LED challenge marine!

So, I was recently challenged by the local GW staffer, and some regulars, to put an LED inside a regular marine.

So I did. 

The light is orange, I would have preferred green but I only remembered to do it the night before the challenge was due!

The extra tall base (I may put some Tyranids/zombies climbing up it for that classic DOOM feel) hides the wiring, and to be fair, is a lot taller than it needs to be, mainly as I was on a time constraint, but also as my soldering skills are a little sub-par (well, and my soldering iron is pretty much broken).

I took one of those 4-for-£1 electric tea lights (poundland has them), which not only contained a power source and LED, but circuitry to make the LED flicker in a 'fiery' way, which really adds to the effect. I then snipped the LED away from its original wiring and re-soldered it to wires that passed up through the Chaos Space Marines legs. That means that there is no wiring on the outside of the model, which is excellent, the LED itself being housed in the chest/neck area, which was all hollowed out with a drill. The base has that strange gap in it to allow access for the battery cover slide.

As an aside, I would love to make the muzzle-flash bits light up, but this was the first time I'd attempted any, and I think they turned out O.K. as they are. I made them by whittling down bits of sprue, and then shaping them further with a dremel.

More light up madness to follow no doubt!

Dreadnoughts! Or Helbrutes, whatever.

Most people really, really seem to hate the chaos dreadnought. Just because he might go crazy and kill your own men! I however have a soft spot for them, and the conversion opportunities they present!

First up is my first chaos dread, he's a space crusade dreadnought (from 1989 I believe), with a good deal of cannibalised parts, mostly from other walkers.

A defiler 'mask' was a good substitute for the goofy original face he had. I have two spare cowlings from space crusade dreads (the smaller ones though, not this one), they might find their way onto a traitor sentinel squadron...

The tube things are his missile launcher, honest.

 All the arms/guns are magnetised, though I've never bothered to equip him with anything else. The beauty of the missile launcher means if he does flip out and decide to fire at his own side, I can elect to use frag and bounce it harmlessly from a nearby Rhino.

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Next up there's this amalgamation of various parts. He's got the legs of a space crusade dread (and the lower torso), the metal sarcophagi from an actual chaos dreadnought and err... well the rest is trees and dryads. I've only just made this one (just before Dark Vengeance came out), and I'm fully aware that CC dreads aren't all that fantastic in 6th due to the proliferation of krak grenades among most enemies. But it seemed like a good idea! And who knows, he's cheap enough to field without really caring if he does anything terribly effective.

I drilled out the... crotch things. Those are his two twinlinked bolters.

I'm pretty pleased how the dryads-for-arms thing worked out. Didn't end up looking like Megazord, which was my main worry. 

I think the blending on the claws came out pretty well! 

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Right, last dread. Obviously the most recent, being none other than the helbrute. Now the helbrute is a fantastic model, and probably my favourite part of the Dark Vengeance box. But even a kit that well sculpted isn't safe from tree-ification!!

Perspective!!!

 I left out the face and front plate and magnetised his weapon barrels so I can have other, more useful weapons. I've only made the multimelta he came with and the TL lascannon so far.

 Now, astute readers will notice that he has a very tall base. This isn't just to make him more impressive/imposing (he's only just taller than the other two dreads I have, the helbrute is a very short model). Nope. He's on a big base because I am a cheapskate, and that was the size of the battery pack that powers his internal lighting!!

Behold! Lighty-up chaosy death! Oh, and his multimelta back on. 

The base actually contains a solar panel, revealed when the stone slab between his legs is removed, so I didn't have to faff about changing batteries etc. The switch is concealed in the grass behind him, so he won't use up the charge unnecessarily.

Shot showing some of the 'green glow' bits I made in his back. 

Inside the hollow cavity of the upper body sits a regular, white LED, wired up through the legs into the base. Shone through some carved/melted necron rod sprue (or template sprues, I'm not sure where it came from) it gives off a nice glow! Obviously it's subtle at best in a well lit room, hence the dodgy photography.

That's all for today. Defilers can wait until I make the second one up and convert my original one to have a decent weapon loadout (a million CC arms isn't always best apparently!).

A Sample of CSM and the Daemonic Contingient

Righto, as promised, this time there's a few shots of one of the squads of my Chaos Marines.

Champion, two plasma gunners and normal marines in the back

Standard Bearer and Champion. I've been using that banner top to represent an Icon of Chaos Undivided - I think it's from a beastmen set? 

Just another angle of the squad.

So yeah, that's what my regular marines look like! I'm really pleased with how the branches-for-horns thing has worked out, even if it does make them a little difficult to store! The Aspiring Champion is equipped with a power fist - even though it's a grassy bit from the dryad sprue it's sufficiently obvious and I've never had any complaints (Most AC's have one, though this looks to change with 6th so any future squads may have power swords or nothing particularly special at all). All the AC's in the army have that head (or the eyepiece variant), and those on foot and have a larger branch piece mounted on their backpack as opposed to on their helm, in addition to the chainmail loincloth. I find it helps tie them together.

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Raptors - I've not heard of many other chaos players advocating their use, but I really like them! They're certainly useful for getting an icon into place quickly and for melta delivery, as well as being O.K. assault troops. Anyway, here are mine so far:

First thing that people notice is the contrails, which I'm pretty pleased with. It's all made of melted sprue, once again, ventilation is a good idea!! In the back you can see the AC for the unit, he's an oddball in the army as he's equipped with lightning claws. I think originally he had the rending upgrade thing from the 3.5 codex, hence the hands!

More Raptors. They all have pennies glued to the underside of their bases, they fell over alot before I did that!

And one more. I know the lines in the jump packs aren't right, I did these a while ago O.K.! The heads for all my raptors (including some metal ones I'm in the process of converting up) are the Khorne Bezerker skulls with the 'ears' filed off.  

I've had this squad of 6 for as long as I can remember, but I'll be adding a few more, as mentioned metal (urgh) to the pool. Here's hoping they get some fun rules soon! Either way I'll keep using them, no-one expects them.

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Possessed! - In order to ease into the Daemonic side of things I figure I'd show some of the possessed. They're one of the rare units who feature exposed skin (except havocs who are all bald, I'll post them up at some point). Ghoul and Kroot parts are a big feature with them, as well as more green sprue and of course dryads!

This guy to the foreground is one of my favourite possessed. He just looks... gnarly.

Check out the guy in the background, his upper thigh and arm (between shoulder to wrist) are green melty stuff!

And of course the obligatory 'aaargh' pose. I'm working on another one who is actually being split in half by the green glow. It's going to be tough to pull off, I tell you!

So yeah, possessed. They don't achieve much really! But they're fun to make so that's enough of an excuse to have some! One day they'll be useful.

Though not quite a possessed marine, this <-- is Geoff. He doesn't get used very much, he's an aspiring champion with no upgrades who exists solely to be possessed by greater daemons. I like the wood parts I've used on him though so I might make him some kind of funky possessed champion. Who knows!










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In a similarly not-quite-Daemonic vein, here are two Obliterators. They're made of Treeman models, one of which is veerrrrrrrrry old I think!

This guy needs a smaller base, I'm not sure why I put him on that one. The blue bit is meant to be his helmet/glass dome head thing, but it looks kind of like he's wearing a hat. Oh well.

Both of these guys have their green glow stuff magnetised on. Mostly because at the time I'd just got some magnets and hey, why not!?

 If I get any more Obliterators I'm not really sure where to start. On a side note, I knew I had a power scourge dreadnought arm somewhere, now looking at that last picture I finally know where it went! What it takes to notice....

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Daemonic Incursion!!

Not much to say about them really, they're lesser Daemons, though from now on (given the allies system) they'll mostly be Plague Bearers.

I've only finished painting 8 of them, I have 30. :(

In an equally dryad-tastic style, here's my take on epidemus. I couldn't think of a way to represent him so he's a hollow cloak, which echoes the hollow helms or bare skulls my marine HQ's have.

I wasn't sure whether to keep it completely tree-based but once I'd settled on making him a cloak with hands, I figured he'd also have scrolls etc.! The Empire flagellant and bretonnian men at arms sprues are full of useful bits like these. 

You can see how I've replaced an arm each (and used that back slot thing Dryads have) as branches to support Epidemus' platform. And how branches for the legs for his 'desk'.

A recent convert to Nurgle is up next, previously he's been my summoned greater daemon. Now he'll just be a Daemon Prince (of the Chaos Daemon variety) with Gaze and not a great deal else - dedicated to getting that tally up!

Except his head, he's entirely custom sculpted from melted sprue. It worked pretty well I think. 

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As they've served me so faithfully in recent years (what, with those delicious 20pt wings!), and I neglected to put them in my last post about HQs, here are my daemon princes. One is a tree with Orion, king in the woods emerging from it, one is a huge mishmash of ork, tyranids, uruk hai, ogres, tank parts and green stuff. That's all there there is to it really!! 

A lot of people actually mistake him for a tree in some games. Which is hilarious when they forget how dangerous this tree is. Camouflage is fantastic.

Yeah, I can't name all the parts on this guy. I know this legs are mostly some shoddy greenstuffing around a tyranid warrior, and that his body might be mad-dok grotsnik bulked up. This is his 2nd army, previously I collected alpha legion   - this guy and my land raider survived only to be tree-ified!

Also, the second guy has magnetised wings. Now he can double up as a Chaos daemons prince, without costing an arm and a leg! 

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That's about it for this post, I think I've covered all my daemonic things so far! Well, except the tzeentch element, but they'll get their own thing soon enough.

Of course, honorary mention goes out to the most useless unit in the codex, who once, once, did something useful by charging 24" in a turn (to the surprise of everyone) and wiping out some guardsmen. 

If my memory serves correctly, the original purpose I bought this model (there's a mordheim possessed under all that dryad) was as a daemon prince. His wings kept falling off and he was just too short. How the mighty have fallen to the ruinous powers!

Next time I might post something other than chaos. A Likely Story...

A few of the Chaos Tree HQs

I'll be posting mostly about my Chaos Space Marine army, as its the force I keep coming back to and adding to every year, no matter what other tasty morsels GW throw out at me - I always find a way to justify using it as Chaos instead.

Since Summoned Daemons (of the lesser and greater variety) are rumoured to be facing the banhammer from the 6th ed. CSM codex, I guess I'll also be straying into Chaos Daemon territory here too!

I haven't got a name for these guys yet, suggestions are welcome!


First up - the oldest of my HQ models for this army.

Here you can see the tone of the army pretty well, he's a mish-mash of various CSM parts, with a good deal of fantasy bits thrown in. And obviously, the ever present Dryads.

If you're wondering, as many opponents and other games have whenever these guys come out to play 'is it Nurgle?' then no, it's just Chaos Undivided (though they do moonlight as followers of the plague god occasionally, especially when Epidemus is about). The Simple explanation is that I was really, really taken with the Wood Elf Dryad Kit, hence my choice to incorporate it and other wood/tree parts into the army as much as possible! I think it makes for a pretty sweet theme. 

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Next up, a Chaos Lord, counts as on a Disc of Tzeentch - in Lieu of a storm shield equivalent I gave him the MoT for that delicious invunerable boost, and the extra attack from the steed makes it better than a jump pack in my book! I usually count him as having a power fist - the idea was that he'd go punch tanks or something.

This time the tree theme is a little more subtle - as it is on all my 'marked' models - just having part of the citadel wood as a shield. The mace thingy is from some Skaven plague monks I believe.

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This next guy has always been one of my favourite HQs (although his damn hammer has fallen off more times than I care to count), doubly so now that he's real T5! Thankyou 6th ed! You can see from his driver the wider look of my army - branches instead of horns. I'll stick up a picture of a few squads another time. 

That stupid hammer... grrr... It's normally a Daemon Weapon if you were wondering.

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Now for this chap, my Terminator Lord (with Daemon Weapon again - I just like modelling them, they always kill themselves...). Note that I'm not awesome at painting lighting effects, the green flame stick thing and the shiny bit on the tree branch in front of him is Necron green rod sprues that I've attacked with a soldering iron - I've found it can be sculpted pretty well with some patience (and preferably a gas mask - I don't recommend anyone do it unless they own something like one!). 

His arms are from an Ogre Irongut I think. Like the last 3, he's a few years old now!

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Lastly for this post, I'll stick up a few pictures of some WiP Lords/Sorcerors that aren't quite done yet - I hope you enjoy them! I'll repost when they're done. 

This guy I just made as a bog standard power sword and plasma pistol Lord. I don't expect him to achieve much. Also, he features a couple of metal parts, which is something I normally try to avoid if I can. 

This is Chaos Lord N'kage. Because Mr. Cage is a phenomenal actor, O.K? 

Apparently now I put everything on a mount... I've 3 centaur marines to accompany him in the works so far - counting as bikers. Let's hope the new CSM codex gives me a more chaotic option for them to fill in as! 

Well, I hope you like what little of my work you've seen - like I mentioned, the finished ones shown here are all pretty old so my painting has improved is a little different nowadays. I'll get round to photographing a few more bits of my collection soon.

Next Time - CSM squads and Daemons. 

Greetings Blog things.

Hello. I'm here to finally start some sort of Warhammer 40,000 painting/conversion/modelling log. About 10 years after I meant to.

It took the death of a dear friend - trusty old Boltgun Metal, in whose honour this page is named - to kick me into action. I'll be showcasing what I'm working on at the moment, and probably just some of my favourite bits of my collection. Comments and criticism are appreciated of course.