 swarm and 3 small(ish) monsters. It would be suuuuper easy to build and paint everything but the spyders (two of which are conversions) and those would probably be ok.

It is technically 26/25 power, but if you build it in points and drop down to 8 scarabs instead of 9, everything just barely fits under 500pts.
The spyders are really good this edition, strong and killy monsters for rather few points. The scarabs are fast and hard to shift in numbers, and the immortals are the ideal budget backfield objective camper. I like this list because it has a coherent theme (Technomancer and his minions, etc) and it uses models that are interesting and mechanically sound. It is also a nice sub-unit that could be socketed into a larger list. The technomancer really wants 30 more points for an item, either one that lets him revive an entire 6 wound spyder 1/game, or the one that lets him give the scarabs +1 attack or the spyders +1d3 attacks. IDK how effective in 9th it would be, or what my local meta looks like.. but it certainly sounds fun

Skorpion Sting
1 skorpekh lord
20 necron warriors ( could also be 2x10, either gun, would decide when it came time to play)
3 skorpekh destroyers
1 plasmacyte
some kind of dynasty that makes the skorpekh stuff better, possibly novokh, or one of the ones that gets you moving faster so the warriors can get to business too.

20 infantry 3 40mm base dudes, one bigger dude, one little dude. More to paint, but the warriors will probably go quickly. The skorpekh stuff is all really neat. I've heard the lord can be unfun if he has to chase things around but on the smaller patrol board it may be ok. Honestly with 3 destroyers, I don't really want the plasmacyte that bad, so IDK maybe the points could go to a rez orb for the lord (if he can take them, still gotta find everything out).

Royal Approach
overlord
warden
10 warriors
3 skorpekh destroyers
6 scarabs
Haven't thought a dynasty through yet. Hard to go wrong with move+obsec though, especially when you've taken scarabs.

Little less than the above list. Takes a little of everything. Not sure I love the two characters, but they give you so many so maybe you're supposed to take more these days?

Royal Warriors
overlord
20 warriors
3 scorpekh destroyers
3 scarabs
Similar thoughts on dynasty as above, idk yet.

Heavier focus on core and shooting, may be able to take a different dynasty as the obsec code isn't as necessary here. Still has distraction carnifex destroyers, cheeky scarabs (who would still like obsec, just sayin), but more shooty boys for the warlord to buff.

Tech and the Boys
1 technomancer
20 warriors
1 canoptek spyder (bare bones)
6 scarabs
Quite a bit of stuff, warriors don't need obsec from a dynasty but the scarab blob would love it.

No upgrades for spyder, he's just there to keep the scarabs around and maybe counter charge/get stuck in late game. The technomancer keeps the warriors ticking, the warriors shoot everything to death, and the scarabs rush up onto some distant objective and fail to oblige the enemy when politely asked to die (the spyder helps here).


They'd all work, Idk which is best or most fun. The lists without 20 warriors may paint quicker but idk they really shouldn't take tooo long. Both technomancer lists are neat to me, it fills a different role in either but gets work done. The skorpekh one isn't bad, there's a roving murder-posse but still 20 warriors to not die and do work.

I have other stuff like lychguard, praetorians, and so on.. but along with the vehicles they're gonna be the harder conversions/ builds I'm planning so I'm trying to give them more time.

THoughts? I'll start building and painting once I have a goal sorted out.

Finished my first canoptek reanimator --> canoptek spyder, AKA Reanispyder. I maybe got a little carried away...






I feel like I have to do it for the second one too now, and maybe even the regular Spyder from my eradication legion. He needs guns, they'll go on top. I'll get them from tomb blades, something I'll buy myself for some esoteric goal... idk hitting 500 pts painted or something?
I still want to find some gubbins to put on the large flat magnet sides on his lower joints, I picked up a couple of types of beads to try for it. We'll see. Missing a pair of legs, but honestly I think it looks more like a spyder than the actual spyder, or a mantis maybe?


Side project, and part of why I want those tomb blades...

Imagine the meme of that one guy smooshing two things together and then look at the following images:


Mostly the chariot... though Settra may be getting a biotransference upgrade just sayin.



Ordered these bits.

I think the crescent and tail bits can be cobbled together in a convincing way around the chariot which would lose its wheels and horsies. Replacing the horsies would be some magnetized tomb blades pulling him along. Catacomb command barge some of the time, or i can use the tomb blades on their own whenever.
Certainly its not half as crazy as having 3 articulated spyders?

That spyder is awesome , how will you keep the paint from coming off the magnets once it’s painted and your moving things around though?

Idk, we'll find out. Hopefully primer and sealer will help. Maybe a little extra brush on sealer for those components.

So that's where Settra went!

Woah, love the Spyders. And I think going for the full on Egyptian Chariot look for the Barge is a great idea. My wife was very disappointed that I didn't make mine look more Egyptian.

Settra LIVES! (kind of)

@Da Boss, only one spyder so far, just posable
But the second one is nearly there. Body done, just have to do the leg assemblies.

I'm really trying to figure out how to get some gold in on these guys now. I was planning to do rust, and I may still, but dull iron and gold sounds pretty cool to me, with blue energy balls and tubes instead of classic green (even though the green is amazing and I have all the paints for it...).

Speaking of the legs. Here's a photo, the largest joints are big flat disks. It looks ok but idk... so I tried spicing them up with some semi-circle beads and some little deco bead things. So there's two options on the front two, and you can see the original joint on one of the back legs. Thoughts? I'll leave them alone if it looks better, although a bonus of the additional parts is the magnets can't CLACK together as hard if the mini gets bumped or dropped or whatever.

As mentioned:


Automatically Appended Next Post:
An alternative would be to leave the disks but put a transfer or freehand some kind of symbol.

I think the more detailed version looks better, but if it's a pain to do I think the other joints look fine too. I love the concept for the Spyder though. Kinda wish I hadn't assembled mine already!

You mean the circle of little bearings? I mean it's just a bead I could glue on. I've about got the second one done, I guess I need to get out the actual spyder And do that too.

Dug out the rest of the bits I'll need for my first 500 points. One proper canoptek spyder, a technomancer with th canoptek cloak, 9 scarabs, and 5 immortals. Weird list, but I think it's neat.

Doesn't seem like a lot on paper, seems like a fair bit of sprue for a little over 300 points...and there's a lot of headache in modularizing everything.

I haven't decided on the last spyder, I feel like it could be articulate to match the other two... But at the same time it has thinner limbs and I may be buying some pain if I try.

I really wanna keep the immortals able to run their 3 weapon options (gauss, tesla, and swap to deathmarks). I've heard of people making deathmarks out of warriors by adding the heads and arms too... So I'm gonna have to think about it. Not sure which configuration has the best outcome.

Oh, and I think I'll make the technomancer removable from their canoptek cloak. It costs points and I think it competes with another upgrade that is rather useful. I'll have to steal a 32 MM base from one of the sPesH mAhrEenS and...figure it out eventually. I think I can use the mini spider and the base attached, and just magnetize the cloak connection point on the cryptek, then all I have to do is fashion a bit that goes where the cloak connects perhaps a flying stick, and then make it the secondary base.


I am really leaning towards gold and silver now with you slightly Egyptian theme... Not sure that there will be room for rust.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I just realized there's a fair amount of speech to text errors, but I find them more amusing than confusing so I'll get to them eventually.

If you're doing Egyptian, don't forget the Cobalt Blue and Enamel White accents. You could even go with some nice bright reds and yellows, as well. Not a huge amount, but enough for decoration.

We shall see, we're talking vaguely Egyptian here.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Finished painting this yesterday, took some photos before dropping it off at the local gameshop to bolster their scenery.


Mushroom container and some bits and bobs. Need to do a different base material for further buildings, but I'm happy with how this one came out despite the warping.

Will add more photos and probably some WIP stuff for various projects once I get the new blergamajiger put together.

And apparently you have to actually upload an image to get it to update... There we go.

Great bunker, what did you make the radar dish from? I need one for a project of my own.

It becomes easier to answer your question if you have children. It was from one of those blind bag toys, specifically a Ryan's world one, more specifically an egg I think it had five surprises in it. The egg is not quite the size of an American football and breaks into four pieces The smallest of which became the dish.

The articulate part that holds the dish up and spins around is off of an old beefy Wi-Fi router, I'm slowly churning through my old computer parts selection.

I was not familiar with Ryan's World, I'll have to show it to the girls.

Looks like the eggs are now collectors items so I guess the search continues...

Oof, bummer. Yeah I'm pulling from my scrap box so there's no telling.

Just found Walmart has those stupid LOL dolls down to $4 locally. They always have a bulky plastic container, but this current iteration is square... May be some happy kids and scifi buildings in my future lol.

Nice job on the bunker! Stuff like those mushroom containers are classic terrain. I have one on my shelf that I am eyeing, but I currently use it for washing my resin casts clean of release agent or getting the paper off my foamboard. Someday I am gonna make it into a proper little facility.

As to the force, I really admire the push for maximum modularity. I often think about doing that, but chicken out because I already dislike the assembly stage so much.

Ahh, building is probably my favorite part.

I like the finished product of painting, and I like playing games with all my guys when they're painted up, but I don't have an artistic background and it doesn't come naturally to me so I fumble by with as many tricks as I can.

So doing a little more work in the build phase does not bother me, I kind of like the idea of having a compact force without extra minis. I know the alternate approach is just getting extra minis to cover all the options but I'm cheap and space is always at a premium.

Finally managed to trudge through these guys. So glad I redirected the sniper rifles to the warriors instead of trying to do all three options. Still gonna have to contend with that on my lychguard/praetorians, but I think most of their options are separate arms dual-wielding or with shields...so there's hope.

Great job. They look awesome, never would have guessed that was all done with magnets.

The Praetorians I found really hard to build, so curious to see what you'll do with them. The little wrist connections are a nightmare for me.

Yeah, I'm a fair bit apprehensive about the praetorians and lychguard. I know the lychguard are the thing to beat right now, basically necron terminators with a built in body guard rule, with tons of neat uses like invasion beaming too many of them into the heart of the enemy... but praetorians have a neat profile and one might be useful in kill team some day. Although... honestly... I feel like most other factions take better advantage of the modeling potential of individuals in kill team than mostly soulless necrons

I think I'll just have to set the legs, glue the front torso onto those, set two shoulder magnets like I would for marines, and then have the back pop on and off like I would a marine backpack. But we'll see. I haven't had a count on arms or looked at poses yet.

Probably gonna build some warriors once I get my first 500 done, though I'm seriously considering doing a double drop on the marines + dark angels codex because I have at least 1000 points of painted marines I could have ready to play much sooner than my necrons.

I also have ideas bouncing in my head like stay true to first born and sell on my primaris indomitus half but IDK.

Finishing some scarab bases atm and waiting on some greenstuff to cure so I can hopefully fully finish my spyders.

Well if you sell your Primaris marine half, let me know, I might know someone .

Other ideas are bouncing haha. I'm currently considering black templars for indomitus...either that plus another 1000pts from my og firstborn stock or possibly seeing if I can scare up the Xmas battleforce cause it almost all fits...of course that's dumping another $200. Possibly considering a second indomitus too. Like... The necrons half...but then considering that I could use the marines again too...

Idle snowed-in days breed bad decisions.

Trying to just focus my necrons, though the window for full or partial indomitus is ever closing.

 GrimDork wrote:
Other ideas are bouncing haha. I'm currently considering black templars for indomitus...either that plus another 1000pts from my og firstborn stock or possibly seeing if I can scare up the Xmas battleforce cause it almost all fits...of course that's dumping another $200. Possibly considering a second indomitus too. Like... The necrons half...but then considering that I could use the marines again too...

Idle snowed-in days breed bad decisions.

Trying to just focus my necrons, though the window for full or partial indomitus is ever closing.

A second Indomitus box is a good buy, I went with the two elite boxes because I had store credit at the local FLGS, besides that got me more bikes, and I had a ravenwing bike squad kicking in my head at the time too. Seriously rethinking painting over the Scythes and going dark Angels for when the Lion awakes.

I was tempted by the new Warriors in Indomitus, but I don't really want any Primaris at all. I'm perfectly happy with my small army of Space Marines from Assault on Black Reach and Dark Vengeance, and have no interest in rendering them all out of scale with new plus sized models.

But I did order a bunch of Dark Elves two weeks ago, so I understand the lockdown purchasing itch!

@Theo, but repainting is death. Death! I want it for my necrons but kind of think it would be bland and boring for templars moving forward. I'm torn between the xmas box ticking a lot of boxes and knowing that my pile of OG marines is probably better overall. Something about a pure primaris force is kinda neat though.

But... so is the fact that all of the things I always wanted to be good... kinda are. Terminators are the bomb diggity, especially in DA but BT make good use. Vanguard Vets can slay, drop pods don't suck (for a short and specific list of units).

@Da Boss, I let myself subscribe to a year of dungeon in a box last year and then i cut off all other D&D purchases for the foreseeable future with one exception for the Tasha's book. But then a warhammer friendly gamestore opened in town...

Oh boy, picking an official chapter and working out conversion bits gets a little daunting...

It all started when I was looking for grav cannons since they are supposed to be so good and I've never had any (largely due to the gaps in my hobbying). But then I decided I would need some extra shields for vanguard vets and assault terminators...then I got to looking at the parts that I did have and there was a little too much in the way of dark angel stuff that would need replaced... Then I started looking at fancy heads and shoulder pads and tabards... Don't forget the chain, it's not terribly expensive but it would add up if I got more than one size.

I could spend as much making the army look cool as I would spend on the army itself lol.

Also found I had some random Amazon credit which will get me about half of a kit... Kind of boiled it down into devastators or tomb blades. I feel like I should really focus on the necrons first since I said I was going to but... I'm pretty inconsistent.

The devastator box actually seems pretty cool, in addition to having like 10 heavy weapons it has four or five combi bolters and several melee weapons for the Sarge. I'm still not a huge fan of the fact that you would have to buy two to ever have a consistent loadout for a squad kind of forcing you into taking two squads or just having a crapload of extra bits and bodies... but given I have a bunch of marine bodies and heavy weapons laying around from previous acquisitions, all I really need are the grav cannons and combis. And maybe some more of the backpacks.

So now I've got a Kromlech cart built with five heavy shields including arm, five black Templar aesthetic marine sized shields, and 6 grav cannons. Seriously considering if I can't cobble some of that together at home tho.

Also found a couple of neat Templar/cross helms and shoulder pads but I think the pads I can get by on relying on press molds if I run out.

Hmm.. speaking of press molds I probably really don't need more shields if I have four and a little plastic card backing... I would probably have to convert something to remove the holding hand/arm to get them to mount on the right side anyway...to use up all 8 lightning claws.. And copies would have a consistent look as opposed to to 5 third parties..

Need to go see if my mantic peacekeeper shields fit the terminators, that would save 10 bucks.

But then I would just be ordering three to six grav cannons for $7 to ship hmm...

Sorry for the stream of consciousness, I'm walking around with my baby in nemesis dreadknight mode trying to get this project lined up so I can go back to prepping eebiwl skelebois.

Oh, for your consideration here are the three helmet types those people make. I can't decide if I would be best served by getting all of one kind or mixing and matching. Once it has the pretty neat cross on the cheek the other set has raised pokey crosses on the faces and the other ones a little bit more generic and might actually be intended for other knight factions idk.
The heads are 12 for $9 but as long as you order 2 at a time they go down to 7.20. That isn't terribly unreasonable, I assume I'd cap out at like 60 hands given I intend to have terminators and they take up almost 400 points. of course they have their own heads and I don't know that I would be replacing them I would have to see what people have done.
I think if I only got one kind of the kind with the cross on the side of the face would be the target, but it might be nice to have diversity of both kinds and the kind with the Maltese face cross might be nice to have reserved for sergeants and special guys although I didn't need to get 24 to make the pricing add up so I might end up with extras..lol
Rabbit holes man.

I like the second set of heads out of all of them. Shoulder pads are nice, but you can use transfers easy enough to bulk out the army and do a couple specials for characters. OR you can hand paint all the crosses on the shoulders, tedious as , but then they each would look personalized by the warrior himself. Chain is inexpensive for quantity, and can be wrapped different ways to produce a varied effect, the videos I actually watched earlier today as I was having similar ideas to yours used way too much chain, wrapping around the gun two or three times .

I have a big problem myself mixing 3rd party bits as they all have their own internal consistent styles.

All these conundrums are why I switched over to working on Necrons

Yeah, I really should focus on my metal spookybois. That's got me torn as to whether I should get the devastators or tomb blades with my amalamazon credit. Similar base cost and relative discount. Of course I'd need moar tomb blades, I think 6 is maybe the sweet spot, or recommended minimum at least.

I think I'll be content with just the heads and chains. I've put together a list that kind of has most of the things I'm interested in (although I don't know how solid it is) so I can get an idea of how many heads I might need.

2k give or take of the angriest marines:
Indomitus captain
-frontline commander WL trait because why should BA get all the +1 charge fun
Biker chaplain
-Master of sanctity, Breviary (powers work better)
5 assault intercessors
-powerfist
5 assault intercessors
-powerfist
5 man crusader squad (75 pts atm!)
5 man crusader squad
Chief apothecary (primaris), pays two CP to get selfless healer trait and the crusader helm relic (bigger FNP aura and helps one unit hit harder in cc)
4 bladeguard veterans
8 assault terminators th/ss
7 vanguard vets with lightning claw and storm shield, Sarge has relic blade
18 points of cenobite servitors (I think you can take then w/o grimaldus?)- 18 points of cheeky action doing
5 devastators, 4 grav cannons, 1 ammo buddy
3 eradicators
Stock whirlwind
Stock drop pod
Impulsor with extra gun and shield some

The whirlwind is there because there is a strat that allows you to suppress a unit that it hits which means they go last in close combat which is important when the blade guard veterans cheekily consolidate into a combat on the first round or the enemy would have the option of attacking them first otherwise.

This isn't he Magnum opus or anything it's some general tinkering trying to fit in all the things I'm interested in. For one thing, the drop pod is wasting half of its capacity unless one of the crusader squads comes along and they don't really have a reason to be there in that much danger while leaving my back field without many units to hold objectives. I could see an alternate list where I took two drop pods and deployed three sets of nastiness be it devastators, stern guard or company veterans, cramming the last five seats full of the command squad element with an apothecary an ancient and whatever other auras I could think of. Basically three nasty units pop up and hose everything down with beneficial auras while benefiting from extra defense via the apothecary and getting to shoot again if they die thanks to the ancient. This is, of course, while retaining the blade guard being shoved down their throats on turn one.

I think it might be possible to get two turn one combats going, one strat allows a unit advance and still charge, another allows The unit to pile in 3 inches which can give them into a valid combat. It's also makes me want to incorporate drop potting and just have my army all over the place in my enemy's business for maximum amusement factor.

I wanted to use terminators and my drop pods forever and I've always thought vanguard vets are cool, so this list in particular but the black Templars in general are ticking pretty much every box for me wanting a space marine army.

And, of course, now a random comment on a Facebook query has me deep diving the death watch just to be sure I won't have regrets...

Interesting mix of marines! I much prefer the proper assault termies to the new termie replacement (Centurians?).

Well war hammer community just said that pre-order this Saturday you can get the characters from Indomitus separately... we’ll the sprues separately, so if your wanting more of the characters this might be the way. Also kill team New starterariah Nexus, which I’m still thinking about. I have not jumped into kill team, but it has more marines and Necrons at the price that would most likely be the same as buying individually, and you get rules, terrain and stuff with it.

TLDR: it's cool that they're putting those boxes out, I have a feeling they will be expensive though. The following word garbage is mostly a soundboard of me trying to decide between death watch and Black Templars, and the somewhat separate question of if I can/should justify a full indomitis instead of just the necron half.

Honestly, the characters aren't really what I'm worried about. in the cases of either faction they would mostly be providing conversion fodder, their value is mostly extra added on to the troops. The necron half is pretty much everything I don't want except for the crypto thralls. The space Marine half isn't bad because it has the eradicators and blade guard as well as some of the characters, but I can't see them letting it go for less than $120. So you'd probably be paying full price for the two popular units and then getting "free" characters.

I'm pretty much convinced to spend around 85-90 to eBay and indomitus necrons. Where I am getting stuck is whether or not I want to switch that to a full set for the Marines. I am pretty committed to getting the bike for my chaplain, which would cost $20 to $30 for one or three outriders. This would also allow me to potentially use the outriders in deathwing as part of the primaris KT along with some intercessors for an oversized squad of them with objective secured.

I kind of want a second batch of eradicators because, again, death watch can take five and a unit with heavy intercessors for interesting shenanigans... And it's not like I want to buy them later for 50-60 for The full unit box. Right now I think you can get them between 30 and 40 for the squad on eBay. All of the characters and the assault intercessors are kind of extra, so looking at it critically I had to be paying 30 to $40 for 10 Marines, 5 heroes, and the rule book, none of which I really need but also which seems like a pretty decent deal for that 40 or so. The judiciar converts into a fantastic emperor's champion but I've also seen a really neat apothecary made out of him. Ancient could probably work as an apothecary or possibly a librarian with some choice bits. The Captain and lieutenant become a little sidelined you definitely I don't need two of either and if you already have six blade guard converting the lieutenants into more is less tempting.

My main issues right now are that I really want to run black templars to take the blade guard into combat on first turn with the impulsor and their shenanigans, but that I think I like death watch for every other reason. Black Templars have a dope aesthetic but honestly I could include several of them in the death watch and then get to do several other dope aesthetics. The death watch would better use all of my old space Marine bits and with at least some bonuses to shooting probably take better advantage of my drop pods and such. Aside from looking meat and being quirky, the only best thing out of the Templars is that devout push strategy, I'm even considering souping a small detachment of Templars with a larger detachment of death watch but that might be needlessly complicated.

The other thing I'm really looking at is the Christmas space marine box which is generally regarded as a poor choice, however that is basic brain thinking. Galaxy brain thinking has me acquiring that box and the full kit of eliminators and using the kits impressive nine guns and the ridiculous flexibility of spectros kill teams to field two units of four snipers with infiltrator comms (unlimited aura pickup range) bais ing all of the phobos space Marine bodies to maximum advantage. I think I could even make a phobos librarian and lieutenant before running out of parts. Of course then I have the tank for my blade guard, it would just be a sore point if they weren't using it as black templars for the first turn shenanigans, and then I get the sneaky captain and the warsuit which is intriguing.

Of course Deathwatch could get the blade guard into combat on turn one too, you have a somewhat unreliable charge distance to cope with but they have a teleport relic. But that would leave the tank out in the cold.

As with most things, this is just a jumbled mess of a lot of almost great things where nothing is great enough to be the obvious choice. And whether to get the second half of indomitus it's kind of a separate issue from which chapter to choose. I think death watch would appreciate having the eradicators and potentially the blade guard more than the Templars but they have less use of the assault intercessors and probably the characters. And I mustn't forget the extra book could probably be sold for 30 something dollars, but I don't really know anyone that I might be playing with in town who would need one and I kind of hate selling things on the internet.

I’m glad for your wall of text , as I am having similar thoughts.

I figured the Indomitus box would bulk out my force more, but really only the Necron side is calling me...and another Judicator. Then again I picked up 2 Elite editions, so I have 9 bikes already and unless I decide to go Ravenwing or White scars I don’t think I’ll need more. I’ve got 20 assault intercessors right now and I am tempted to try out some other color schemes on a couple of them, possibly making a chapter of my own so I can play whatever army I want instead of being locked into an Ultramarine founding (Scythes of the Emperor).

My local shop has a consignment wall, so I could unload the main rulebook for more credit, so Indomitus isn’t as bad of a deal for me, might net me $30-40.

If you went deathwatch at least there are the upgrade packs for the shoulder pads and stuff. I like the models in the DW combat patrol, but thought of all black and silver just makes me cry.

I think I’m sticking hard to the Necrons for now myself, especially since I am enjoying the colors I have going.

As for th "kill team" box... I kind of hate it. As useful as many of the components would be. For 160, it's not a big haul of models. The Captain is kinda meh. The chrono is kinda necessary. The hea y intercessors seem really neat in and out of KT, just 5 flayed ones seems bleh. And then you're paying for the KT stuff and letting it rot, or buying it for the KT stuff with a massive tax. Meh. May be voting against this one with my wallet idk. Tho deathwatch would kinda love the heavies to go with eradicators (but that them pushes me to try and get more...oof).


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Necron stuff is great pushes the silver tide and scarabs to the limit, gets you a full squad of scorpies, another deadly duo of murder buckets, and lots of conversion fodder with the characters.

Im hoping black templar contrast would help... significantly...or I'd be in for it!

I can actually get a Start Collecting Deathwatch (if it didn't get got in the last 2-3 weeks) which is 10 super customisable d00ds, vendread, and mostly lackluster character who's easy to convert. Plus a dozen shoulders. I think I'd bluestuff the shoulders...maybe make molds of them and then add very thin greenstuff to existing shoulders before smooshing them into the mold. If it works, I think it would be quite a bit more efficient than shaving down existing shoulder pads and trying to create entirely new ones out of green stuff and much more cost effective than buying the pads separately.

The combat patrol seems nice but anytime you read about regular intercessors it's people saying how you're taking them as a tax and they're super good on their own, so then all you are getting are the aggressors a pointless lieutenant and the apothecary who's actually a pretty good pick up. The aggressors do look pretty awesome, and I think especially if you get the heavy intercessors they can mix and match for shenanigans, but I think I much more interested in dropping 60 more dollars to get the Christmas bundle for 20 Phobos guys plus the captain and two vehicles and then getting the eliminators like I outlined above and having two crazy sniper teams and two decent forward units.

I think I would then combine that with whatever shenanigans were necessary to get the blade guard in the enemy's face turn one, and if not them some kind of bikes or vanguard vets, along with the drop pods. I'd have something in my deployment zone but most of my stuff would be spread out and in my opponent's face.

You could always do Black Templars and add in a few Deathwatch Veterans. Guys who are Templar at the core, and are back to rejoin their legion before going out again with their chums from the other chapters.

Its too late. I have the Deathwatch codex, I redeemed the code. I bought the interdiction force and eliminators and indomitus..... Still gotta get to that one little shop for the start collection deathwatch. Foolish to leave the OOP lynchpin box for last... but the kids started "mostly full time school" this week and my wife worked over the weekend. I'll drag her and baby out tomorrow or the whole gang if it waits for the weekend. Then no more purchases beyond glue, paint, and magnets if I run out.

I'll probably do several of my DW as templars, I like their visual aesthetic and I feel like their tabards can be carried over into the watch.

Talking about magnets... honestly IDK. With deathwatch it kind of makes the most sense to magnetize since the core of the FB part of the army is SOOO damn versatile and a dizzying array of kit.... But I also have so many FB marines I could probably full-glue the options and never change them. I mean, I have 20 sitting around painted that don't need to stay those colors. I'll have the 10 proper deathwatch marines from the SC: DW as long as it's not gone (oh how that will monkey wrench my plans!). I've lost some over the years but I still have... upwards of 20 robed dark angel bodies...10-20 more regular marines though some are the less dynamic push-fits. IDK, I'll probably still magnetize most of the marines cause it's so easy.

Necrons though... I'm seriously considering an experiment. I was gonna take my 5 lychguard/praetorians and try to build all 4 loadouts between the two datasheets. But... What I'm thinking now is to use some of my extra indomitus warriors (I think 40 is "enough", I have immortals too and will usually be playing the obsec dynasty so troops aren't as important to me) to permanently build 5 praetorians with skinny legs. If I can get the torso to work right.

They're stingier with necron arms that marine ones, you get like two sets of arms to cover the four loadouts. Fortunately, rods are considered best for praetorians and sword+shield is the go-to for lychguard. There's a better argument for scythes than for the particle beam/ void blade, but I'm more likely to only have 5 for some time and the shields make them better at guarding.




Automatically Appended Next Post:
I've definitely seen enough to convince me of the spare warriors as praetorians. I shall revel in the diversity, and enjoy having some spare bits. There's a fair bit you can do with the extra guns and I've not had any in consideration till now.

The only thing that kinda sucks is that the staves make excellent conversion fodder for DIY Crypteks. I like the psychomancer but won't be buying one, but he'd be so easy with a warrior torso, different head, spare staff, and some wires/greenstuff. But no spare staves. Oof.


Boy... all of this said and we're staring down the barrel of Pariah Nexus preorders super soon. ACK.

Aww yiss, my previously scouted Start Collecting: Deathwatch was right where I left it.

They had a lot of out of print stuff... Indomitus, the incubi/banshee set, a couple of the killteam+scenery boxes, several of the 100-140 dollar sets like the marine one with vanguard+stern guard+captain+speeder, the tau stealth cadre or whatever with the Pathfinders, stealth suits and piranha. Several start collecting though not all are out of print yet.

I'll be sure to not return for a good long while!

After almost two hundred pages, this venerable old beast could use a break.

I think I'll still update here once in a while for random things that don't fit in the other blog.. but right now I'm planning on moving my scenery and 40k work here.

Please feel free to visit me there and enjoy what should hopefully be more regular updates