Sunday 27 December 2015

Dark Angels - Jefighter!

It doesn't look like I ever rewarded this model with a post of it's own, it just got lumped in with other projects I was working on simultaneously. Well with the Knight at a 'save point' it was time to overcome the inertia on this project. Stumbling blocks were fundamentally magnets. It's always problematic but so worth it. There are tutorial online of course to help [often I still find it hard], the one I first printed out was from the eternal wargamer but Michael Corr has an equally detailed one over at St Andrews Wargaming and obviously I put my own spin on in it. Really my method was just fill it with Milliput and drill out holes at me leisure. I did the underwing mounts and the nose cannon that way. Putting the milliput into whatever holes, then gluing the wepon mounts in place, which squashed the putty. Then using the weapons, pre-dipped in water and squashing them gently - providing a perfect surface to drill into for my magnets when the Milliput cures. I'm still not sure about the targeter/heavy bolter mounts either side of the nose. Mike said they're too hard to swap so it's a blocker to overcome.


The top of the jetfighter, I just glued in some sprue and attached a magnet.


I then filled the two tops with Milliput and pressed it into place until I got an impression of the magnet. This means I can easily align it perfectly to fit the one in the fuselage.


I also prepared the Rift Cannon extension that will allow the magnet to butt up against the Milliput in the nose.


So magnets go in next and I just have to decide what to do about the targeter/heavy bolter mounts either side of the nose and whether to magnetise the hover jets/ammo covers. When I first got this I never expected to make the Dark Talon, the Jetfigther was a better prospect but magnetising for variety is so worthwhile. Now the Dark Talon is considerably better  but I'm not 100% wedded to representing all things through magnets I just need to decide which options I can live with glued in place, what would you do?

Friday 25 December 2015

HAPPY X-MAS


Merry X-Mas from Professor Egon Seuss and the rest of the Magos on Ferron Proxima. Additional felicitations from the guys and gals at the Vulcan Institute of Techno-Archaeology. May all your X-mas wishes be plastic [or resin, but not Finecast].

In case you're not X-mas orientated please accept the following good wishes:


I will be posting up a holiday gift lift later in the week, y'know when people have time to look at the blog instead of being sat stuffed on turkey, sprouts, Christmas pudding and Quality Street so see you all then, then!


Thursday 24 December 2015

Imperial Knight - in manufactorum pt 5

With a concerted pushI managed to get the Knight through to undercoat stage. Mostly dry fit in places - carapace, shoulders and obviously the weapon mounts. Ultimately this is the stage I watned to get to so I can happily move onto prep work on other porjects. As there are still hurdles to overcome here - magnettising the missile launcher, some pistons on the weapons it seems a safe place to pause, hopefully coming back wiht a fresh view to move past the obstacles.


Hopefully you can also make out the hatch and the fact it won't shut properly. I drilled out the hinge and actually put a pin throughto make it open/close. Unfortunately it's positioned such that it won't close properly and the hinges will potentially break with continued use but to get this level of accessibilty was quite a challenge so I'll live with it.


Having undercoated the pieces separately I was able to use a piece of card to mask the areas around the feet and use Red Oxide Primer on the base. I could have used Vermilion over the black but I'm always more confident that the car spray will form a better base to paint on.


As this Knight will be green and have a similar theme to the Gerantius scheme I will need to plan how I'm going to achieve that. As I typed this I had a vision of yellow and black chevrons to tie it in with the Cerastus but this guy is not connected with House Raven so I really shouldn't do that. Checkered pattern though, now that would fit with his origins and create a whole lot of work I'd not planned on - thanks imagination!


Either way next step is Red Planet BASE! and then to stipple any of my acrylic paints from the same make as my Vermilion onto the armour plates to create a texture I can riff off further down the line. It was so effective on the Cerastus and if I can repeat the effect in green I can replicate it across all my armour and definitely my Ravenwing too [as I already showed it was possible in the black areas of my knight].

Parts: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 |

Wednesday 23 December 2015

Wargames ...shall we play a game

A while back I came across a Kickstarter campaign by a guy wanting to open a new gaming centre/shop. If I'm honest I didn't really follow what was going in the campaign but I kept on seeing bits and bobs about it and as things progressed it looked set to become a reality. I'm not sure at which point I suddenly realised this new venue would be opening in Southport, a 15 minute drive from where I live but as progress in the shop was being shared I got a little bit excited. The other week Wargames officially opened and the weekend after, having just watched Star Wars, I decided to take the kids to have a look. I'd noticed there hadn't been any pictures of the shop online since it had been opened and the impresison I got beforehand was that it was pretty big and I was not wrong. The pictures don't really convey the size sadly but there is about 5 or 6 tables set up with room for another 8 or so... downstairs! And there is going to be three floors, with purely gaming on the upper two. There's a mix of products available and my eldest was particularly interested in the Batman Skirkish game, he's already planning on spending Christmas money on it!


Nothing was priced up yet but friends have confirmed it is indeed offering saving on standard GW products, what that will do to the Southport GW time will tell. The problem for them is they're set up primarily as a hobby space which has allowed parents to leave their kids, go shopping and come back. Whereas Wargames has a cafe, comfy seating, presumably a toilet and in the new year they'll even have an alcohol licence for the upper floors! Add in the fact it has more than just GW product, and room to game [which I believe will be pay-to-play as I recall that was some part of the Kickstarter campaign where you got a membership option for cheaper games], this shop could be the go-to place for hobbyists. I spoke to the owner and he was really cool, so I hope it's a success for him, I just hope the town can sustain both shops. Not that we get into Souhtport as often as we'd like but as Wargames will stay open until 11:30 it's possible we could attend for a few games and there are plans for tournaments too, and you know we like a tournament. Oh, and they've got battlemats too, as you can see below. I know you can get these online but there's nothing like seeing one in the flesh.


There are also various display cabinets with a number of store armies on display. I was particularly taken by this wee beasty. It really is beginning to grow on me as a model, despite it's convoluted rules. I just can't decide if I'd want it or rather go the Trygon/Tervigon kitbash route that looks so effective for a fraction of the cost.


Anyway, just thought I'd share my thoughts, give heads up to what looks like a really good proposition and although they have stuck to the tried and tested 'red and black and white' of your average boys bedroom ;) it's definitely more in keeping with my idea of an open and airy place to venture into, rather than avoid. Good luck to 'em.

Tuesday 22 December 2015

Imperial Knight - in manufactorum pt 4

Having organised what projects I have going forward I've structured a plan of action, specific short term goals so I can keep a lot of plates spinning before the 'focus' hits. Getting the knight fully magnetised, based and undercoated is that first goal, before I move onto something else then hopefully cycle back around to basecoats etc. So I went back to Alex's magnetising a Knight tutorial as I figured he'd already looked at siph-horridus on weemen's and the Codex Imperialis guide and potentially improved the process and in turn I could put my spin on things. The great thing was that in the midst of doing it you can immediately see what's going to work for you and what's not. I decided the battle cannon melta swap would be through packing out the barrels with Milliput. I was in the process of doing the ammo feed swap but realised I really didn't care enough about it, and just glued the hopper on, giving me the melta fuel tanks as a separate bit I can use on a base or something. Should I ever get another Knight I'll do the opposite for variety.

And for the most part that's the only magnetising I needed to do as I suddenly figured out a swap method for the arms. Alex had already evolved the waist joint from siph's process, he cut notches either side so his sprue attachment could slot in like lock and key. So I just expanded that to all my arm weaponry. The two shoulder mounts had their connecting rims all trimmed back to form two ridges and all the weapons had two notches taken out. Now it can be fiddly fitting them in as I did the notches left to right, meaning the weapons are rotated 90 degrees to fit them in and the length of the barrels is a little awkward, although even if it was front to back I think there'd be the same problem... however, because the torso is detachable it's not impossible to weaponise it while separated and then combine the top and bottom. The resulting join is not as flush as magnets, the weapons all have bits that prevent it looking as neast as I'd prefer [Alex trims those off in this guide] but, because this is essentially a 'friction' fit I'm not about to remove parts that make the arms stay in place. Better to have an imperfect posable model than a perfect model whose pose keeps slipping.


I've still to sort out the stubber, ion shield and melta and there are a number of pistons that need to be added which will lock in some weapon poses but not sufficient that I feel that I've lost some posability. You can definitely see though that the alignment of the torso with my subtle change in the legs makes this look far more dynamic than it usually does.


Having done all of that I also based the knight, I didn't take any pictures, its only sand and glue afterall. I'd later discover that the very fine sand in my mix is making the base look quite odd - the sand sets in a solid mass, obscuring the medium sized pieces I spent a long time sifting out of my big bag of sand. It also creates little dimples where some of the PVA dries quicker and the surface tension leaves a little 'mole hole'. It did the smae on the Cerastus and I was going to put things growing out of them but thought better of it.

Anyway, having seen the result I added another layer of PVA over the suspect areas and re-applied the medium sized sand, which seem to have solved the problem. But even the first application was sufficient to make me feel a thrill of success. Every time I ran it through my head that I'd actually based the model, the perceived obstacle for it being sat on the shelf for 5 months, I literally felt like Sheldon in the Big Bang [below].


Now if that's not signs of addiction I don't know what is and as mentioned in some of my recent comments it's both amazing and just a little scary that it's happening but also that just by thinking about it I can feel that same sense of satisfaction at will! It's like having a little endorphin tap. But that's possibly just me as that door swings both ways and there are plenty of things that nag at me relentlessly that can suck all the life out of my hobby vibe. Still, I'm feeling good about all this so best not look a gift-horse in the mouth :)

Parts: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 |

Monday 21 December 2015

PeteB's Khorne Daemonkin

PeteB's moved on a bit from his space pixies, I don;t believe he's sold them but he's been corrupted by the chaos Gods and fallen for the Daemonkin Codex. It was in February at my 40k @ 40 bash that he and Liam spent a good deal of time debating the dirty options the Codex could throw up and it's nice to see the results and how much fun he's getting out of this wildly different army compared to the Eldar.

Typically PeteB has speed painted most of his force so far, but not sacrificing quality in the process. I'm pretty envious of how good these look in such a short time, I sometimes wish I could achieve this ratio of effort to result.


This Maulerfiend is really effective, such a great model.


His Chaos Lord biker who zips about the battlefield taking heads.



His Chaos Rhino is pretty cool too, even with all those garden railings on the top ;) He got a load of fantasy chaos hounds to use as Fleshhounds, a considerably cheaper alternative and its great to see him exploring a different faction [says the guy whose stuck with nids for so long] and enjoying the different play style too.


No doubt there'll be more to come as his Soul Grinder, Daemon Prince and hounds get completed. There are also some Chaos Marines and Berzerkers that are pretty much done too.

Sunday 20 December 2015

Dark Angels - Azrael

It was April when I last put some concerted effort into my Azrael conversion from the Dark Vengeance Captain Balthasar model and this horrific close-up picture might explain why. Essentially I'd painted his face a number of times, been happy and then cocked up the eyes, then tried again and failed. The teeth too, went all kinds of wrong so he got parked and I've not looked at him since, well not in a kind way that motivated me to paint him but often in disgust and dread that I had to fix him eventually. But really theres just the face, the sword, the name on the banner and a few tweaks here and there and this guy is done -  a nights work at the very least and he's on my To Do List too!


And so I did! I spent the night fixing his face, the eyes and teeth being the main thing but also doing his sword.


I'd managed to get some quite subtle blends on the black blade of the sword then put some striations on it similar to those on my Tyranid Boneswords [I've just realised my Boneswords ARE black and I did Old One Eye's skeleton black too, I knew I was right doing that]. I hadn't planned to do them similar and they've created a bit of a pattern that I never intended - too many Xs in my opinion but overall I'm happy, nearly done.


All I need to do now is the name on the banner. But while I was doing it I also decided to push on with my Assault on Black Reach commander who was ironically supposed to be the 4th Company Master who is Balthasar, which is the Dark Vengeance commander! Anyway, he only needed to tweak the banner and as there was no way to fit Balthasar on that scroll I decided it was a Vraks cmapign banner, still struggled to fit the lettering in, not my best freehand and the legion numbers well ropey, but at least changing the scroll to black was an improvement. Now all I need to decide is whether to add a little red stripe on the bottom of the cloak to tie him in with Azrael above...


Saturday 19 December 2015

Moar of Otty's Inquisition

Otty sent me some more of his Inquisition force to share, so here you go:
Bolter armed acolytes - made from.a mixed bag of vintage and new figures. The small guy at the front is an old Skaven horned rat. I have turned the warp stone globe into a holy hand grenade.




After a furious few weeks painting WW2 models, I have returned to my inquisition force.

This is my version of coteaz - I'm particularly pleased with the daemon hammer. There are too many components to list.



Inquisition Land Raider Redeemer. This will be the transport for the death cult assassin retinue. The tank commander is a very old citadel model of sauron with new hands.





Hope you liked them, I've some of  PeteB's Khorne Daemonkin to share soon too.

Friday 18 December 2015

1500pt battle report - Dark Angels v Khorne Daemonkin

I'd arranged a game with Ben, but had to cancel so my next organised game was with PeteB and his new Daemonkin army [is anyone keeping score on how many armies he's had since I met him ;) ]. He'd found a Dark Angels themed mission in White Dwarf 74 so had challenged my Fallen angels to hunt their naughty bretheren so I accepted and offered hospitality in my kitchen for the very first time. Knowing the mission in advance I got my youngest to set up the terrain but frankly he was rubbish and I was more than a little impressed when the wife took over and made some sense of what I had available.

The low down:
  • Hunt the Fallen - The Dark Angels player must choose a Primary Detachment from Codex: Dark Angels. His opponent must choose a Primary Detachment from either Codex: Chaos Space Marines or Codex: KhorneDaemonkin, and must ensure he has at least four characters. One of these characters is the Fallen that the Dark Angels are searching for.
    The enemy player secretly makes a note of which of his characters is the Fallen; the Dark Angels player can only discover the identity of the Fallen by issuing a challenge to an enemy character in close combat. This challenge cannot be refused by the enemy player. If the Fallen is destroyed outside of a challenge, his identity remains secret to the end of the game and is only revealed after the last turn has finished.
    At the end of the game, the Dark Angels player earns a Victory Point if the Fallen character has been slain. If the Fallen Character was slain in close combat, he insteadearns D3 Victory Points. The enemy player earns D3 Victory Points if the Fallen character is still alive at the end of the game.
    If the Dark Angels player has an Interrogator-Chaplain, the Interrogator-Chaplain scores an extra Victory Point if he slays the Fallen in a challenge.
  • Warlord Trait - Precision shots [I think] :(
  • Not night fighting first turn, I deploy second within 12" of my Hammer and Anvil, Pete deplys anywhere else except within 24" of no man's land in front of my DZ, I go first and Pete fails to steal the initiative.
With the mission quite specific I made a laast minute decision to drop Ezekiel and take Asmodai, as the head of the Interrogator Chaplains it only seemed right and fitting he was there, he also gives me an extra VP if he slays the Fallen AND an extra D3 VPs if he Slays the Warlord in a challenge too!


So I had a list that was similar to my Blog Wars prep lists but I'd dropped the Land Raider and a unit of Deathwing, brought back some Ravenwing and gave the Cerastus it's first walk in the sun [a searing yellow giant while the world burned around his brazen feet].


Pete had a lot of Fleshhounds, plenty of bikers, Berzerkers a Maulerfiend and a Soulgrinder. In my first turn the Lancer had moved up, stupidly right in front of my Bastion, denying my devastators with a good field of fire c'mon, he's an impetuous Knight they do that stuff. He managed to shock lance the Fleshhounds with his Warlord on a bike, killing about two of them and wounding the Warlord once. He then failed to make a 7" charge and stood admiring his spear.


With their obstructed view the only thing worth shooting for the devs was the unit of hounds on the right.


My Ravenwing charged the hounds on the left, killed one, lost one of their own and then broke and fled behind the tower containing the Missile launcher combat squad. I'd also been bemoaning how rubbish Asmodai's Warlord Trait was - precision shots with a Bolt Pistol! But he got a shot off - rolled a six and shot through the gap in the future containers to pick out the Chaos Warlord biker. Sadly he was using some old ammo that had come from a bad Forgeworld and failed to wound. That ammo was spread liberally throughout my Dark Angels, as I'd discover as the game progressed.


The Fleshhounds on the left charged my Scouts in the ruins, they somehow manged to fend them off, but took a couple of casualties. The Cerastus took a Hull Point from the Soul Grinder.


The rest of the Chaos forces moved up.


The Warlord biker and his hounds charged down Asmodai and his tactical retinue.


The rest of the hounds charge the 8 man tac squad with the Plasma Cannon, Asmodai and the Warlord went toe-to-toe


Equal initiative meant we attacked at the same time - the Warlord had an Instant Kill axe - did the one damage and Asmodai failed his Rosarius save! But as he was killed he struck back with the Blades of Reason - equally fatal but with AP- the odds were stacked in the Lords favour.

So these might hereos of the Imperium and Chaos had rocked up, and after centuries of training and warfare had both struck single blows killing each other outright!


We both score First Blood, and Slay the Warlord but I get a one on my D3 for an extra VP. We then move onto the hounds and I remember that one is concussed as it was wounded by the Shock Lance, so fights at Initiative 1. Here PeteB points out that the Chaos Lord was also wounded so would have struck at Initiative 1 so capricious Chaos Gods rewrite time - Asmodai strikes down the Lord before he can draw his Axe and it's now First Blood, and Slay the Warlord [+1] to me. Asmodai looks on the corpse with a practised eye and can find no evidence this is the Fallen we seek.


The Fleshounds continue to maul the Scouts and Techmarine.


The deathwing arrive and blast the rear of the Rhino apart


My Ravenwing rally, try to shoot the other bike squad but fail to damage and and were hopelessly outmatched in combat too, losing one of their own.


The Knigght looks down on the Soulgrinder with righteous indignation.


He charges the beast spearing it on his Lance [more blood for the blood God]


The Bikers get within Melta range of the Bastion and do what they do - once again the Bastion falls, with just one casualty to the Devastators who must go to ground.


The Maulerfiend is also eager for destruction and demolishes  the tower in front of it, killing 3 of the tactical squad inside!


Asmodai remains embroiled with the hounds but as these are daemons and not Chaos Marines his lack of re-rolls make him less effective and he fails to break the combat.


The Knight looks around the battlefield for the next biggest thing to face and spies the Maulerfiend thrashing in the rubble of the tower. He charges...


and smashes it off the table. [Incidentally the Techmarine had managed to repair it's hull point in a previous turn]. The Terminators went toe-to-toe with the Berzerkers, even with huge weight of attacks they couldn't pierce the Terminator armour. The sergeant issued a challenge and won but dragging the corpse into the ligth could see it was not the Fallen they were looking for.


Having finished off the scouts the hounds from the left bounded through the rubble of the Bastion and assaulted the remaining Devastators.


Who were killed outright. I think the other hounds finally succumbed to weight of numbers and the Tactical squad managed to kill off the bike squad.


Asmodai, consolidates after killing the last of the hounds he faced. With so much blood on the battlefield Khorne was pleased.


Pete had generated enough Blood Tithe points to elevate the last character to Daemon Prince, now this guy was inside the Rhino with the last lot of Chaos Marines so ordinarily this would have not been possible but I was all for the cinematic reveal of the Prince ascending inside the tank and bursting through the top hatch as his chaotic brothers exited out the back to watch him fly off.


He landed by the remaining Deathwing [again there seems to be some debate online with whether he can switch flight modes, but we agreed he could as it would also give me the chance to assault in my turn]


Techmarine and assault squad pile in to support the last of the Ravenwing, this guys armour saves had been insane, everything the Chaos bikers had thrown at him had bounced off his power armour. The remaining two bikers were overpowered by their combined attacks.


The Daemon Prince killed the Terminator Sergeant.


Asmodai quickly realised this was the Heretic they sort, the foul traitor from tehir own ranks.


He bellowed across the battlefield a challenge to end this abomination and purge the sins of the Fallen.


The techmarine and Ravenwing had already committed to end the last of the Fleshhounds


The Knight was caught the wrong side of the derelict Bastion with the Chaos Marines taking cover behind the Rhino his only recourse was to Kickt the Rhino to pieces so he could then get at the traitors in the next turn.


Having killed the last Deathwing Terminator the Fallen Daemon Prince heard Asmodai's challenge and jumped across the board to face his interrogator.


His powerful attacks were sufficient to end the Chaplains righteous appeals for revenge against his traitorous brother and Asmodai was laid low.


In triumph the Prince jumped on top of the abandoned container crates and surveyed the battle-field while bellowing profane obscenities to the remaining loyal sons of the Lion!


We called it a night at this point, the Damon Prince had escaped justice and the end result was a draw, which was fine all round. The Cerastus had performed brilliantly, just going round booting things off the board and if it hadn't been for the concussive Shock Lance then Asmodai would have died at the hands of the Chaos Warlord. It was a great game, probably the Knight was a little dominant but I'm sure Pete will find a way to overcome it in the future and every time something died he was gleefully racking up those Blood Tithe points anyway so he could get his Daemon Prince.

The other Dark Angels did OK too, but it's all the extra wargear that's a problem, working out who has bolter and who has a bolt pistol and quite often that's not clear in Battlescribe. I think I need to manually make some lists, really get to grips with what I'm building into my list. I was also really impressed with Asmodai, his preferred enemy rules make him pretty lethal against Chaos Marines although I forgot he has the Deathwing rule so could deep strike with the Terminators. Lastly I love the Techmarine and was immediately looking to see if I could put one on a bike as I love the idea of one whizzing about, lopping heads and keeping up with my Knight to make running repairs as and when it needs. So that may be a plan in the future.