Long time no update.

So, I've joined the ranks of those irritating bloggers who update only when they feel like it and don't bother to commit to a schedule. THE BASTARDS. 

Anyway - as it's been such a crazily long time, here are a few of the things I've been up to, not all of them, but by no means as many as I should have liked to have done.

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Supermarine Techmarine with Thunderfire Cannon

 So yeah... I needed a thunderfire and techmarine to go with it, but only had the ancient 3rd ed. space marine command squad techmarine sans backpack (it went to a better, more chaosy place years ago and will stay there, albeit on a different model very shortly). So I fumbled together this monstrosity using bits of the drop pod kit, ork lootaz and various other bitz.

I'm particularly pleased with the targeting computer thingy he's about to use the touch screen on. He's totally playing Angry Servo Skulls.


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WiP Bloodthirster twins

So the new Daemon codex arrived, some people love it, some people hate it, mostly people are all 'meh' about the whole thing. I really like it, to the extent that its finally made me put together the two old, metal bloodthirsters I had kicking around in a box. Seriously, one of them is super-scary, 2 of them (though this will cost between 500 and 600pts haha), two should prove a nightmare for anyone.

Obviously, given that the original pose wasn't very interesting and the old head looked like the balrog's disabled cousin, I had to change something.

Entirely supported by that one arm. This is a precarious miniature.

Entirely supported by one leg. Because I'm a masochist or something.

Ok so I changed a few things, most obviously putting dire wolf heads on, dire wolves being:
a) dog like and hence suited to khorne,
b) big enough and
c) conveniently in my bitz box.

I've tried to make the poses a lot more exciting, which meant pinning EVERYTHING, which wasn't much fun. So I'm feeling slightly more tempted by finecast these days, as I might be able to make interesting conversions without reinforced steel beams.

Planned paintjob will be either very bright reds or browns. Because, y'know, I don't paint enough models brown.

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Not Huron Blackheart

Speaking of brown... Huron Blackheart has, of late, lent his aide to the tree-chaos thingys, for all that guaranteed infiltrating goodness and marine-smacking CC prowess. However, I'm not one to buy the actual model if I can help it, so here's a WiP of this guy.

His 'tyrant's claw' is a dark eldar jetbike exhaust with kroot blades on it. BECAUSE THOSE ARE THINGS THAT MAKE HANDS. 

He's not as beefy as the actual huron, but it's fairly obvious who he's meant to be, especially with his very own hamaydra-esque tree thingywhatsit crawling on his back.
After he's finished I may utilise the hole in his hand as a peg slot to give him a gout of glowy flame or something. Because I can.

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The Kreldarids

Ok, so that isn't actually what they're called, but it's a pretty good amalgamation of what they are.

Left to right: Incubi, Wych, Archon, Warrior, Warrior.

These are a few models (I can't be bothered to get them all out the box right now) from a 1000pt army (fieldable at 900pts without vehicle upgrades) using the dark eldar codex that I put together in a week, (probably a few hours a day for 7 days), all the way from concept to finished paintjob.

The Archon close up. Note his club of beating (a huskblade, what else!?)

I Might put something on the incubi's shield, but then again I might not.

As you can see, these chaps are constructed using a kroot warrior as a base, with a tyranid ripper cut in half to represent the head and tail. The skin was mostly done with washes, with some drybrushing here and there.

I decided to avoid metallic colours in the palette as I thought it'd keep them more 'tribal', plus obsidian bladed weapons look really cool.






I made this army because I needed a 900pt army for the following week and I had 7 old-style raider chassis sitting around that I've been looking for an excuse to use. A short rummage around the bitz box (es) revealed that while 3rd ed. dark eldar models were awful, kroot are great and ripper heads fit very nicely indeed.

There are 4 Raiders and 3 Ravagers in this army. Which is quite mean at 900pts. 

The plan is to add an allied eldar detachment to take it up to 1500pts, solely jetbike models represented by miniature dragons. Watch this space!

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Summfink Green iz stirring in da warp...



So, Space Marines only ever get disenfranchised with the Imperium because they wanna worship Chaos?

NOT IF GORK (or possibly Mork) HAS ANYTHING TO DO WITH IT!!!!

This is a fantastic hat. I had to use it.

So, here are a few fellas from my unit of Chosen, kitted out with all manner of orky nonsense.


Why can't they worship Gork'n'Mork? They are obviously real in the 40k universe, and exposure to their power doesn't necessarily mean the inquisition mind wipe you, your family and everyone who you ever made eye contact with so it's feasible that someone because fairly impressed with their power and thought 'hey, that seems like a bandwagon I could jump on'.

Also, it's easier to learn Orkish than the Daemon-tongue. Kghahhhwwkjkkr'hlk doesn't quite have the same ring to it as "OI, MATE!"



Ok, it's a fairly stupid idea but I think it's going to turn out amusingly enough.

I trimmed down their heads with a knife to look like skulls. 

Also, here are some of their daemonic allies (Bloodletters, can't you tell?).


I quite like the ethereal effect that's come out on these ghost-orks (Ghorks?), loosely based on this
this guide I found. Well done that man, whoever he is (though I had to do a few more coats etc. to get it to my liking, probably as these models aren't meant to be ethereal!).

Look how much blood they're letting. So much blood.

So yeah, an Orky army with no Orks. S'gonna be fun! Next stop, avatar of Gork (or possibly Mork)!

Supermarines Stormtalon

Now, don't get me wrong, some of the Space Marine vehicles have a great aesthetic. But GW's "flying brick that resembles a fish" didn't really do it for me.

 Had the Dark Angels codex yielded a decent flyer I might well have counted the Supermarines as DA, but as it stands, only the Stormtalon(guppy) is air-worthy - and I knew I wanted to field one - so vanilla 'dex it is! However, there is no way I'd fork out for the official model, so here's my interpretation:

Zooooooom

As you can see, I've gone for a more plane-like look, though I still think it's retained the SM look and feel, as it uses only the drop pod kit, a bike faring from the Dark Vengeance set, a tank commander body, an IG turret ring and some assault cannons. Pretty cheap!

Not a fish, brick or fishbrick

I have yet to acquire a suitable canopy, that's still to come - don't worry, the space marine won't have his bald head out in the high-altitude forever.

Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it's a bastardised drop pod.

I've also got some orange plastic to melt into flame effects for the engines - that's coming soon. When that's done and a couple of final touches applied I'll take some better pictures.

The typhoon missile launcher on top and the TL assault cannon are both magnetised so I can switch loadouts (and even use it as the Nephelim/Darkthingy if I so wish).

All in all, it didn't take very long and I'm fairly pleased with it. Best of all, I can make three from two drop pod kits (+ other parts and weapons), so I'll be doing a couple more in the future!

N.B. apologies for the crappy pictures, I didn't use my usual lighting set up.

Aaaand a Chaos Update.

What's that? Another HQ model? Yep. Sorry world.

Kharn The Betrayer, or as I like to call him, Kharn the previously-nice-guy-who-isn't-actually-that-bad

This time though, it's a regular model! I haven't tree-d it! Colour Scheme match proved sufficient, the head being a rather important part to this classic model.

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Aaand another one. This one I showed in my first picture-post, I painted him a while ago but only just got round to his glowy-stuff in the last few weeks.

The glow stuff is melted blast template/sprue.

This guy is meant to be either a steed-mounted sorceror of slannesh or a lord of slannesh (with burning brand. Can't get enough of dat brand). Outflank is so much fun, it'd be a shame not to take him.

I finally finished off my possessed squad too, the guy on the right here is being split down the middle by yet more green fire stuff, courtesy of a spare flamer template.








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In order to prove that the tree marines aren't nurgle all the time, I decided to brake-fluid and repaint the plague marines I bought back in 2001 or something when I first dabbled with Chaos.

As I'd already used greens and browns I went with an off-white-greenish-bone colour to represent the scions of papa nurgle, following the same helmet and right shoulder pad deviation from the standard colour scheme as all the other cults in my army. I'm pretty pleased with the result. And goddamn is nuln oil an amazing product.

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Last but certainly not least, it wouldn't be a blog post from me without a ridiculous WiP of something made out of the wrong thing!!

I present to you the <£10 Blight Drone!!!

Pretty close I think!!

Close up of the pilot and gun mounts.

Rotors are a bitch. Screw you rotors. 

I'll be greenstuffing over the tyre so it doesn't look like an anime unicycle. 

 As you can see, it didn't escape the tree-parts, though it could easily have been something else on the back end. This is also pre-greenstuff, so there'll be a few minor alterations on the finished kit.

The whole model involves:
1 chaos biker kit
1 kebab skewer
1 flying stand
1 HW team base
4 Terminator-size bases
1 defiler armour plate
1 tree branch
2 different sizes of plastic tubing (though these could just as easily be greenstuff/a drinking straw)
greenstuff

I figure all that can be bought for under a tenner, and it didn't take long to do either! It'd be even easier if it wasn't for the bastard rotor things being so fiddly. Without a dremel, I wouldn't do it again. Though I have a dremel, so I will be doing it again, at least once, maybe twice :D

I was initially going to scult a head like the FW model, but I think the addition of a hard-wired pilot is at the very least quite novel and adds a bit of character, keeping in line with my 'hey, it's a nurgle army that isn't quite nurgle. Or is it?" theme. Plus it keeps greenstuff to a minimum  and the parts used largely found in the biker kit!!

Until next time...

Back with two new space marine armies

Whoa... long break! Anyhoo...

So, in light of the Dark Angels codex release, I thought I'd finally paint some of the a) very old and b) brand new space marines I had kicking around. I won't be using them both as Dark Angels, because the codex isn't great for power armour orientated forces, which is what I'd like to field.

Anyway, here's some of the ancient marines, my very own DIY chapter from when I first started collecting in the late 90s, the Shadow Angels.

 Considering these guys have been through the brake fluid, having been painted extraordinarily badly the first (and in some cases second, third or fourth) time round, I think they've come out O.K!

There's room for improvement certainly, I may go back and apply more highlights to the black armour (I hate black armour. Hate it) - I'm determined to keep more or less the original colour scheme that 13 year old me came up with all those years ago. The colour of the chest eagle is a departure but a small one.

I also apologise for the lack of basing on this unit (and the other units in this post). Unfortunately the company I ordered from, Triple Helix Wargames, have been having trouble with their supplier so I'm having to wait. I should have ebayed it. Sigh.

On Fluff: The Shadow Angels are an Ultramarine successor chapter (unknown founding) dedicated to eradicating renegade chapters that share their geneseed. Given the sheer number of Ultramarine spinoffs the current background presents us with, that shouldn't be too hard! I'll be using Dark Angels rules for these guys, given the anti-chaos slant of the book, and the Banner of Devastation which will make the bolters-only tacticals a scary sight.  

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Starting an army anew is never that easy, though my two copies of Dark Vengeance pretty much dictated what the core infantry were going to be. The hardest part of choosing any army for me is settling on a colour scheme and sticking to it. Thankfully, this time around I took my inspiration from the ever-iconic man of steel...

The hands were originally going to be bone too, but it didn't really work. 

I give you... the SuperMarines!! Yes, their codpieces are red too. Though initially a scheme I tried out for a laugh on the fantastic Bolter and Chainsword Space Marine Painter, I found it worked rather well, certainly echoing other chapters' heraldic schemes. 

Dark Vengeance has provided me with lots of plasma. I'm not going to argue. 

 I've now finished both DV squads, including converting both sergeants. While I can let duplicate infantry models slip (much as it pains me), there's no way I'm having any characters look identical!!

Freehand text on the banner denoting their homeworld of Metropolis. I'm totally going to milk this.

 This is Commander Kent, captain of the 2nd Company (or something).

On Fluff: The Supermarines origins are unknown, though it is rumoured they were created from Dark Angels' genestock. The reason for most of their actions (and indeed the secret reason for their creation, known only to Azrael, Dante of the Blood Angels and Logan Grimnar) is to one-up the Sons of Guilliman in all things, something at which they excel, much to the chagrin of Marneus Calgar. The Supermarines are a constant reminder to the Ultramarines that there are those that view their poster-boys-of-the-Imperium status with more than a little jealousy and bitterness.  Their homeworld Metropolis is very similar to Macragge, only slightly larger and, as frequently pointed out, totally absent from Tyranid invasions. 

Suck it Ward.