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That’s a great shot, mate, the Walker really adds to the posse and I still love the theme!

Thanks for the comments, all! Glad you guys like them - and good to see lots of love for the mushies! I do think they help to tie things together. Appreciate you guys taking the time to take a look and give feedback!

@Don Qui Hotep - yep, just dots of hot glue plonked down on top of toothpicks. No glue required 8-)

It's been slow going the last month or so, who'd have thought looking after a toddler and a newborn would be something like hard work?

This is what I've been working on: a set of themed terrain for my Ashlander Exodites. It started life as the foam packaging from a blender:



Then onto some foamboard (5mm was all the craft store had - I would have rathered something thinner but I was impatient and wanted to get cracking!)



Then they got plastered up with a mix of PVA, water, flour and cheap black acrylic in roughly equal parts, with a handful of sand thrown in for texture. I also rummaged through the bitz box and threw on a bunch of junk, sprue, and some bits from the Necromunda bulkhead sprue.





Then they got primed up - first black, then a grey zenithal, then some drybrushing.





And added in the extra colours. Not my highest quality work but I was batching them all together and just needed broad strokes.

After this step, I just had the mushies to do - but then the plaster started cracking! Some pieces were not too bad but any of the ones with large flat places got pretty mulched up. It might have just been my proportions in the mix but I also left them out in the patio throughout this whole process and we had a few big storms roll through so I wonder if the moisture just got in and stuffed around with it. I re-applied the plaster, re-painted it up, and sealed the whole set, so hopefully it won't happen again. Here are a whole bunch of photos, with some group shots with the Kill Team at the end.































My first time attempting a terrain build like this, and I'm happy overall - learned a few things and had it all come together in the end. I'd like to build a few more pieces - some ash pillars, some mushrooms - to fill out a board.

I was going for a dwemer ruins-y look overall - it's not perfect and I think they look closer to the Skyrim style than Morrowind, but that doesn't bother me much - I like how the colours work together.

Hopefully playing a few games on them next weekend! I have had a few Kill Team practice matches this last month, nothing worth writing up as we are still learning the rules, but I am really enjoying the ruleset as well as being able to play a couple of quick games in an afternoon and still spend time unwinding/with the family as well. Transport is also significantly easier!

Thanks for looking and happy painting everyone 8-)

Love the look of the ruins, still get a good 40k vibe but definitely got the Dwemer look you're going for. Best of both worlds!

I love the netch, really cool model and the paint job looks great. When I was a kid first playing Morrowind I just wandered about chasing netches through the wastes. They're happy little fellas.

This is some amazing terrain work tzurk.
I'd never thought of a flour PVA glue mix to get concrete that's amazing.

The whole palette of the kill team and not just their bases are really in keeping with the terrain. Great job tying them together!

That gang looks lovely! Good work with the terrain

Very cool stuff with the scratchbuilt terrain, looks great and love the step-by-step.

And yeah, the first thing one usually realizes quickly after the second kid arrives is, how easy one of them was to handle

Love the terrain, and all looking good on the painting front. Can't imagine having time to do any of this with little ones!!

Thanks for sharing

Nice work on the terrain tzurk.

Cheers,

CB

Thank you everyone! Really appreciate your kind words and interest. Glad you like the terrain - the second coat of concrete has turned out to be much more durable!

There hasn't been a great amount of hobby progress the last few months. We have managed to get a few games of Kill Team in though and are starting to get the rules down so things are moving quickly and we can often get two or three games in in an evening or afternoon session. I have experimented with a few different teams; Necrons and Marines feel strong but kind of boring with the current lists I have - both quite shooty, and the good WS/BS and armour saves often feel like cleric battles in DnD - hit, wound, save, hit, wound, save.

Imperial Guard are my favourite at the moment because while they also bring a bunch of firepower to the table, they melt like butter with a mean glance so positioning becomes a bit of a minigame, as well as layering support with orders/comms buffs/etc.

Ever since giving half of the Kriegsmen back to my brother so he has his own Loyal 32 I've felt like I need more bodies to go with my tanks, so I've decided to slowly start expanding my infantry force. I can't really justify more FW minis with the kids and mortgage and wedding now coming up this year, but I managed to get my hands on some old metal valhallans, a Creed, and one of the 20 boxes of plastic catachans for less than the equivalent in Cadians from the FLGS (they came from thetrolltrader.com - UK based, but decent worldwide shipping for anyone interested in browsing legit old minis).

I can't put into words how much I love the old metal Valhallan minis. I can't remember seeing them first in-store or in a White Dwarf or something but I have always loved their aesthetic and feel and I'm super chuffed to finally have my hands on some. The catachans are going to get some beards and fur sculpted on to blend them into what I'm now calling my "snowfighting guard" force, and Creed will either get a headswap to Anvil's lovely "bearskin hats with visors" mask to go alongside some plastic cadians with the same heads, or maybe a vostroyan moustache and cap if I can manage to pick up some of thosel

Anyway, here are some pics - the valhallans are now primed and ready to paint and hopefully I can plonk away at those in the evenings. I was a bit worried about the scale of heroic guard compared to the more realistic Krieg - but though the difference is definitely there it's far less noticeable than I was thinking it would be.







My little helper!



I will try and get around a few of the blogs tonight as well. I feel like I have a lot to catch up on!

Cheers for looking and happy painting everyone.

Nice haul you got there. AM is fun in Kill Team, I got a mixed team of normal troops and some Scions. Positioning really is key and having a Bullgryn with you to deflect all your squishy humans being torn apart in melee Excited to see these new minis develop, shouldn't take too long with such great help!

Exciting plans for the new old guard. They look to have cleaned up well, I hope you rewarded your helper accordingly! I keep thinking I should dig out my old metal Catachans and do something a bit more interesting with their bases, maybe make them up to a platoon at some point. Maybe seeing these will be the inspiration I need?

this going to be interesting indeed.,

Congrats on picking up some Valhallans, I've always liked them. Was never sure if the Vostroyans were meant to replace them or what. Excited to see your Catachan conversions.

Thanks everyone!

@Viterbi, bullgryns do look good for 40k and kill team both. They are on the to-do list for the army!

@gobert, I'm always impressed by tzurk jr's enthusiasm and concentration when he's helping dad. I caught him having climbed up onto the table the other day while I was mowing the lawn - he had a guardsman in each hand and was being so gentle with them. "Have to be careful daddy, I might break them!" Would love to see some metal cadians in your blog! I am very jealous of your backlog of cool OOP minis.

Cheers @Not_Online!!!, hope I don't disappoint.

@Don, I was a bit surprised when Vostroyans came around too as they seemed to be in such a similar design space. Oh well, now I have more winter-themed guardsmen to try and get my hands on!

Gave my catchacoldachan a beard and fur vest w/ hood. I think next time I will hang the vest away from his body a bit, it looks a little silly exaggerating his V taper this way.







And enter Colonel Wario!



I originally envisioned keeping all the different flavours separate in their own squads and having individual colour schemes for each regiment. Seeing them all together on the painting block though makes me think that I might go down a more rag-tag combined forces look and use the same palette in different combinations and potentially even mix different guardsmen in the same squad. Would make converting resin & metal special weapons a more palatable option as I can just stick all the
plasma guns on plastic dudes.

Will try out a few schemes and see how that goes I guess.

Cheers for looking & happy painting everyone!

Colonel Wario looks aces! I was dubious when you planned to modify such a character but it works really well. The coldatchan came out well, and extra buff too . I like the sound of sharing the palette between the units, but even then I’d look to keep the units cohesive in terms of models.

The valhallans were my first favorites from the imperial guard too!

Now you must find the skinniest and tallest imperial guard figure and create lieutenant waluigi.

Creed looks superb with a bearskin and 'tache!

Great stuff.

Nice little tweak to make a named Character into someone else to represent you army.

Cheers,

CB

Wario for archtraitor 2021!

what, a traitor can dream

That Creed conversion is amazing. He could also be a russian bond villain from the late 60's. Cool to see this project develop.

Hey everyone,

Thanks for the comments and kind words! Quick post this morning in between changing bums, but I'm excited to show you guys what I've been working on.

I finished up the mortis dread...this army is gonna go up for sale to fund more guardsmen. They are fun and I love them but it's hard to play casual games with a stompy army of T7 -1D monsters.





Took some individual snaps too.



Also painted up the test catachan and valhallan.





I think they look good all together!



and WIP on Colonel Wario.



Thanks for looking everyone and happy painting

Shame to read that the Dreads will be sold. It is an awesome looking army. The latest pics are great. Good luck finding them a new home!

Thanks mate! Glad you like them.

They were a bit of a labour of love; and I'm glad I completed the project. Box dreads have been a favourite of mine ever since I dropped a mate's metal one on my foot when I was 8 years old and my foot swelled up like a balloon.

They are really just taking up cabinet space though. My local "meta" is very relaxed and the guys I play with just don't have the ability to skew hard enough into anti-tank to make a dent in them. And they seem to have just gotten stronger in 9th!

i thought about picking up a techmarine and some tacticals to fill out a battalion, but other armies were calling. I'm very excited to head back into the guard now, and the Eldar Exodites are a nice side project to expand on whenever I get inspiration.

A buyer came to pick them up this afternoon, and went round a bit earlier than expected while I was still at work so mrs tzurk handed them over. I didn't even get to say a proper goodbye to them!

But the buyer seemed lovely and excited to have them, so I think they are going to a good home.

I bought all the dreads second hand too and ended up making a small profit on the models, so that will be reinvested into hobby, which is good as things are a bit tight at the moment with some house projects and the wedding coming up.

Am I crazy? I am considering looking into either buying some GW tanks or some cheaper proxies to replace my 3D printed ones, and then having a play with those and turning them into a mechanised ork army. I have a large number of old fantasy orcs begging to be converted into a 40k army....

@turtles, I am definitely on board with a colonel Waluigi! The baneblade tank commander or the old metal Cadian colonel would be a good "tall and skinny" fit, I think.

@gobert I agree about keeping the different regiments consistent paint-wise. Will have a play with mixing them up within squads when I have more to work with but I have a feeling I will end up keeping them together. There was an old city fight article in a WD many years ago that had a bunch of different metal guardsmen painted up in a grey urban camo scheme. I've tried to find it without luck but that was the sort of energy I was channelling in my head there.

I have no pics yet, but the Valhallans have been given their Steel Legion Drab basecoats, and progress has been made on Wario - he should hopefully be done the next session I get on him.

Good hobby vibes at the moment! Catch some if you can.

Valhallan-ish Commander done!

While the tigerskin cap is not technically sanctioned uniform, nobody has been brave enough to ask Boris to remove it after watching him strangle the tiger himself.





On the foot soldier front, I've moved on to Tallarn Sand on the coats. They probably need another layer and then onto the detaily bits. Low key very excited to have a finished squad of Valhallans in my display cabinet.

Happy painting everyone 8-)

Nice snow effect, mind if i ask you for how you did it?

Sounds like Tsaragrad in UK WD220. Brilliant article if so. It also turned up in the 3rd Ed Guard codex

Now that is a gruff old soldier. I'd follow him anywhere (as long as there weren't too many tigers)

Snow bases look great. The crew are looking ready to take on any challenge. Good work.

Great updates, sad to see the dreads leave, but hopefully they found a good new home!

Love the painted Catachan and the look of all the models. The Creed conversion is great, love the glow on the cigar.