Imperial Knight - Cerastus in manufactorum pt 11

A nights work? I struggle sometimes to reconcile how I feel so much satisfaction for so little output, but I made a damn decision, actually I made two, so that's definitely satisfying. I decided to have a crack at some damage and to do the white stripe on the chest piece too, and they were the right decisions. The battle damage is all freehand, no sponges just making choices of where to put damage. That may come back to bite me as I'm sure it'll look contrived somehow, but the results [even if the highlights are a bit mixed up] speak for themselves. This just went up another level and I can't wait to do more. Yet I have to wait, as I need to add on litanies and any decals or freehands first so I can then add further battle damage over the top of it. But it's really broken up the highlights of the panel, which where a bit rough and patchy in places and this helps draw focus away from the deficiencies.
And the stripe too came out much better than expected, I'm also thinking of putting the white Metalica decal below the stripe, I think that would work really well if I can also manage to tone the white down a bit.

To add to the 'extensive' progress I made in one evening I also weathered my pylon [ooer, missus!]. I only did one of them and a teleport homer and although I'm loving the effect I think I've gone overboard in some places so it looks less like weathering and more like there is some kind of St Elmo's fire surrounding the pylon. That isn't a bad thing really as I could imagine the energy discharge doing just that, but it's both effective and dubious[?] at the same time. It's mentally jarring at the very least, it just makes me question what I'm seeing that's all, I like it I just don't know exactly what it's conveying. Not that it matters, it is what it is and now I just have to patina the other 4 markers.

The only other question is do I add some lighting effects on the emitters? They would be yellow/orange like my Tactical squads plasma coils I've got to add some red lighting effects on the teleport homer beacons which I'm hoping will help me come to terms with the lighting I'll use on my Ravenwing but I don't know if I should do the glow on these... so much for being decisive!

Well, to prove it wasn;t a one off I made another decision the following night. I started work on some chevrons on the Cerastus right shin guard. I used my one of ever-handy coffee stirrer sticks to set the width of the stripes. I think I started penciling in the line just below the horizontal leaf on the central bronze reinforcement. I didn't want to go through it and luckily the stripes seemed to fall quite evenly spaced.

Given house Raven is predominantly black as an accent I chose that as the dominant colour. I then filled in the alternate stripes with my still remaining watered down Mecharius Solar Orange.

Then Iadded watered down Tau Sept Ochre which doesn't look particularly yellow in the pot but looks positively lemon here. I tried to be a bit rough with it to allow some of the underlying tones to show through but in comparison to the crapace stripes this is much more opaque. I will add a very thin highlight on the top edges of each stripe and then use washes to try and tone it back. I'm hoping thte shading will increase contrast so I don't have to do too many highlights. I do really like the texture that's still apparent from the Vermilion craft acrylic, that's definitely a regret I didn't do the carapace that way and instead went straight to the chevrons.

 

You may also just note there is some litanies on the left of the shin pad, I should have taken some pictures as I'm less impressed with the results. I did some Valejo Heavy read before I applied Bonewhite. This was to ad a bit of shading  and although I usually do light-grey litanies I thought sticking with bonewhite would help tie some of the colours together. I even highlighted them a bit but I think the extra painting has reduced the sharpness and details. Hopefully I'll get better at it and then the battle damage will obscure the worst of my efforts ;) So although slightly disappointed [yes, I am my own worst critic] this was good progress and highlighted areas that will prove challenging.

Parts: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 |

Blog Wars X

Today is Blog Wars X, I can't say enough how much I enjoy this event and appreciate all the hard work Alex From the Fang does in putting on the event. When I started back into the hobby and met up with my mates and they were desparate to attend Warhammer World I really enjoyed the experience but it is costly, the tickets and accommodaiton is one thing but it's not just the price it's the time overhead too. You're away from home for two nights at least and getting back from Nottingham on a Sunday can be quite late.

Obviously for me and my mates the North West Gaming Centre is practically round the corner, I know  alot of people have to travel much further and I can sympathise with that but the tickets are considerably cheaper and it only being a one day tournie means you still get at least half your weekend at home with the family. And the raffle is also pretty cool, not that I've ever won anything in that but I've made up for it obviously in other ways and there is always that chance - it could be you!

Alex has stated ext year there will only be one Blog Wars, with the fledgling tournament Fluffageddon taking the November spot. Fluffageddon was originally set for September just gone but didn't have enough interest. I know I struggled to fit another even in between BW9 and X but I've every intention to jump onto it in November 2016 as I wish I could have been involved in BW1. We may well look at attending a Warhammer World event in March/April too as it's been far too long since our last visit but for right now I'm looking forward to todays competition, BW11 and Fluffageddon.

I'll let you know how we all got on as soon as I can, have a great weekend.

Terrain is everything - 'Tis the season to pick up your trees

A few years ago I picked up a bag of model trees from Dobbies, our local garden centre [and craft shop]. They only have them in the run up to Christmas as they're for making your own Christmas scene with miniature revelers and holiday nik-naks. I've not seen them the last couple of years but it might have reurned to my local store, or yours should you know of a Dobbies nearby.  I've noticed online other garden centres do stock them also.

Now I haven't had chance to go this year but I'm hoping they're back in stock and just thought I'd remind folk about them. The set I got was 21 pieces from a company called Lemax for £13 which I think is good value. Clearly there's at least two that are just a bit too big, they're the same size as my 40k outpost that got bigger! but great line of sight blockers for a Trygon!

Of course they weren't going to fit with my table so I decided to paint them - undercoating them all in Red Oxide primer and then repainting them in shades of yellow.

And here's the finished result:

'nids part 179 - CARNIFEX!

Quick one [hopefully], as promised [or is that threatened?] here's the Carnifex Brood photos.

Really chuffed how conisistent the painiting has become the only real differnce is the slime base on the second Carnifex, which, with hindsight, is a little inconvenient as Carnifex 1 and 2's bases match up really well.

Nevermind, the Hive devours on.

I'm really liking Carnifex now, there's something about the model that's cool I can understand why people end up with nine of these things despite the leg positioning making the posing options relatively limited.

I'm pretty certain that if I wasn't careful I'd end up with quite a few more, which is daft as currently I think I'd struggle to fit more than three in a list.

I do like the way I can bunch them all up, as if they needed to huddle together like kittens, big monstrous all consuming nightmare inducing alien killing kittens!

Right, that's enough nids for now.

Back to the Cerasatus Knight!

Blog Wars X Tyranid Army list

As I've seen a few other blogs post their BWX army lists I thought why the heck not. Having abandoned the Dark Angels as a bad idea [and also unachievable given timescale and rate of progress] the nids will be there yet again. I'm reluctant to enter them into the painting competition, having won last time, but Alex said it's not a problem and I honestly think there will be lots of competition for the top spot as I know Liam and Otty's armies will do really well alongside the usually high standard of entrants. But I know it's an issue for some and money is involved so I'd rather not be 'that guy' when I don't have to be. From recent experience I know whatever good will I generate from people enjoying the army is easily lost when the competitive side gets involved so I;d rather just display it and try and promote the blog this time.

So, here's my list, I was apprehensive about the new double CAD option at first, it was only in the last few weeks when I was asking some questions of Alex that he pointed out it was possible that I could take two CADs, I was still under the impression it was not possible to have two of the same faction. So I created this list and finally able to run [swoop] two Flyrants, which I haven't been able to do at Blog Wars since the old Codex, which obviously had the Doom of Malantai who was everyones favourite Special Character but he was an Elite choice so made 2 Flyrant HQs easy. Nowadays all but one of our Specials are HQs so twin Flyrants was difficult. 

I've dropped the Manufactorum Genestealers because there were too many models and I needed to shave points. The Children of Cryptus came in instead, slightly more durable, less board presence and ability to affect how your opponent deploys [I so love messing with people's heads before they even put models down] but they are Ob Sec which is pretty valuable. Overall I wanted more MCs, less body count. Obviously they 30 gaunts counter that but there are only 52 models in total so hopefully my games will be a little quicker. I was able to shave a few points off by dropping some Hive Guard I was going to take and instead replace their four T6 4+ saves with the Mawloc's six T6 3+ saves. Now I'm not sure if it'll be anymore effective, it may not even turn up in the game and he is notoriously and literally 'hit and miss' but I like my model and who knows he may work well with Deathleaper this time. I also dropped my Tyrannofex but I'm pretty sure the twin Flyrants and the Tyrannocyte podding in the second Carnifex or even the transporting the tunneling Rippers should I feel the need the Carni's are better starting on the ground will allow me more board presence. I don;t have any weapons higher than S6 but I suppose there's always assaulting with the Carni's too. Either way I think it's a fun list for me, maybe not too nice with the 2 Flyrants but it could have been worse if I had Crones and Harpies. Anyway, bring on Saturday.

'nids part 178 - OHNiOOE- Oh Hell No! its Old One Eye TO DONE!

With a bit of a push to finish OOE for Armies on Parade I surprised myself how quick he came togethe. To be fair I repurposed my Tervigon Crushing Claws, he is the uber Carnifex afterall so I will have to finish of the standard Claws at some point.

 

However, someone did mention on a forum they'd used Haruspex claws to represent OOE so I fancy doing that as well at some point.

I also want to pick up another set of Fleshborer Hives so I can run three dakkafex although I do like this stripped down version so I probably need to do another set of Scything Talons as well. I do like the motion in this pose but I do feel I need one that's more upright, rearing up, which obviously goes against my only three Carnifex directive.

And I've three spare heads to finish off as well, two bio-plasma and one toxic tongue, no real reason for doing them, I just wanted alternative options.

I'm at least a little happier with his skull now, the carbon skeleton is still odd butI added some more Tamiya Clear Red X-27 and I think it works better now.

It reminds me a little of the Alien Resurrection hybrid.

A close up ohis back and patterning.

Probably the easiest MC I've painted in a long while. So glad I took some time to interupt my Imperium efforts with this. I've ended up completing something I had on the books, enjoyed the process and have returned to the Imperium with renewed vigour. Definitely something to learn from to add to my arsenal of tricks to raise motivation. I've done this before and been aware of the benefits but repetition with the same results is confirming the efficacy of this approach

And my first Big Green Stamp of approval, yeah, don't forget folks hobby Season is for all year, not just for Christmas ;) I've another set of pictures to follow of all three Carnifex together, I hope you don't mind.

Support your local blogger - If it wasn't for ones

It's been a really long time since I asked folk if they wanted a little spotlight on their blog from my blog. I thought it'd help them out and also provide me with something to share when I didn;t have any content but sometimes it took just as long to write a post about their blog than perhaps writing a Battle Report, well, not that long but it eventually become something easier to not do than do.

But I decided to at least crack on with some of those who orginally asked post  Frank O'Donnell of http://ifitwasntforone.blogspot.co.uk put his name down and he's always been a big supporter and commenter ont he blog so I decided it was about time I showed him some support in return. His blog has changed quite a lot and recent posts suggest he's given up 40k [is that still the case Frank?] but that doesn't mean there isn't a host of 40k content on the blog you can't still access. 

You can also enjoy his many current posts on other games and there's also a whole host of interesting terrain building articles in case you're hankering for some hobby inspirations. So please do check it out: http://ifitwasntforone.blogspot.co.uk