'nids part 278 - Rippers - TO DONE! White pics

Afternoon #warmongers and #warhammercommunity I've been #paintingwarhammer on the Rippers and here we have the white pics.

Not entirely sure what else to say about these, but it's been really good to get them complete.

It's great to have this extra variety of models, things I'm familiar with that I can just dip into inbetween the challenges.

Which means I also need to consider what happens once these items get done.

I really need to go on a bit of a building spree again. Get some additional things built and primed.

It could well be that come the Winter I have significantly more hobby time available to me and it would make a lot of sense to get stuff ready and take advantage of the good weather I have to get them primed.

So, I might build up my spare Tyrannofex, the 3 attack bikes and perhaps my MkI Proteus Land Raider and my old skool Whirlwind.

Having them ready alongside all the other things I on my list should keep me busy for a good while.

Then again I've 15 terminators to build, a load of Genestealer Cultists and some Adeptus Mechanicus as well, but I'm not really feeling all that building work right now.

We'll just have to see how things go and what takes my fancy.

Actually, coming back to the Rippers it's worth noting that I got a bit random on the turquoise, some of the plates might have 3 striations on one side and 2 on the other.

Still not 100% certain some of those gloss varnish elements on the eyes work. They bled a bit into the surrounding area so there are inexplicable reflections/highlights.

But I can't help myself, I just have to add them.

Anyway, enjoy the est of the shout uninterrupted until the end, where I have another comparison with my earliest of painted Tyranids. 

Here we go, the latest alongside the oldest. Looks like I can go back over some of those old ones and bring them up to standard. Shouldn't take too much but it's not a particularly satisfying feeling to go back so it's difficult to factor this into my workstream when I've so many other things to do.

Not to worry, I'll get to them eventually. In the mean time hope you've enjoyed the showcase.

'nids part 277 - Rippers - TO DONE! Red pics

Afternoon #warmongers and #warhammercommunity I've been #paintingwarhammer on the Tyranid Rippers. Once again prepping so many projects in advance bears fruit. Granted it can feel like not a lot of progress is getting done at the beginning but when you suddenly get the urge to get something done it's often only a small push top get them over the finish line.

The great things about these Rippers is they still match up to my recent attempts at recreating the Forgeworld Ripper Swarms, as shown by 5th one in front.

Now the 4 I made included this Spinemaw swarm, it actually means I have 10 bases of Rippers, when I really only needed 3 more to make the 9 bases for my 'Troop tax' - just at the point Troop tax is no longer relevant - than you 9th!

What is frustrating is I tried to fish out all 10 bases to do a collective shot, but could only find 8 in total so there are 2 bases still hiding in some figure case/box somewhere 😞

I'll find them eventually but there are at least 4 that will require some repainting to bring them up to today's standard.

Shouldn't be too hard, mainly the chitin is the issue, so a quick splosh of blue, wash and turquoise. Maybe red on the fleshy bits, wash and highlight and the bone just needs a little wash in places and highlighting.

In fact the same needs to happen to some of the old Warriors too, but I'll tackle those when it feels right and proper to do so.

I'm chuffed with some of these close-up shots, if you're in the market for hobby desktop pics I think these will be great.

Especially with these where you can't even see the base.

You might have two screens where this left-handed shot could be useful...?

I just think they look really cool. Not sure I'll ever need anymore bases but these were certainly far more fun to do than I expected.

You see a lot of people complain about painting the Forgeworld ones, not sure why... perhaps its the many many Rippers that need doing and they can be fiddly.

Mince don't have quite as many little gribblies on and I did feel a certain tedium but I'm super chuffed to have got them done.

It also felt really good to get them done reasonably quickly. With the Deathwing Knights taking SO long, and so challenging it felt like a breeze to do, even when I hit the 'hard' bits.

Anyway, enjoy these 'swarm' pics - like a carpet of Rippers.

Some pics against white backgrounds next, hope you don't mind.

Great Big Galactic Stamp of Approval for being a good boy!

Deathwatch Overkill

I love the simplicity of Deathwatch Overkill. I think it might have been a stepping stone in the game design of Warhammer Underworlds and Blackstone Fortress - limited models with the use of cards to buff or reinforce what's on the board. It's a frustration that I've never played past the 4th mission. However, at the beginning of lockdown I managed to cajole my youngest into having his second game, I can't recall how long ago we played mission 1 but I don't seem to have a record of it on the blog. Mission 1 is incredibly easy for the marine player, it's a great introduction to the game and letting him play as the marines gave him a sense of achievement that would hopefully encourage him to play again... like I say, I can't recall how long ago that was!

So, we played mission 2, essentially I have control over some comms relays in the top right, kill-team Cassius must occupy the four relays. He has 6 team members to do it, if I kill 3 he fails.

Some early ambushes flooded the board with cultists appearing from the shadows.

But as usual they fell to significant shooting from the Deathwatch

This meant the marines could try a two pronged assault, coming on from the flank with the fast moving White Scar and Blood Angel, while being covered at the rear by Rodricus Grytt and his Frag Cannon. 

A couple of Purestrain Genestealers tried to take on Edric Setorax claw to claw...

But both of them and the Aberrants who had faced Vael Donatus failed to capitalise on their ambush.

With such fast using units the comms room suddenly became packed with bodies, with at least one fallen from its comms relay leaving it open for capture.

Despite this more Genestealers were incoming but was it too little too late?

At this stage I was struggling to make a dent in the Kill Team, Setorax had clearly taken a wound but I couldn't convert it to a kill. I decided to just make the best of bringing on bodies, using the gambits [stratagems] may well have been more productive but they felt a little shady and I needed bodies on the board, but most of them were coming on too far away to reach the melee in the comms room.

As the Kill Team pressed forward there wasn't much the cultists could do to hold them back with 3 out 4 of the relays occupied it would only require a small push for Donatus to capture the last one.

Which he did. As you can see many cultists were converging on the comms room, but for all their meticulous planning they would arrive too late as the Kill Team destroyed all the relays.

There we go, another win for Kill Team Cassius. I had a fun time with my son, there were numerous times where the dice rolls caused roars of success and cries of failure. Not sure the bug has bitten [no pun intended] but I think he finally saw what it was about. Whether we play again sooner than last time is anyone's guess but for now I'll just take this for what it was 😍

Blood Bowl - Troll - basecoats

Afternoon #warmongers and #warhammercommunity I've started #paintingwarhammer my Blood Bowl Troll. It had been annoying me that this figure was just primed black. I needed to break it up so I could see where the Troll began and the uniform ended. As it is I haven't decided on my Ork team, I was thinking black armour with rust and stains.

Having done a little black and rust on the Blood Bowl Ogre I thought it might be fun to carry that through on the Orc team. Anyway, the Troll was really about making a decision on skintone. Again, I'd seen an amazing Troll/Troggoth that I liked but forgot to bookmark it, I was sure I'd saved it to my phone but can't find it. But I pulled the trigger and went with turquoise [yeah I know I must be obsessed]. I figures it's something I was familiar with - aside from the nids I'd done the 'Turqs' in my Genestealer Cult army. But I also added a pale grey belly, which I think aligns with how trolls are being painted nowadays but it also is a challenge as that will eb new for me.

The stony plates on the back might end up like my nid carapace. Again, this was the element that I'd seen on another troll that impressed me so much but I can't recall what it was... I'll just have to wing it.

Anyway, I'm just glad I've got something else to look at on it and try and work out what is going where. However, I don't think it'll progress much further than this for a good while. I'm pretty sure I'll just look at the Orks themselves - I'll do all the skin on the Orks which then gives me the next step of the armour and clothing and then that should feed into the troll.

Sector Mechanicus Galvanic Servohaulers - The little one WiP

Afternoon #warmongers I've been #paintingwarhammer the littlest Galvanic Servohauler. You may recall I wanted all these elements from some lucky acquisitions of Warhammer Conquest to be weathered and rusty. I thought I'd shared some WiP pics but this appear to be it, from prime to three quarters done! I started with all sorts of browns and orange as a base and then just sponged on some yellow for the paint. Instead of a reductive technique - removing the yellow through salt, hairspray or chipping medium I tried the additive technique. It seemed easiest to me and although it's far from perfect I'm getting to a point where I'm happy

The red canister was a last minute choice, so I still have to do a number of things to weather it in and make it not look like the afterthought it really is. That said, it should match up with my Genestealer Cult Sentinels which is half the reason for the colour choice, but also if I go down the yellow route with my Adeptus Mechanicus elements they'll fit with them too.

But it's yellow, my favorite colour, and it looks awesome on Red Planet BASE! So I really don't need any other reasons than that.

Dark Angels - Deathwing Land Raider Redeemer

Afternoon #warmongers I've been #paintingwarhammer Dark Angel Deathwing Land Raider Redeemer. I keep chipping away at all these different projects - a little here, a little there. If we go back to the middle of April we'll see a rather anemic looking tank that I was steadfastly trying to hang onto the original bone colour. But I don't paint that way and I saw this video by Artis Opus showing how to paint a Rhino and said to myself - "why yes, that's how I should approach the Land Raider"

So I washed the whole thing in sepia, managed to avoid most of the defects in the crevices and I ended up with a decent base to start with. You'll also notes I did the red and white quartered heraldry on the front, both left and right and even got the highlights done on the relief sculpture.

There's still some washes to do on the tracks, weapons and the red elements.

It's a bit one dimensional in places, I saw an amazing Deathwing Land Raider a while back with a massive Deathwing symbol diagonally offset over the rear and sides . I really wish I'd done something like that but I'll persevere with what I've got.

I'm still highly wary of the next step, but this is a much more comfortable starting point. I need to not think to hard about it as it doesn't matter in the long run. I just wanted a painted tank, it doesn't need to be perfect so just need to crack on with it!