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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...