This is a re-post of all my bfg stuff that was previously on the specialist arms forums that sadly died a couple of days back.
the posts have been simply re-pasted over so if any of this makes no sense, thats why.

for reasons my own, I've separated all the original posts with markers. so thats what all the - post1 -, - post2 - stuff is all about...

- post1 -

I've been looking for somewhere to post my stuff and this seems the ideal place. love what I've seen about here. great work. keep it coming.

anyway here is some older stuff of mine:










more newer stuff soon...I hope...

- post2 -


this is the true Armitage class station. this one is called Fort Hammond and features a lot of detail compared to the last piss-poor effort! the Idea behind this was to make a station that was +/- half gw space station and half fw ramilies, sort of a full imperial design that's the size and effect of a blackstone (when under imperial control)
here are the rules for it:

ARMITAGE CLASS SPACE STATION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 500 pts

Originally designed on the forgeworld of Voss, the Armitage class station was an attempt to fill the void created by the loss of the blackstone fortresses at the end of the Gothic war. (Three being taken over by Abaddon's forces and the remaining three under imperial control self-destructing.)
As such the Armitage class is releatively comparable in statistics to that of the Blackstones (when under imperial control). The Adeptus Mechanicus Magos took cues from other imperial designs, namely the standard station STC's and the Ramilies starfort designs, taking the opportunity to add port and starbord docking rigs and an extensive battery of torpedo silos. The resulting station design, being much more martial than commercial, is still quite a step down from a Ramiles in its defensive/offensive capabilities but there is safety in knowing that the ease in which Abaddon was able to mysteriously circumvent the arcane power source of the Blackstones is not the case regarding the Armitage...

FAMOUS ARMITAGE CLASS STATIONS
Fort Hammond
Station Deva

Availability
due to the design of the station being among the very newest work from the Voss Forgeworld, the Armitage is available only to imperial navy or space marine forces


ARMITAGE CLASS SPACE STATION SPECIAL RULES

ORDNANCE
Armitage class stations are considered to have an inexhaustible supply of torpedoes and as such never run out.

DOCKING
Friendly ships in contact with the armitage station can halt their movement as if they were in a gravity well. If they wish to turn they can use Burn Retros special orders without first taking a command check to do so. If a ship is in contact with either the port or starboard docking arms it can fully dock. whilst fully docked the ship gains an extra four dice when rolling for damage control during a battle and can restock ordnance if it has run out remaining in contact with the docking arm and successfully using Reload Ordnance special orders for two consecutive turns, being reloaded on the third. Even whilst docked the ship must be targeted and attacked separately from the station but counts as being in close formation with the station for massed turret fire.

also you can see Ive painted the orbital defence platform to go with it... lots more soon I hope

- post3 -


more stuff:

no not a giant plumb! its a new (well new to me anyhow) idea I had of doing planets: simply a beechwood orb that has been sanded and polished to a decent satin finish and has been inked with magenta ink (30/70 ink to water). no special painting skill or swirls, just one even coat all over. this way the grain and natural form of the wood creates the gas giant/atmosphere effect for you as it dries. or in this case at only just over 2.5" a not so giant gas planet... also, if you try this yourselves, remember that it lightens up exponentially as it dries out... I used beech as thats what i had knocking about but i'd suggest pine truth be told.

and some more for battlefleet armageddon:

the "eternal vigilance" dominator class (as seen on my wip thread) gets a new prow and a paint job


and this very classic looking endeavour light cruiser the 'excelsior" is actually a shapeways wsf 3d print from the mind of admgr. the texture is horrid but as it was bought as a gift I shan't complain too much. a difference of nigh on £40 when comparing wsf to fud mediums is to expect a drop in quality too... still its a nice piece of bfg history (where else would you get one of these original style ships eh?) but doesn't hold a candle to the zeus in my opinion...

here's a (blurry) groupshot for comparisons...

*edit*
oh and here is a new side project:

worth pursuing more? (finally finding the macro setting on the damn camera, plus a space shot on a magazine as agood backdrop makes all the difference eh? LOL)

- post 4 -

A bit more stuff from shapeways again this time. this time by the talented Junith. with his take on the voss escort 'falchion', the 'schimitar' frigate. very faithful to the original technical drawings and as such superior to the similar but short-lived gw white metal falchions which were rather wobbly and full of technical errors. these are clean crisp and detailed print and go well with plastic, metal and resin models.
I have seen first hand in both wsf and then fud. wsf is ok for those not as bothered by the level of detail that we all crave here, mind. I strongly recomend fud. as the pictures (sporting battlegroup Armageddon livery) show.


the detail is pretty good actually...

'kin expensive for what it is though. you'd have to really want something specific to go for it. I also should mention that the frosted ultra detail (fud) medium is sometimes filled with an oily by-product that can be a bast to get rid of it is leaking from anywhere on the model as one of these were from the stand entry hole. cowson to sort out...

- post4 -

OK. finally got round to finishing (and as such even starting!) my zeus lunar class:
the aggamemnon.
the detail of this model is simply a dream to paint. Zac's work with Armand is combined in such a way that compliments the skill and design elements of both designers in a way that looks cohesive and neat. I especially love the ball and socket variation on the lance turrets (a logical design evolution no?) an overlooked feature that gw would kick themselves for missing (if they even had the sense or inclination to continue and appreciate the merits of the bfg range).
I was rather pleased with the final job and decided to give it a black prow with a stripe on the area that looks a bit like a shield. very knightly

anyhow. with this done I decided to add more to my Battlegroup Armageddon fleet. so far we have the dominator, three endeavours and a defiant (I swapped the weapons out for launch bays on the shapeways light cruiser, needed some carrier support and I felt I had enough gunboat light cruisers with the three endeavours) a bunch of varying escorts and now a lunar. I wanted something big and chunky as a flagship but didn't fancy a battleship. yeah they are great to paint and model but I just don't feel they match my play-style I'm much more in favour of the cruiser and reams of escorts type scenarios that allow me to keep up with eldar fleets ( as well as I can anyhow) plus trying to get hold of one that I can afford without getting out a mortgage is like trying to find rockin-horse-sh*t these days.
I was going to do a mars class but found I was finally actually out of cruiser sprues (very sad). Instead I decided to recommission and old ship of mine that I created way back in the first days of bfg. a gothic class called the d'sparilius.
I had originally converted its prow to feature the old metal "master of the ravenwing" winged hooded angel (a suitable D'sparil if ever I saw one) it did NOT look good and as such had to go. however I simply recreated the effect of this with a voss/zeus prow and a recast of the little d'sparil in p38 (minus its wings) and put that on the prow in place of the eaglehead:

further additons included comms relay stations on the dorsal (made of those aerial thingys from battle for maccragge set) and battlebarge engines for extra chunkyness. yes its just a gothic class in game but on the table it certainly has some gravitas. here it is next to the aggamemnon:


I added the red to denote its flagship status and simply because variety is nice!

Its not all I've been up to. the observant among you may have noticed that the images now feaure a rather lovely space backdrop. this is actually a 2' x 1' mousepad (https://www.amazon.co.uk/ManKn-Performance-Extended-Stitched-Keyboard/dp/B017SYWC9M/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1469444978&sr=8-1&keywords=mouse+mat+mankn)

perfect excuse to grab some nice shots of other things bfg I've done or been doing recently:
here is a new ship added to my rogue trader flotilla. the ardias. this zeus based endurance class has a p38 kar-dunaish prow that makes it fit in a treat with my previous kar dunaish conversion the kashmir.
this niccassar dhow is also a part of that fleet. note the tau-installed railguns are picked out in yellow. yes even telekinetic space-bears are tolerated by my roguetrader!

the thunderchild. the astartes strike cruiser has had a strip and a repaint in red (blood angels livery) as the previous yellow job was piss poor to my honest opinion. much better now and the first red ship I've ever actually painted!



I also repainted the astartes escort from yellow to fit in with my custom mars class inquisitorial blackship: the twighlight blade. that deserved a better image too so here they both are!
the blackship is also a rcommission of an old ship of mine the draconis (sadly destroyed in fleet-action against and old adversary of mine; henreticus the dark chaos lord aka crash commander) this conversion was an obvious attempt to blend aspects of the chaos, astartes and imperial cruisers together to create something that looked greater than the sum of its parts. others have claimed that I have simply stolen the idea from the chaos/imperial grand cruiser released bw gw some time ago but as I'm fond of reminding them, I made the core of this conversion back before those were even released! my later work was simply the new bridge and prow to denote its inquisitorial status. the ship works better thusly as the combination of imperial and chaotic parts give the ship a real impression of menace. a dark ship of unknown origin, bristling with weaponry and a suggestion of possible divided loyalties...
this is also a great method of adding a mars class to whatever imperial fleet I choose to play with without having to worry about matching colourschemes! LOL

a heavily mined asteroid field, heavily inspired by bfg rulebook art (chaos spikeysprue chains to the rescue!)

oh and here are some dirty old transports from the yellow-line trucking company coming into orbit around a small planet.

hope you enjoyed these.

oh and for those in the wonder of who or what the hell a D'sparil is when its at home: http://doom.wikia.com/wiki/D'Sparil yes I was (and still am) obsessed with doom heretic hexen quake and all things nineties fps! LOL

oh and those unclear on the references to p38: http://www.halfords.com/motoring/paints-body-repair/fillers-preparation/davids-isopon-p38-easy-sand-250ml great cheap alternative to most resins when casting from silicon molds... probably considered heresy by those who do proffesional casting I know but its just my preferred medium when it comes to casting...

- post 5 -

I decided to repaint my helion ship to match the 'sacred duty' (voss lunar class) I did previously: I think its much nicer now, showing off the details of the model more. this colourscheme just seems to suit it more...
You cant see it here but the engine decks (the bits that look like a huge air intake) are done in bronze with verdigris effect. maybe a better shot including the escorts soon.

what say you?

- post6 -

maybe it was the damp in the fireplace, the mould on the bread in the kitchen or the nasty virus's going around but I have felt the filthy touch of grandfather nurgle prodding at my with a dirty rotten skeletal digit and I've not even bothered to resist!



behold 'the scumnatus' a murder class nurgle cruiser and the first of my descent into chaos.
as you can see its rather heavily converted with a battleship bridge, horned prow and added filth rot and decay modeled on. a suitable filthy colourscheme of greeny browns and lots of weathering including drill damage to create a woodworm/decay effect, flock, varnishes and copious washes to create the look I was going for.
I hoped this would satisfy the great unclean one and that I could recant from such heresy and return to the imperium before I started to rot away...
but I immediately craved more. and more of a design challenge too.
I fancied a daemonship conversion coming on. it needed to look nasty. like it was made of flesh, bone, steel, corruption and death. I chose a styx class as the base as the one I had got hold of had been constructed wrong with missmatched launch bay configuration, making it look all wonky and lopsided. perfect for a filthy child of nurgles touch...
let the conversion begin:


It features a lot of the same effects as the murder class above but also includes tentacles and bits from a carnifex. and also the ribcage and spinal parts from and old undead horse. the idea behind this was not to show a ship with deamon bits on it. I wanted this to show that this is the deamon inside the ship, bursting its way out of the very hull itself. the front end also has an odd beak/spike ram made from a tyranid shoulder pad. this to me has created a great effect. it looks like an odd symbiosis of an undead carrion-corvid skull and also a lot like an old fashioned plague mask. both visions ideal for nurgle plague ships!
heres the two together. I can just imagine hoards of fighters and dreadclaws swarming out of the styx class like bloated flies around a rotting carcass... lovely imagery eh?

and before I got labeled excommunicatus I had a thorough shower and got to work on this:


the lumos astra - greyknights strikecruiser from admgr on shapeways. a very faithful 3dprint is it not?

more nurgle soon I feel though

- post7 -

ok gave the moon a second go:

why? well the first attempt looked daft. too many craters not enough surface. just silly. this is much better imho and at an inch and a half (as opposed to the usual 2" that moons tend to be in bfg) It doesn't look too big against smaller planets either. again, as before, this was miliput on a plastic cat toy ball as a base...

talking of planets I reworked another 3.5" wooden ball (last one this size was the crater planetoid/large moon on page 1) into a watery looking venus-esque sorta vibe world:
and here it is with some models:

a good excuse to show off the helion escorts I had recently repainted...

then its time to bring out the big-boy!

sorry if it appears sideways, mediafire is doing that for some reason...
a jupiter inspired green gas giant. this is pretty big, 8" actually, and as such is not wooden but is a plastic light fitting globe. here it is with one of my converted sword class frigates for an easier size comparison:


this was fun. fyi sponges make great tools for the cloud (on the blue planet) and an 1/2" brush was used to make the rings on the gas giant...

- post8 -

heres some more:

I finally got round to getting a passable group/montage shot of my fleet as-is at present...
its bound to get bigger... :roll:

- post9 -

see, told you there'd be more:


known as 'Ex Libre Imperialis' a dictator class cruiser and a vital missing component to my ever growing fleet; a carrier...
as you can see she's based on a metal ad-mech cruiser with zeus prow and 'fittings'. As such it matches in a treat with both the classic stuff and the zeus gear too!
I went for a grey prow this time as its obviously a fair compromise between white and black and its a bit different to the others... gives a nice no-frills standard naval issue look to it though...

Also I decided to make up a decent bearing compass template as I seemed not to own one...
as you can see its made of steel, aluminium and copper. heavy but nice...

- post10 -

ok time for some little tiny yaddat-ships now!

first up some custom torpedo markers made of the old '95 gw slotta base (easier to cut down) and some aerials.

I did two variants. one straight on the base and one on 'stalks'


these custom made lightnings are based on the standard imperial fighter models with plasticard wings added and other alterations...

I got hold of some plastic (FUD) thunderhawks from grim-dark-bits on shapeways. quite expensive but the quality is great!


I started with two frames of the wee-ships in greyknights colours to match the 'lumos astra' strikecruiser I had done previously. however these are even bigger than the original fw casts (so are even more hideously out of scale) I feel they look a little cumbersome with even three on a base but they're done now so, so-be-it I guess...


this is the first one I tried out on a single copper base in (yawn) ultramarine colours.

in the end I've elected to do the rest on the single stem bases as the are =/- the same size as the ordnance marker and this way I'll get more markers for my money. easier to paint this way too and look less clunky...


so these are the pair of blood angel thunderhawks to go with the 'thunderchild' astartes cruiser I own

and not wanting to leave my children of nurgle without attack craft I've done some for the styx class.

some swithdeaths

and as I don't own any doomfire's, I've done a couple of death-guard thunderhawks to fill the same role.

- post11 -

I present to you, the Prejudice Exremis an armageddon class battlecruiser:

as you can see she uses one of AdmGR's 3d printed prows and to rather nice effect If I do say so myself.

I kept the rest of the weapons loadout as 'out-of-the-box' as I could to keep the standard issue look as much as I could.

here is the back as I often forget to take an 'ass-end' shot of the engines so here it is.

also, I made sure I kept the extra lavishes and detail to a minimum to again reinforce the standard-issue/no nonsense look of this ship. looking at this shot its like it burst its way straight out of pages of the armada rulebook itself!

for those that remember the prow I originally had planned for this (in the wip thread) you'll likely see that on an upcoming overlord class in the future...

- post12 -

nurgle reinforcements are in:


the 'foetid claw' escort squadron.
some simple conversion on these. I have never really liked the look of the chaos escort vessels much. aside from the iconoclast that is. the others just seem a little odd looking. I know this is a purposeful design choice to show that the vessels are based on hybrid human/xeno technological elements and the disparate and 'spikey' forms are very obviously chaotic.
however I like my escorts to be more or less baby versions of the cruisers in essence. as such my chaos escorts feature a more streamlined aesthetic (using parts from the imperial sword escorts and my trademark domes) that ditches the excessively spikey bits and points it all forward, giving a greater sense of forward momentum.

also here are my prototypes for a nurgle specific 'blight' torpedo.

in rules terms either a boarding or regular torpedo but, in truth, simply an excuse to create a torpedo that looks like ginormous maggot with an engine grown out of its posterior that rides across the void to chow-down on imperial-lackey ships...
yes... Rank.
(made from the engine vents off a Valkyrie with bits from imperial aerials as engines)

and before the foetidity of the chaotic forces soil my eyes and or brain any further, I've gone for a gentler kind of heresy, here is the latest addition to my rogue trader flotilla:


the tau are coming to tea...

- post13 -

final parts of the nurgle fleet (for the foreseeable future anyhow)

the 'filth incarnate' A slaughter class cruiser.


for this conversion I decided to redesign the bridge (thanks to an old chaos battleship bridge) to be much more forward to suggest at the speed of the vessel. she is the fastest cruiser in the chaos fleet after-all! the nurgleisation has been kept to a minimum to again further emphasize the speed factor. stripped down and slick.
I used imperial turrets and aerials for a slimline look too.
however I could not resist a bit of scumming-up, namely the greenstuff guts hanging out of the port side midships and the spines thrusting their way out of the stern-side hull. (I shaved these off of the chaos vehicle spikey sprue spike-plate) also I did a lot of drilling to do the old maggot/woodworm-eaten look I did before, especially on the courtyard just rear of the bridge (keeping most of the holes in the triple circle nurgle symbol where possible) and a little greenstuff 'pustule' triplet (a nurgle design staple if ever there was one) on the starboard 'socket' just behind the prow.

the next up is a second murder class. having at least a pair of these gunboats is an essential in a chaos fleet if you expect to achieve any sort of victory. the slaughter is the cheetah of your fleet, that's a given but these are your workhorses without a doubt. stick a carrier like despoiler or a styx in the back with an escort of idolaters, and sling in a few iconoclasts and infidels and you've got yourself a good working fleet.
still, I digress. here is the 'most unclean'




this conversion was actually something I've wanted to do for a LONG time. as you can see it features another pair of horns like the previous murder class, this time taken from the tyranid warrior shoulderpad (the same component used on the styx's nose) I 'broke' one for a more lopsided look that nurgle is famous for. also, It cant have escaped your notice, the enormous great unclean one riding the ship from behind the bridge! (the bridge is from a chaos escort) this is actually a lone nurgling from the boxed set. I just loved the idea of a greater daemon riding the vessel out of the warp and this image harks back to the very early days of 40k (a similar image is in and old rulebook I believe, there's a challenge for you: go though your old rulebooks and see if you can find it!)
I used the small bridge to not over-shadow the daemon. as crazy as this seems I feel it works as a parody of the winged angels and eagle tributes to their corpse-god that the imperial lackeys like to smother their ships in.
I just love the way he is spewing up nasty nurgle-filth to spread all over the very hull of the ship itself...
I tried something new too, agrellan-earth to create a crusty splitting texure to the hull. it did get a bit lost in the basecoat but soon reappeared after the wash/shade coat, and to good effect if I do say so myself...
the success of this, plus the particularly overt appearance of having a greater daemon sitting on the hull made me leave the chaosisation to a minimum. this time, apart from the horns, I simply added a chaos star with added nurgle symbol to the starboard stern. simple but effective imho...

here are the two together.

sorry for the less than perfect pics, the light is horrible today...

more imperial stuff next!

- post14 -

The Deathwatch hit the stars!

the 'Daedalus'

an Ordo Xenos inquisitoral strike cruiser filled with black powerarmour clad space marines with high tech bolters and bad attitudes

as seen in wip shots this cruiser uses several other bitz to alter its shape. I feel it really encapsulates the personality I was going for. high-tech but brutal, as space-marines should be.
Especially the inquisition, who have access to the very newest of the cutting edge tech available to the Imperium...

here is a shot of the two Inquisitorial strike cruisers together:
the right and left hand of the inquisition, rarely seen together except in extremely dire circumstances... someone gonna get purged...




some dw thunderhawks soon...

- post15 -

as promised:

deathwatch thunderhawks...

- post16 -

here is the overlord class: 'Ultimus Umbra' in full paint!


quite please with its beefyness in the end. looks kinda huge actually! almost as big as a battleship.
talking of which...more soon!

- post17 -

the Righteous Infliction is here...



yep a voss retribution class...

yes I know she has a nova cannon not torpedoes but I field her as such and swap out torpedoes for nova at no extra cost and why not eh? its more than a fair trade for the opponent. strength six torpedoes swapped out for a single novacannon..?

I had been after one of these voss battleships for what seemed like forever and a friend of mine ditched his entire collection and donated this (and many more) ships to me.
I couldn't believe my luck, I had coveted this ship since he bought it! and back then funds were even worse than they are for me now! so I knew i never had a chance to own one.
anyway, bit of stripping of paint and some re-jigging here and there the Righteous Infliction was re-born*

why not simply do an apocalypse class? well to be honest; style. pure and simple. not to blow my own trumpet, but this conversion has everything I have ever loved about bfg stylistically; massed weapon batteries, arches, buttresses, voss prow, church for a bridge section, eagles, golden winged angel, chunky-assed-engines with horizontal protection plates and the ability to purge a planet from orbit with a single broadside volley! To be honest battleships aren't really my style but the retribution is faster, gunnier and blunter in tactics than all the other battleship classes. to my eyes its pretty much an over-amped overlord class isn't it?

classifications aside this ship is the perfect centrepeice to my ever growing armageddon sector battlefleet and was a fun conversion and painting challenge.

that being said, conversion was bare minimum. its pretty simple, for those not in the know the weapons batteries are helian and the bridge is off of the planet killer. but, who am I kidding, you knew all that already didn't you...

*I say re-born as my first retribution class had the same name and was in gothic colours. in my fluff, the Righteous Infliction suffered terrible damage after fleet engagement with the dark chaos lord henreticus (the same buddy who donated his fleet(s) to my cause ) after limping her way to the Armageddon sector she was re fitted with reclaimed weapon systems and a new voss prow. hence the nova cannon...
what a fine excuse not to convert that voss prow eh?

- post18 -

https://youtu.be/hHOrpFeXUao

transportation is a precise business


'tis the 'yellow Snork' part of the yellowline trucking company of transports I have.

here they are all together...



although owned by Jago Kane, founder and operator of yellowline trucks, this high conveyor class transport barge is mostly run and crewed by the miner's guild, mining asteroids and dead planets for minerals and gasses via the extensive launchbays filled with ore-transport and drilling craft.
as the flagship of yellowline, kane himself commands the yellow snork to make sure no underhanded sneakiness or back-alley dealing goes on that's not his own...
proof of the dangerous nature of this work is evident by the small moon that has accidentally been dragged out of orbit by the extensive mass of this vessel and has embedded itself into the port side. now mined and integrated into the very ships systems.


I took two other shots to show other angles but the colour ended up less yellow and the prow less white and more grey for some reason... not enough light I'd say...



for those not in the know this is a conversion of the incredibly talented LordBorak's High conveyor transport barge model. the conversion involves the rather obvious addition of the moon (miliput) and the wings are from an imperial cruiser. there are a triplet of helian laser lances added to the prow and the launchbays are also helian.

this is the merchant fleet where my system ships I made in the wip thread go too.


the system-ship sized transports.
I've shown these three scratch-builds with my yellow transport escort and one of the gw system ships (back two) so that people (malika ) can tell the scale a little better.

at first I had them simply yellow/white and dirty but the one directly under the transport escort looked a little gak so I added steel damage and a bit o' rust effect and it looked so much better. I then felt I had to add a bit of this to the others too. gotta say that after that I'm real happy with the result. obviously they look better in the flesh as the gleaming metal catches the light better than a single frame shot shows but I'm sure you can use your imagination on that a bit and just take my word for it I guess...

- post19 -

ok been a while but I have been working on stuff:

finally got this squadron of corvettes done for my voss fleet,

the 'Asp' a dauntless class,

'Imperious Patronus' a sister ship to the 'Ex Libre Imperialis' ( simply an excuse to include a tyrant class as I'd not yet done one and I did the prow to match the dictator I did as they work well together in game.)
and finally this loony lunar class conversion:

the 'Indominus Aster'

that's not all I've been up to though.

the yellowline trucks have a fuel transport added to the roster.

and I did this transport green, simply for a change from yellow and white!


- post20 -

more fuel transports for yellowline...

because the imperium simply won't run without promethium...
kane also decided that the growing merchant fleet could use a little fire support and so has reluctantly forked out for some ex-navy bombers and fighters, crewed by ex-servicemen turned private contractors, these spend most of their time in the ample launch bays of the 'yellow snork' high conveyor. although kinda outdated compared to most imperial vessels the veteran pilots more than make up for this with their high skill and the motivation of a good wage...

the double fueller is simply a conversion based around cutting the prow off of one and the ass-end of another and then whacking the two together! This then left me with a spare prow and engine section.
Now, I had previously bought a pair of the fw tankers (over a decade ago now :shock: ). one of them was constructed with a single tank (grey colourscheme) and t'other was converted with launch bays to be an escort carrier (in my armageddon fleet). this had left me with three fw fuel-pod sections.

so I simply glued it all together as a super heavy tanker.

now I know that I previously stated that I strongly disliked the 'stretched' fw transporters but in hindsight I think It's because with just two sections it looked a little odd, proportion wise. I feel the resin addict one works fine doubled up like this because the fuel-pods are simply more slimline and integral looking. In comparison the fw ones are obviously much chunkier and cumbersome. but with three tanks the oversized chunkiness just seems more proportionate now... or perhaps its just me. :roll:

got to say though the fw casting is piss-poor for the price you pay (But then I've always found that with fw resin) but I resolved this with some nice weathering and scumming up...

enjoy! more soon? maybe

was thinking that Jago ought to consider purchasing a decommissioned warship to support this ever growing trucking concern of his... at this rate he's soon to make the leap from trucking firm ceo to rogue trader... but with his typically imperial xenophobia i'd doubt that that would ever happen...

- post21 -

explosivo:


as you can see this is an attempt at modelling a realistic (ish) explosion for use as a blast marker in games of bfg.
its simply constructed from a copper base with clumps of 'course turf' from the woodlands scenic range superglued together into an appropriate explosion/debris cloud shape. next its painted with a pva glaze (I used watered down hobbycraft tacky glue as it has a real tough finish when dry and tends to dry real quick). once dry its painted with a chaos black spray (best way to get the base) then baint the cloud white. followed by yellow, orange, red then black (overbrushing each layer away from the 'epicentre' of the explosion). the black being more prominently used on the 'branches' of the debris cloud.
simple but effective? I don't know. I want to post it here to let you guys pass some judgement on it.
I think I've been looking at it too long now and it just looks a bit of a mess to me.
Personally, I think it's certainly a bit better than these by okb14:
which, although truer in style to the actual card templates look an awful lot more like sea urchins or tropical catachan cacti than an explosion... but that's just me...

it obviously looks better in context:


BOOM! Imperial and Eldar forces clash in a mined asteroid


POW! a second volley of torpedoes thunder into the already crippled murder class

At present I have but one of these as I' still not 100% on whether or not to continue pursuing it (seeing as I generally only model not game you could say I'ts entirely pointless but its a bit of whimsy and kinda completes my 'card into models' journey I have been on since I first got into bfg)
Anyhow I'm not sure of a better way to make these and it certainly has been a challenge. I have made several attempts at this in one way or another over the years but this is the best I've managed so far, certainly the only one good enough that I'd share LOL...

but what say you?

- post22 -

well, I guess I'll stick to this design for now! (but I do have another in mind with a pretty unstable medium in mind, more of that later..?)
in fact I made a few more of the blast markers but I shan't bother to take a picture as they're all much of a muchness. if you've seen one debris cloud done like this you've seen the rest really... I've kept them consistent colour/form wise, not much difference in them except for the randomness of the shapes...

BUT! I had an idea for a nova cannon template:


inspired by the pressed-tin 40k vortex grenade templates (or those realm of magic ones for whf that I use as planets) this is made of the lid from the sainsbury's mens antiperspirant. (classy I know...) Its a handily sized 5cm accross, simply cut down to be more of a perfect half dome, added 1cm hole in the top and decoupaged with watered tacky glue and standard grade toilet tissue.* with a few creases and swirls deliberately left in for texture. simple paint of white, and dapple on yellow, orange, red and then black with a sponge (working out from the centre) and its job done.

yes I know , in game, I could simply use the bearing compass I made (and probably still would do) but again, this was a hobby challenge and I wanted to see if I could make something more visually dynamic. I think I succeeded... but, again, I'll leave judgement up to you...

*note
I originally attempted to cover this with the clump coarse turf, as to match the blast markers, but it ended up a disastrous result. this, I feel looks visually fitting for an awesome sized explosion that rends the very fabric of space, yet somewhat practical in terms of potential gaming use...


looks much more professional now if I'm honest and as promised, here's an action shot with the blast markers and ships for a greater sense of colour/scale:

KABOOM! the mars class looses patience with the stalemate of trading blows with the murder class and unleashes the power of its prow-mounted novacannon...

- post23 -

the light and weather is ok today so I've gone all snap-happy!

some stuff you've probably all seen afore, some new, both looking much more presentable!


some fuel transports of 'Ace' trucking Co. arch rival of Jago Kane...

'Excelsior' endeavour class light cruiser, with carrier escort (admgr 3d-print for the cruiser and conversion of the fw heavy transport for the escort)

'Indominus Aster' lunar class... rediculous name for a rediculous conversion (such a shame about that wsf texture...)

'imperious Patronus' tyrant class

endeavours, 'roys revenge' and 'Invictus' (ad-mech conversion with zeus prow and a full zeus)

Falchions. another shapeways print...

stations and such:

Mac'kay class orbital defense station


station 'diva' asteroid base - with docking transports from yellowline trucks and 'parking' bay with shuttles etc...

'Fort Hammond' Armatige class space station (feat. docking 'eternal vigilance' dominator class

top view

some groupshots:

Battlegroup Fatalis - Inquisitorial fleet

plaguefleet 'heresiarch' in all its glory

yellowline trucks (missing the new tankers but this pic is a little older and I just forgot to upload it!)

- post24 -

ok. apologies for any blurryness/lack of quality of these shots but the models are small and the light was poor...
these are the latest ordnance stuff from the talented malika (that are available now from vanguard miniatures).

I got some dreadclaws for my nurgle fleet:

These are simply epic quality, filled with detail and come in two 'positions' open and closed. fantastic stuff!

also had to get some of his amazing torpedo models:

I have twice what is pictured here. yes...the bases were a cowson to do...

also his 'javellin' fighters are a must as far as I'm concerned. The design ques that form them have everything I like about spacefighters in them!
they make ideal proxies for xiphons (a heresy era astartes space/air fighter craft), making them ideal for both imperial or chaotic forces or they can simply be considered greneric fighters too of course...

pictured here I have done a pair of them for my merchant fleet, deathwatch and nurgle fleets respectively.

here I also have experimented with a couple of different schemes:

the space sharks hit the stars and a colourscheme inspired by the splorkon systems XJ-37 Interceptor ship in 3d astroblaster (an old 90's asteroids clone game for windows that I played the gak out of back in the day. this is also the inspiration for the fact that all my space mines are bronze in colour...)
that being said, it has obvious visual ties to starwars/galactica too!
I went for the stem bases as the ships are much bigger than furies or swiftdeaths but are closer in size to those thunderhawks I got from shapeways. they turned out looking great so I figured these would too...

enjoy!

oh, don't forget to get on over to vanguard and go get some of malika's ordnance models if you've not done so already. the quality is high. it metal (YAY!) and the price is very fair. you won't be dissapointed...

Oh, Here's more recovered stuff. Some old some brand new!


nemesis II


Sacred duty, lunar class


Firestorms converted from mangozac's zeus frigates


Kar dunaish Rogue traders

- post25 -

Jago kane has finally added some much needed muscle to his merchant fleet in the form of this aggressive and cussed little(?) gunship:


the Pertinacia! a battered old (counts as) endeavour class.
built from the salvaged hulk of a mostly destroyed dominator class vessel.
Jago managed to blag the battered hull off of an eldar corsair pirate (supposedly under truce but who can say with a scoundrel like Kane?) who claimed the hulk was found in one of their local shipping-run/asteroid fields. After dragging it back to the kar-dunaish shipyards he bargained with local cogboys to give her an overhaul and get what was needed to get her back in action. Boarding parties of Skitarii troops reported excessive evidence of deamonic interference in the bridge and engine decks (supposedly when the ship was lost to warp currents or possibly by chaotic boarding actions) and were force to purge said decks with extreme prejudice.
long story short; deployment of cleansing explosive charges meant that Jago found himself needing, new engines, new bridge and due to the front half of the ship being missing when it was found, a new prow. thankfully the remaining weapon systems were good-to-go and ready to be loaded with fresh munition.
The replacement parts required were simply stripped and taken from the tug that Jago used to bring her in! A simple solution to save money and time. put it this way, what would you rather have, a busted-ass old tug or a functioning gunboat? leaving the rest of the tug with the tech-priests as part of the payment, a few months to paint, fuel, arm, bless and crew her and the Pertinacia was ready to aggressively defend Kane's shipping caravans...
Pertinacia was in fact the original name for the vessel as kane never renames his acquisitions to his fleet (frightful bad luck you know...)


portside

ass-end! note the fresh engine (no. 7) fitted back at kar-dunaish...

the observant among you will see this conversion uses a plastic imperial cruiser as its core hull. I then made a custom prow from wood in the style of the transport model prows. the bridge is taken from a chaos frigate and the engines are chaos vehicle sprue 'nade launchers mounted on cutdown tau weapons (I feel they look very sw blockade runner). the port and starboard 'wings' are simply cut down for a slimmer/less aggressive profile.
To me, the small bridge and stubby yet chunky look of the vessel help to give the idea that this is not a warship but a vessel that is made by merchant-men and as such reflects this in its design aspects.
the paint scheme is deliberately as grubby and weathered as the rest of the fleet. I'm rather pleased with it, but what say you?

more soon...


I figure that's me more or less up to date now!

Gorgeous collection, welcome to dakka then !
These pieces are really inspirational, the base for the armitage is definitely something I might steal !

Welcome to dakka. Always nice to see more tiny spaceships, especially when they look as good as yours! Although you posted a ton of stuff of there I am looking forward to more.

Welcome aboard, keep up the good work!

Wow, I forgot how much stuff you actually have and how much you have done over the years. Glad you saved all your old pictures, I'd have hated to see them lost with the Specialist Arms Forum.

recovered more backlog:

- post 26 -

so (heavily) WIP:

for those not in the know its a modification of the gear on the new adeptus titanicus civitas spires sprue. which just so happens to feature gaps in its structure that fit standard issue bfg weapons/bays beautifully!

the inner sanctum features the eagle from the ig tank sprue (or was it from a the assault on macragge aerial thingy, I dunno now), a bigass macro cannon in a quad patern and it also has the battlefleet helios lance turrets on this section.

next layer is the main armament section featuring , again, helios weapons batteries, classic imperial/chaos turrets (mounted on bits of old lascannon barrel) and what will be converted imperial launch bays (to be straight not angled) all of which will fit on a larger octagon of plasticard. the bays will look similar to the ramilies ones, kinda like parking bays that lead inside.

then? well a larger, docking, layer is needed and who knows what then? will this layer cake ever end? and will it ever get painted? tune in for more next time!

two layers down... more to go!


oh, C&C is not only welcomed, but ideas and stuff is needed to be honest. don't want to make a balls up of this like the original armatige station I did. I want this to look legit!
does anyone know of/reccomend which 40k/aos scenery wil be good for the lower layers. need docking sections akin to the pitched roof dealies on the ramilies and at present I'm funted if i can figure out where to poach them from...

- post 27 -

Thanks folks!

progress!


I ran out of thin plasticard for the cladding but my wife's Moser Roth chocolate packaging to the rescue! The hex heatshield style texture stuff on the 'runway' is from the bottom of some eclairs packaging (someone's birthday at work!) Plasticard angle on the join and the leftover panthera weapons and bays for the defence ring and to hide the cheapo thick plasticard I made the platform from. Also had some brassetch eagles left from an old fw purchase just dying to be used on this. Yeah, It's all wonky all over of course but remember who's making it!

- post 28 -

more progress:

so as you can see I got the docking section done. quite complicated and expensive and I've still one docking section pending (batteries in the post from vanguard)
I went for a pointy look to the bottom side, the inverted roof also serving as the base stand and the inverted towers as counterparts to the butresses.
forgive the shyte photos and the general wonkiness of the mini at present, a lot of this is simply balancing/blutacked in order to dry-fit for pics. a lot is un-glued to facilitate ease of painting and then again a lot of it is simply wonky LOL!

- post 29 -


got a couple of hours to myself today so the mackay mkII orbital has had a dose of paint.
not a great shot but what I've done is add more lighter highlights than on my devastatus/armageddon fleet just to differentiate the station somewhat. went for slate grey roof panels and weathered bronze on the aerial (but that doesn't show too well on this pic.
fyi the ad-tit spire kit has lots of sharp contrasts to its detail making it ideal for basecoat/wash/drybrush technique oftimes used for bfg so this is +/- how i'll do the starfort too...

it'll have a bronze/verdigrised dome with a very golden eagle, slate grey spires/butress tops, and slate grey/tarmac black flat areas. ;D


ok, now I really am up to date!

Oh wow...those stations are just mindblowing!!!

DAMN fine work! Thanks for rescuing these, and posting here!

--Brian

Never got into BFG, but these are beautiful pieces. Well done

well thanks guys.

it has been a long old time eh?

so whats shakin' with me in bfg?
not much.

last two ships I had on my to do pile done today:



'Excelsior II' (endeavour class) and 'Sinclair' (endurance class) light cruisers. (will get better, less blurry/overexposed pics soon)

these are actually recasts of adamgr's lightcruisers that can be found on shapeways. i found them some time back on ebay and had to have them as they are clearly recast from the high resolution print but come in at less than a third of the price!
you may remember my first foray into buying from shapeways resulted in the original 'Excelsior' model i did that unfortunately came in the hideously lo-re and piss-poor textured ship that looked like it was made out of low grade sandpaper LOL. this model and its new sister ship is intended to replace this in my fleet but bears the II in its name to ever remind me of the folly of ever buying anything other than frosted-ultra-detail level models from shapeways again. LOL

these may very well be the last ships I ever paint for bfg as I'm +/- satisfied with the fleet and other than that gargantuan-painful painting project that is the starfort/station to do, I've no real desire to do much more of it nowadays...

i guess i feel my yen for bfg kinda died with the specialist arms forums (RIP) and TBH I've done about as much as I ever want to or have room for! there is a final ship conversion that i've still got in the back of my mind (a recreation of something i did from back in the day but redone properly now) but that may never happen...

I guess watch this space...



..get it? space?






...nevermind... i think I'm loosing it...

Psst...the Specialist Games forum is back, you know?

The BFG community on places like Facebook and Reddit is still very much alive. I've noticed that for the last couple of months the forums have generally been way less active than social media. The technical issues with both the Tactical Command and Specialist Games forums really didn't help (understatement of the century).

Those are some of the best-painted BFG ships I've seen. Normally the detail just disappears and you can never make out the armament, but these look very crisp and clean!

Nice and clean and I like the Earth tones.

well thanks folks!

Well I had a final rummage and found a clean cruiser chassis that I'd got in a joblot I had stashed for future use then stupidly forgot about... So THAT will likely be the last of battlefleet Armageddon stuff I think... But never say never eh?
come on though, you knowas well as I that if someone like lord borak,or malika keeps making new stuff that gets my attention, its very unlikely ill be able to resist

anyway:
St. Anger is reborn. the original st anger was a dauntless conversion i did in the early days of bfg, it had a powerfist grafted to its prow... lets just say it was not expertly done...


this lunar class st. anger is clearly based on a plastic cruiser, the prow is from a zeus light cruiser with a GK termie fist grafted into the slot where the eagle head was.
I had no enginebay/sidefin parts so did similar to what I did on my old dominator conversion, simply used tubing to continue the engines. in this case the 'tubing' either side was part of one of these:

the defense plates are off of the panthera conversion kit and are mounted on some small sprue wedges.
where the model was now lacking width, the use of the chaos bridge adds height in similar proportion.

also did some more work on the prows of the light cruisers and took the opportunity to take some better shots of them:

ok. STILL not done entirely... (when will Iean to not say things like that anyway?)

my previous attempt to paint up one of malika/vanguard's panthera cruisers as an astartes vessel led to another disasterous paintjob that always occurs whenever I try to paint spacemarine ships for bfg that aren't inquisition based. the blood angel one that sits somewhere in an above post was the third attempt at that model. and I'm still not 100% satisfied with it tbh.
as such I have recently resigned myself to never attempt to paint spacemarines in bfg again.

However I still had a second of those pantheras waiting on paint, so I had a good think.
I personally dont like the panthera prow. it looks like a hybrid between tau and ad-mech to me, as such I cant unsee it thus and for me it had to go. so out with the exacto-saw.
so what to do with her? astartes? no chance! light cruiser? too small inquisition? been there done that
a flitter through both my rulebooks and my bitzbox found the perfect answer. defense monitor!

I have never liked either the gw nor the fw versions to represent a defense monitor ship. the gw one has a nice prow (clearly based on a cut down cruiser prow) but the 'ship' itself is clearly just two lance battery sections slapped together. the fw one? urgh! wtf!? whats with that hideous prow? dont get me started... LOL
so as you can see I had a gw def-mon prow knocking about and donated it to this panthera.
addition of the aerial bits from an imperial frigate and the plastic lance turrets for an even more defined gw imperial look and this new defense monitor the "spitehawk" was born.
I stuck with the armageddon colourscheme as I like painting it and this way, she'll match the fleet and stations I have too.

oh and heres a pre-paint shot:

I know I dont usually but I took this in a fit of paranoid panic that I'd bugger it up painting it yet again. LOL

Love the paint work on these mate, dont know how you do it on such a scale.
That conversion for your monitor looks really good, how does it compare in size to the light cruisers? You say its too small but would be interested to know by how much, it looks... stockier than most in the pics.
Also love the basing, home made?

its +/- about a prowlength smaller than a dauntless...
its actually kinda sm strike cruiser size... in fact this got me thinking, this conversion would also be a great proxy for an adeptus arbites cruiser...

the bases?
https://roof-stores.co.uk/fit-r-classic-copper-disc-rivets?gclid=EAIaIQobChMIusu2_ZSG6QIVWuztCh2Zwg9XEAQYAiABEgJiafD_BwE
FIT-R Classic Copper Disc Rivets... roofers nails...
cheap as anything on ebay, dont snap like plastic, lightweight and slim. take paint easy and strong enough to hold up a battleship (see my battleship in an earlier post)

no sense in using anything else!

Love the thought of it as an Arbites' cruiser, it looks pugnacious enough! Does seem a bit on the heavy side for a monitor.
Thanks for the link! Got a metric ton of metal spaceships needing basing and have been strugglig for a solution that both looks good and will actually bear the weight.

Have you another project inline? Been enjoying your stuff and would ahte to see it fade again!

Thanks man pugnacious is precisely what I was going for! Perhaps I'll use it with strike cruiser rules-wise but keep it as a defence ship, fluff wise... Ha! Like if matters, lol not played a game in over 16 years... :(

As for me going away from bfg? Yeah you can forget that nonsense, what was I thinking? you can never be done with something like this. I mean come on its 20 years old and bfg is still just about breathing...

These last few ships have got my bfg dander truly up and flying high! I'd only intended to do the light cruisers then finish up with the station. Two more ships done and no station yet? Yeah, I'm not going anywhere...

a concept i have in mind of using either one of admgr's razor prows or a zeus prow to convert a helian ship... what say you?

been recently musing on the failures of gw's grand cruiser hybrid designs and felt I'd see if I could do better.
the aim was to represent a stop-gap in design elements between the ancient (now chaos) designs and the imperial designs without it looking so much of a shambles with a shoe on the front
to be honest this hybridisation happens almost elusively in fiction, the new designs of real military vessels superseding the old in a rather blunt manner.
hybrid ships are much more likely to exist as a result of having to put newer systems on older vessels to bring them 'up-to-speed' if recommissioning.
but, sci-fi loves to do this stop-gap design thing to keep the nostalgia freaks happy so i figured, how can i do it justice, without having to chow-down on a big-ol slice of humble pie?
one (LONG) rummage in the bitzbox later and this is the result:

the Indominus aster, Enceladus class heavy cruiser.
so the idea is that this is not actually a grand cruiser but simply an old design that just predates the mars class battlecruiser (in fact it has an identical armament), its just an excuse to show what an older design of ship may have looked like.
fluff?

the indominus aster was decommissioned during the new-wave of ship designs that came out of the voss shipyards. however, during the Armageddon conflict, the lunar class that carried its namesake, lasted less than 17 hours in fleet-action against plaguefleet 'hereseriarch', in fact, such losses were reported that many 'mothballed' vessels were hastily recommissioned to fill the voids in battlegroups of many sectors, as such the enceladous class indominus aster set-sail to the stars to answer the call of war once again...

heres a wip:

spot all the bitz?

While I was at it, I've also done some basic mock-ups of some plasma-batteries for use on tyrant class vessels to represent the 45cm range batteries as written in the rulebook:

will likely end up on a zeus cruiser...

Wow...just wow...

;D


...I'm officially out of bulky stuff to make ships out of now though!

so i got this done this weekend:





the photos are terrible but I've not the time to do proper shots so they'll come later...

as you can see a lot has changed on the lower and docking section since the wip shots. its much more solid looking now and also features some asymmetrically placed systems, some hangy bridgey bits and some smaller docking arms for 'lesser' ships...
was interesting to do but a bit of a logistical nightmare to paint... thank god for sub assemblies.
kinda glad this is done now though!

Hey buddy! Nice to find you here!

I like cobbling together grand cruiser ideas too so that heavy cruiser looks fabulous to me! I can't work out what you've used for the topmost and bottommost superstructure though - is it Troublemaker Games related? Wait... Imperial battleship?

I like the plasma battery concept

Ragsta

Top dorsal is imperial battleship. Keel is the spine of a battlebarge inverted. Rear side is battleship engine bays cut down, engines and bottom of ship is a panthera cut down and the rest is plastic chaos and imperial junk...

Love that station.

You're really working wonders with the AT terrain, I may have to pick some up when I return to spaceship making.

t'other weapon platform:

with the apparent success of transplanting my paint scheme of my 40k marines to epic scale I decided to see if it would translate to bfg scale:

FINALLY! some bfg spacesharks that I'm happy with.
if found the trick with this colourscheme is not to simply wash and drybrush successively but to wash nuln oil then only drybrush the basecoat back over. then do the successive highlights like i do in my marines! and it don't end up half bad...
the ship is one of the vanguard lynx destroyers with a chaos infidel raider prow so as to blend chaos and imperial designs to portray a pre/heresy era astrtes vessel. Its also handy that the infidel has a sharky toothy grin that adds to the whole effect.
the width of the lynx destroyer lends itself to this conversion quite well as it straddles the lines between the imperial thin straight design aspects and the chaos flat wide ones...
I did the last couple of thunderhawks I had too as, with this ship being +/- a proxy for a gladius frigate(?), I intend to make up a ship to represent a strike cruiser soon...

Where are those Thunder Hawks from?

Hmm, I feel that you could turn easily turn a Lynx Destroyer into an Infidel Raider by replacing the prow.

I think I'm inspired to do some ships for the Tainted...

@kid_kyoto grimdarkbits on shapeways.
https://www.shapeways.com/product/CNPBKNQQ8/bfg-voidhawk-gunships-x16
Best ones I've found. Don't get them in anything other than smooth fine detail medium. Finest is negligible difference and the versatile stuff beyond vile quality...

@malika. That IS a lynx destroyer. I originally posted panthera destroyer because I forgot they were called lynx. (Ammended now)The panthera is the heavy frigate isn't it...
Thats more suitable size wise for a strike cruiser but this lynx conversion is, although designated a destroyer, really regular frigate sized ... Imho anyhow...

I've a different intention regarding the (1st? ) strike cruiser though...

Oooh, can't wait to see what you'll come up with next!

Well I've one of these on order from grimdarkbits;
just fyi that's not my model...

It comes up quite a bit smaller than the chaos cruisers... Ideal in design aspects to represent pre heresy strike cruiser. And will obviously match the frigate I've done...

I also thought I'd try a mix of vessel styles in this minifleet so all sorts of gear may end up in it. Remember the Astartes can take imperial escorts of all types...

Damn that is pretty, costly?

29.39 euros I paid... With postage that is... So not obscene but not cheap by any stretch of the imagination either. The designer has reduced the plastic content by making most of it entirely hollow to reduce cost so it is one of the cheapest on SW tbh... But SW is notorious for being expensive... My GK cruiser I got from admgr on there was over 40 quid if I remember correctly! What was I thinking! Also the first print I got was savagely distorted. They sent another (in the best medium they could as an apology) but quality control is not the best with them. Also the old frosted ultra detail is NOT as stable a medium as they promise. Some of my stuff has degraded over time. Some of the painted models going shiny/oily and the long stored unpainted stuff crystallizing on the surface. Luckily this can be removed from both affected cases with a swift brush over with a toothbrush. Carefully on the painted ones so as not to remove paint but is an annoying thing to have to do every few months anyhow. This is a leap of faith from me buying this as it's supposed let a new medium "smooth fine detail" but I've a feeling it's just a rebrand/rename... If this goes the same way as t'others I shan't buy anything else from SW again... Not worth the cost with such maintenance required...

Loving the thread. Such a trove of conversions is rare among BFG players, the integration of AT terrain for space stations in particular is inspired. Doubly so with little fighters and such resting on their decks. Reminds me of Port Maw, once built and displayed on the pages of White Dwarf.

Keep 'em coming!

Quite the praise thank you. Said port maw conversion was an inspiration behind it as well as the "space dock" scratch build in the bfg rulebook, and obviously the ramilies too...
that goes without saying...

however I've not overlooked making one of those port maw jobbies...
I'd thought about using four of the 40k shipping containers representing the four piers but have ships docking INSIDE!
Also thought of using the dome peice from the 40k industrial scenery as the central basilica done and lots of extra AT scenery as further detaling. Then I realised how insane that was... But I got as far as buying the containers so.... Who knows what the future might bring, eh?









Wouldn't hold my breath if I were you...

ok, more work on escorts for my fledgling spaceshark battlegroup:



the one on the left is a lynx destroyer with helian lances and a new prow built from the mid section of the helian launch bay. The front def-plates are actually the rear plates from a panthera destroyer and its rear plates come from a zeus frigate.
the right ship is the aforementioned zeus frigate, with a new prow, again taken from the centre of a helian launch bay but this time t'other way round. there's a helian lance turret on there and an underslung novacannon to represent a lance and this one, again, uses the defence plates to keep the look of the classic marine fleet aesthetic.
this time the front one is the front panthera def-plate and the rear one the front lynx def-plate on a bit of sprue.
bit confusing, yeah, but i wanted to be detailed in case anyone wants to replicate the conversions...

groupshot...

also;

this vessel is intended to represent an astartes-run firestorm frigate.
As you may or may not know already, the astartes fleet rules simply list these (and other imperial escorts) as 'rapid-strike craft'. with this conversion I wanted to show that although built to stc template construction this firestorm is built to astartes tolerances and standards, for use exclusively by an astartes fleet. the best way to show that was use of the rear def-plates from the lynx destroyer, as the chapter symbol leaves you in no doubt as to its role and loyalties...

strike-cruiser next!

Woah!!!

all thanks be to you malika! without your panthera and lynx designs these would never have been!

oh yeah, meant to ask before, was it you who designed all the 6mm tanks troops and gunships over on vanguard?

Very cool stuff, nice and clean conversion work. The plates on the Firestorm help make it look a lot beefier without detracting from the lines of the ship. You are making me want to break out my toy spaceships again...

 osjclatchford wrote:
all thanks be to you malika! without your panthera and lynx designs these would never have been!

oh yeah, meant to ask before, was it you who designed all the 6mm tanks troops and gunships over on vanguard?

Vanguard Miniatures' 6mm and 3mm ranges are done by various designers. Most of my designs are Novan Regulars tanks such as the Centurion, Tribune, Warrior (Mk1 and Mk2) and all variants. Some Novan Elites Fighters and heavy infantry with missile pods on their backs are also mine.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Oh yeah, I've also featured your designs on the very unofficial Vanguard Miniatures Instagram fanpage: https://www.instagram.com/p/CAxwf-EnQ_I/

That's good to know. Id like to see vanguard list their design crew on the site. Or at least credit the designers on each product... Just a little "designed by Malika" or whoever on products would be nice...

Also thanks for linking me in...

The great part of BFG is that the ships are "actually" the head of the flight stand. So, being "off" on size is a-ok! Only the base truly matters for game purposes.

--Brian

 Briancj wrote:
The great part of BFG is that the ships are "actually" the head of the flight stand. So, being "off" on size is a-ok! Only the base truly matters for game purposes.

--Brian

Yes a good point. I'd be in real trouble if I was still playing rather than just collecting...
Tis indeed true about the stick of the flight stand (that's why the planets and other celestial phenomena seem off-scale) but also let us not forget that the disc of the flight stand is used to show the range of influence of the ships voidshields. So you know where ordnance and nova templates takes effect.
With the standard size for escorts and large stand for battleship/battlebarge sized vessels. Thing is, the metal stands I use are all the same size and the disc of them only covers the aquivalent of an ordnance stand! To play properly I have to keep adding the difference on to each measurement...

Ok not a big deal but is important to get it 'right'. Would be a minor annoyance for ordnance but a pain in the ass for novacannon and armageddon-gun templates now I think of it...


Automatically Appended Next Post:
anyway, here's the last of the escorts and ordnance (I think)...


an astartes transport for convoy scenarios, whats in it? I dunno, what do marines need... bolter shells?

with it you can see some very 'different' looking ordnance:

these are simply a bitz-doodle of something to represent a droppod type thingy.
they're made out of the muzzle from a gsc webgun/webpistol and feature engines made out of the barrels from the 'big-square' chaos lances... (the ones that noone ever uses... )
you can also consider them an alternative boarding torpedo, based on the designs of a drop pod, they're obviously bigger, around the size of a thunderhawk, i imagine the section at the 'front' being a mass of melta-charges ready to tear its way into an enemy hull...
alternately you could consider them heat-shield plates for re-entry...

It always amazes me what bits can be turned into ships and suchlike and just look so... right. Like they were never anything other than that.

Really neat work

Keep up the great work! Now that everybody has a 3D printer, I sometimes feel as if the art of converting miniatures might disappear.

No chance with that happening as long as I'm about... Lol

Talking of which, I'm desperate to get my hands on another panthera frigate asap!
With the success of the conversion on the escorts under my belt, one of those would be ideal for a strike cruiser conversion...
Kinda hoping vanguard will be back up again next week but that all depends on what John says I suppose...

heresy cruiser arrived... heresy indeed, that's officially the last time i'm ever buying from shapeways again...

I'll post this here for you guys so you know what happened:

*email sent to shapeways wed 3rd june 2020*


hopefully i'll get my money... guess time will tell but let it be a warning to you of the fickle nature of shapeways...

Wow, that is awful. Hope you get your money back and they let you keep the print to turn into some cool terrain (or Nurgleise it).

yeah, if they say keep it I guess Its an ideal candidate for nurgleisation. a bit of agrellan earth round here and there and a good paintjob and it'll fit right into my nurgle fleet but theres no way in hell it will look anything with the clean/smooth paintjob of the sharks ive been doing. the wash would show up all those hideous miss-print artifacts even more...

Either a Nurgle ship or a burnt out / destroyed shipwreck.

yeah so I got the refund so:

the Rancour.
huge time spent attempting some 'clean-up' and I guess the nurgle scheme does help the situation but urgh, that texture!

at least its a strike cruiser for my nurgle fleet!

space shark battlebarge conversion.

Mindblown! And to think you were about to stop doing BFG scaled stuff!

Thanks! Really pleased with how this interpretation of a battlebarge has come out. basing it on a helian hull means It's still beefy and intimidating, yet has more grace than the official model without compromising it's astatesness...
Now that John over on vanguard has restocked, I've a panthera on its way to fill the role of strike cruiser.
Also I've never really noticed how well the panthera and lynx fit so seamlessly with the helian cruiser hull in style and asthetics untill I swapped out the prow...
There's an idea for a future conversion kit, panthera style prows for use on helian cruisers!

This conversion was rather long time coming but easy to figure out in hindsight. The front is the mangozac black ship prow with the plates off of a retribution battleship (I'd used the black ship plates on sommit else) the rear plates of a panthera were inverted as added to the fins. And the plas-weaps are from a russian guy that sells shapeways recasts on eBay. It's the weapons that make it though. They have enough grace to look right on a helian hull but enough utilitarian brutality about them to look Astartes. So pleased with this! Lol

Really great thread and images thnx

strikecruiser:

again with the helian launch bay trick on the prow, this time with a bit of classic bfg bay beneath it for body and substance.
I intend this to be one of two.
I'm pleased wit the stubby, pugnacious look of this vessel but what I really want/need for the second one is a classic marine strike cruiser prow, as I feel this would look even better, not that I'm displeased with this one...

in truth the fleet's coming along nicely:

(forgot the ordnace in this shot, DOH!)

so yeah, if anyone has a strike cruiser prow they'd be prepared to sell or donate to the cause, sling me a PM!

They look very cool

thanks.
I bit the bullet and simply stripped down my old bloodangels strike cruiser and donated its prow to this:

the second strike cruiser.

this is much better in my opinion but that may just be nostalgia for the old silhouette of a strikecruiser.
however I do feel this conversion banishes all the things about the original model and keeps all the best bits LOL!
I always felt the strike cruiser was a bit of a cop-out in that it was an unashamed rehash of the dauntless hull with a few tinkers here and there and a fancy new prow.

also whilst stripping the old bloodangels strikecruiser I took the opportunity to repaint the two thunderhawks that accompanied it to spaceshark colourscheme too, topping those up to four markers in the fleet now...

Very clean, why arent you using the Eagle Dropships instead of the 3d printed models? (both are cool though)

Well. One, I already had the grimdarkbits th's to paint. Two I'm very very low on money at present and three, the eagle dropships are 14mm long! Freakin' Huge man! The grimdarkbits ones are much more sensibly sized at around 8/9mm long. (I think. I'll measure for sure and check)

However I'm unaware as to how big the fw th's were though. The pics I've seen do make them seem a little huge compared to the old metal fighters and bombers. Anyone know for sure?

I will probably get some eagle dropships at somepoint and use them to represent stormbirds alongside my th's. Also looking forward to getting my hands on some of your updated javelins with the wider wings... they'd be ideal for xiphon proxies methinks

Hmm, I'd recommend converting the Eagles a bit to make them look like Stormbirds. As for the fighters, I'm also still waiting. Sadly enough Vanguard Miniatures never went full way (casting and releasing) with the fighters I've submitted. :(

Yeah they'd need a tweak or two...

Also re. Your fighters, I've no idea why that's the case with vanguard... I got some javelins from the first wave and then John removed them for some reason... A real shame as I personally thought they were the best fighter models in that scale I'd ever seen! They have all the design cues from all the old sci fi I remember from back in the day. Lovely minis. I've still some unpainted I believe so they may get done for this fleet, especially if the updated ones are not to be expected to be released now... :(

Funny I just noticed there were not fighters at Vanguard. It seems the only ordinence missing.

If you guys want them back, perhaps try to convince John through social media or the Tactical Command forum? I've done updated fleetscale versions of both the Javelin and Spiculum fighters.

Ah yes spiculum! They are the ones that really look like xiphons.
That's what I meant when I said "the javelins with wider wings"

The javelins are more like battlestar's vipers aren't they. They are great either way.

Alas I'm no Facebooker so the petition for ordnance will have to be up to others...

Or just PM Moredakka, I think he also posts here. I just hope to be able to convince him those fighters are worth it.

But back to your stuff, what do you have planned next?

erm not sure to be honest but for now, some slightly better shots of stuff...

stations:



and the marine fleet in its +\- completed form... well for now anyhow...

That big station just get more and more impressive each time I see it!

Spectacular! What paint is that brownstone color you used for the station?

Easy.

Xv88 basecoat.
Wash with 50/50 agrax earthshade/nuln oil.
Xv88 drybrush.
Then successive drybrushing of xv88 with zandri dust added up to almost pure zandri dust...

an experiment with fighter craft ordnance to make a proxy for a marauder bomber:

vanguard javelin cut down and trimmed with a swithdeath tail between the engines.
not an excellent pic but bloody small and hard to capture with the phone...

Holy crap...that's....that's...SO MUCH WINNING!!!

lols... they're good to represent stuff in a planetary landing scenario or just as alternative bombers...
i built them to go with these lightings:

that you may remember from earlier in the thread...

I was wondering if anyone knew of other thunderbolt and marauder ordnance 3rd party proxies that would be good for bfg scale?

or perhaps you should do some malika? mind you, based on the track record of getting ordnance casted by vanguard, you could end up waiting a while for it LOL!

You might appreciate these!

indeed!

in the meanwhile, a better shot

been experimenting on kitbashing more fighter ordnance:
I have more imperial bombers than anything else so i figured i'd start by using these as a base.
by cutting off the engines and cockpit section and fliping it backwards, then grafting a turret from the lynx class destroyer you get this:

I painted them to look like the player one and player two ships from demonstar:


I did another in the merchant fleet colours but this time cut the 'engines' and 'nose' down a bit to make it look stubbier, like more of a shuttle type dealie, rather than a snub-fighter.

along side it is a ship that was originally supposed to represent the player ship from armalyte:

but it ended up looking more akin to one of these:

mining pods from gotg, so I figured I'd do it as another yellerun, and make it one of the mining-guild ships in jago's fleet.

also I used some gs to convert one of my last chaos swiftdeaths:

into the usp talon from tyrian:


quite enjoying this games into models thing I got going on here...
any suggestions?

Hmm, how about a grimdark version of Homeworld?

 Malika2 wrote:
Hmm, how about a grimdark version of Homeworld?

homeworld?

if it weren't a game from the nineties I wont know it ... lol

 osjclatchford wrote:

 Malika2 wrote:
Hmm, how about a grimdark version of Homeworld?

homeworld?

if it weren't a game from the nineties I wont know it ... lol

The first game was released in 1999!

What about grimdark version of Gundam or Robotech stuff?

Another option could be Starcraft, or otherwise go Wing Commander?

yeah... I was thinking of ordnance scale stuff....

Hmm, Gundam and Robotech have stuff that could be cool as ordnance. Same goes for Star Craft.

Lemme see if I can toss some ideas at you!

Starcraft:


Homeworld:

well you're not wrong... but I guess im after something a little more spritey and low-res LOL
nevermind
I think I'll tackle the aliens from debris32/3dastroblaster next:
ive already done the mines and the player ship after all

Those are some cute looking fighters! You are really making me want to break out my own toy spaceships and get cracking on them. Got my nephew into ACTA so I guess its going to happen sooner rather than later!

Malika, as you have bought up homeworld perhaps you should make some ships! I would buy the hell out of that!

Funny you should mention ships, I've been wanting to do grimdark Homeworld for a long time. Might have to do it independently since Vanguard Miniatures might not be interested.

anyway...



got the debris32 xeno fighter done. again with the lynx turret as the foresection (for a bit of shape difference).
as you can see its not any specific one of the debris32 aliens but has the general flavour of them...
trickier to get the gold colour than you'd think.
would have been very easy to make it too lustrous with ruddier copper-golds.
That would have looked wrong.
Whereas the sprites have more of a cold bronze-gold look...
I achieved it with tinbitz mixed with retributor armour... in truth (looking at the sprites again) I probably could have gone a bit brighter, although the shots I've taken do make it seem darker than it is in RL. meh, whattayagonnado?
I added a bit of green to the weapons as this is a way of adding a bit more interest and also to reference the 'exhaust' colour they have in the game...

Kinda curious to see what kinda conversions you could do based on my Sagaris bomber design.

The work you're doing now would be perfect for a game of Trenchrunnerz (which is basically a BFG scaled tribute to the old Bommerz over da Sulphur River game).

yeah... must get some o' those...

no response from john regarding the fighters btw... :(

threnchrunnerz looks fun. I know of okb14 from shapeways.
he's the guy that made the orbital platforms that I based my designs on. As well as those, rather acquired taste, explosion blast-markers that I think look like tropical cactus... LOL very true to the artwork on the card blast-markers though, I'll say that...

Have you considered doing a Titan carrying craft, either some sort of coffin ship or a craft with a Titan hanging underneath it?

well, in truth, I hadn't but I will consider it now!

you thinking epic marine as titan?

Ooh, that could be a possibility. Another option would perhaps be a converted 3mm scale Novan Elite?

decided to repaint that xeno ship to be a bit lighter, after all:


Ive also converted and painted up another javelin into a truer representation of the splorkon systems XJ-37:

really happy with this one...

Woah, very cool stuff!

I'm kinda tempted to send you the STL's of some rejected designs. Dunno if you'd have access to a printer or anything like that, but then you'd have a new source of conversion bits.

thanks but it'd be no good to me. not a 3d printer aficionado. :(
my only experience with printers is shapeways and they've sometimes been a disaster.(especially of late)
mind you, have you considered using SW to host your designs? with your experience you might be able to make a design that actually will print well in fud (or equivalent) LOL!

Oh, how I wish you would!
more ordnance that actually looks good!
I've only one javelin left now. suppose you cant really do that one as is it not the IP of vanguard as you have 3mm and 6mm ones on there?

regardinfg SW, put it this way, the best stuff I've got from shapeways is the ordnace scale stuff, the thunderhawks from gdb (and some rt era looking bolters, chainaxes and backpacks which, when you think about it are +/- ordnance sized). it seems the smaller it is the less corruption occurs or gets overlooked.
perhaps its time in the machine that leads to corruption, the larger models taking longer?
or perhaps just because the small stuff is so small it is scrutinized more, leading to better quality control on small items...

as I say, no expert on printers...

I have a shop on Shapeways, check it out here. I've kinda given up on it at a certain point because they kept changing their pricing policy. So at one moment it was cheaper to have stuff as a single component, later on it was cheaper to do it as separate pieces, and then they'd switch that around every once in a while. What that means is that the prices of my products would fluctuate greatly. I've kinda grown tired of having to either sprue up or remove the sprues from STL files every couple of weeks/months.

But I might give it a shot again, just to release some special items here and there.

emperors tits! those prices are mental!
no wonder you discontinued there... sheesh...

its enough to give you a bad name! that's one of the things that annoys me, when people lambaste the designers about the price. like you decree it?
what percentage/royalty do you get from sw sales anyhow

Man...my royalties were based on when these items were cheaper. This item for example nowadays costs about €200, I would make about €4 if I'd sell a single file of that.

I might have to redo the store soon, will try to have to include some 'exotic' units. Think of stuff like ordnance, bits, etc.

2% !?
wow. that's just shameful. what waste of your time!
your'e just making them money and getting all the flack if the quality ends up poor.
I thought it would be small but at least like 10% or something.
but that's ridiculous...
I like them even less now.

 osjclatchford wrote:
2% !?
wow. that's just shameful. what waste of your time!
your'e just making them money and getting all the flack if the quality ends up poor.
I thought it would be small but at least like 10% or something.
but that's ridiculous...
I like them even less now.

Thing is that I can change it. If I'd sprue the item up, the cost would of course become way lower, and then my percentage could probably also be higher. The Martinet Light Cruiser for example is about €20, I make little less than €2,50 per sale. My mark up kinda sucks, it would become more interesting if I'd upscale it but it's not something I have the time and interest in.

So I might put up these items, not so much to make money, but more to see some cool stuff released in the community.

most generous!

zaxxon ship conversion:

made from the flipped ass-end of an imperial bomber mated back onto its cockpit, with the front wings removed and the rear wings trimmed to size/shape...
the colours were intended to represent the ship from the original arcade version:

(Colours are different depending on the ported version)
but it came out a bit off... still its obvious what it is eh?

It's close, but needs a taller tail methinks.

--Brian

Yeah, I'm not really that bothered.
It was a request over at specialist arms forum so I gave it a shot and just posted it here too...
It's merely an approximation of the ship using existing components... The intention was that the colour showed what it was... none of these are spot on


Well maybe the splorkon is close but thats more about color than form too... It just happened to be the right shape in the first place....

Think I'm done with these videogame little do-ers for now...

anyway, I've revisited my torpedoes:

adding highlights that were sorely lacking afore and changing batch two to happy little red and white jobbies...
also took the opportunity to re-base them on some appropriately cut/filed epic bases as this makes them a better size match for the original card markers... and its a bit neater than my cut-and-shut whf bases...
don't get me wrong, I still like the whf bases for the bombers and fighters (as the they are the right size) and although having all the bases match across the ordnance fulfills my ocds they just looked messy, so although they differ from the other ordnance they'll work better in-game... must get more of these, if john ever restocks them...

So anyone know what the hell this is made out of?
https://images.app.goo.gl/EFaThXJA3JpJFRNB7
Found it on an images search...

Uff...tons of different plastic kits! Did you ever see that BFG scaled hive city Neil did?

I think the wheel section is the Dropfleet Commander space station kit, and there's definitely some plasma guns and autocannons in there. Otherwise, yeah, full kitbash.

This might inspire you as well!

https://www.instagram.com/p/BuwL2y2Ht4E/?igshid=rhk8m6zvcy5p

Yeah sorry wasn't clear there. I recognize the bits on it, what I don't recognise I'd the base circle structure... Is it tau scenery?

I think that's the "wheel" bit I was talking about that might be the DropFleet Commander stuff. Not sure the scale is right though. Edit: no, never mind, the Dropfleet stuff is far too thin and small. No idea.

looking at some old bfg models today and relised I'd never got a shot of my 'imperial' repulsive class conversion I did a while back for the 'battlegroup classico' fleet:

the Dio.
as you can see its had its rear fin orientation swapped, the chaosisation removed and aquilla-wings and a dome added to further push the fact that this is a grand cruiser in imperial hands...
an oldy but a goody. don't know why I forgot to photograph this until now...

also my wife's been playing round with art on canvas and paint pouring, etc... and she decided to turn one into this:

get an umbrella, the tyranids are coming...

some vanguard eagle dropships in shark colours...
due to the absurdly huge size of these (14mm!) against the 8mm thunderhawks I currently have (from grimdarkbitz) I'm saying these are stormbird proxies...
Seeing that stormbird is a catch-all term that refers to a series of various super-heavy dedicated attack landers that are used by the Legiones Astartes as their primary means of deploying forces into combat, I figure these fit the bill and fit into the mythos of the spacesharks, being an older chapter and all that jazz...


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had fun with those so I did a pair in the nurgle fleet colours too...

Sweeeeeet!

I'm back!

He's back with a bang!! Great looking little ship!

I do wonder what spurred this on

Good chat with an old friend who pointed me in the right direction as far as my negligence to the cause is concerned.

But I've more on the way so watch this space (pun intended)

So now I am back, I'm now awaiting new ships and bits to arrive before I can really get stuck in.
However, the test vessel I showed you shows off the new colourscheme nicely, clearly based on my crimson fist beakies from my other thread its fun to try these new schemes on very different minis.
I deliberated back and forth for what seems like an age about what colour to do my new battlegroup. in the the end my mrs said, "just to the crimson fists!"
"but I'm not doing astartes ships" says I
"Its just colourscheme, who cares?" , she retorted.
Right again, as usual.
As with my spaceshark fleet, these are not just drybrushed but also edge highlighted and weathered making for a much more detailed mini IMHO.
It's true I have gone a bit overboard (punintended) with the running lights and domes, doing gem effects and all, but its either all or nothing, right?
may come to regret this after I do a particularly big ship though...

Anyway, whilst awaiting the arrival of new ships to work on I figured I'd have a go at recreating a blast from bfg's past in the form of the classic 'MK1 fury interceptor' fighter minis.

For those not in the know, these were a very different design, featuring H-pattern Wings and missing the fore-wing stabilisers.

I never got these when they first came out but saw them in warpstorm (and wd before it) and always wondered if they were pre-release beta minis.
In fact, this is why all my interceptors have all the fore-wings removed!

As I don't own any of these, I figured I'd take my hand at making my own from plasticard:
1.6mm x 3.2mm I-beam, 2mm and 1mm square rod, and 2mm and 1mm round rod, a stanleyknife and some polycement and this was the result:

as you can see I made two, one to paint straight up and one to attempt casting. get the bluestuff out!

While the greenstuff cured I had a go at my old bfg bitzbox and cobbled together some bits to better represent the clasic gothic cathedral designed bridges you always see in the artwork:



Spot all the bits? These may or may not end up on future ships but were fun to make nonetheless
Please ignore the unfinished guardsmen, they'll arrive in the other thread soon

So how'd the ship paint up?

Here it is against a brace of malika's thunderhawk proxies from vanguard minis. God, that background does nothing for these ships, the blue of the background completely desaturates the blue of the mini, but the red is so oversaturated you cant even see the shading...
Anyway, as you can see (the TH's are 15mm) it sizes up to about 8mm.
Which is pretty big for a fighter, I'll grant you.
But as I tend to use the induvidual bases to represent the fighter squadron's token, its no real problem, espescially when used against such big 'ol Thunderhawks!
Talking of which I must say I prefer the simplicity of the ship I've made. call it plain old nostalgia if you will but the simple low-poly geometric shapes stuck together is much closer in design aspects to the gw original ordnance minis. Overdetailed minis can end up looking rather cluttered at this scale, the details and deepest/darkes recesses become the only thing visable.
The simple lines of the more basic shapes allows more surface area for the midtones of the colourscheme to shine through the highlighting.
I found this to be true of GrimDarkBits's Thunderhawks that I've used before too; nice simple blocky shapes (allbeit perfectly rendered and crisp due to their printed nature) made them a dream to paint!
But then, that could be down to my aging eyes struggling these days...

So, you're probably wondering how the Bluestuff/Greenstuff pressmold went:

yeah, pretty rough! LOL
you obviously loose the H-wing of the I-beam, the nature of the pressmold turning it into an L instead and its pretty soft detail all over, when compared to the plasticard original but no more than the blobbiness of gw's original metal ordnance minis, I'd say.
As was recently pointed out to me, paint can hide a multitude of sins too.
more soon...

Great little conversions (I'm sure I've seen them somewhere before though).

The paint jobs look great and the press mould came out very well. It might not be up to your OCD standards but by the time you've painted it up I doubt you'll notice any difference.

So, what's next?

Why, more ordnance of course!


here is the prototype for the 'Europa class bomber' sitting next to the already completed 'Jupiter class Interceptor'

yeah I'll admidt they are all over the place at the min, but bear in mind that I've not got much to work with plasticard wise at the min.
Some is on the way.
on the next builds all the bodies will be made of 2mm square and the canopies 1mm square.
that will help them look more uniform.

all the wings will be cut the same from the I-beam; 2mm at one end, 1mm at t'other.

for now I'm sticking to these two designs but perhaps more variants will follow.

I've also a grand cruiser planned amongst other things...

Very nice indeed! Things get awfully fiddley at that scale. The bomber could do with a sloped cockpit.

Looking forward to seeing this finished Grand Cruiser.

Your work is impressive for such small shapes! I fear I would need the painting microscope goggles for such ships.

Love the work, the BFG looks great!

Thanks guys.

a little side project today, clearing out the bfg bits box and I found some gems.
A dauntless with no bottom/'wing' section,but I did have a strike cruiser's bottom/'wing' section so problem solved there. Also my last metal cobra too, to keep it company.
So I decided to try an old classic on these:

Clearly inspired by John blanche's cover art for the game and, in extension, his own bfg paint jobs themselves.

Beautifully done.

What's the recipe for the white/bone?

Yeah, cheers lordB!

It's a surprisingly dark start of steel legion drab. Next allover wash/shade with 50/50 agrax and nuln.

Now dry brush steel legion drab then zandri dust then ushabti bone then wraithbone .

Now edge highlights wraithbone. Mixing white ink incrementally over several highlight layers.

Re shade some areas using reikland flesh shade, some with agrax and some (mostly the rear engineering sections and areas that need more contrasting recesses) nuln oil.

The red is simply as on my crimson fists; gal vorback, khorne, mephiston, orange and yellow dot highlights to finish. Some reikland or agrax to shade if needed.

The engines are my usual dark steel but this time shaded with reikland and agrax to get the ruddy tones in there...

Gold is just tinbitz and Balthazar. Then Balthazar and retributor armour, then retributor armour and mithril silver to finish.
Black is my usual highlights of skavenblight, admech grey, dawn stone Yadda yadda Yadda up to white...

All based on John's own ships, here;

For those that forget or don't own a rulebook.

Yes, if I'd had the original 'wings' with the plates on, I'd have done the checks too! Lol

Wow, mate! I just love these interpretations! Really nice painting efforts.

Y'know, I am currently in the process of re-embracing my love for BFG - a few escort sized projects on the go at the moment. Feels good, man.

Check your DMs by the way.

Thanks Ragsta!

So, after the success of the blanchitsu cruiser and cobra, I decided I liked the new way of painting.
So, rather than buy new models, I figured I'd repaint a few of my older voss minis in a new scheme:

This brown and blue scheme starts as a base of steellegion drab, followed by an all-over shade of nuln/agrax mix.
then drybrush steellegion drab. then drybrush zandridust.
now edge highlight ushabti bone.
now target shade nuln oil
rehighlight ushabti hith and yon.

the blue is the fang base with successive streaky highlights of russ grey and fenrisan blue.
also target shaded with nuln oil

the black is just successive highlights of skavenblight, mechanicus grey, dawnstone and white.

The windows/running lights are done in small dots of wraithbone. never done this before, but it really does add scale...


I had started with these cobras to test the scheme


then moved onto my zeus lunar: "Aggamemnon".

as it was bigger I could play about with the streaky prow/plates more and also add rust to the iron eagle. Which might have looked odd on the cobra sized prows.


and decided to complete the set with my zeus endeavour class: "Invictus"

This one had a refit from the classic bfg batteries to the actual zeus ones.

May or may not add more to this but theres an astartes themed grand cruiser on the way first...

So, no I've not done the astartes grand cruiser yet *slaps wrist.
not even undercoated it yet! LOL.

But I've been busy nonehteless.
I was rearanging my storage box and found myself looking at some of my older ships and thinking. "you know what, these would look nice in the brown/blue scheme too":


"Achillies" Escort carrier.
This one had originally been done in the armageddon scheme but the wash had gone all shiny at the time. (old gw washes did that for seemingly no reason occasionally) A perfect reason to repaint her in the new scheme! Also a nice reference to bfg's Armada rulebook which this ship and its stats were first seen.
Used almost exclusively for convoy scenareos it is literally an excuse to convert the ship from launchbays, plasticar and aerials as, well as a forgeworld heavy transporter.


"Speedo Ghost" Fueller Escort.
So as not to feel left, out the Achillies has this fuel transport to join it in said convoy missions.
This mini was originally in a dirty grey colourscheme. much more resplendant now!
Both of these Logistic-vessels were chosen to see if the blue would work as pleasantly on a prow with banding as one without. I'm happy that it does, meaning that more ships may yet follow!


Next I tacked some system ships. I've always loved the sense of scale these give the other ships in fleet pics.
Most of these were done in the armageddon scheme before, but I felt this exploritary fleet was better suited as the ideal place for such minis.
Out on the frontier, you need to take all you can with you to survive.
Only the baby fueller (made from a meltabomb, tanktrack, sprue and aerials) was in another scheme, again the dirty grey scheme as was on the fueller mentioned above.

So a fleet like this needs a name!

Battlegroup "Artemis" as it currently stands.

more to come? youbetcha.
I need a novacannon in there for some long range scaryness but as I would rather spend the points on a characterful grandcruiser than a Mars, I'm thinking Dominator, it just so happens I have one in my old armageddon fleet (funny that, eh ). Yes, I know this still leaves the fleet without fighter/bomber support.

As for a grand cruiser?
Aside the astartes one I'm working on, I don't own one aside my old repulsiveclass. So thats a repaint out of the question.
So I'm thinking new mini for that!
As I'm going for a voss/armada era fleet, allbeit reinvisioned in Zac's zeus line, I'm thinking I need something similar for the GC; Like the chaos/imperial hybrids that came out around the time of the voss stuff from GW but also reinvisioned.
Anything to improve that slapped together look of the chaos ass-end over the imperial engines and that clown-shoe of a prow! LOL
So, something with obvious chaos visual references but less mc'gyvered together and somehow more integral in its design.
Class-wise, after a chat with Lord Borak, I'm leaning towards an Exorcist.
The fleet is sorely lacking any carriers and the exorcist would fit the bill and kinda makes sense as a lead vessel of an exploratory battlegroup.

watch this space!

Looking really nice mate. The weathering on that Blue/Grey is awesome.

The fleet looks really nice together as well. Next up please

SURPRISE!

on a whim, I got another repaint done:


"sinclair" light cruiser, refitted from endurance to endeavour.



Based on a recast of one of AdmGR's prints of the 'Razor' light cruiser, this mini required a lot of cleanup and a new prow ram (old chaos spikey sprue).
It's also pretty damned huge for light cruiser too but it does bear an absolute striking resemblance to the artwork from the armada rulebook and, as such, the short lived metal voss lightcruisers from the battlefleet armageddon era.


As you can see, I've added a bit of extra life to it by putting one of those diagonal stripes oft seen in the rulebook and on Vaaish's and Horizon's imperial cruisers too!
It is indeed quite different to the zeus cruisers already in battlegroup Artemis, but I have three of these (two in armageddon colours) so had no qualms about adding this peice of bfg history to the fleet...

Also got this "Mc'kay" class lance orbital I made repainted to the artemis scheme too.
Because why not?

Ooooooh, you're back! Loving what you're doing here

But erm, if you are doing the Zeus ships, you've got to get the Grand Cruiser as well...

 Malika2 wrote:
Ooooooh, you're back! Loving what you're doing here

But erm, if you are doing the Zeus ships, you've got to get the Grand Cruiser as well...

Oh I have...
But it's not going in this fleet...

 osjclatchford wrote:

While I was at it, I've also done some basic mock-ups of some plasma-batteries for use on tyrant class vessels to represent the 45cm range batteries as written in the rulebook:

will likely end up on a zeus cruiser...

I know it's a bit after the fact, but those plasma pistol plasma batteries are truly inspired, great thread!

I always love seeing beautiful BFG ships, and these really are something to see.

Looking amazing as usual, fantastic job osjclatchford.

Cheers folks, more for you now!

Today I finally got that aforementioned Dominator repainted.


The "Eternal Vigiliance"
This conversion uses the obvious addition of the zeus novacannon prow, instantly tying it in with the zeus lunar and zeus endeavour, already in the fleet.
To take it further, the wings were swapped out with tiny ones from an ad mech cruiser and a chaos bridge added to both tie into the voss cruiser style but also to account for the bulk of the wings, now lost from the horizontal, and put in onto the vertical axis of the ship.
The midships Aquilla comes from an astartes bannerpole and was an obvious reference to the old artwork of ships from the old codex's



The missing engine decks were restored using plasticard tubing, this being a nice reference to the 'razor' voss light cruiser mini, the simple sleek lines of the tubing mirroring those visuals nicely.
The most overt changes comes in the form of the broadsides themselves.
The domminator has always been a ill-favoured class of cruiser; Its long range novacannon utterly at odds with its incredibly short range battery armaments.
To show this on the model I built a set of batteries from plasicard 'barrels' mounted onto plates from the venerable dreadnought kit, for the extra gothic details the arches bring to the mini.
These were simply spaced in threes with platicard rod columns seperating the bays either side.
A simple, if not fiddly, solution that gave a very slimline look to the the cruiser and, hopefully suggests at a mass of smaller, shorter range weapons...
I feel the smaller weapons are very reminiscent of a dauntless's broadsides in looks, thus looking appropriately BFG in design yet are different enough to make the mini more than "just another cruiser"


Here she is alongside the Aggamemnon and the Sinclair, allowing you to see what I mean about the references to both designs she has...

Well, if nothing else, I'm glad I got at least one plastic cruiser based build in there.
Next up? the GC?
Alas, most likely not as its not arrived from the printers yet.
TBH, I don't feel in the mood to start the astartes one yet either...

I think a revisit to another conversion I did few years back might be in order next...
to tease I'll say its one that was good in premise but the way I did it bugs me to this day...
now, where's that exacto-saw and the Nitromoors gone...

So, here's that revisit to an old mini I teased last post.


The "Spitehawk"

Based off of the talented Malika's Novan Elite's Panthera Heavy Frigate (vanguard), this mini uses a Defence Monitor's prow and imperial lances as well as a section of gsc laser weapon (for the underslung lance) in its conversion...
The way I had originally built this mini had more of the original Panthera prow showing creating a rather gawky looking mini.
It also had additional aerials etc, making it seem rather cluttered too.
With it's cut down sleeker profile I'm much happier with it now.

Although originally intended as a Defence Monitor proxy, the Panthera hull sizes in +/- around the size of a strike cruiser, meaning it could just as easily pass as a strike cruiser or dauntless light cruiser as well as a defence monitor, depending on the mood or scenareo I find myself in.
anyway, classification aside, its a great addition to battlegroup Artemis, nonetheless...

 osjclatchford wrote:
So, here's that revisit to an old mini I teased last post.


The "Spitehawk"

Based off of the talented Malika's Novan Elite's Panthera Heavy Frigate (vanguard), this mini uses a Defence Monitor's prow and imperial lances as well as a section of gsc laser weapon (for the underslung lance) in its conversion...
The way I had originally built this mini had more of the original Panthera prow showing creating a rather gawky looking mini.
It also had additional aerials etc, making it seem rather cluttered too.
With it's cut down sleeker profile I'm much happier with it now.

Although originally intended as a Defence Monitor proxy, the Panthera hull sizes in +/- around the size of a strike cruiser, meaning it could just as easily pass as a strike cruiser or dauntless light cruiser as well as a defence monitor, depending on the mood or scenareo I find myself in.
anyway, classification aside, its a great addition to battlegroup Artemis, nonetheless...

Really love what you did with my ship design there! Are you cool with it if I share it on both my and Vanguard Miniatures' social media channels? I can tag you if you're on Instagram or Twitter

Go for it

SO. here is the astartes themed grand cruiser


Glorious Purpose - Crimson Fists battlebarge
Based on the zeus grand cruiser mini; featuring fist prow from Lord Borak's battleship conversion kit, plasma batteries (from admgr?), the pods, cannons, church-bridge and domes from battlefleet galaxy, a few beads for extra domes and some hand sculpted fist icons.

the torpedo launchers on the prow come from primaris agressors and the prow launch bay is fashioned from a rhino front-light.
I decided on using the prow-rams as decorational towers as they lined up nicely with the dome I added.
The front bombardment canon is from the vanguard panthera kit.

I went for the crimson fists scheme as on my beakies. because, well yeah...

tbh not 100% happy with how this turned out.
one of the droppod units had a rung-bit snap off it half way and I didnt notice till the final highlights, (yes the droppods are absurdly out of scale but I love the look, so sue me, perhaps they are titan pods?)
The torpedo things look more like giant speakers which is fun I suppose, perhaps they are blasting devotional tunes to terrify the enemy!
and worst of all the paintjob is, trutfully, a bit messy.

I had problems with this right from the get go.
this one was sadly a bit badly cast, terrible moldlines (unexpected from vanguard), some bits from battlefleet galaxy I wanted to use I couldn't, because they wouldn't fit (launch bays), and dispite how much I scrubbed it in soapy water beforehand the model was so greasy the paint didn't stick and kept coming off. not at the prime stage but at the basecoat stage... gah all the bottom is in a terible state with bare resin showing in the recesses.
you know what its like, once its like that after priming, its too late...
I haven't had trouble like this with painting since I cant remember.
I stopped and left it a couple of days to harden up a bit and to cool my jets some and came at it again today.
But this gakky experiance has left me somewhat jaded and in the end, I wanted it finished more than I wanted to do it.
I knew I'd feel the same if I came back to it yet later again so I just busted it out and this is the result...
shame but you've all been there I'm sure. once you're done with something, or moved on to better or different things that take your interest, its hard to go back to it...

hopefully I'll get my mojo back to paint the last two ships of Artemis I have planned...
right now I dont want to see another bfg ship for a while... perhaps I'll get those filey droptroopers finished now!

I love this giant space fist. I think the model came out great. No notes.

Yeah, cheers.

You know what, ignore my rambling yesterday. It's not that bad at all really.

Not in the best emotional state of late and I'm sure it's affecting my judgement.

I've since revisited it and added some detail and fixed some "errors" hith and yon. I've also repainted the "rails" on the droppod units in steel finish.
It hasn't helped much and I still feel the pods look a little lacklustre and somehow a bit washed out and bland looking... Ho hum. It's done now. Perhaps I'll try another set of the droppod units on another ship in different colours and see how I go..?

Yes, you were being unnecessarily harsh on yourself there, mate - I think this beast looks really nice!

I can empathise with the criticism when feeling mentally fragile - I often find working on my own models can be somewhat painful with much gnashing of teeth right up until the final coat of varnish!

I actually love those drop pods - scale be damned they look cool. And the fist prow with your CR scheme is just lovely.

I have a swathe of BFG reinforcements incoming - I'm very excited. More than I was ever going to be with that heap of unpainted plastic I just sold off

thanks Ragsta! looking forward to seeing your stuff, too!


For a change I decided to try out a scheme for some ordnance for battlegroup Artemis.

I decided to use the blue on the fins/wings and instead of the brown, I went for white.
the base of which is astronomicon grey (thanks lord borak! ) simply successively highlighted up with white ink.
The rest is black. simple yet effective. as ordnance should be.

The model itself is one of Malika's fightercraft designs, the last of the shortlived metal range from vanguard now in my posession.
However some 3d prints of these may yet be on the cards for artemis' reinforcements in the future...

I just love these models, all the very best of all of sci-fi's fightercraft in one mini!
Detailed enough to look cool but simple enough to paint withut going blind in the proccess!

Wow, that's a stunning paintjob on such a weensy model.

thanks!

today I did a couple of classic mars pattern cobras (recasts) for Battlegroup Artemis.
Gifted by a kind soul, the engines were totalled in the recasting method, nothing some clippers and some styrene rod couldn't fix...


The colourscheme fits just as well on these as it does the zeus cobras!
It also makes me realise just how sleek the original cobras are, well against the apparrent chonk of the zeus ones anyway!

These look so good!

Looking amazing. God the fist ship looks good!

Amazing work, as always!

Battlegroup Artemis looks awesome. That zeus cruiser is acing it

Cheers guys! appreciated...

@horizon , You mean the lunar class? if so. yep that figures, first one to get done, so its always going to be the best one in the fleet. the law of diminishing returns is a bugger, not that any of the following models are terrible but the "wow" factor of the first mini wears off on the subsiquent ships you paint..

So, I figured, I've got two cruisers and two light cruisers in Artemis so far.
I've already picked an Exorcist Grand cruiser for an upcoming addition, but I've still the option to pick either another Grand or a battlecruiser...

Overlord says I!


The 'Nemesis III' Built from the hulk of the 'Ultimus Umbra' a prior Overlord class from battlegroup Devastatus who's foolhardy and ever gung-ho captain neglected the range of the batteries and lances, taking her into a suicidal death charge into the heart of the enemy in a fit of pique, resulting in the absoulte destruction of all engineering decks and engines, the bridge was anihilated by bombing runs and the prow reduced to a smoking crater... chump...

still, never ones to waste anything, the Imperium's techpriests gathered the hulk and rebuilt the ship around the surprisingly resilienent and therefore fully intact weapons decks.
once completed she was sent to reinforce battlegroup Artemis' patrols and aptly named; the 'Nemesis III', after a sister overlord from battlegroup 'classico' that itself bears the name of its predecessor, thus continuing the illustrious legacy of the Overlord class.


Look, anyone who knows me knows I love an overlord class. This one is indeed made from my old "Ultimus Umbra" from my other voss fleet.
This time around, She's sporting engines from a battleship, rear plates are from battlefleet galaxy, mounted on inverted and cut down lance decks. (you cant see those, but they're there).
The resultant gap from not having regular wings was filled either side with the eagles cut from bolt-rifles.
The bridge is chaos battleship and, I felt, matched the zeus/armageddon no-nonsense style nicely and for a bit of 'chonk' I chose the vanguard panthera lances. I feel this better reflects the power of them in game.
As mentioned, the batteries were recovered from the other overlord mini, these were the MangoZac blackship conversion kit batteries. A suitable peice to sell the power and range the overlord can bring to bear. Just as my dominator has many smaller guns to suggest shot range but high power, these suggest at both range AND power! If I had them I would have used battlebarge batteries, however, these fit the bill just as well. They're clearly based on them, right?
The prow is a simple voss from the zeus line, however Its 'blended' to the hull with a couple of strips of plasticard rod (also a nice visual refence to the dominator) for a bit of extra chunk.
To take the conversion to the end, I chose to carve out the original eagle head and replace it with the old marneus calgar backpack eagle, green-stuffing the resultant joins.
This was chosen for twofold reasons, its a nice reference to the jes goodwin concept prows he made (see chris smart's battleship conversion in the rulebook), and the second reason is that the first ever 'Nemesis' overlord I did had a converted plastic imperial prow with this eagle modelled on it! (that ship now has a converted kardunaish prow and battlebarge batteries and is thusly called nemesis II)

All in all, I'm dead happy with this ship. It has all the chunk a battlecruiser should have.
I've used more blue on this ship too, around the bridge and the dorsal lances, to help mark its status some more.
I've also tried to tie in elements of all the other cruisers using the colours too, the blue steel and black on the rudderplates for example.
I like my battlecruisers to be oviously bigger and chunkier where possible. Absolutely no ambiguity here. The massive weapons, standout lances and massive engines make it look like a pocket battleship, which I suppose it is; baby retribution!
Its scary looking, and will probably get a lot of hits right off the bat because of it, but the rule of cool comes first, right?

bit of a deviation from the usual ships you've seen in battlegroup Artemis so far, consider it a practice run for an upcoming vessel...


"Crius" - carnage class reserve ship.

Dragged out of mothballs to join the ranks of battlegtoup Artemis, Crius was previously stuck on escort duty of transport and supply details, operating out of the local systems.
However, needs must and all available vessels are now being called for active service in the sector to repel the foe...


Yeah, I wanted to see what a regular chaos ship would look like in Artemis colours...
Compared to modern prints/casts, the details are a little soft, making what I wanted to achive a little, lets say; "fuzzy".
This was never an issue with my nurgle fleet because they were deliberately scummy.
Lives and learns I guess...

Added details are the half-bead dome on the bridge to represent the Imperial bridge design and the midships domes where the lances/aerials would go.
The rearmost being a battlefleet galaxy component, the fore another half-bead.
Just a little something to make it feel more imperial and less chaotic...

nothing special by any means.
Just an old ship past retirement, begrudgingly back in the thick of it...

Such a lovely stuff.

My next Imperial vessel will be an overlord as well. Just waiting on the broadsides.

I love the addition of the domes. They just soften up the overall look to stop it being quite so iconically Chaosy, without looking at all out of place.

Nice, simple conversion. It looks good. May it bring carnage to the enemies of Mankind.

You know I love using fleet reserve ships, that Carnage compliments your Repulsive revamp very nicely.

 Warboss_Waaazag wrote:
Nice, simple conversion. It looks good. May it bring carnage to the enemies of Mankind.

You knows it!

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
I love the addition of the domes. They just soften up the overall look to stop it being quite so iconically Chaosy, without looking at all out of place.

Glad that worked then :p

 horizon wrote:
Such a lovely stuff.

My next Imperial vessel will be an overlord as well. Just waiting on the broadsides.

No. Not enough information I'm afraid. Which broadsides and from where?

 Ragsta wrote:

You know I love using fleet reserve ships, that Carnage compliments your Repulsive revamp very nicely.

Repulsive class..? You ain't seen nothin' yet bud!

well, I've been pretty sick and crazy busy of late so my grand cruiser has taken a bit of a back seat tillI can give it the attention it deserves.

Some fighters today...


thanks to malika for the stl/designs and LordBorak for printing them for me.

I got me some 20mm square bases, drilled them and fitted the squadron, properly.
Not sure if I'll do more marker sized bases or do them induvidually on the copper stands, you know, the way I normally do?

A lot more of the GC done. but not quite done yet! LOL

however, after my experiment with the generic red/white ordnace marker yesterday, I've decided instead to do my usual and create some ordnance on the induvidual stands, this time in the brown and blue of artemis:


I even found my last two swithdeath's and I've done them to go with the others too!
pretty happy with these!

Man those tiny fighters look awesome!

 osjclatchford wrote:
well, I've been pretty sick and crazy busy of late so my grand cruiser has taken a bit of a back seat tillI can give it the attention it deserves.

Some fighters today...


thanks to malika for the stl/designs and LordBorak for printing them for me.

I love this colour scheme. I'm 100% Stealing it.
Also, you're welcome.

Finally, it's done...


Cronos - Exorcist class grand cruiser. Flagship of battlegroup Artemis.


I wanted this to be a reference to the GC's of the time of the armada releases but refused to pay money for a straight up copy of the hideous clown-shoe design.
Instead I went for this mini; its an alternative take on a Repulsive class and it's an Italian moose design and he has done an exceptional job of it.
I simply added the imperial launchbays eitherside and a half-bead dome where the stand should go. (more on that soon)
To me this mini was a great compromise between the imperial/chaos hybrids and also the repulsive class and I think I've just kept convincing myself that I love it purely out if a misplaced sense of nostalgia. Either way it's definitely growing on me more each time I look at it!
But yeah. In truth It's nonsense isn't it?
Pretty, yes but nonsense.
As I've said before now, this type of hybrid design is purely and exclusively found in fiction. Like the enterprise retconned prototypes etc in startrek. Real world military designs tend to replace the old rather bluntly with complete changes in design and very few, if not none, of the old sensibilities remaining. But that's not fun to model and paint is it?


I named the Exorcist 'Cronus' as he was the father of Zeus in greek mythology... Get it?

That's also why the Carnage class I did was named 'Crius'.
Crius was the brother of Cronos and after the failed war in heaven, was banished to Tataros, much as my outdated and therefore less trusted carnage class was "banished" to shipping escort duty after the heresy...



Now. on to the less fun stuff.
I feel duty bound to point out the following.
This print is from scourge scenics and boy did I have some trouble with them.
First outing I had it on a large gw flying base. It was so heavy and unbalanced it BROKE the stand!
Literally keeled over on the garden table (catching some rays to ensure ultimate curing) and sheared it in half.

I will point out that where I have the base now is not where it was. That's the little dome just aft of where the stand is now.
I was displeased and told scourge scenics so.

They were quite meh about it and even though I re-drilled it, fixed it and showed them pics and a vid explaining where it should be based, they've not updated the design or added a disclaimer.
I did get an apology and even a refund eventually but Afaik they're still selling them as is, hence why I feel duty bound to mention this now.

So do consider that before purchase from them.

Its not all bad. not by any means at all
I will say, the resin is delicious quality and resolution of print is crystal clean and crisp. The Italian moose designs are certainly among the best looking on the site but its clear they are just not quite optimised to scourge scenics printing medium/processes so yeah.

I'd be lying if I said it wasnt a little bit upsetting and a lot more disapointing. There are plenty more designs on there I'd love to try but I'm coloured by my experiance and less likely to trust to buy again... perhaps after some time...
then again maybe not.

Food for thought...

So, another carrier today:


Demeter - Dictator class cruiser


This is based off of the MangoZac Zeus cruiser chassis from vanguard, with a midships bridge and prow from battlefleet galaxy.
It also includes some plasticard work by my good self as well as helian launch bays (also vanguard)and standard Imperial batteries.
the skull on the bridge is from an old Imperal guard tank eagle.


this model was quite miscast and rather damaged when I got it, hence the addition of the skull to the bridge and the trimmed and flattened out area around the thin "corridor" section (the tubes originally there were just obliterated.)
The midships bridge was also made necessary by the fact that that whole section was simply a piss poor cast. Ive had a lot from vanguard over the years and thats two in a row like this now.
first the wonky and slipcast grand and now this? what gives guys, are the molds wearing out at last? sort it out...

I ommitted the rearwings intentionally for both the slimline look it gives and the sensibilty of having a nice clear runway for the attack craft!

I also got this pair of sword class frigates done:


Designed by Lord Borak, these heresy era styled hybrid chaos/imperial looking ships are actually just the prototypes for something he's got waiting in the wings to release soon...

But more on that next time...

That grand cruiser looks like a fecking beast of a warship. It is a worthy flagship indeed! Interestingly, I've taken to basing my grand cruiser hulls on those smaller bases too.

You've totally redesigned the lines of that Imperial cruiser and I love it. I intend to pick up some of those prows for some light cruisers myself. Looking forward to swapping and bashing the numerous bits I'm stockpiling!

Nice looking escorts, mate. Hmmm, I feel like they're more like regunned transport ships myself, BUT that's the design and not your excellent painting. They will fit in nicely with your fleet.

Darius - armed freighter

Hastily stripped of her ample cargo holds and refitted with weapons batteries, The Darius is a nasty surprise, lying in wait for any enemy pirate raiders fool enough to attack the Artemis shipping runs.
Well armed and crewed with ex-navy personel, She punches well above her weight, even giving smaller capital ships something to worry about at close range...


yup. A simple conversion that uses the prow and stern of a printed transport ship and the midships of a zeus frigate, inverted.
consider it a q-ship or armed freighter, depending on the scenareo...

So some new ships for Battlegroup Artemis today:


Nyte class Firestorms

Designed and built by the Talented Tom Knight (Lord Borak aka The2monkeymonks) the old fashioned way, with plasticard and hard labour, the casts are both crisp clean and fantastically nostalgic in design.
harking from both chaos and imperial designs they beautifully blur the lines, making them ideal as older or heresy/crusade era vessels or simply as reinforcements to the chaos fleets.


Available here;
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/305854888732
As you will see, they come in with three flavours of prow: standard, lance or torpedo-tube variant.
I decided they'd be the best choice for firestorms in battlegroup Artemis, for the aforementioned design reasons above...

I mean, just look at them! they just fit in perfectly with my exorcist and carnage class, eh?

Well, What you doing wasting time still reading this? Go get some!

Those escorts are just too beautiful!

I do love that colour scheme - and thanks to this thread, I'm increasingly tempted to buy some BFG stuff, even though I can't tell a Battleship from a Frigate!

well these are a good start...

something not too pricey to wet your whistle with...

go on. you know you want them...

A little cobbled together bitz ship today:


Midsection is part of a 3d printed transport that LordBorak sent me last year, the prow is a spare from his frigate set. The underbarrel gun is off an emperor-class. The assend is the back of a zeus frigate with plates from one of Malika's novan-elites ships.
Quite the lashup but it does the job as a would-be firestorm?



Went for Emperor's children as a test for something else.
It suits the 'divided loyalties' look it has, due to its design aspects shared with both imperial and chaos fleets.

As much as it came out... lets say ok. I think its actually put me off rather than set me up to do more of the same...

hmm...guess its time for a rethink...

Amazing little kitbash!

Another project done today:


Deathguard Strikecruiser "nyte" class


Another new mini from Lordborak this time a lightcruiser sized mini suitable for Imperial, Chaos or pre-heresy astartes fleets!

Like the frigates that preceeded them, these do not dissapoint.
Three prow options and more turrets than you can shake a stick at, these are just the thing to bolster existing fleets or a good excuse to start a new one!

go get them here: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/306259294100?itmmeta=01JS9K724EN12NG69CA9R0KGC8&hash=item474e79f794:g:r7cAAOSwXyNoBMMN

Here's a late addition to Battlegroup Artemis.


"Hermes" - Artemis' assault-landing Carrier (defiant)


Essentially a counts-as Defiant class or heavy transport depending on the scenario I use it in.
Either general fleet action or planetary landing mission respectively.
Rebuilt from the hulk one of my old zeus light cruisers, the Ardias, (formerly grey with a recast kar-dunaish prow) this time stacked out with drop-pod launch bays from battlefleet galaxy and the prow is an altered helian cruiser prow.
I cut it short, padded it out with greenstuff and adding some banding, all to suggest at a cruiser sized transport vessel prow.
I feel it does the job and is suitably utilitarian enough to blend in with the transports already in the Artemis explorer-fleet.
Likewise, I chose the smaller, full-zeus-cruiser, voss plates for a less robust, almost slighter looking transport/merchant look.
The final touch was a couple of imperial lance turrets to make it rules compliant as a defiant, one dorsal and one slung under the prow. like on the original GW light cruiser vessels!


I did the pods grey so as not to suggest at any specific astartes connection. (Though my space sharks may disagree on that point!) generally looking more navy/munitorium issue.
I mean, Look at them, they are pretty huge, right?
So consider them titan carriers.

I don't know where they are landing but that planet is in for a serious purging!

It looks great, mate. I think there is a shortage of assault carrier type ships in that there universe- those pods could be carrying battalions of infantry for example. MechWarrior Dropship Style!

I love bashing ships into these styles

cheers ragsta!

Having a bit of a repaint today...


I redid the prow on the "Darius" my armed freighter.
It had an odd stripey look to it before. I think I was rushing it?
meh, whatever, its now much closer to the prows on the cobras and other transports.
It still looks a little odd against the other merchant vessels, but thats more down to the design of the print rather than the paintjob now, I feel.


While I was at it I redid my prototype nyte frigates to match the deathguard scheme.
So, consider them gladius frigates to the light-cruisers' strikecruiser
They too had the ugly striped prows... I must have been in an odd frame of mind when I did those. I mean, the streaks work well on big prows or large areas of the blue, but the smaller prows need to be blended more. Even the "sinclair" razor pattern light cruiser has less streaks. I think its the prows with steel banding on them that make the streaks look... odd.
Perhaps its because the highlights on the blue are not coming from an exact edge.


Here's one next to the light cruiser...

I love the carrier with droppods! These all look great. BFG is my all time favorite specialist game.

Always a joy to see more cool BFG stuff here

thanks folks!

I decided Artemis was in dire need of some high speed firepower.

So I repainted this old gem from my armageddon fleet (battlegroup devastatus):


The "ASP" - Dauntless class light cruiser, Battlegroup Artemis


I've definately got too used to the level of crispness of the detail on modern casts and prints of late.


this one felt positively "soft" in comparison...

more ordnance soon!

The difference in detail sharpness is quite stark, yeah. I've felt the same painting these older hunks of metal. Absolutely great designs full of character, but comparatively pudgy as models after seeing what comes out in the modern times.

Solid paintjob too, I like your browns a lot.