Space Crusade Dreadnought - Big Brother

So here's the second dreadnought from the Space Crusade Expansion box I originally got on a trip to Games Day way back when. I can vividly remember opening the box on the coach in the car park of the NEC in Birmingham. I actually think we went as a group, including my mate Liam, he of the scratch built Warhound and Warlord fame, with the Liverpool GW.

I much prefere the side view for this dread, the elongated legs are a big improvement, detail-wise, than his smaller brother. It certainly looks more mechanical and realistic.

I've no idea what I'm going to do with this, if anything. I'm kind of annoyed that having the two dreadnoughts from the expansion and another dreadnought from the original game that I don't have a single pair of weapons to kit out a Mortis of some description, double assault cannon or missile launchers would have been nice. Of course this thing has four weapon points and I'm even less a fan of the sarcophagus on this, the mounts being far to Eldar or even Tau in my estimation, a shame considering how well detailed the legs are. How they could get that so right and the weapon mounts and sarcophagus so wrong I don't know, which is such a shame.

Aside from nostalgia and novelty value I'm not sure why I woudl want to keep this, I'm sorely tempted to see what it's worth on ebay but I don't want it to be something I regret later on so we'll see...

Terrain is everything - Old walls

Some old-school foamcard walls. These are from back in the day when White Dwarf expounded the awesome value of foamcard and gave tips on how to model your own walls. Not possessed with the gaming use foresight I now have I proceeded to make two very different walls and painted one to completion while leaving the other unfinished.

Here's the ruined wall that allows your marine to stride though, of course with only the 8 inches of wall I created it's not too much of a hardship to just walk round the thing, but it's the thought that counts.

The completed garden wall, I can't help think of the children's books The Secret Garden and Tom's Midnight Garden when I see this, from the contasting sloped capped wall to the attempt at moss on the sides I still like it, even if the dry-brushing is another example of my lack of ability of this painting technique.

The Five-O

Just a little fanfare for my 50th follower, you win a 'no-prize' and a heads-up that I've been 'building'. The ad-mech dendrites have been stirring and I've started a new project to solve a common problem with sourcing certain terrain materials. I wanted a simple solution and of course in the process of execution I've started to over complicate things as usual...

Have I teased you enough? Don't worry I'll reveal all shortly.

The most important rule of painting...

I don't know when it was but I had an epiphany many years ago that I hold today as the most important rule of painting - don't judge the finished quality of the model you are painting until you have finished painting it.

So many times I have passed judgement on a figure and lost confidence only for the finished article to surpass my expectations. It's a timely reminder to me because what little effort I have recently put into painting has been less rewarding than I'd hoped. My Dark Angels have progressed from their Orkhide Shade Foundation and I have added Dark Angel green. The AoBR marines came out OK but the dreadnought hasn't fared so well. The reason is down to application. Whereas the marines could be quickly drybrushed which effectively adds a thin DA Green 'polish' to the figure. The Dreadnought, with it's metallics in place and flat surfaces has meant a more considered coat of paint which has shown up many imperfections in it's brush strokes. Even worse is that the decision to wash it in Badab Black has highlighted those inconsistencies even more. G.O.D. knows what'll happen when I continue the Drop Pod!

I need to remember that they're not finished but my confidence in fixing it has taken a knock and I'm not entirely sure how to proceed. Just what I need, another incentive NOT to do some painting! I may post pics of my current situation, if I take them, although I'm not sure of the benefit of doing so but what they hey, it's content.

Space Crusade Dreadnought - what will become of this?

I've obviously had this for a long time, in actual fact I had two, one from the Space Crusade game and one from the Space Crusade supplement, which means I also got the thre Tarantual Sentry Guns and another Chaos Dreadnought with four weapons points, more on that later.

As you can see at the time I wasn't happy with the little fella's mouth, so some Milliput sculpting came into play and I bored out the Bolters!

But I have plans for this baby now. I've never liked the way the sarcophagus, because of it's snap fit construction, just ends flat. So what I hope to do is use some bits from the venerable dreadnought, and the quad autocannons from the Aegis Defence Line and make my own Mortis Dreadnought, y'know the Dark Angel and successors only dreadnought that Dark Angels can't have [because it's not in the Codex] and every other Codex can! So if I take something like the bits below I can cut just behind the head on the Space Crusade sarcophagus, 'hinge' the cowling on theVenerable sarcophagus and find a way to fit it in. Then the autocannons will fit perfectly in the sponsons without any extra work, unlike if I was trying to fit them on a normal dread...

Anyway, it's another 'long-term' project as the pieces still have to be bought...

Old stuff

So here we have some old bits and bobs from the 'good' old days. Who'd have thunk that GW would have been producing metal WCs for our convenience (pun intended)?

This ranger is still one of my favorite models, I'm pretty sure this is Bruce Campbell. You should note the use of Humbrol Enamel paints throughout and I strung the bow! I don't know where that flesh colour came from but it's quite cool and all-in-all I think if I were to just do A Devlan Mud wash over it he'd look awesome, with a few additional highlights. What I've done though is dump him in the Dettol so he may well make a reappearance at some point.

Next up the the lead [pb] stylings of one Thomas Crapper. A bit chipped now but I was still trying to put highlights on with the old Humbrol Enamel.

King Arthur: [after Arthur's cut off both of the Black Knight's arms] Look, you stupid Bastard. You've got no arms left.
Black Knight: Yes I have.
King Arthur: *Look*!
Black Knight: It's just a flesh wound.

'Scuse my language but it's not like I can edit Monty Python is it? Anyway this Samurai seems to have lost his footing. Not sure what conversion I was trying to do but I'm gutted now that I did. I'd love to Dettol bath this and try again. The funny thing is even though the painting could be so much better, because these figures have been like this for soooo long I doubt even a Golden Demon winning repaint could enhance these miniatures in my mind, we'll see with the Ranger though...

 

WFB - Empire Ogres [such as they were]

As oft promised here's a whole lot of Ogres. Back in the day when you could have Ogres freely tramping round your Empire army like the jovial brutes they were, not the blood obsessed psychopaths they're now portrayed as in Ogre Kingdoms I got a few. Luckily Falmouth's Toymaster shop [still there] had a few old boxes of the Ogre expansion box for Heroquest and I was able to get them cheap [I think £6 a box]. As you can see there was seven Ogres per box in four different poses. Now by today's standards the plastic isn't great but I think they stand up well considering some of the output GW was producing in plastic at the time.

This set of seven weren't complete but were painted in the colours of Ostland and to take advantage of some minotaur decals from the Mk 1 Land Raider decal sheet, because the minotaur was also the symbol of Ostland. They would have fit lovely on the white backs of these guys.

This set was painted in the mirror fashion of the other set. Again I was really happy with my painting at this time. It's scruffy but bold and I was getting stuff painted a feat here-to unheard of in my history of figure painting. Just getting it done with bold colours and a gaming level of finish was a blessed relief and very rewarding. I think perhaps it's a lesson to everyone who paints, to do some to the best of your ability then do some for gaming level and then when you come out the other side you should be able to find a happy medium of the two!

Here we have some random Ogre. I think it was another figure I inherited from one of my gaming circle, probably someone who gave up. I think he was going to be my champion, not that I think you could have champions in your list but his colour scheme managed to match with the other guys but also stand out a little bit.

Lastly, 15 Ogres on the charge, shame about the missing model railway ballast. Would have made a nice shot if they'd all been based. There were a couple of missing guys - at the time Shreddies were giving away these soft plastic toys. There were a few that looked like the Hunchback of Notre Dame which I was going to throw in too, purely because my mate Liam, he of the scratch built Warhound and Warlord fame, had dug up a few that looked like the 4th edition Cave Troll that came out and had painted them up!