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Thanks Theo - it was the figures that sold me - All of the models I picked up can be dropped into WH/AoS/KoW forces, so even if I never play (which, let's be honest....) I can still get some use out of them - which is why I chose those specific ones!

I know what you mean I'm now more inclined to buy games for figures than figures for games if you understand what I mean.

Been a while since I checked in on your blog. Your Vikings turned out good (and kudos on the WWE reference!), and the gator...thing looks cool too!

Yeah, I went through a bit of a phase (for a few years) buying cool figures and boxed games when I felt they would provide me with a bunch of figures I could fit into other existing games. Kinda started post-WarZone, when the game died and I felt I could still give the cool figures in their ranges some life by drafting them into the Imperial Guard...

Thanks, Zerg. I'm still trying to catch up on everyone else's blogs after my month off. Need more models that can pass as wrasslers. Maybe I can Finn Balor up a Bloodreaver or something?



This piece is the very last of the bits I got off Cannon. A two-part metal… model(?) of a Viking Runestone. It’s nice but also a little slack in some ways.



I have no idea who the manufacturer of this thing is, but if you’ve guessed that the slack I mentioned refers to the visible print lines on the runestone… then you’re right. While it’s true that I could have tried to scrape them off myself, or putty over – it’d frankly be more effort that it’s worth, especially as the thing is cast in metal. The fact that whoever made this thing didn’t bother to do so on their 3-d printed master, and then went straight to casting it in two parts in metal just boggles the mind…



It didn’t actually fit together all that well, either. I had to do quite a lot of gap filling between the two halves. Interestingly, the back half of the thing didn’t feature a lot of mould lines, making me think that only the front was 3-d printed. Personally, I don’t feel it would be too difficult to make something like this (including runes) out of foam or the like for the average hobbyist, or out of milliput or other putties for a producer. It’s a bit of an odd piece, but hey, it’s painted and based, and passes the 4-foot test alright. I even remembered to take a shot for scale this time…

It is very strange with the print lines, but as I've been looking at natural slate for my grandmothers sun room floor it does look like the machined side of the tile with the grooves they cut into it to get good adhesion to the floor. Maybe these wrestlers are contractors on the weekend and are about to glue this rock down on something.....or someone

Awesome Vikings and dwarves lately. I especially like that gator man though

I also hear you about keeping up with everyone's awesome blogs from a page or two back...too much awesome to see it all.

That may be, Theo
And yeah Grim, it's a bit of a time-consuming process to catch up on such a long break. I mean, it's hard to keep up when I'm here all the time!

Another quick one today, and a follow-up of sorts to a similar post from last year.



At some stage during our long, hot, dry March this year, I found two separate zip-lock bags stuffed with ladders from Citadel’s Lord of the Rings Uruk-Hai Siege Troops set. One of them also had several of the bombs in it. Given that I find summer weather a great time for spraying and terrain, large and small, it was time to get the bloody things done. So I did.



The job (I hesitate to call it a “project”) was on the wrong side of tedious, mostly because my OCD forced me to clean the mould lines off each and every one of the ladders, so I sat out on the concrete outside the War Room and listened to some podcasts for an hour or so while doing so. Then it was spray time for the ladders, followed by drybrush-a-rama the following day, and then a couple of coats of varnish. I’ve got no idea how or when I’d ever use so many ladders, but regardless, they’re done and dusted now and I don’t need to worry about them ever again outside of gaming with them. Maybe this coming summer I’ll finally paint up my Mighty Fortress(es)?

Done and dusted is a good thing.

I'm still loving all the stuff you keep posting. I'm anxious to see a group shot of all the vikings.

That's a metric ton of little plastic ladders . When they finish taking your castle they can circle it with the ladders because they look a lot like picket fences.

Yes, I have all of the ladders!

Now Hopefully Mantic's kickstarter will provide me with all of the tables and chairs I need! In a year to 18 months...

Still hoping to get some group shots done this weekend, though there might now be a small delay on posting them since I've got a ton of other stuff to photograph and post, and I'm going to change theme a little shortly... edit - just spray varnished 24 figures. SO MUCH BACKLOG to photograph and post up.



Another quick and easy post today – On a little bit of scenery from Reaper Bones’ 1st Kickstarter. It’s a nice enough piece, sculpted by Bob Ridolfi, though I think the name “Well of Chaos” is a little overblown for what it actually is.



It’s a little bigger than your standard 28mm figure (sorry, I forgot to get a scale shot!) I decided to KISS and keep the scheme nice and simple. Grey stone with a touch of dirtiness to it. Faded, aged bronze for the accoutrements, and a few layers of Vallejo’s Realistic Water for the, well, well water. The water looks a little weaksauce in these photos, but it looks fine in hand. I wanted to keep it to just clear water rather than getting funky by making it red or green or whatever.



I’ve probably got a few more random-ish bits of scatter terrain around from Bones 1 where I went all-in. I know they did some more in Bones 2 and 3, though I was much more conservative in my pledges for both of those. In a year or so, I’ll have a ton more of this sort of thing from the recent Mantic Terrain Crate Kickstarter, which I backed despite my misgivings around Mantic these days. I backed it with the knowledge that it’ll probably be 6 months to a year late, shipped in unintentional waves, and also mismanaged in some hilariously clownshoes manner. So forewarned is forearmed, I guess? As for this thing, it’s a decent piece of dungeon furniture, costs like three bucks, and does what it says on the tin. Can’t go wrong!

No-one likes my poor little Bones Well? Bah! I should make this blog All Space Marines All The Time. Then I bet people would start to care!

Having finished the last of the Marauder Slayers the other week, we move to another pair of the Citadel Giant Slayers.



This pair has gotten a slightly more natural shade of orange for their hair than many of the others. Whether they used a different dye or theirs has simply washed out somewhat, when mixed into the units, they’ll help to offer some variance while still maintaining the visual coherency with the others.



As with the last half-dozen or so slayers that I’ve finished, I’ve attempted to again vary the stripey trouser just slightly from the neverending run of identical blue stripes. Clearly not by a lot, but again it’s simply about adding a little bit of variation into the unit so they still look like a unit but not entirely homogenised and uniform. They’re not a freshly-raised unit of Napoleonic Chasseurs, after all.



I’m quite pleased with how the tattoos came out on this pair as well. That’s one thing that this project has really helped me with. Well, two. I can now paint many variations of orange-to-ginger hair pretty much with my eyes closed. I’ll have some command guys photographed and posted hopefully within a few days, and then I need to start getting some group shots of the Slayers (and Vikings, and others) taken and posted!

What a lovely Bones well!

And the dwarves are okay too, I spose... Love the tattoos!

Really lovely work!

It's the dwarves that bring us back . I like these more natural orange haired freaks.

Keep the Duardin (sorry, Dwarves! ) coming, they are looking really good! That throne from the Bones kickstarter looks pretty cool too!

Looks good to me. Your slayers are just fantastic and really makes me wish I had included some in one of the dwarf armies I want to do. Although I think I do have a random dragon slayer (who will ably be played by the Mordheim trollslayer model) in one of them. I am sure he will do a Stirling job of being a pub cushion to the enemy.

I warned you!

The funny thing about the dwarves is that while I liked the models, I never saw myself having an army of them. They were SO SLOW back in 3rd edition WHFB, and I don't think they really improved much in later editions. In a game that lives and dies on hand to hand and mobility, it was such a huge disadvantage, and more importantly, less fun. I've not yet run them in Kings of War, but at least in Age of Sigmar, they're not quite as crippled by movement speed (at least in the limited number of games I've had with the system.) There are more dwarves and other things to show, but with 8th coming out in a few days, I think it's time to shift gears for a week or so and show off some of the more 40k-oriented stuff I've been sitting on/recently finished and/or asked to show. Besides, the Dwarves and Vikings seem to have no end to them right now!



A little over 10 or so years ago, I’d returned to full-time study, with all of the financial awesome that comes with. I wanted more models, so I decided to sell off some old stuff I wasn’t using to finance it. I attempted to sell off a box of Chaos Terminators and a set of Original RT Terminators, but no-one was interested in these old models (this was in the days before “Oldhammer” was cool!) Right, I thought. If no-one is interested in them unpainted, maybe they’ll be interested if I paint them. Since we were in the era of 3rd/4th edition 40k and new rules, I decided that Black Templars would be a good choice, since black would be easy to paint, and they were riding a wave of popularity, being relatively new and shiny. So yeah. I got one figure almost finished, lost one, started on a replacement, and into the figure case they went for a decade, forgotten.



A couple of months ago, with the rumours of 40k 8th Edition starting to flow and right after painting some Minotaurs or Iron Warriors, I decided to have a look through some of my old figure cases to see what was in there in terms of Power Armour. I figured it was better to try and finish some older stuff before moving onto starting new squads for the Minos or IWs. Besides, it’d give me something different to paint. One of the things I found was the squad of (now 6) Black Templars. Missing a couple of arms, and based on 25mm rounds, but there they were. All but one needed a lot of work, and the one that didn’t needed a decent amount anyway.



So I decided to finish them, and did. I ordered some various cross transfers from Ginfritter’s Gnomish Workshop/Armorcast that I used on some of the models (review to come shortly). while keeping some freehand on them. I’ll post up the other half of the squad (need to check the new rules) tomorrow, along with some discussion on my (limited) colour choices.

Those look fantastic. Love the heraldry on the shoulders. I didn't like when they started to add chains and stuff to the black templars .

I have a whole box of METAL marines that I don't even count amongst my marine totals, seeing these makes me jealous and want to break them out.

Nice. Love the old classic terminators.

Fountain, slayers, and termitemplars look swell

Thanks guys! More classic 'eavy Metal to come!

 Theophony wrote:
Those look fantastic. Love the heraldry on the shoulders. I didn't like when they started to add chains and stuff to the black templars .
I have a whole box of METAL marines that I don't even count amongst my marine totals, seeing these makes me jealous and want to break them out.

I'm not sold on the chains (though I'll use them) but I did like the tabards and little shields and such. Made them a bit more like crusading knights in a lot of ways, and importantly, optional. Now I want to see you break out the metals. Or failing that, I know a guy in Australia who'd take them off your hands...

Lovely job on all these great old models. I still have the Terminator Squad models, too. Such an awesome set.

Ah, the first ever metal miniatures I bought. Love the individual heraldry on the right shoulder pad, the red is a really nice spot colour for them as well. They look cool on the 40mm bases as well.

I love the aged bronze look on the well. Very nice.

Love me some Black Templars :-). Great work :-)

I'm surprised by how good they look on the 40mm bases!

Another nice set of various things. The cthulhu well-thing turned out great--I'll have to dig out mine sometime soon. Did you have a lot of trouble with the realistic water? I had to scrap and restart a fountain project because the stuff just wouldn't set for me.

The dwarfs are great, as always, as are those Oldhammer termies. Slinky is right, they look much better on the bigger bases.

Thanks guys, I'm glad that you think the decision to go with a bit of colour and heraldry worked out for the best.I had no problems with the realistic water, though I did it in several layers, so I let it dry for a couple of days each time.



As I mentioned yesterday, when these models were fished out of a figure case they were all mounted on 25mm rounds. Since 40mm bases are now standard for Terminators, this presented a bit of a quandary, given how much smaller these original Indomitus Pattern models are to the current range after nearly 30 years of scale creep. I took inspiration from my RTB01 model that I painted as a Mega-City Judge and rebased onto a 32mm, and, well, he looks good – so I decided to just go for it. I also thought that if I added some slate, then it would help to “fill” the bases as opposed to if I left them plain. I think they worked out quite nicely in the end. I think the "trick" to the 40mm bases was making sure they aren't empty nor too busy. Adding the rocks, tufts, and a little static flock seems to have hit the right balance.



When it came to the modelling options, I wanted to keep them really unadorned, as befits the original models – so only original parts used here. I’ve got plenty of BT terminator bits and BT bling I can glue to models, but that can go on a subsequent squad. In keeping with the whole “old school” thing, I originally planned to keep the paint scheme pretty much only to black and white. No red outside of eye lenses and such. In the end I decided to do a bit more to the models. This was based on wanting to do something small with the Sergeant’s shield along with recognition of the fact that Black Templar Terminators are “Sword Brethren”, and as with other chapters’ terminators, they’re veteran elites with a penchant for personal heraldry, and such individuality is even more of a thing in Templars forces.



Because of this, I decided to allow myself to use a limited amount of red in each marine’s chapter iconography, and also that each marine’s shoulder pad would be different. I used a mix of freehand and decals, some of which turned out to be messed up, necessitating extra time to fix them -which I could have done without.



I chose a metallic for the Crux Terminatus on these, rather than the usual bone I’ve used in the past in single Terminators. Both to differentiate the Templars further from my other models, and to give them more of their own distinct look with a kind of polished iron. Again, the Sergeant was allowed a little more colour, with a touch of brass/gold and some gemstone paints for ruby inlay to his sword and sergeant’s icon.

So here we are. Seven editions and almost 30 years on and I’ve finally completed my first Terminator Squad. Let’s hope I can improve on that workrate or I’ll be dead before I get my next squad done. At least these guys are still 100% legal in 8th!

Those Termies look great! I couldn't tell in the pics that they were even the wrong scale until I saw you mention it, and even then they don't look too far off.

Nice! Very sexy terminator squad.