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Good grief, that looks brutal... I like it

The whole thing seems to slant forward rather agressively. Also the swivelling cannon are inspired. Looking forward to seeing it get painted up!

dont you wish heavy weapons grew on trees, sigh, only in a perfect world...


The hydra tank looks very cool. Im digging the way the weapons look. When will you stop doing tanks and do more modelss!

Lewismio wrote:Looking Good man!

Thanks Lewismio! I'm hoping to get some paint on it this weekend.

Flinty wrote:Good grief, that looks brutal... I like it

The whole thing seems to slant forward rather agressively. Also the swivelling cannon are inspired. Looking forward to seeing it get painted up!

Thanks Flinty! I'm happy to see that the Old Crow tac turrets you discovered look just as good on Chimeras as they do on your Rhinos.

Sageheart wrote:dont you wish heavy weapons grew on trees, sigh, only in a perfect world...


The hydra tank looks very cool. Im digging the way the weapons look. When will you stop doing tanks and do more modelss!

Thanks Sageheart! What other models are you interested in? I'd like to sculpt some infantry legs that are running or lying down. Hmm...may have to do that soon.

I can't wait to see the results if you chose to do another one; it may sway me to start using Hydras!

Looking absolutely ace. Real Valk swatters.

Disjointed Entity wrote:I can't wait to see the results if you chose to do another one; it may sway me to start using Hydras!

Looking absolutely ace. Real Valk swatters.

Thanks! I used the Hydra in a three game tournament this past Saturday and it worked really well. In fact, i wonder how I ever got along without it. It can sit in a corner, see over my Chimeras and shoot practically the length of the table with four twin-linked autocannons. The enemy spent all their return fire on my Chimeras, infantry, and the Plasma Executioner so the Hydra just kept shooting in every game. I will have to add four vehicle kill symbols to it when I paint it up. None of them were Valks though...at least not yet.

I will definitely build another one since I already have the Old Crow Tac Turret and four barrels. I just need to get the four Predator Lascannons. Those aren't easy to obtain.

SWEEEEET! That's really cool, I'm working on a hydra conversion using autocannons from the heavy weapon sprue and imperial strongpoint set. I can't wait to see more.

James23105 wrote:SWEEEEET! That's really cool, I'm working on a hydra conversion using autocannons from the heavy weapon sprue and imperial strongpoint set. I can't wait to see more.

That sounds like an interesting conversion. Don't wait as long as I did though before getting it done. The rumor mill says that GW is producing a Hydra kit this summer. Take it with a grain of salt but also get cracking on your Hydra.

Yeouch. 4 Armour kills with one tank? That qualifies him as an ace for sure.
And it's 4 twin-linked? I thought it was only 2?

Disjointed Entity wrote:Yeouch. 4 Armour kills with one tank? That qualifies him as an ace for sure.
And it's 4 twin-linked? I thought it was only 2?

The Hydra autocannon is Heavy 2 (page 104 of the codex). Now look at the entry for the Hydra on page 102 of the codex. The Wargear for the Hydra is two Hydra autocannons that are twin-linked.

This has the advantage of giving you three weapons on the vehicle (two Hydra autocannons and one heavy bolter) so a Weapon Destroyed result doesn't stop your Hydra completely. The disadvantage is that when you move at combat speed you can only fire two twin-linked autocannon shots instead of four of them.

As for kills, yes, the Hydra is murder on light (AV10 and AV11) transports.

I'm loving it completely. I think a re-arrangement of my force is called for. A squadron of Hydras definitely needs to be incorporated somehow.

Just as a side note, have you ever seen anyone use a Deathstrike? I've always contemplated it but haven't ever gone with it.

I have used a Deathstrike. They are exceptionally random, but if you can put it downrange into a cluster, you're sure to cause lot of havoc.

Also, just the threat of it tends to make your opponent try and kill it, tying up some firepower.

Not something you'd want in every game, but a fun little boomstick. Also, do not use against an army with a majority of invulnerable saves. Just doesn't do squat.

--B.

Well, this week was insane - gamer insane! My FLGS planned an Apocalypse game for Saturday. Each player was authorized 4000 points from a single codex (no allies). My Cadian IG army was not quite 4000 points so I went nuts.



I used Christmas money for the Baneblade, traded for an unassembled Valkyrie model (thanks joshuafalcon!) and finally put together a Manticore using bitz and a Chimera model that I've had for several months.

By game time on Saturday, I was still throwing together the Baneblade (a real Techpriest would have had me tried for heresy for my lack of respect for the Machinespirit). I ended up missing start time, but it didn't matter. The store postponed the game because 60 card players were enjoying a pre-release MTG tournament. It was great for the store and I was late anyway so C'est la Vie! On the plus side, I have three cool models mostly built. On the down side, I probably should have spent four more hours to build the Baneblade correctly (ouch!).

Here are some other pics of the three models with comments:


This is the WIP Baneblade. I love the kit except for the front and rear wheels and the track links that go over them. These are quite fiddly and I suspect they will come apart before I play many games with this awesome super-heavy. I also think the pins for the lascannon turrets need to be deeper. I will modify those later.



I really like this new GW Manticore kit. While it looks very different than I expected (because GW also uses the same kit for the Deathstrike Missle Launcher). It is a nice design, the model fits together well, and the rockets can be elevated (compare this pic with the Rush Projects 1 pic). My only complaint is that they should have made the slots for the Stormeagle rockets different so that you could remove each missle as it is fired during a game. The slot is too shallow so you end up having to glue the rockets to the launcher to keep them from falling off. I'll figure out a way to magnetize them.



A side view of my Vendetta. The conversion is a very simple one that I borrowed from MEanBOb's tutorial. It only requires six IG lascannons from the Heavy Weapon kits and two track guard plates from the IG Vehicle Accessory Sprue (sadly, no longer included with IG vehicles but still available separately). I had all of these parts lying in my bitz boxes so voila!





Today is just a catch up day to make a new 1850 point list, repair some broken miniatures, add to this Plog, and order a few things that I need. I am planning to add more riflemen to my collection. You never know when you'll need more of them and I currently find that they are the limiting factor in the types of lists that I can use. So I bought three boxes of the easy-to-build Cadian infantry. It has a single sprue with five "plug-and-play" riflemen. No fiddly arms, no fiddly equipment bits, and no stupid bayonets. These are also cheap!! I may add more later.



The sprue has three poses so there are two pairs of one pose and then the fifth model is unique.




I am also converting some of my painted figures into riflemen since I don't need voxcasters, models with CCW and laspistol (other than sergeants and three commanders), and guys with bolters. I'll also finish up the last seven female IG figures that I have left on the PhoenixWargamers special sprue and maybe convert some heavy weapon teams to riflemen. I don't use mortars anyway, and I rarely use HWTs at all. Vehicles have more than enough heavy bolters and other firepower anyway.

And yes, I am painting the Hydra this week!

Looking very good!

Wow i love the BFG stuff im thinking about getting started and getting an imperial fleet.. if you dont mind me asking what do you like/dislike about BFG? and is the Imperial fleet a good way to go?

Rose_Mountainz wrote:Looking very good!

Thanks! Now I just need to motivate myself to catch up on some painting. The Hydra needs to get done before Saturday, and I also have two plasma gunners and two riflemen to paint. The Vendetta needs paint too but it is way too cold to prime it right now.

IHEARTLARGEBLASTTEMPLATES wrote:Wow i love the BFG stuff im thinking about getting started and getting an imperial fleet.. if you dont mind me asking what do you like/dislike about BFG? and is the Imperial fleet a good way to go?

I really like maneuvering the cruisers and having to plan ahead where each ship needs to go in order to make my battle plan successful. I also love lots of escorts as well as fighters and bombers.

I dislike how hard it is to find opponents.

The Imperial fleet is a good one. It offers several good fleet builds and the plastic cruiser sets are great. I think it can be a lot of fun though to get a fleet that matches your favorite 40K army so that you can play campaigns that use BFG and 40K.

Thanks for the tutorial credit. I thought no one would ever read that again

But anyways your guard are coming along nicely. I just started painting mine again (including that vendetta). I love the plasma effect you have on that executioner. The pulse effect is so much better than the standard glow effect.

MEanBOb wrote:Thanks for the tutorial credit. I thought no one would ever read that again

But anyways your guard are coming along nicely. I just started painting mine again (including that vendetta). I love the plasma effect you have on that executioner. The pulse effect is so much better than the standard glow effect.

Thanks again MEanBOb! I wish I had more experience at painting the pulse effect. I think my idea is better than my execution.


======================================================
This week I'm painting up some rather mundane stuff: Hydra turret, plasma gunners (more of them), and riflemen. So rather than drag you through that,
I thought I'd show you how I fixed my Baneblade lascannon sponson turrets, which were driving me crazy because they keep falling off the Baneblade.

This is one of the turrets that offends me:


This is why the turrets keep falling off. You can see the hole where the plastic pin comes down from the top of the lascannon turret.
You can also see the top of the sponson where the pin fits. It's a ridiculously shallow well.


Here you can see the plastic pin that goes from the top of the turret down until it culminates in the shallow plastic well on top of the sponson.


And this is my solution: use four of these MAGCRAFT rare earth magnets. I had them sitting around already.


I shortened the plastic pins so that that would stop just above the magnets I planned to insert in the bottom of each lascannon turret.
Using my sprue clippers, I trimmed a length equal to the height of two of the magnets (since the magnets would replace the part of the pin
that was in both the sponson well and the lascannon turret).


One magnet went into the bottom of each turret. The diameter is so perfect that I did not need glue.
Note that the plastic pin that comes down from above is long enough to rest on top of the magnet.


With a magnet in the lascannon turret, we now add a magnet into the shallow well on top of the sponson.
This magnet should be on the correct side to stick to the turret magnet (remember polarity).
If you fail to use the magnet right side up, you will find that your magnets repel each other.
THAT EQUATES to TOTAL FAIL so get it right before you secure the sponson well magnet using green stuff.

Let the green stuff almost fully dry (at least 30-45 minutes) and then seat the turret and press the extra green stuff
down out of the way. Then take the turret back off so it doesn't get stuck to the green stuff when this finally hardens completely.


Once the greenstuff has fully hardened you should be able to seat both turrets and rotate them around to your facing of choice.
Now you can hold the Baneblade sideways and those silly turrets stay on!!


I hope you're staying warm, dry, and well fed. This is one mean winter!

JB wrote:
I really like maneuvering the cruisers and having to plan ahead where each ship needs to go in order to make my battle plan successful. I also love lots of escorts as well as fighters and bombers.

May I suggest, that if you particualy enjoy these things to check out Full Thrust? That's a great starship game.

Back on topic now, I love your work JB, inspiring me to get back to work on my Cadians!

Disjointed Entity wrote:

JB wrote:
I really like maneuvering the cruisers and having to plan ahead where each ship needs to go in order to make my battle plan successful. I also love lots of escorts as well as fighters and bombers.

May I suggest, that if you particualy enjoy these things to check out Full Thrust? That's a great starship game.

Back on topic now, I love your work JB, inspiring me to get back to work on my Cadians!

Thanks for pointing out Full Thrust. It looks like the rules are free to download online so I may read them next week. The short description of the rules made them sound very adaptable to different space genres so that looks promising.

Yeah, get to work on your Cadians! The Emperor still has many enemies to smite and every man must do his duty!!

I'm working on redoing nine voxcasters as ordinary riflemen. It's a pain but necessary since I need another 31 riflemen but have no use at all for voxcasters in 5th Edition.

Yeah I know what you mean about Voxs. They used to be such a boon; but now ... 5 points too much.

And no trouble about Full Thrust. I play and I think it's a great game; just make sure you have enough anti-fighter guns, cause boy, those things are dangerous.

Wow! I can't believe that I have posted to this P&M blog since the first week of February. Work was crazy but I was getting time to work on my 40K projects. I simply didn't take more time to take pictures and post on Dakka.

I doubt anyone still remembers what projects were unfinished but here's the recap to bring you up to date:

1. Melta gunner madness. I now have 15 table ready melta gunners but they need some detailing.
2. Plasma gunners. I have seven table ready and two more primed for painting.
3. Griffon crewmen. Primed but not painted.
4. Vet Sergeants with shotguns. No progress on getting them painted.
5. Vendetta. Painted and tabletop ready. Still needs some detailing and decals.
6. Hydra. Painted and tabletop ready. Still needs some detailing and decals.
7. 2nd Hydra. Still just a dream though I have all of the components on hand now.
8. Manticore. Painted and tabletop ready. Still needs some detailing and decals.
9. Baneblade. Unpainted but I have the paint on hand.
10. Converting 9 voxcasters back into ordinary riflemen. Complete.
11. Marbo. Still primed but not painted.
12. Two old-school servitors. Unpainted.

I also started and finished a few mini projects:

1. Converted my four heavy bolters into autocannons. That gives me eight of them on the table.
2. Exterminator turret for my old Leman Russ models. Still needs camouflage, minor detailing, and decals.
3. Knight Commander Pask

My new projects for May 2011 are all painting projects. No planned sculpts or conversions since I'm in the middle of packing my family up and moving them in June.
1. Commissar Yarrick
2. Vehicle crewmen. I would like all of my tanks and several of my Chimeras to have crewmen added. I'll keep at it one by one.
3. Lasriflemen. I still want a lot more of these so I'll try to add five or so a week.
4. Plasma gunners. I need to finish painting two and then add three more.
5. Demolisher turret for my old Leman Russ models.
6. Finishing the details for the projects listed above.

Quick pics are below. I'll add more as soon as I make some progress.

Looking good, Making the Cadian High Command proud! Rather like that Hydra Conversion, never been good at scratch building, have to rely on Forgeworld for the hard to make bitz.

Fattimus_maximus wrote:Looking good, Making the Cadian High Command proud! Rather like that Hydra Conversion, never been good at scratch building, have to rely on Forgeworld for the hard to make bitz.

Thanks Fm! I get a few things from Forge World but decided not to buy their Hydras because I really liked Flinty's conversions for his army and I had heard several bad things about warped barrels on FW Hydras.

Not a lot to update tonight except that I had a great game on Saturday versus Dark Elves using Commissar Yarrick as a HQ choice. Yes, he's a point sink but in a 2000 point list, I like him. He or the Lord Commissar are a must if you want to use Heavy Weapon Teams for more than two turns. I only had an hour to get him table ready. This is how he turned out. I'll make him look better over the next couple of weeks while I'm working on my vehicles.



I also did a hasty paint on five riflemen, but I have no specific pictures of them. You might glimpse them among my squads on my army page article.

Today, I finally snapped army photos, which gives you an idea of what I have painted right now. It's all a work in progress but I'm enjoying it. I have not had any strong urges to start any new 40K or Fantasy armies since the Eye of Terror campaign so I have been able to keep plugging away at my Cadians.



Now that I have a fairly solid core of units that I always use in every list, I'll start detailing those models - starting with my tanks (of course).

Lots of new pics in my gallery but I'll warn you in advance that my whole army still lacks highlighting, washes, and weathering. Always more to do!

For the curious, here's the scoop on my infantry "stands/trays":


I use metal handy box/outlet covers from a hardware store. I only use the ones that are solid - no knockouts or holes except for the two mandatory screw holes.



I put Magcraft rare earth magnets on the underside of each of my infantry bases using superglue (Loctite Precision Max, if you must know). You could also use magnetic bases from Gale Force Nine. I have some but I haven't used them yet since I have so many Magcraft magnets. I prefer the 2.5mm thickness disc magnets that have a diameter of 6.4mm, but I have also used the square magnets with the same 2.5mm thickness.

It's best to tape over the two screw holes and then prime, paint, and flock the stand/tray. All the extra layers help to weaken the magnetic bond between the metal stand/tray and the magnet on the base of the model. The bond is a bit too strong and I sometimes have trouble with my troops sticking together unexpectedly or the magnetic bond being stronger than the model's bond with its base (ouch, breakage!). You might find that smaller magnets or the Gale Force Nine bases work better. I haven't tried other options yet.


I really like the stands/trays because it makes it much easier to store, transport, and deploy my models. However, during my games I frequently move the models off of the stand/trays in order to maximize dispersion to avoid template weapon damage. I may make some new trays that allow maximum 2" distance between models. Hmmm....I smell a new project.

Hello JB

your idea of storage trays is very cool, later when i have more units done i think i will try out my own version of this helpful item!


vik

Wow, big army...I'd love to get to that size but I would just end up being distracted

Lots of sheets and boxes in the background of that picture...you moving or something?

Viktor von Domm wrote:Hello JB

your idea of storage trays is very cool, later when i have more units done i think i will try out my own version of this helpful item!


vik

Thanks Vik! I may experiment with some new ones once I move. How's the WH40K scene in Germany? That's where I'm heading.

Imperial Monkey wrote:Wow, big army...I'd love to get to that size but I would just end up being distracted

Lots of sheets and boxes in the background of that picture...you moving or something?

Thanks Imperial Monkey! The secret is just to keep adding small things each month. Before you know it, you have a large force (but still not as large as HBMC's).

I'm moving to Germany. Should be there by July. I plan to keep adding to my force while I'm there.

How's the WH40K scene in Germany? That's where I'm heading.

well first to answer that one...from what i have seen on a very small scale...warmachine is all the hype now...but there are some clubs all around the country which even do games in apoc size...but to tell you the truth... this is rather all i digested from the postings from other forums and some bits of info i got from a gw store...i have yet to plunge into the gaming scene...i plan to do so when i have a useable force to game with... no grey minis... my honor codex implies only play with painted models!

may i ask in return why and where you will be moving?

The secret is just to keep adding small things each month. Before you know it, you have a large force

too true and yet sometimes not able to follow this route^^

I'm finally ready to begin work on my Cadians now that I'm settled in Germany. My AgeofEgos inspired Man-Cave is all set up and I have nearly all the supplies that I need on hand (with a few things still in the mail from Maelstrom Games in merry Olde England).

I have a few Cadian Imperial Guard to get built and painted (see pics and list below). This isn't all of them but will get my mechanized IG collection almost fully fleshed out so that I can play a foot slogging variant too. If Games Workshop will just release some plastic Collossi Siege Mortars, I'll be on Cloud 9.






The list of items is as follows:
46 riflemen (male)
7 riflemen (female)
5 vet sgts with shotguns
6 weapon teams (3 mortar, 1 AC, 2 lascannon)
9 psykers
3 advisors
6 command squad figures
7 special weapons (flamer, 4 plasma, 2 melta)
Commissar Yarrick
Creed
Sly Marbo
Commander (metal)

For vehicles I have:
Pask-inator (needs detailing)
Hydra
Demolisher
1 or 2 Basilisks (I may scrap the one that I got on Ebay); Not pictured so don't go all "Where's Waldo?" on me


I tend to be a relentess -though slow- tabletop standard painter. Let's see how much of this I can get done before the New Year.

Here's the progress so far on my Paskinator (Knight Commander Pask in a Leman Russ Exterminator). I have a long way to go but I'm having fun weathering and adding battle damage. I want to try some lead pencil weathering tomorrow using grey_death's Friday Quick Tips. He has probably forgotten this tip but I've been waiting to try it out ever since he posted it. I may not have the right pencil though.




The Leman Russ is the older version with the fiddly wheels. It was a cheap Ebay Rescue that I repainted for my army. The Exterminator barrels come from the new Leman Russ kit and they fit rather well into the old turret.

More to come but at least I showed you what I'm doing, even if it is a bit ugly.

OUCH! I made a few bad decisions while painting my Paskinator that have slowed the project down considerably. I thought the camouflage would look better with a lighter third color added to the pattern. That didn't work so I'm repainting the tank so that it will have the original camouflage.

Meanwhile, I decided to finally try to fix my vehicle antenna problem by using a black brush bristle from a cheap cleaning brush. Here are some WIP shots of the first Chimera. It already had a broken antenna so I had nothing to lose.







The first shot shows the brush, the bristle, and the Chimera along with my poor Paskinator and my IG commander (with his faithful hound Max). The second shot shows a closer view of the old antenna base with a new hole in it to seat the new bristle antenna. The third shot shows a WIP comparison of an old GW antenna (on the rear Chimera) side-by-side with the new bristle brush antenna (foreground Chimera).

EDIT: My vehicle antennas are the older GW version. You won't find them in the current Chimera kit. I'm always looking for more of these old antennas and the old grenade launchers. If you want to sell or trade some of them, send me a PM.

I still have to mix some green stuff to seat the bristle. I'll probably do all five vehicles in the first batch at one time to conserve time and putty.

EDIT: These photos remind me that I need some MicroScale products: Micro Set and Micro Sol. I gave away my bottles when I left the United States in June. Does anyone know where to get these products (mail order preferred) in Europe?