30K terminators and a dollop of Dystopian Legions

I put these terminators together in Aug 2015 and they have been languishing in a foam tray ever since. They represent the start of another push at getting more 30K stuff done and some games played. I love the setting but we’ve given it a woeful amount of time especially in light of the number and quantity of forces we have.

These were put together from Scibor bodies, Anvil heads and shoulder pads and GW terminator arms. I liked the chunkiness of the Scibor bodies and thought they looked good as prototype Terminator armour.

I’ve done heavy battle damage and wear on all my previous 30K stuff so these took a similar pounding from the sponges to distress them. I like the look of it on the power fist knuckles. Looks like they been smacking the crap out of stuff!

I’ve also been getting all of the DL stuff undercoated and it all stands ready now. Sadly they weren’t paying attention and the GoGX Sylvaneth army slipped into the queue in front of them. I still do intend to get them to the table this year.

The termies have helped my Net tally but the recent Sylvaneth haven't. Figures for the year are now:

Purchased: +85

Painted:      -48

Net:            +37

I'll need to concentrate on the Sylvaneth over the next few months to ensure that they are done to deadlines however I am still determined to get the bulk of my unpainted 30K stuff finished and make good inroads into the DL & PC stuff.

TTFN.

Termies and Nefs

This week I've managed to make some progress on both sets of terminators.

The Iron Hands have received their coats of red and this leaves them ready for detailing, decals and weathering. Plenty to do still but progressing well.

The Iron Warriors will take a bit more work. I've added both the black and white to their pads in a random fashion as I did with the MKiiis. I don't want the hazard striping to be too uniform. Once the white has two coats I then carefully add the stripes. This took a while but I like the effect once finished. These will need a little tidying up but after that they can have their yellow wash to complete the hazard panels.

Once that is dry the whole figure will have black wash to dull down the metallic grey and to make the yellow a little less glaring. Then they'll be at the same place as the Iron Hands and I can batch paint all twenty eight to finish the details off. It'll be nice to finish off a whole tray that has been sat untouched for over two years.

Also finished are the two US Aeronefs for the Martian VSF. I keep referring to it as Dystopian Legion but it really has evolved past that so VSF it is from now on. I'm thinking of adding decals to both these and the Britiannian ones but I want to have a good snoop around to choose the right sort of decals. I'm thinking of white WWII style stars for the Yankie ones but I'm not sure if that will modernise them to much?

Hopefully Blotz will have the next two ready soon.

Two things finished. Puts me at +3 YTD.

TTFN

Edit for a requested picture.

2018 so far.....

I’ve been pretty busy since Xmas but I’ve lacked any real focus. I just have too many fun projects that I want to work on. This does mean that I’ve got lots of progress but nothing getting finished.

I’ve wanted to do a siege game for Horus Heresy (HH) ever since I started collecting an army. I’ve decided to make this a reality, hopefully this year, and as such I’ve purchased some walls, gun emplacements and a TTCombat Gothic Garage which I think will make a good gatehouse. I’m planning to use this on my 3x5 dining room table so this should stretch across the narrow table side just fine. The plan is to have the attackers play up the length of the table.

The scenario will need some thinking about but, given the sterling work being done 30K Heresy Forum to create 8^th Edition rules, I should be able to use the fortification rules from the back of the 8^th edition 40K rulebook as basis for something fun.

The HH setting does inspire me and I want to vary the types of games we play. Several years ago I’d made some starship interiors scenery. Sort of my own take on a modular Space Hulk type thing. It got messed around with a few times but then stored in the loft. It struck me that it would be pretty good as a Zone Mortalis and this compelled me to bring it down from the loft.

I hadn’t varnished it at the time of making it, something that I regret now. My loft is pretty dry but I think the inherent moisture in the plaster it was made from was enough to let the mould creep in. Sadly some pieces were lost but most were recovered, repaired and giving two coats of Varnish. One Gloss and one Matt. Hopefully that will protect it in future. I also have a plan to add some larger boards to the ZM set so that it can fill an entire 6x4 table.

All this HH planning has also had the effect of galvanising me to get more stuff painted for it. I did the Iron Warriors(IW) infantry last year but they sorely need some reinforcements. Now I like the idea of dreadnoughts stomping down ZM corridors in support of the troops so the couple of dreads I had in need of stripping pushed their way to the front of the queue and got themselves a nice bath in Dettol. They came out pretty clean.

Sitting around for a while has been a tray of terminators for both the Iron Hands & Iron Warriors. These were kit bashed together from a bundle of Scibor bodies that I won on Ebay cheap, Anvil heads and Shoulder Pads all coupled with GW Termie arms and weapons. I like the notion that 30K was a time of innovation and invention giving rise to lots of variation to the weapons and armour that were used. 

So the IWs have received two coats of Gun Metal Grey so far. Onto stripes next for them. The IH Termies are started with a heavy dry brushing of Bronze and then a light dry brush of gold. This picks out the trims and lots of the details. Next comes the red colour for the main armour plates to represent the blood of Manus that these surviving IH refuse to wash off until the traitors have been wiped out we all know how well that goes!).

  

I was given, by a very kind soul, some GW scenery at Xmas. The lovely gothic machinery terrain. It is wonderfully characterful and was one of the first things I put together once the silliness of Xmas subsided. Love these models and I’m looking forward to using them with the ZM terrain.

My first wargame of the year was a cracking game with BFG and I using my Seraphon to thwart the machinations of The Silverback and Silverfox’s Chaos forces. Cracking game which I neglected to take any photos of. Still it was enough to spur me on with some additions to my Lizards.

A homemade Dread Saurian has been staring at me from the shelves of holding for some time now so he was treated to a lick of paint to get him started. I was also treated to some Seraphon Cavalry for Xmas by another kind soul and those have been constructed and undercoated. Painting 40 cavalry at once is a bit daunting so I need to get some things cleared before starting them.

My ongoing endeavours to put together a stonking urban cityscape is still also progressing with the additional of some street furniture from Blotz.

I picked up lots of additional bits for the city at Colours and Warfare and decided to get them under way. This is them all washed and they’ve been spray undercoated now as well. They should add lots of character.

Well I also need some people to populate this city so I’m working on getting the civvies and heroes finished as well so we can get on and have some games. I think some of the folks in this part of town may have dubious professions…..

One of the Hero (or Villian) figures I’ve had for a while was a suited hitman type of guy but I didn’t want to have him in a plain suit. Well….there was only one choice really wasn’t there. Let me introduce you to….

Mr Patriot!

It took the best part of two hours but it was worth it. It still needs neatening up with some white and the colours could do with another coat but he won’t take much to finish after that.

I seem to have entered one of my more productive phases again, which is great, but because I’ve not had my painting mojo for a while I have been concentrating on building. This has meant that the painting queue has grown considerably. I’m estimating that I have 300+ prepped and undercoated waiting to be done. I really should address that!

So goals for this year? Well last year I painted 366 figures. Great but I brought loads as well. Time for a new tactic. I’m going to track Net items painted. So a minus for a painted one and a plus for any new ones brought.

So the street furniture places me at -15…..but…..

….those 20 mkiii marines I didn’t think I’d win on Ebay but did takes it back to +5.

So this year I must be productive and also resist buying too many figures.

Wish me luck.

TTFN

Eddie.

The end is in sight!

Another 22 figures done!

Additional troops for the Iron Hands and the Mechanicum.

Only 86 left to go to reach the 365 for the year.

TTFN.

Busy! Busy! Busy!

So…..its Urn’s fault.

Epic. Out of nowhere.

Urn’s fault. I mean it usually is his fault but he did a bad thing this time.

He unleased me upon the world of Epic.

Little did he know that I have had a hankering to play Epic for ….well….decades. Since it first came out. In my teenage years I had a brief experience with it that lasted long enough for me to fall in love with the visual impact of it shortly before the owner of the grand multitude of wonder proved himself to be an utter tool. One dead titan and he went off to sulk in front of the TV. End of game.

Never got to play it again. I owned a copy of Space Marine and even got round to painting some of the marines up in Ultramarine colours. Then it went away in the loft. Lonely and forgotten.

Until Urn awoke the beast.

So now I’ve brought more than I should have and must restrain myself from buying more on Ebay.

Look what you did Urn!!

The main appeal of Epic for me lies in the Horus Heresy era especially as I was reading White Dwarf during the years when it was full of great epic fluff. As such I decided to echo my 28mm Heresy stuff at the 6mm level. I’ve got Iron Warriors and Iron Hands, the latter of which are in a non-standard colour scheme to match the fluff I have for my 28mm force. I thought I’d start with a couple of test pieces given that it has been a long time since I last painted any Epic.

Iron Warriors

Iron Hands

I was pretty pleased with the testers and proceeded to prep the Iron Warriors force as they would be quicker to get to the table than the Iron Hands.

 Whilst all that has been taking place more buying has been occurring and Urn, Junt and I have been egging each other on. Seeing the super-heavy tanks brought back memories of that short game from so many years ago and I just had to have some!

Some of these are for Junt and Urn. Not all mine honest! 

Now I do like to have all the scenery in place prior to getting a game to the table and seeing that the box sets had loads of buildings in them I couldn’t see that there was much else to add in order to get us started. I have a gaming mat, hills and lots of buildings so the only thing missing was trees. Thankfully I’d ordered a load for the Dystopian Wars games that we’ve been planning so they just needed basing. Once again a test was in order. I used a small piece of black foam core and coating it in sand. Once dry I painted it in mottled browns and greens and punched small holes to fit the trees which were just shoved in with a blob of PVA on the stem. Worked a treat.

So this weekend I knocked up some more! Should be enough….for now. I still have a couple of hundred trees so it’ll be easy to do more if they are needed.

In between working on the 6mm Epic stuff I have been pushing ahead with more 28mm Horus Heresy stuff as well. At home I’ve been doing a little bit on some add-ins for my Mechanicum force and some more Iron Hands…

…and at work I have finished doing the gold trim on the 66 Iron Warriors.

 Lots still to do but they are progressing.

Now I need to get a wiggle on because on the 10th March I'm due to have finished 90 of this years target of 360 figures and I've only got 56 done. Plenty in the pipe line but I need to get some finished!!

TTFN!

30k big fight - charge!!!

So, the moment that we've been planning ever since the silverback went and bought the first Horus Heresy book at Lenton (right after we talked at length about the 30k line and how it was too expensive to get into..... Sigh) - we finally got all of our stuff in the table!

The game was the mechanicum holding the middle and five forces pouring in from the corners to try and take them out

Watch out for those iron hands in the distance (in alternate armour colour)

And now a little closer

The daemons attack....

Get on with it slow coaches! Those three lonely imperial fists are the only survivors of their storm eagle being one-shotted by that sicarian in the top right

Bundle! This is about the point the daemons discovered how hard the mechanicum stuff was, even in combat.

A great day was had by all and a jolly close game that saw units removed by the bucketload and the 30k carnage starts here.

The Deadline is looming!!!

I'm still plugging away at to get these bits finished in time for the weekend.

The transfers are on and I actually managed to get the weathering done as well but the photo was taken before that.

Tonight they'll get a coat of gloss varnish, tomorrow night the matt varnish will go on and on Friday night, just in time, the dreadnought bases will get painted and static grass will be added.

So all things being equal they should all be ready. So that's an additional 755 points added in the last two weeks. I can't let the momentum slow tho' as I've still got a fair whack of stuff to do for the Heresy Era. Loving it!

TTFN

And Another!

Last thing to join the batch painting parade.

tonight the second coat goes on all of these hopefully to get them ready for next weekend.

TTFN

Forging on.

Next in the queue for their first coat of red are......

..one Deredeo and a Sicaran.

Next is a Contemptor and then they'll all get their second coat of red. The second coat is always a lot quicker so I find it easier to get several to the same point and batch paint from that point. Once the red is done I'll whack a few transfers on and then it'll just be a case of a bit of detailing and the weathering. I'm still hoping to get these finished for the 9th.

TTFN

Back to work!

Two weeks ago I was motivated, energised and full of momentum to get stuff finished for my Iron Hands.

Then the lurgy happened. Ug.

Thankfully I, and most of the family, have now shaken off the bug and I can get back to painting. It's less than two weeks until we are having a Horus Heresy GoG bash so I really want to try and finish one or two more fun things for that. The last of the infantry will have to wait!

First coat of red on some jetbikes last night. Fun figures and nice to paint.

TTFN.

Sticking at it!

I've vowed not to let myself slow down with the painting after getting most of the Iron Hands Infantry done. So with that in mind the next tranche has been rolled onto the painting table. More infantry, two dreadnoughts, some jetbikes and the Sicarian.

Also in the queue were some Thallax but that was just for the early dry brushing stage. They'll be side lined until later.

Oodles of coats of red to paint now. Joy.

TTFN

Taaaaa....Daaaa!

Batch painting 50 infantry is a slog.

Hadn't set out to do it but I am very please to have finished them now. I does mean that the bulk of my troops choices are done.

First up....the Anvil marines in one big Tactical Squad.

Some FW earlier power armour for my second Tactical Squad. I have another five amrines which will be added to this unit once finished.

Next up the support squad.

There'll be a squad of melta guns coming in the next round of painting to give me some much needed anti-armour.

For lighter armour we have the Autocannon unit and some Volkite dudes to provide some anti-infantry support.

So now for my Iron Hands I have the following painted:

HQ Centurion in Terminator (92)
HQ Centurion (55)

T 20 Marines (250)
T 15 Marines (210)
T 5 Support Marines with Volkites (125)

H 5 Autocannons (160)
H 5 Volkite Heavy (185)

Total (1077)

The HQs were painted last year but I've still managed to get a good chunk done in just over three weeks. I am resolved to keep plugging away and to get all but the biggest nastiest things (like the Fellblade) painted over the next two months.

So Next up on the painting table is the melta squad and additional tactical marines and also two Forgefathers. I'll probably throw in a solitary quad las that I've got undercoated.

After those? Its gotta be the terminators before finally getting to the fun stuff.

TTFN