Sons of Horus milestone!

21 months I have been painting these Sons of bitches, and I can finally say it. I have a playable force!

Only 1000 points, and not very optimised, or even fluffy, but its a start. . .

I guess I'll start with the new additions, firstly, HQ's.

This is Moritat Axander, and will pretty much ruin anyones day if he gets a turn of chainfire shooting at them. I haven't seen that many of these guys around the forums and blogs, which is surprising considering the damage potential they have with 2 plasma pistols.

I used the current 40k plasma pistols because I think the 30k ones look like a hair driers . . .

Unusually for me, he is clad entirely in Mk IV armour, although I did make a couple of modifications to it. There has been an extra armoured plate sculpted onto the left greave, and a plasticard strip and rivets added to the crown of his helmet to differentiate it from rank and file, and give him a pseudo crest/mohawk.

Next in the HQ slot is a Praetor in terminator armour, because a Moritat can't lead your force.

I took the normal Terminator Praetor and converted him to have lightning claws, just a simple matter of cutting all the relevant parts at the elbows and pinning them together. I also heated (carefully) the fingers on the left hand to give him a pointing/commanding pose. Looking at the pics, I need to add some definition eye sockets to the skull on the night lords shoulder pad.

 I've never been a fan of unhelmeted marines, something about going into battle without a lid when explosive projectiles are flying around just seems dumb to me. So I squeezed a Mk II helmet in with a bit of trimming. Unfortunately some super glue got into the eye slit and destroyed the detail, but it still works as a gaming piece.

And what is a pimp, without an entourage?

Basically just stock Cataphractii terminators from Forgeworld, its hard to improve on perfection. The only thing I added was a heraldic shield from the Grey knight terminators to the Sgt.

And thats it for the new stuff. The observant among you would have noticed that the basing has changed though. The new style matches the tyranids, and will match the Ad mech, and the table I am going to make (eventually) for my collection. This meant that the rest of the 1k needed to be rebased.

 The Sgt also had a head repose so he wasn't looking at his shoes.

Unfortunately I have to lose the stomping pose on the dread due to time constraints, but I kept the marine and the base so I can redo it at a later stage with another contemptor.

And thats 1000 points (plus a rhino), my photo set up isn't big enough to get all the models into one shot, but I'll take lots of pics at the 30k tournament being run by John from The Painting Bunker called The Emperors Legions, which is set to be epic, including a group shot.

Thanks for stopping in and reading my ramblings, what do you think of the new additions and new basing style?

The "great" devourer . . . and some more WIPS

Welcome back. 

As everyone who frequents this blog knows, I play Tyranids, Have for many many years, and I have been steadily working myself up to a fever pitch for the latest codex release. . . . what a let down!

After a day of reading the codex these are my initial impressions (the caveat that I have not actually played a game with the new rules should be applied though). All of these have been covered by other bloggers alot more extensively than I will, I'm just having a bitch.

The Bad:

Things that didn't need changing were changed for no apparent reason (Tervigon buffing nearby termagants, bonesword AP, scything talons), points costs were arbitrarily increased with no benefits incurred (hive guard +5pts/ea with -1 BS, tyranid prime +45pts!), and characters and units disappeared from the roster (Doom, Parasite, Pods, Ymgral stealers), exorbitant cost of most upgrades for monstrous creatures, instictive behavior (Wtf is it with random tables? Why eat/shoot each other?), Loss of access to biomancy.

The Good:

General decrease in points of previously overcosted units (Hive tyrant, Carnifex, Tyranofex, Lictors, Warriors Shrikes etc), Venomthropes giving shrouding, General increase in the effectiveness of the tyranids codex psychic powers.

Now I'm sure the codex is still playable, and Ill try my damnedest to do well with it, but it will be a hard slog, lucky I'm Australian and have a love for the underdog.

Enough whinging. Before the codex came out I had started working on an objective marker for games of the Relic. There isn't a prescribed size (that I can find) so I took an old model by my mate "The Hoff" did for our old FLGS themed game and gave it a lick of paint. 

The guts need a coat of "blood" once I figure out what colour to do it

As you can see the varnish went spotty on it :( 

Its supposed to represent an inteligence gathering or synaptic node beast, something not real combative, but having an important role. It is a frankensteins monster of pieces with bitz from the Warriors, Carnifex, Hormogaunt, and Genestealers sprues.

Next on the work bench I have a full brood of Carnifexes and a full brood of Hormogaunts on the go too for the army, and 8 cataphracti terminators for the Sons as well.

Finally I couldnt help but notice a combination of powers, wargear and warlord traits could give a Hivetyrant a 30 inch synapse bubble (Synaptic lynch pin = 18 Norn crown +6 Dominion psychic power +6 =30).  

I have several Tyrants lying around (who doesn't?) so I figured I'd try and be the first to model a Norn crown. The fluff description basically details it as a parasite that mounts the tyrants head and feeds on his brain. This wasn't enough for me, and I decided to make an actual crown of horns as well.

The horns were cultivated from all manner of places on the tyranid sprues, the tendrils of the parasite are greenstuff rolled out, laid in the correct place and then a extra thin liquid cement run under them to glue them to the head, the testicle like parasite is 2x genestealer toxin sacs from the upgrade head.

Thanks for looking.

None of this blood is mine . . . * Finished Sons of Horus and WIP World Eaters

*Quote shamelessly stolen from ADB's blog.

Hi guys, been a little while since the last update, but I have been busy.

I've managed to finish 3 more sons, and 2 WE (bar their backpacks which is why they count as WIP).

Firstly we have my home made Praetor (I have another set of the FW praetors I will be painting for myself, hopefully as well as the ones I did on commission), he was going to be used as a counts as Azreal, but will now probably be used as a sternguard SGT.

The base features a salamanders helmet, or a really dirty SoH helmet, its a pretty standard feature on my bases, and I tend to forget I'm doing PH/HH and just paint them whatever colour I have to hand.

I'm not actually that happy with the sword on this guy, but being a gaming army, and still not having played a game with it I think I can let the fact the back side is better than the front side slide. I also painted the plasma in a more subdued orange because its not actually pointed at anyone, so it makes sense for the weapon to be powered down.

Next we have some apothecaries, which given their uselessness as a buff bubble ala sang priests will probably just get used as regular Tac marines.

I haven't managed to get my hands on any of the new technical paints yet, so the blood here is done the old fashioned way using Tamiya clear red, and a second coat with a touch of black. But I'm pretty happy with the effect, even at a million times magnification.

Next we have the reason for the title of the blog post . . . WIP World Eaters. I personally see the change in coloration from white to red as a result of their blood letting. The human body has between 4-6 liters of blood, and an Astartes would have considerably more, so they would make a hell of a mess when hacked up with chain weapons.

I intend on writing a piece of fluff eventually that describes how some of the berzerkers as a symbol of there heresy decide not to wash off the blood of the slain from Istvaan, and as time went on, armour broke and was replaced, but painted red to maintain the connection to the betrayal and dropsite massacres.

Thoughts on the paint job, the fluff and the amount of blood?

Thanks for looking.

Sons of Horus WIPS, and a view to the future.

Greetings, back from the dead again with some WIP Sons of Horus.

These guys are are done up to the oils stage which will define all the armour plates alot more.

Firstly, the Azreal counts as:

Second is some apothecaries, after the oils I'll add some more blood to their armour, removing progenoids can be a messy business.

Next is my take on the Worldeaters, which I'll be using as assault marines, they'll all be getting MkIV jumppacks and butchers nails markings.

In the vein of the WE's, the Sgt for the squad, or some kind of preator if the WE section gets out of hand.

Finally . . . . .

Thanks for looking.

Finished Khorne Angels

Well it took 2 years, but I finally finished Khorne, probably because I was commissioned to do them.

Astorath/Kharn

I sold the army to a mate at the beginning of the year, and since then hes been using some of the models in his Khorne army, and playing with unfinished berzerkers. There's a tournament in 2 weeks he wants to play at with a requirement of painted model, so I got the job of finishing what I started.

 All of the models were built using the FW torso and heads, and plastic CSM legs. Each set of legs has been converted slightly to give a greater sense of motion than the stock legs have (ie none), I really think GW missed an opportunity to redo the plastic warriors.

Since they had to be painted to match an existing army I couldn't use and weathering on them, it was an interesting exercise to paint "clean" again. I prefer dirty.

The blood effects were done with tamiya clear red, then a second coat of TCR and a touch of black acrylic, the acrylic and whatever the TCR is based on react and the paint gets thicker, making it perfect for congealed blood and gore.

The backpacks are also all magnetised, to make is easy to run them as Death company with jump packs if necessary.

The whole gang

I apologise for the shonky pics, I really need a better camera then my iPhone4.

Thanks for stopping by. 

Sons of Horus Squads WIP

Just a quick one today, the Praetors got me excited to paint some Sons of Horus again, and since I had some built, I undercoated and sprayed them this afternoon.

They might take a while to get any further than this though because I have exams in 2 weeks, and i should probably study for them. 

Thanks for looking.

Gun-servitor WIP

Hello again, procrastination has struck with a vengeance, leading to some more progress on the Ad mech.

Since the last time I showed these guy I've added rivets to the side skirts, a housing around the servitor pilot/driver, a home made gunsight, and a SM search light. And last but not least the brains of the operation, a second servitor from the storm raven.

The legs came from another cultist, just cut off above the belt line, and sandwiched the two parts together, simple really. The guitar string umbilical is to pass on targeting information and directions to the tractor unit, I may add another couple of wires between the two, it looks a bit plain at the moment.

The final gun position will be where the walking servitor is looking, as if the bionic eye has the weapon slaved to it.

I'm a bit happier with how the carriage "sits" in the 40k aesthetic now, but if there is anything you can think that would make it better please let me know.

Thanks fr looking in.

Ad Mech Magos #2

Firstly, the blog passed 2 milestones this week, this is the 50th post I've made, and secondly it just passed 25,000 views! Thankyou all so much for dropping in an viewing my work, and especially to those who take time to comment, I really appreciate it.

Now on to the real reason for the post. Finished the 2nd Magos, this guy will be used as a sorcerer in the current list, just to get some magic potential to the list, but also because puppetmastering a vehicle is so much fun :)

The base model is the plastic necromancer from WHFB, and a 4th ed necron wraith tail. the axe head is from a dwarf i think, which I carved the cog detail into. The head is obviously a necron warrior, and so it the third arm.

I might add some rivets to the arm, just to remove it from the necron shape a bit. Mechandrite tentacles are guitar wire bent with pliers.

The other thing I've been tinkering with is a gun servitor. Not exactly sure what I'll be using him for at this point, but mostly is just been an exercise is seeing if I can get the 1/48th scale kettenkrad to fit the 40k aesthetic.

More rivets and details to add obviously. Most of the time I see scale kits turned into 40k models and shudder. The weapon isn't fixed, and so could be changed at this point for any of the imperial guard heavy weapons. I hope I can make something decent out of this guy, either way let me know what you think I should add.

Thanks for looking.