Update on Progress.

Well here's another timely update, I can never decide when is good to show the next stage, so I am going to put these up as and when time permits.
I have managed to add a nice version of the Eldrad Ulthran character which I have been painting for our Eldar joint force games. Originally I bought this figure to go with my Ulthwe strike force, however as that list is somewhat defunct now (see Eye of Terror Codex) I thought it best to include him in my generic Ulthwe force. My intent is to highlight the gemstones with a gloss varnish finish, once the artificial light effect is in place. I'm no expert however I'm gonna give it a go!
Another addition to my Eldar is the AVATAR, the Bloody Hand of Khaine, this dude with the Psychic power from the Farseer "Fortune" will ensure he sticks around for a very, very long time!! I cannot lay any claim to the paint job as my good friend the Silverback nicked it from under my nose one afternoon recently and then brought it back delightfully painted!! Thank you Sir! All I did was edge the base and texture it. This still looks a little glossy as it's wet, it'll dry a nice matt finish and I may drybrush for effect.
An awesome model, although somewhat small these days in comparison to most Monstrous Creatures, although with True Line of Sight rulings this could be a blessing!

Next off the paint station is the in progress Slaaneshie Terminators from my earlier post, these are coming along nicely I think and once I get the iconography on to the back banners and

shoulder pads this will lend a lot to the finished articles.

First up I have the Terminator Champion, this guy should be a real handful with initiative 5 and 5 attacks the turn he assaults, what's the Gimp mask all about!! Oh well that's Slaanesh for you I suppose!

The heavy weapon of choice for the squad is the Heavy flamer. I was unsure whether I should give the skull shoulder pad a metallic finish, however decided the bone finish looks far better...still that's down to personal taste at the end of the day! Complete with Chainfist he should be useful against vehicles as well as the hordes!

The rest of the squad comprise a couple of Terminators with Combi-bolters and one has a Tentacle...one of the blessings of their chosen Deity I guess! This will also double up as a Chainfist.

The way the tentacle has leather straps adds to the whole feel of the God of excess and pleasure! Or so I am told anyway!

The next Termie has a melta combi and a power weapon, again Initiative 5 should ensure I get the first hit and therefore reduce the amount of attacks coming back at them!

I really like the look of this guy! as he's striding over the rock face, the normal marine head is far better then the huge tuskers as well.

Last but not least another gimp mask guy!! Armed with Storm Bolter (Combi-Bolter) this guy will lend attacks to the champion, hopefully reducing the comeback again!!

Okay I am off to draft a list for tonights 2,000 pts game against the Silverfox and Varistat! Eddie Artillery is going to be bringing the big guns and all will be here on the blog in the next couple of days for your delectation.

'til then TTFN.

Additions to Chaos

This is the start of my Chaos Slaanesh Terminators, kindly exchanged by Varistat for my old Griffon, for his nasty Imperial Guard army...still more on that later I am sure!
When Varistat gave me these chaps, they were undercoated white and devoid of bases, Vari needed the original diorama bases for another project.

The squad comprises, Terminator Champion - Twin LC's, Heavy Flamer with chain fist, I will be using the Tentacles Terminator as a chainfist as well, 2 combi-Meltas and a Power weapon and Combi-Bolter.
I was just grateful to get these as a worthy addition to my Black Legion, I already have 8 Terminators, which are okay, however they still lacked something! I couldn't put my finger on it....until I got these, they have been successfully transformed through Vari's insight to a dynamic posed force, nice little touches, such as the use of a heavy flamer and a fuel tank from a vehicle, the addition of melta nozzles to combi-bolters. The use of Abbaddon's body and some old metal "Imperial" lightning claws just make the whole unit unique, subtle changes that really work! I understand that Varistat uses foil from champagne bottle tops for the seals on the shoulder pads! That explains a lot!
I am hoping that as I paint these I can do justice to the initial work. I decided on a black undercoat, old habits and all. Once I had them undercoated I drybrushed them white, now this isn't something I would ordinarily do, however, given that I wanted to dry brush the metal colour on after, this would go better on the white, my plan being to go back after and pick out the plate background in between the raised areas drybrushed! So on with the metal dry brush and next the "colouring" in of the other ares between the filigree and base relief of the models, I intend to post as I go along to show them as they develop, at least that's the plan!

You can see here the use of tentacles from one of the chaos plastic sprues, with a different head.


The bases are simply slate stacked and then some larger grit positioned around, I will detail them after painting further, the figures are pinned in place though using my Como model drill and good old pins, they do lend a lot to the size and imposing feel of the models from a table top perspective, as these are the older metal Terminator bodies they are a little smaller than the later plastic ones. This image shows nice use of a Slaanesh shoulder pad!

So next stop colour!!

'Til then...T.T.F.N!

Games Day Wolf Lord Diorama

When we trukked up to Lenton last weekend, you know the story by now, loads to drink and hangovers on the Saturday, none of us noticed the "HUUUUUGE" diorama to the right of the entrance to Warhammer World....Luckily the Silverbacks mate Ian offered us the information on the Saturday night, so we got to see it!

All I can say is wow!! The scene is one of a last stand on a world defended by the Space wolf chapter. In the centre there is a procession of marines carrying the incapacitated Wolf Lord across the drawbridge, a squad of Long Fangs pour death into the tidal wave of living chitin pouring up the slopes.

There are loads of little individual dioramas all telling there own tale, just on the right of the first picture there is a Landspeeder Storm being dragged down by a Carnifex, Hormagaunts pouring up and over the monster and on to the Scouts, who are still desperately battling the inevitable.

Out of shot below the Landspeeder is a culvert which Genesstealers have found and are crawling into up the rock face from the river far below!

On the left a similair story with Genestealers crossing the same river, just their heads visible and then crawling the steep rock face.

Large explosions can be seen in the foreground of the slope, throwing Gaunts into the air!

On the right down hill of the Speeder a desperate battle unfolds with a Squad of Wolves falling back under assaults from Tyranid Warriors and yet more Gaunts! One image noted was the flexh hooks shooting out from a Warrior into a Space Wolf, who has then grasped these and appears to be dragging the Warrior to him, Thunder Hammer poised to bludgeon the monster.

All together a fantastic piece, the detail is immense, discarded bolter casings litter the snowy ground, along with dead from both sides!

There are all manner of choices from boh Codexes on display and all are in full "lifelike" pose as taken from a still photo shot.

Great Stuff!!

The only down side was that the pictures were taken with my Phone on the Sunday, as I didn't have my camera! :-(

Warhammer 40k Doubles 2010

Here is the second part of my post regarding the visit to Lenton and GW HQ. I had mentioned in my previous posts the painted armies in the running for best army and wanted to include some more of the Adeptus Mechanicua Army that was being used as a Chaos Demons army and the beautiful Eldar army. So again in no particular order.

The Wraithlord was converted into a lovely pose, I loved the way the Wraithblade was being employed as a two handed weapon.

Here the rest of the rangers and pathfinders can be clearly seen.

The Avatar isn't really done any justice from this photo, somehow

the guy had managed to get led's inside the model to really give it the look that it was flashing and glowing from inside!

There are some nice close ups of the rangers and their camo-cloaks.

The Greater Demon in the Pseudo-Adeptus Mechanicus army is exquisite.

The domed structure being a Chaos Herald I think.

These old "Epic " scale imperial knights were used as Bloodletters! A really interesting army with some great looking units!

These are some nice Plague Marines, every Chaos Lords favourites.

Unfortunately my camera ability has mean't that I missed the Demon Princes this guy had as they were out of focus!! Sorry guys! Here's one of them somewhat out of focus, but you get an idea of just what they were about, excellent idea!

I am off to the Rhonnda Tournie in February representing the GoG's and hope to regale you all on my adventures there!

B.F.G.

The Warhammer 40K Doubles Tournament GoG's on tour!!

Well it all started on a wind swept snowy Friday morning, we weren't even sure we'd make it.....thankfuly we did and the first real GoG doubles was underway at the celebrated Games Workshop HQ in Nottingham.

Unfortunately one of the crew, Varistat, had to give it a miss as it would have mean't leaving his poor expecting wife in a snow bound house for the weekend, so our chivalrous companion gave his ticket up.....she's worth it though!

Well the trip up was really easy, both Eddie Artillery (EA) and the Silverback (SB) were in fine form and once we got above the M4 at Newbury the snow lessened, so we made good time there with a quickest ever time. A good omen for the weekend we hoped! Well until we realised that we were too early to get in to our hotel, so had to go across to the pub next door for half an hour, couple of pints later then it was over to Bugmans for what turned out to be a right ol' session! by 23.00 we were rolling around on the tow path by the trent rugby tackling each other and rolling in the snow and ice like a bunch of loons!
Saturday morning.....my God what had we done, EA looked like the snow and SB had to be revived from the dead to go to GW....it was the longest mile we walked!!

Signed in and a bacon cob later, followed by 2 pints of orange juice and lemonade and I felt fine, Nat was a little better....not so the poor SB...we'd broken him!
The First game, up against two great fellas Alan and Steve, a combined Marine and Imperial Guard force.

The key to the battle was Capture and Control and Dawn of War, our opponents made a bold move in the initial stages of the game rushing their two devil dogs across the board while their close assault termies deep struck into our lines.

The game was won by the efforts of these Terminators and the rush of the Ironclad Dread which contested our objective while their guard defended theirs!

The Banshees tried to stop the Termies to no avail....it was a tidy win to the imperials. There was one moment of note for a valiant Fire Dragon, who withstood the onslaught of 21 to hits and survived.....well until the next round at least! There's also a sneaky pic of the Pathfinders that EA and I forgot to fire with...a number of times!

Great fun game, we needed it as both EA and I repeatedly forgot to do things! Nothing to do with all the alcohol!

A loss for us!

Second game was against Ed and John, Annihalation and Pitched Battle.what can I say another game with good natured fellas, in love with the hobby and darned tough to beat. In fact EA and I didn't realise we had beat them until we counted up the K.P's at the end of the game.

Here's Ed's Drop pods crashing into the middle of our lines with Cantor, or for this game "Santor" (sorry if I got this wrong Ed!")They did horrible things to our Pathfinders!

John's Landraider rushed forth and disgorged a squad of Terminators with a Librarian in Terminator armour, you might be able to pick out the three figures from the Space Hulk box set!

The Wraithlord saved the blushes of the Pathfinders by wading in to Santor and his marines, while the Assault Marines leapt in to the poor pathfinders, who seemed to be drawing a lot of attention! While the supporting Dire Avengers bore the brunt of the Termie assault!!

Ed had dropped in a second drop pod full of tac marines while John detached his Librarian from the Terminator squad to let them deal with the rampaging Wraithlord.

The Banshees leapt in from reserve in an attempt to deal with this hero of the Imperium.

Which they managed after some desperate hand to hand, then swept off to deal with the remaining Tac Marines from the second drop pod.

We managed to win the game purely by chance really, as we destroyed one of Ed's drop pods, as it was in the line of sight! Nothing more!! A win for us.

The last game of Saturday was against Sam and Dan, a wily pair of a Tau and Imperial Guard mix, the mission was Capture and Control and Spearhead. We decided to hold everything in reserve as there was a heck of a lot of shootie stuff on their side. The only troop choice we deployed was the Pathfinders, in cover giving them a 2+ save. They would be fine until the army turned up we thought! Well you know what they say about the best laid plans....our army didn't get a reserve unit until turn 3 by which time we had lost the pathfinders, the unit that came on then died as well, turn 4 saw the rest of the army come on allowing us to kill their crisis suits, then the Demolisher and some of their pathfinders. All in all we got annihilated and that wasn't the mission! I have included some pictures of their army for note, I was feeling the effects of the previous night by this time so not too many photos. I was interested to see Sams squats converted for Tau and also have to say that the Psychic Choir proved to be horrible.....well done Dan and Sam. A loss for us.

The next day was a late start as we got our times wrong, we were on GT time and turned up half an hour later than we should have....not having the keys for the car, where our army was stored was a slight disadvantage, personally I think the SB was trying to foil our effort to win the Tournie! LOL!
Forgot the camera, so no piccies, however it is of worth to note the second and last game. The second against Andy and James, Pitched Battle and Seize Ground, these guys hadn't even owned an army 4 months previous and I have to say they put up a very spirited fight, Andy had a Dark Angel (DA) army while James had Sisters of Battle (SoB), the DA's charged in to the fray with a squad of Terminators deep struck in to the thick of it! Destroying our Warp Spiders! in turn our Banshees got the termies with the Chaplain.
On my side of the table the Sisters stayed in their rhinos with an Immolator in support, holding one of their objectives. I traded shots with the Exorcist, only managing to stun it for a couple of turns while the Wraithlord and Dire Avengers succeeded in killing an entire SoB squad followed by the HQ! we finally contested their last objective, holding ours with the Guardians and scuttling forward with the Pathfinders to claim the middle one at the penultimate turn of the game. A win for us!
After lunch we got drawn against a couple of Bristol veterans, Andy and Nic Taylor (Tailor), now this was an army combination that I wished I'd got my camera for! The Tau that Andy used was exquisite while Nic's Eldar was a work of art!! Fantastic! This is why we do these things if you ask me.

Through some twist of fate Andy and Nic's armies didn't make it to the best painted, which is a bit of a travesty!

Great game, all a bit of a blur, with most of our army getting stuck in early and fairly mirroring the Eldar of Nic's force. The Tau kroot infiltrated along with their Eldar Ranger partners! The rest of the armies being deployed on table, the mission was Spearhead and Annihilation. My memories of this was Nic exclaiming loudly that I had "penetrated her on the table" which I have to say made me blush.....the rest of it was all a lot of laughs and rolling of dice, that's all my remembrance of the game..oh and that we lost 10-6 in the end! Faaantastic game!
I have saved the best painted til last and got all the ones which were my personal favourites!

The Dark Angel and Elysian drop troop guard army won, while the Mehchanicus army didn't quite make the final, I liked it!

So in no particular order!


This nice Space Wolf and Deathwing combo drew my attention due to the clever use of Termies as troops and two Landraiders with a couple of mean characters!

Next up the Drop Troop Guard army and my favourites the Ogryn!

The drop troopers!

And the Ravenwing arm!

In my next post I will draw attention to the Eldar and the Mechanicus army, which was deployed as a Chaos Demon army!