'nids part 21. Tyranid Prime Tutorial, part3

Here's the latest update to the new Tyranid Prime. He's had all his basecoats put on - Bonewhite, blue and liver. Gryphonne Sepia and Devlan Mud washes to follow.

Here you can see it with it's close assault brother, hopfully illustrating the slight variety in the pose due to his brother having two left legs and mounted on a proper GW base, with slate effects.

Tyranid Prime V2.0 | part 1. | part 2. | part 3. | part 4.

WFB - Kislev Winged Lancers and their Queen

There's an element of sadness to these pcitures because Kislev is no longer welcome in the World of Warhammer. It features in some of the books but you can no longer represent our comrades beset by the forces of chaos, holding back the tide before it reaches it's Empire cousins. Not that I play WFB but I think it's an odd decision especially when you consider the penchant for different types of Imperial Guard. I mean if you can have your Catachan Jungle fighters, Cadians, Death Korps, Vostroyans, Mordians and more surely there's room for a little room for our Russian-alikes [not to mention Cathay and Nippon]?

Anyway here's a mix of Kislev Winged Lancers and some horse archers to bulk out the unit. They were 25pts each, 14 pts cheaper than your Reiksguard and maybe not as heavily armed but a cheap alternative cavalry source.

A close up of some of the lancers, flat colours again to pick out bits and give it that 'cartoon' look. Note the Braveheart style tattoos on the standard bearer.

The three horse archers I used to bulk out the unit. Seems like an odd selection now, 4 lancers and 3 archers what blister packs/box sets was I buying at the time?

I liked the jade balls on the lances, they matched the Ice Wizards staff. Those lead [pb] lancers are very easily bent by the way, as you can see! The Lancer pelts are also quite cute, some little 'big cat' that looks like it's road kill!

A view of their backs so you can see the winged bits and the not ineffective highlights on the Lancer pelts

And lastly we have the Ice Queen herslef - Tzarina Katerina. I'm sure I mentioned my original plan was to have her on some shop bought Polar Bear as bears were an optional mount available from the 'Imperial Zoo'. It would have reduced her movement, and the Lancer unit to which she'd be attached, by a couple of inches but it would have been cool [don't know where those rules are though, think it was in the WFB 4th edition rulebook].

WFB - Ninjas, Light Wizard Acolytes

I believe I've talked about my brother's collection of GW ninjas a few times. Obviously these were originally painted black, although my favorite one, the ninja in the centre did have a 'stars and stripes' motif, a la 'The American Ninja' film [although I may be mistaken]. If you recall I thought I'd re-purpose these for use as my Light Wizard Acolytes so they all got a Humbrol Acrylic Matt white costume with elements of red, blue and yellow, much the same as the Light Wizard colours of the time.

Here's a few from behind, although when would anyone get the chance to sneak up on a ninja?

Here's the pyramid formation which makes the Light Wizard's spells more effective

So, some old school Ninjas, before the ancient and mysterious realm of 'Nippon' was exorcised from the Warhammer world!

I'm Back!

Well, I have been since last Friday. The wife decided to come back a day early because she was going to see Adam Ant in concert on the Saturday and didn't want to be driving back on the day when she had to 'tart herself up' for the Prince Charming his-self.

The holiday was OK and I did manage to get some 40k related goodness:

There was a discount bookstore in Llandudno that had a 3 books for £5 offer so I picked up these and to follow up my Clive Cussler obsession I also picked up these:

So I've plenty to read over the next few months. On my return I was also chuffed to find DoW: Dark Crusade - an ebay 'WIN' for the grand total of £1.99 [although I actually thought it was Soulstorm I'd bought?] a damn sight better value than any Fine Cast at the moment. As mentioned before my graphics card really isn't up to DoW2 so I thought if I went for a DoW supplement it'd play successfully and I could postpone DoW2 play until I could afford a card that would support it.

So I've pretty much been 'owned' by this, pulling in some 1:00 am and 1:30am sessions, which is odd as I was aching to paint while I was away, I didn't take the Prime in the end. The single player scenario is less defined as it tries to cover 6 races instead of just following the Blood Ravens. However, it's got an element of 'Risk' about it with a map to conquer and resources and upgrades similar to DoW2 [the bits I like about the sequel]. I've also got my son interested in it and he arbitrarily chose Necrons for his campaign, though it's painful watch his attempts

So with this so much an obsession at the moment I'm not sure where it puts the 'gaming/modelling/painting' side of things, and there's not much I can report back to you about this sort of gaming. I've a bucketload of pictures I took of some of my other bits and bobs - the remainder of my Epic stuff, Dwarves and some of my earliest figures ever. So there's still a fair amount of content to come, I'm just fearful that at some point I'll run out of steam, but I said that about five months ago and I'm still going...

WFB - 'Epic' home made Empire Steam Tank

'Blasphemy' may be the word coming to mind right now but at the time this made absolute sense to me. I wanted an Empire Steam Tank but didn't want to 'fess up the moolah'. I had a Capitol Imperialis knocking about that I was never going to use, I think they were just too darn slow, and too expensive for only 4 Void Shields, if I remember correctly. 

So with a new paint job, a couple of pen lids, some Milliput, some bits from an old World War 2 tank model and yes part of a head from my old friend the Blood Bowl human poking out of the 'turret' my 'Epic' home made Empire Steam Tank was born.

Here's a close-up the Blood Bowl human poking out of the 'turret'

Lastly, another shot of that glorious OTT highlighting, this is how you paint Eldar nowadays, or so the tutorials show me. Might be a little more subtle though...

Better off Dread - Dark Angel AoBR Dreadnought Update Update

Brother Cask. I've decided. His name is brother Cask. He wears a fez, like Tommy Cooper and Coopers made casks for ale. Anyway, just a  quick update in that he's had the Okhide Shade foundation put on. I'm liking it but I'm still feeling trepidation about the whole DA green [yes, still!]. I haven't quite fixed my 'painting solution' in my head, just where do I go from here? Badab Black wash, then highlights or highlights and then Badab Black. Do I look to add a green wash to try and fix any poor highlights? As I've said Marines are different to Nids there's more perfection in their man-made armour so poor painting is gonna burn me!

On the positive side I've decided to attempt battle damage on these to cover up any imperfections and I notice on some of the Dawn of War artwork that the Blood Ravens armour has a look of being hand painted [possibly by the marine] so there is room for variations just so long as it looks like it's done by the model and not some giant hand that's painted a miniature, if you follow. Still got to deal with the edges of the casket too, possibly gonna go gold as well on this...

And I'm still in love with the back view, it's like a little 'surprise' when you get behind it as it's all metal, no paintwork.

Terrain is everything - Honoured Imperium pt6.

Not sure why these day shots have come out so 'deep' but it's kind of effective. Old Matt Black: Former hero of the Imperium has had his final set of Vedigris highights which at times I though was a step too far but I'm happy in the end.

Additionally there are the bonehite accents on the base that tie it in with all my other red planet basing. On top of that some additional washes to the unrealistic but effective stains from the studs on the shield. 

Last shot and here's Matt's 'moody face'. Not entirely sure if the crack is too dark but again I've reached a point where I can just let go, before I muck it up.

The Aquila too has had another set of highlights and all the bonewhite accents. I'm sure I envisaged this paler with more effort put into the sandstone but again it works as it is so I'm prepared to leave well enough alone.

Here you can see some of the skulls, yeah man, skulls!