Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

They are indeed. They are supposed to be 25mm figures, but the female figures are even smaller than the male ones. I've not painted anything so small since Epic

I didn't get as much finished today as I would have liked. The Lord Castellant had some extra highlights adding and a bit of tidying up of little bits that I noticed in the last photo. He looks a bit better



I also managed to paint up the other Slaughterpriest. This means I'm now 50% of the way through painting Gorechosen!



I caved and started an Instagram account a couple of days back, just to see if I could get anything onto the GW site using tags. My wife is mighty annoyed as my first ever Instagram post (the first Slaughterpriest) had more likes than any of her posts... and she has a *lot* of followers. I suspect people following #paintingwarhammer actually look at things that come up and like things.

The weekend also saw my first ever trip to an IKEA store. 39 and I'd never been, can you believe it? I'm now the proud owner of a massive stack of boxes that will eventually form the base for my gaming table once the flooring has gone down in a few weeks time. I'll go into that in a later post

Good heavens endtrans... those are spectacular!

So, with the new edition of 40k announced I am kind of optimistic about where this is going as I like the format of AoS. As you've probably noticed, I'm more of a fluff/painting type, rather than gaming... so for me the Open play method will be great fun if I ever get to play anything. No more worrying how I'm going to put together Gale's retinue either

A question for those of you that do currently play. Are the three new campaign books worth buying for a read, just in case they go away?

In hobby-land, painting and conversions this week have been on an entirely different scale than normal. The last couple of weeks have been a 1:1 scale rebuild... of my new office/games room

After last weekend this was the state of the room. Plastered/painted and awaiting a floor



After Friday, I now have a nice, shiny floor to roll around on



In the top photo you can see part of the wall comes out into the room a short way where the old chimney used to be. Either side of this are some shallow alcoves that are far too shallow for books. The previous owners had just plaster boarded over them, but in about a week these are being turned into lots and lots of shelves for figures as they are the perfect depth (about 7cm/2.5 inches). Each side is getting about 16 shelves, giving me about 32m of shelving!

A gaming table and 3m x 2m of bookshelves and desk are also planned for the same time. Exciting times ahead!

Looks like a beautiful hobby space!

Decent amount of shelving. Good luck on the 1:1 project!

After busy weekends, the office is nearing completion and looks like a bomb has hit it as I try to sort everything out. All that shelving sounded like plenty, but it is already full and my old office still isn't empty... not sure how the heck that happened!



The desk you see in the right corner carries along under the window for a big painting area, once I have finished sorting cds into the carry cases.

The bit I didn't show off last time is the table.



This is made from 4 sets of ikea kitchen cabinets with as many drawers as I could fit for storage. The top is 4x4, with a 2x4 flap that lifts up. Each drawer is dedicated to an army or gaming system. There are two drawers for Shadows of brimstone... two for kingdom death and this one may look familiar to some longer term readers...



Turns out that my painting on the guard is worse than I remember it being, plus some of it never got finished. I really was in a rush for that last tournament... 6 years ago! (ish) wasn't I? That must be the last time I painted anything for them as well as it being the last time I played 40k. With 8th due to arrive this weekend, I am currently trying to decide what to do, 40k wise.

While sorting the offices out I uncovered a treasure trove of plastic. There appear to be

- about 40 tactical marines and some terminators from the two 30k games that were destined for the abandoned 30k Imperial fists project
- lots of genestealers
- some skitarii
- two imperial knights
- some grey knights
... and what looks like small deathwatch and harlequin forces from the Death Masque box

Let's also not forget The Inquisitor Dot project and the Death Guard in the new starter set.

At the moment I am at a complete loss. I sort of want to start a new army for 8th edition and do the tale of 4 warlords challengey thing to get myself back into painting but I have so many unbuilt, unrelated things that I am officially Very Undecided. I'm also at a loss as to why I have most of these kits in the first place and should really have a bit of a clear out; which may (or may not) include the guard as I am not happy with most of it now, but reprinting it would be depressing.

I have not been paying too much attention to the actual tactics threads, so dear readers... help!!




Automatically Appended Next Post:
After a sleepless night pondering these things I seem to now be down to AdMech themed (lots of conversion opportunities as well as all the FW bits) or a combined nurgle themed force for similar reasons.

Either way, the guard will stay but not really be expanded upon on for now. A small inquisition force will also be worked on for Inquisitor Dot as and when bits get unearthed or traded away. The rest... will probably end up in a trade pile or conversion fodder

Are you looking to do a fluffy, thematic army, or a face melting beatdown army? Now that they are combined, you can do an Imperium army much easier. Would let you use your guard as a base until you get your admech done, then roll in the Marines, knights, grey knights and dw as you get there.

Yeah, that was sort of what I was thinking of in the run up to release, but keeping Guard as the primary force. Looking at the painting on some of them caused that plan to splutter a bit (as you saw), but you're right, using the Guard as a backup force is the best plan of action.

The other night I was thinking about an AdMech force and wondering what to do with the Guard, then I remembered the old Tech Guard that used to exist one step down from the Skitarii. Most of the internet seems to have forgotten they existed, or have merged them with Skitarii to be the same thing (GW and Black Library included) but it seems Forge World remember. In the Horus Heresy series, there is an org chart for the Mechanicum and buried beneath the Legio Titanicus, there they are. Tech Guard. I guess that answers that one then... especially as most of my infantry had the sealed helmets and packs... so who knows how augmented they are beneath those overalls.

Oh and you know me, I play so infrequently that it will be fluffy... probably more Narrative gaming than points

On Friday I ordered the Start Collecting AdMech box and have been thinking about how to get back into painting and blogging a bit more as I've been shamefully absent here. Self imposed challenge here is to try and match the timescales for the Tale of 4 Warlords in WD; sadly out of sync somewhat now. The challenge starts when the box arrives, which means I will have a month to put together and paint the contents of said box. I need to dig through the old WDs to find out the rest of the months. As a self-challenge, I need to post an update at least once a week with a photo update.

While I wait for the AdMech starter box to arrive, I dug out some of the spare plastic that is kicking around to see what I have.

Turns out I've used up *all* the ruststalker legs in aborted conversions... so that set of sprues is basically conversion fodder rather than a useful unit.. p00t. I did have half a box of Skitarii untouched though, so those can be added to the force eventually.

As I mentioned the other day, it seems to make sense to convert at least some of the guard into Adeptus Titanicus Tech Guard to accompany the AdMech and put together a very simple test for the Tech Guard Stormtroopers by replacing the head and pack with some spare bits from the Skitarii and Ruststalker kits. It isn't overly different from the normal ones, but should be enough to fit them into the theme



Surprisingly, I've decided to go for Mars as my homeworld. Mars and the red Skitarii have always been... AdMech. Anything else doesn't feel right to me. I cannot deny that Cawl is one of the main reasons behind this choice, but not for the gaming choice. Cawl is the force behind the evolution of the Space Marines... so what else does he have hidden away in his vaults? He seems happy to experiment with new ideas, unlike most of the AdMech, which gives me free reign to try some conversions that I have ideas for.

Hurrah. The Skitarii starter set turned up today, so it seems the month starts... now.

So by the 21st of July I need to have 10 Skitarii, a DuneCrawler and a magos painted up. I can't quite remember the order, but each of the following months I need to do one heavy, one fast attack, one HQ, another troop and whatever else I can. I have another starter set on the way that should cover at least the troop choice and heavy slots.

Thanks to a trip to London yesterday, I'm now half way through the new Dark Imperium novel from Guy Haley and I'm pleasantly surprised so far. Guilliman and the Primaris are turning out to be quite interesting characters, lost in time and upset by how things have changed... I'm also enjoying Cawl's attempts to become the power on Mars, despite most of his work being deemed heretical and deeply creepy.

For those who havn't read the book, prior to being assigned to a chapter, a Primaris' armour is painted up in their gene-father's chapter colours, but the chapter marking is covered with a grey square. These greyshields fight together as a mixed unit, learning to trust those not of their lineage more and bring the future chapters closer together. Basically Deathwatch without the black armour, secretive missions and special ammo. The interesting thing is that Cawl mentions that he has been testing/monitoring infantry grown from the geneseed stock of the lost and fallen legions (including the two we know nothing about other than chapter numbers!), asking for permission to start distributing these to the loyalist chapters as well. Does this mean Cawl is just monitoring them in a lab environment, or is he is actually secretly using some in combat situations? I'm tempted to eventually paint up my starter set Primaris as Greyshields from these fallen legions as his "secret" test group as it fits the character that is appearing in the novel. I'm actually looking forward to seeing where the new story...

Do the "secret" marines still have their parent legions colors? I'd think that would be really obvious.

"Hey, you guys ever wonder why Brother Gary has purple armor? Seems weird, right?"

Now that it doesn't say and is something I've been pondering too. It also says that parts of the chapter symbols are visible sticking out from under the grey square, which is also not a wise thing to do with the traitor (or missing) legions are concerned!

My assumptions here would be that as he's not supposed to have them running around, if he is taking them out to play then they would be used for covert ops or in warzones that only feature his maniples as support to avoid someone asking awkward questions.

If he is taking them anywhere near larger battlefields (which is doubtful), I'd assume he would have to either give them false colours, or plain metal/grey/white armour that is entirely unmarked except for the grey square.

Either way... something to ponder on and an interesting hook for future chapters/traitors... or Deathwatch Blackshields when they realise what their fathers have done/become. If Guilliman decides that Cawl really shouldn't be playing with these (he is unlikely to stop playing with their genetics now he has them), what is going to happen to them? Will it start another civil war when the Ultramarines try to exterminate all of these potentially loyal Primaris that just happen to have traitor lineage?

So. Today is the first mini update on month one of the self imposed challenge to build a nice AdMech force to celebrate the start of 8th edition.

Last night I managed to assemble, undercoat and start putting brush to paint on a few bits and pieces for the force. Pictures will be suitably grainy and off-colour on purpose until the end of each month, unless an actual colour related question comes up



While I was waiting for the actual books to turn up, I just randomly assembled some of the Skitarii, picking on some of the special weapons that seem to be popular in the tactics thread, namely an arquebus and plasma caliver. The arquebus is the only Ranger so far, but the plan is to do use some of the spare parts I have kicking around at home to build a small ranger squad with two of these, plus two Vanguard squads. Sadly I only have two caliver at present, so the second squad will just be radium carbines for now. The Magos is just carrying whatever I thought looked cool; so macrostubber and Volkite it is.

This morning a nice parcel turned up at work with the Dark Imperium box, the two Imperium books and Xenos 2 in case I go back to the stealer cult. Now to not get too distracted by all that nice new fluff instead of carrying on painting!

Change of plans. If I don't post nice, completed photos as I go, I'll miss the month end deadline as I'm faffing. As I'm aiming for good tabletop, I need to be able to mark a done point... so posting them here will hopefully stop me going back and fiddling too much! Not sure why these pictures have been cropped square... I'll do some better photos at the end of each month (possibly tomorrow...) anyway.

Everything from the Getting Started box has now been assembled, undercoated and... in general, nearing completion already! Basing is turning into a pain as I wanted to do them with the crackle basing stuff... but thanks to the wonders of Wayland, I still don't have my pots... three weeks after ordering them!

I've sort of stuffed up the challenge anyway unless I can grab another box of Skitarii before the end of the month as I decided to build the special weapons that I wanted, just to make sure I didn't forget them. This has left me with one complete squad and two partials instead of two working troop choices. Doh!

Anyway. First we have two Rangers with Arquebus


A full squad of Vanguard with two plasma caliver


Some spare Vanguard and an Alpha (if they ever come back)


And a full group shot


Not too bad, given that I still have 19 days to go in this phase! I just might make it

Very nice!

And your basing scheme looks to be something I'm looking to try too - any chance of a step by step on how to do it and what to use?

Thanks!

Just like they were taken from the pages of White Dwarf!

 Gitsplitta wrote:
Just like they were taken from the pages of White Dwarf!

Not by a long way, but I'll take the compliment, thanks
Looking at the photos, the metal needs some work if there is time before the end of the month. I may also put some of the transfers on to break up the *red* of the cloaks


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Alpharius wrote:
Very nice!

And your basing scheme looks to be something I'm looking to try too - any chance of a step by step on how to do it and what to use?

Thanks!

The basing starts with a layer of the Vallejo basing pumice... stuff and some bits of woodchip stolen from the local playground for the rocks. The rocks were painted a mixture of red and black to create a dark maroon-y colour and then washed with black. The sand had a basecoat of either Squig orange or Deathclaw Brown (I can't remember which...). Everything then gets a drybrush of a light cream and then a layer of GW's red glaze over the whole lot to turn it the martian red.

In places bits of weathering powders were added over the top to add a bit of extra variation, but only sparingly.

 endtransmission wrote:

 Alpharius wrote:
Very nice!

And your basing scheme looks to be something I'm looking to try too - any chance of a step by step on how to do it and what to use?

Thanks!

The basing starts with a layer of the Vallejo basing pumice... stuff and some bits of woodchip stolen from the local playground for the rocks. The rocks were painted a mixture of red and black to create a dark maroon-y colour and then washed with black. The sand had a basecoat of either Squig orange or Deathclaw Brown (I can't remember which...). Everything then gets a drybrush of a light cream and then a layer of GW's red glaze over the whole lot to turn it the martian red.

In places bits of weathering powders were added over the top to add a bit of extra variation, but only sparingly.

Thanks for that - now I'm off to buy some of that...pumice stuff!

The basing goop is brilliant stuff. You will need a fairly long spatula to get into the pot after a while, but it will last you a long time. You can easily make your own... it feels just like paint, a bit of white glue and sand mixed together into a paste

Good luck with your challenge, those rangers are really cool, as is your working space.

So far the challenge is going well. The Dominus is mostly done, I just need to finish the base and put some transfers onto the cloak. The Dunecrawler is also about 50% complete, I just need to work out how to make the body and base a little bit more interesting.

I picked up another box of Skitarii at the weekend, so hopefully I can flesh out the two partial squads by the end of the month too.

Some beautiful Admech! I picked up a Get Started box set and a box of the robots to get to eventually myself.

I've got a set of robots waiting for the relevant month too

The Catachans need their love first though. I really want to play a damn game or three

Stunning work here.

I have 6 days left until the end of the first month, so I should probably show you a bit more progress on things. The Dominus is now ready for action





That gives me my HQ and some troops... now I just need to finish the Dunecrawler and make it look a little more exciting than it currently does in red and metal. Fingers crossed I can get that finished this weekend as I'm off to a wedding for a few days, so my 6 days is actually 3 :/

Very Cool!

Thanks!

Oh. Does anyone reading this have any experience with the GW cracked earth textures? I bought the two reddish ones; one is supposed to be large crackles and the second is smaller.

So far the large crackle seems to just be a reddish paint with sand in and the other doesn't crackle unless I put a very thick later on :/

Beautiful Dominus.

The crackle stuff, everytime I have seen it used they lather it on really thick, must get expensive, lot of people have started using crackle glazes from the art store instead. Not something I have bothered with.