It's a WHOPPPPPPER!!!!

I remember daydreaming about titans and all the Horus Heresy battles from the fluff in White Dwarf all those years ago and these days......those dreams are coming true.

The Castigator is a mean looking hombre and quite nice model to put together.

Just got to paint the fecker now!

My Start to the Imperial Fists.

 So the challenge for me has been time.  Running with two jobs has left me little time for my hobby.  So when a challenge was thrown down to get one unit done per month I was tempted to cheat and do a Tyranid unit such as the Venomthrope or Swarmlord. But no I want to get the 30K project racing along.

So here are some of the Space Marine Veterans I will be using in the Imperial Fist legion.





The first challenge was to get the yellow right, I didn't want a "bright" yellow as all the artwork seems to be gothic and "worn" so I opted for Vallejo Sepia wash over the yellow.

I also went with a lot of transfers, perhaps I should have thought more about this, as it took me approximately 2 hours just to get these on properly. I use Micro Sol and Set and in the past, not a problem.  This time the transfers would not conform to the figures. Sheesh!!! Eventually it has come good.

The next items will be my Terminators, these are all Forge World models and will look great once finished. In fact there are 3 squads of 5 of these. so a fair bit of work. The next units should be some bog standard marines. I have 30 of these and 3 Rhino's.  All this for our big game in December!!

I hope you like them.

Et tu, Helbrute?

The Burning Chalice chapter of the Word Bearers legion were some of the earliest and most keenest converts to the use of summoned daemons to possess members of the legion during the Horus Heresy.

This practice has never been far from the chapters tactics through the many intervening years to the 41st millennium, even though the chapters size and power has waxed and waned over this time, making the process easier or harder.

Over the years, the treatment of such possessed individuals has approached worship and veneration, such that when a fatally wounded possessed trooper is found at the end of a battle, they are quickly taken to the dark apostles and twisted tech priests for internment in a dreadnaught sarcophagus.

This practice is anathema to the daemon, who finds themselves trapped in the flesh of the trooper and further trapped in the metal of the machine and so, even by the standards of these crazed creatures, the helbrutes of the Burning Chalice chapter are almost completely uncontrollable on the battlefield. The Burning Chalice therefore have resorted to utilising blasphemous rituals to drop them into the midst of the enemy once battle is joined, instead of trying to bring them with the bulk of their forces.  The carnage they can cause in is manner is legend.  Three such creatures are those known as Prophaniti, The Endless and Dark Epiphani.

Multi melta for this one and some blasphemous texts attached to his armour. Most likely excerpts from the book of Lorgar. I replaced the horns around his head with tentacles.

A plasma cannon from the forgefiend (thanks silverback!), a new head and a re-positioned arm on this one as I didn't want them to all have the same pose. An extended back from a set of bits I got from eBay and more blasphemous texts, as well as the legion and chapter insignia.

The most involved conversion - the thumb came off and was re-positioned to make it a right arm with the power fist and a plasma cannon on the other. A new head, gorget and another extended back. Lots more blasphemous texts from the sisters of battle transfer sheet (which was invaluable).

I'm pleased with how they've turned out and a dark, wasted land with dead grass to finish them all off. Perhaps the existence of these tainted creatures kills the land.... Perhaps it is the tainted artefacts they endlessly hunt..... Or perhaps it is the weapons they employ. Whatever it is, wherever they tread, the very land suffers.

I'm pleased with how they all look different despite being from the same base figure and am looking forward to them wreaking havoc as I intend to use them as the helbrute dataslate that deploys as deep strike and has to roll on the "crazed" table every turn as opposed to only when damaged, hence the fluff piece above.

I haven't been totally idle.......

....just bad at blogging stuff!

I've been working on a small Mechanicum force to go with my Iron Hands and completely neglected to take any WIP shots but hell....they're all put together and ready for paint which is the important thing.

Lovely models particularly the Thanator who has come to be known as Stompy by my colleagues at work. He's great!

 TTFN

Da Deff Kopta Sqwadrun..... And da uvver wun

My quest for a fully painted ork army continues apace!

What with having lots of boyz done, I decided it was time for some support. So out from the almost forgotten work box come some Deff Koptas. Quick and easy to paint up and I stripped down the rotors to only two blades so they are easier to store flat!

Goff squadron first, with some decals added to make 'em look a bit flash :) as they are slightly organised, they have the same marking on the front bonnet, with random glyphs added to the sides. I'm pleased with how the decals dulled down with some attention. Lots of colours for missiles on the basis they can't decide which shoot best......

Next up are the slightly crazier evil suns pilots. Same basic work, same squadron load out as the first one (i.e. The basics)

My one game so far with them confirmed my thoughts, great on the first turn and then die horribly to any sort of decent return fire! Still, they do draw fire away from the mobs, which has to be good news.

Just a couple of HQs to finish up now to get my army all painted up......

Infinity nomads - gearing up for the new rules

The best thing about playing lots of different games (or at least, having bought lots of miniatures for different games!) is the different painting challenges they present.

So, after painting lots of orks relatively simply, I interspersed them with more figures for infinity, which are very detailed and require more time and effort.

These are uberfallkommandos, which are people who I believe have taken strange drugs that give them mutations. In the old rules, this led to random abilities each game for each one. No idea what it'll mean in the new rules, but I bought them as I liked the look of them, so we shall see!

Same treatment as my previous nomads to match them. You may be able to see a spare hole on the lady on the far left.... This is due to her being one of those miniatures who just won't stick together and even fell off her foot peg and had to be re-stuck in a new hole as you can see they only have one very small point of contact with the base. So I had to do a very fiddly drilling job up her leg and she was only seconds away from being chucked in the bin in frustration on a number of occasions! Still, I'm glad I persisted :)

Side shot to show the poses better

And some billowing cloaks.

I really am rather looking forward to the new infinity rules and have cleared the queue nicely in time for the new nomad minis from the starter set, which look lovely.

Orks! (And the foldio)

So, having a new army can sometimes mean part or not painted figures on the tabletop when you're too excited about using the new army to have time to get all the lovely figures painted.

So, when I used my orks the other day I had a few under coated figures and some not based, etc..... And I was rather embarrassed.

The orks don't really qualify as "new" anymore, you see. I've had them for years. I've just never managed to get them painted. Which is rubbish and hence my embarrassment. And you know that feeling when you see something and then can't stop seeing it everywhere? So when I looked at a couple of battle reports on the internet, some figures were bare plastic and metal and it looked properly rubbish. So I was reminded of my responsibility as a GoG to get stuff painted before I put it on the table.

So, without any further navel gazing or self flagellation, please find pics of the based snake bites.

These boys complete a unit to give me 30 of them and give me my fourth unit of 30. Horde-tastic :) as I converted a bunch from warhammer figs, they look a little more primitive and the eBay lot I won came with a drummer, who I just had to keep and he's in the second row, drumming out the advance-at-the-quick. Or whatever armies use these days... Silverback?

Next up was finishing the lootas, who were a mish-mash of undercoat and base coat. Bad moons for these boys, with bright yellow highlighting on the yellow metal areas to keep the shiny lookin'.

And from the side

Ideally I'd get all these ladz highlighted at some point, but with about 150 models in the final army I'm not sure I'd ever get the time, so I shall rely on the horde look to allow me to get away with it..... Not many to go now as I inch my way towards the holy grail of 1,500 points.

And a final word on my Foldio. I saw this advertised on the internet a while ago and it came out of a successful kickstarter. It is a little light box that folds down and goes up in seconds and allows me to finally take half decent pictures not on the workbench.  I got the one with 2 LEDs (as I figured not using one was better that finding out I wanted another) and the small amout extra to buy that model was well worth it. Here is a little pic of the foldio in action.

You can really see the difference in light compared to the rest of the garage.