These were the final 5 Genestealer to be based. I was looking to make scenic bases with barrels but in the end just went with slate as I had it to hand and it would cost me nothing. But it was here that I realised just why these old models work so well. This is mainly because they come in two body poses with separate arms to give the vatiety. When I was kitbashing the others I tried to distribute the two poses evenly but somehow ended up with 4 leaping poses and one standing pose in this brood of 5.
And this is where the pose came alive. Once you attach these to stones you can shift the position and the result is a really dynamic leaping pose. The main reason for this is that it's leaping off the back foot whereas the current model has the front foot being the point of contact. There's just something in the back foot pose that implies there is far more momentum at play. Even when you look at the Spawn of Cryptus he's stood on the front foot.
That's not to say you couldn't reposition the new ones leaping off the back foot it's just they're naturally sculpted with the front foot attached to the 'slotta' slot. When they're all finished I'll line them up so we can compare and contrast. For now I just need to add some sand to these bases and another 5 from Deathstorm.
Then it's undercoat and put away as some of the other items need some attention, whether it's my Realm of Battle Board, Dark Angels or other secret squirrel projects I need to crack on with them instead of 30 genestealers which will ultimately drive me insane!
As there was only 3 pics I thought I'd just throw in the primed pictures and ended up taking considerably more and I could have eeked this out into another post!
Of course red oxide primed models don't show up too great on a my red planet realm of battle board but you can catch the gist until the finished models get photographed.
Toxin stealers, once again primarily used for unit identification. The majority have two pairs of toxin sacs, but I stumbled across an odd non-Macragge, on the left, and he has some of the Carnifex sacs for a more organic 'riddled with poison' effect. If I ever get any more I'll kitbash them the same so I have 5 at regular intervals and 5 poisoned all over the shop.
Some straightforward carapace armour biomorph.
Original Space Hulk stealers with extra carapace and scy-tals. I also noticed some of these have tails that look like worms, segemented with a 'head' you can use your imagination for what I'm describing it's a common image. However some of them are the same but have more of a 'cap' like pointy toadstool. So it's interesting again to see the variety in this model.
Carnifex armour plates, scy-tals and urban bases left over from the 2nd gen Space Hulk bases that were too big for 25mm bases, if only we knew of 32mm back then...
More scytals and armour and I had one feeder tendril head left. I recently did a trade in which I swapped 3 Feeder heads for 2 pairs of Fleshborer Hives but I was sad I'd got rid of all the Feeder heads only to discover this guy amongst his mates.
And some tilt-shift shots with a bit of post production messing about.
Much as I'd like this to be a 'he only went and bought it anyway!' post that despite my protestations I put the money down and have my own copy the fact is I didn't but I have just gone onto ebay and it 'suggested' something I may be interested in - the new 2014 version for the princely sum of £200! So clearly the ebay resellers will not be crying over their lost revenue [OK they haven't sold, yet...] what they'll be doing is rubbing their hands over the new stock they can resell at a premium due to it's limited nature.
The answer, stop making it limited, have it available all year round! I mean the oft discussed Tactical Objective Cards aren't limited yet they're just as hard to get hold of. Surely they can put in an order and then renew it every six months. Even if it's limited they could at least indicate if it would ever be restocked. So frustrating.
When I started getting interested again in the hobby [read falling off the wagon] it was right at the last release of Space Hulk. I saw that it was a limited edition and I tried to weigh up getting it as it only had a few miniatures that my son and I needed to paint and would be an easy entrance into gaming for him. Alternatively I could get 5th Edition 40k which I knew I would ultimately want too.
In the end I waited and missed the boat. I always regretted that decision. I desperately wanted the cool Genestealers [although I have since got many of the more generic ones from the set] and the Terminators, though Blood Angels could have been converted to their Fallen brothers. Not to mention the many fond memeories I have of playing it with my mate Chris, back in First Edition. And it's a cool game to boot. Eventually my Mother-in-law gifted me 40k for Christmas and so my descent into hobby bliss continued. Obviously since then I've looked at many ebay auctions with envy and regret so to hear a re-issue of this edition was imminent was very exciting to me...
...and then it wasn't.
I'm pretty sure the reason I've lost interest is the price. From what I recall the previous limited edition was £60 [or £65] this new re-issue is £75, so we're talking a 25% increase on something that already exists, something that's unlikely to require new molds, thereby making better value of those already made. Now that's not to say that that's not still a bargain compared to ebay prices but those prices are only inflated due to the limited run from 5 years ago.
So that new price has gone over my tipping point, and that's baring in mind I didn't buy the hardback copy of 7th Edition or Stormclaw that I intended to, so I could argue I have the funds. Granted I bought other things instead but I just can't justify to myself that price, not at the moment, despite wanting it so badly.
Now ERIOCHROME posted this article the other day that echoes many of my own feelings but I can only reiterate the single biggest mistake in this is a limited run. It will make the ebay market a little more competitive, that's all. If it was still £60-65 and it was available all year I would definitely be able to plan ahead to take advantage of that but given the tiny lead-in time of a weeks notice then I can't shoehorn in a purchase of that scale. Sure I'm having a loft conversion done and that isn't cheap either but that is part of the problem, I'm seeing £100's and £1000's going out on a daily basis and I look at my office chair in the 'hobby room' that's been broken for about 3 months now which I've delayed replacing and in all good conscience I'd rather have that done, so I can paint/browse the internet in comfort than fork out for more plastic.
Oh and Mrs 40kaddict said no!
Anyway I do have some new Genestealers to paint and these are they. The funny thing is I never bought them, erm I didn't steal them either, although I thought I might have. What happened was they arrived in the post from Triple Helix Wargames, via what I believe is their ebay trading arm which is aa-wargames [or something like that]. I opened it and was really excited, had I won something only to forget? But I didn't remember paying for it either. Now I immediately though 'Free Stealers' but then I thought no, these aren't mine and someone would be expecting them and the sellers ebay rating would be affected. So I searched for completed listings and found the auction, found the seller and knew then that it was in error. So I rang Triple Helix and left a message and then also sent a message via their contacts page but never got a response so actually forgot about them over the last fortnight.
The funny thing is I started getting some cryptic messages from an old Kendo buddy Tom Widdows about bitey things and claws and teeth. Tom is an actual British Kendo Squad member and practices in Manchester. He's the guy on the left in the picture below with my friend Joe Willmott. This was taken at a fund raising event for the victims of the Japanese earthquake where we put on a demonstration and I first discovered Tom also had a passion for 40k, when I saw he had a copy of Gaunt's Ghosts with him.
When I was able to practice kendo I was a little in awe of Tom. Although I had a few years more experience on him he'd clearly crammed in a lot of training which had accelerated his learning and meant he graded quicker than I. When you add in youth, enthusiasm and a bucketload of talent I found myself learning an awful lot from those practice sessions. An absence of ego is a key element to kendo, something I continue to struggle with but believe in and seeing someone better at something you've spent longer doing is a humbling experience but ultimately rewarding. Since I had to give kendo up we've kept in touch and he's shared quite a few of his hobby related activities on my Facebook group these Eldar being the most recent but there's some crazy tru-scale shenanigans from way back too.
Anyway, he'd asked for my address recently and I'd thought it was something to do with a recent North West Kendo Competition that Manchester, Liverpool and the other local clubs had arranged/supported. But it turns out it was to deliver these Genestealers and it was a genuine gift, no doubt to help fuel my own hobby and the blog. Tom is struggling with his hobby mojo so I guess at the moment I'm doing what he can't and he's doing the kendo I no longer can. He mentioned starting a hobby blog, which no doubt would be cool but personally I'd rather see him do a Kendo blog. If I could still participate I would, whether that would mean I would not be doing this, or maybe just in a reduced capacity I don't know but Kendo is a way of life. As much as I love my hobby I'm aware that it's a passion, an obsession, an addiction, it may control me but it does not define me.
So this is a big thanks to Tom for the unexpected gift, I can now paint them without any guilt attached knowing they were for me all along and I'll look to try and add some of my spare Stealer bits so they're more interesting. So in a week where I felt marginalised by the excess of the new Space Hulk it is an act of generosity from a friend that reminds me of the spirit of the community, the meeting people and sharing experiences that are the core of what we do. So I will admire the Space Hulk as it returns and hope that in 5 years time it will come back this again, but for now I'll stick to the 10 first generation Stealers that emerged from hibernation unexpectedly but most gratefully.
Did you ever wonder in the early 90's what happens when you contact GW and ask for help with your GCSE Craft, Design and Technology project? Of course you did, we all did and here's what happens:
In tidying out the loft the other day I finally decided to chuck some of my old school work. Really why am I still hanging onto GCSE coursework that's 21 years old? Anyway, we had pretty much free reign to do what we wanted and I wanted to combine my project with my love of gaming so planned to do a gaming club, complete with individually themed games rooms.
There was a Dark Future room complete with a front end of a car smashed through the walls, a Space Hulk room with alien infestation on the walls made with hot melt glue and ping-pong balls in the scale model. Most portentous of all was the Fantasy Battle room, actually called Warhammer World and the walls were lined with polystyrene carved to look like a castle's battlements. Now I'm not saying they eventually stole my idea, I asked for their help in the early stages so nothing had actually been done but I'm thinking now the postcard may have been their way of ensuring I can't claim it was all my idea, but this is Warhammer World:
That has to be the worst blog title pun ever so lets move on... a little under a year ago I ventured into the scary world of a pay monthly phone contract, well scary for me that is. Prior to this I'd been quite happy with your standard Pay as You Go mullarky and had slowly progressed from a Phillips C12, to a SonyEricsson T16 [2nd hand] to my wife's SonyEricsson w810i but I was averaging around £10 every six weeks.
The world of phones is very different now and although I'd never had a data account or used a smartphone I'd had a Palm Zire, Tungsten T [which was awesome] and a Windows Mobile Acer 300 PDA so I knew I wanted a phone with the same capabilities, built in Sat-Nav and by this stage MP3 capabilities were standard. I'd been looking for a few years for a decent upgrade but I also needed one that was going to be on a monthly tariff I could afford/justify.
Cut to last April and I ended up with an LG Optimus One:
It was a great deal, more minutes than I would use, 100 texts a month that were upgraded to unlimited for free, 500mb of data, the phone was free and it even came with a car cradle and sat-nav kit, all for £10.42 a month! Some may claim it's not the prettiest of phones that the HTC Wildfire was a better phone [it retains it's value better on trade in, but the LG is better in nearly every other spec aside from camera quality]. Regardless, I love it. I've always been an Apple fan but I didn't want an iPhone and Android syncs so well with all my Google things, it's almost like they were made by the same company ;) That can't be true, Google operates a firre and forget policy of distributing all sorts of cool things and never bothering to fix them, make them better following user feedback - I've been waiting for years to see my google map ratings and reviews reinstated.
But you can do cool stuff with the phone and you can download apps too and a few are 40k related. So having intoduced you to my phone in case I can make an irregular feature out of this here's an app you may like: Templar Assault. I think when you go to the link you may see the inspiration, it's definitely not Space-Hulk GW legal. I've had a little go of it and it's quite fun, you get to upgrade your squad with different weapons and equipment and for free it isn't half bad, here's some screen shots:
OK, look when I started this 'art of 40k' section I hadn't planned on getting stuck on Mr. Harrod, I don't owe him money/represent him/want his children. It's just there seemed very little artwork online and as times gone by I keep stumbling across more and more of his work I've missed/forgotten that I've rediscovered and I need to share before I can move onto the next artist. These pics were rediscovered in my copy of the 40k Compendium.
Oh WOW! How could I forget this beauty, the original Deimos Pattern Rhino and this pic makes a mockery of the current design. Sure the central transport area is disproportionate to the acutal model, but have you ever seen a picture that quite captures the feel of an armored transport vehicle about turn you into spatula fodder?
An original 'Land's Speeder' and it seems there was less use of an anti-gravity plate on the bottom and more a vectored jet to keep it skimming above the ground in Rogue Trader days.
Next we have an original jet bike with an extremely early mark armored Space Marine, check out the pipes going into his 'beaky' helm. Practically AdMech in design and I can't make out the insignia on his shoulder, anyone? Also of note is the rocket homing in on the bike. There's a real sense of activity and motion in this pic, love it. Lastly, some Orks, not much to say but I really like the way the picture breaks out of the frame with the Stormboyz helm poking out the top.
In an attempt to move things on I'll drop a taster of my next favorite 40k artist, a no-prize if you can guess. Not sure how to progress with it though as I've noticed my scanning destroys the subtle pencil work and I think showing these pieces this way won't do them justice, still guess away
In the second of my posts about my favorite 40k artists I've only gone and stumbled across a few more pictures by Gary Harrod so I thought I'd share these before going on to my next fave artist. So here's the pic that blew me away the most [the one I described in my original post]. They all click much bigger than my usual fair, so enjoy.
Next up are three images from the Deathwing, Space Hulk expansion rules. Like I said the stark highlights and shadows literally jump off the page compared to the rest of the illustrations and I think when you add in the two pictures I already found you can begin to see the awesomeness of Gary's work. I love this terminator, just look at the amount of light coming from his gun, you can imagine having your retinas scorched by that after image!
Here too, the psychic battle between genestealer and presumably Deathwing Librarian. Taking into account most of the GW rulebooks at this time were monotone, with pure black and white and where grey was needed the dots in the halftone pattern were employed to give the required grey it was Gary's extensive use of black and white that made his drawings stand out most, like I say they leap from the page.
Lastly, what i think is the weakest of the three images in execution but possibly the image which holds more menace and anticipation thanks to the unsuspecting marine about to experience 'death from above' not the other way round as their usual motto states.
Oh, and the two previous pics to see Gary's work I've discovered so far as a set.
Here's some original Terminators and these were painted just before the Deathwing supplement came out so were Dark Angel green. There's something about the pure white armour reinforcement that I love. The blending on the green is really nice too. The Captain was going to be THSS armed but clearly I sold them in my ebay frenzy!
This standard marine is also missing a weapon. Maybe the Dark Angel upgrade sprue would achieve that... Fundamental concern is the paint, I like the paint I've done but it's not Deathwing and that'd require stripping. 'Course, I have the pictures but it's not the same. Now that Dark Angels have been brought [slightly] into the 41st Millenium having a Deathwing force may be the easiest option for me. Easy meaning a cop-out over the whole Dark Angel Green issue! "Chicken!" I hear that little voice shout in my ear.
Rooting around in one of my many treasure troves of 40k stuff I found White Dwarf issue 120 December 1989. Aside from the fact this magazine is 21 years old there was a complete article on rules for using Space Marines in Space Hulk. Complete with mission, extra board pieces and army lists.
As far as I'm aware the recent reissue of Space Hulk was exactly the same and included the Deathwing supplements [if I'm wrong let me know and I'll see what I can do about that]. So I've scanned the rules so anyone wishing to try out their favourite marines against genestealers give it a shot and let me know what you think.