The First Tank......

It was going to happen sooner or later, though when it did happen, I was pleasantly surprised.....




No, not that you perverts, I painted the first vehicle for my German force, a StuH 42. Probably my favourite of the German tank designs, yes the gun is in a low hull mount but the whole thing looks stubby and brutal.

StuH 42

One of the things keeping me from starting them was being unsure about how to apply a decent scheme without an airbrush, though that was soon solved by using a trick I found on youtube - firstly stippling the stripes on using a 50/50 mix of the stripe colour and the main colour, then using the stripe colour over the top to give a soft edged finish.

StuH 42

I've not added any weathering to this one for now as I wanted to get the paint recipe right before I start flinging mud and chipped paint everywhere. I think a bit of mud in the guts of the tracks and flicked up the side skirts should do the trick, while I'll probably keep any chips to heavy wear areas.

StuH 42

One of the things I'm pleased with and disgusted at in equal measure is the comment from my wife that it look like a shop bought paintjob, and in some respects she's right. I mean, everyone paints German armour and it all looks the same for the most part. What I need to do is work out how to make it mine. I think a few bits of stowage would help, as would taking panels out of the skirts. The rest of the tanks I've got built are all straight from the box jobs so I'll be going back over those in turn.

StuH 42

The next tank I've got on the desk is the StuH's up gunned daddy, the StuG Ausf H. I think I'll start on that while I've got the enthusiasm for armour going.

German Field Guns.....

A jump back to World War 2 tonight as I finally decided it was time to get a few decent photos of my recently finished Waffen SS field guns.

75mm Pak 40, Anti Tank Gun

These 3 gun teams took me about a year to get round to for a couple of reason. Firstly, I wanted to get the bulk of the infantry done first and secondly, Warlord's field guns have a reputation for being a pig to build. I'll be honest, they weren't fun but a few pins and some liberal application of super glue means they shouldn't be coming apart any time soon.

10.5cm LeFH 18/40 Medium Howitzer

The crew are in a mix of field grey and SS camo (which I'll be glad to see the back of!) while the guns themselves were used as a test for a dunkelgelb coloured spray from Flames of War (I think it may have been changed since I picked the can up). It's made by Army Painter (who's sprays I tend to avoid) but it worked a treat. A quick wash/drybrush combo with some sponge chipping for weathering and that was that.

Nebelwerfer Multiple Rocket Launcher

One thing of note is the bases. I was originally going to use some of the large oval bases by Renedra but found they were a bit too big for what I wanted. I remembered I had a bunch of ovals by Games Workshop and eyeballed the fit, between a couple of sizes for the different gun sizes I was onto a winner. They were used as templates to carve flat bases out of 3mm plasticard.

I've got an officer on my plate next for Bolt Action and the dunkelgelb spray I mentioned earlier may have been used to get something tank shaped prepared for the table......

Yet more Chaos.....

It always happens. Come back to something with a bit of enthusiasm and then you can't do it for a while. That's why I didn't post anything the last week or so or get back to comments (apologies!), A couple of days after I last posted it was time to leave the paints and desk behind for a while and take some much needed time away with the wife.

We spent a week in Cornwall, right next to the sea. Loads of awesome stuff to see including a couple of castles, one of which gave me some awesome ideas for building some Dark Ages terrain but that's for another time.

Before we left though I did start on another character for my AoS Chaos force in the shape of a Sorcerer Lord. Again went with the chipped black and gold with a dark grey robe and some red as a spot colour. A couple of hours and some basing when we got back and he was good to go.

Still not sure what/if im going to use on the base with regards to grass or other elements so i'll leave that for now.


When we got back from our break I took delivery of a copy of Warhammer Quest: Silver Tower, at some stage that will get broken into for playing and adding the Tzeentch elements to the force. I may even pick up a few more of the monsters to expand the units.

One thing that it did get me doing first was looking at other heroes, particularly ones that could do double duty in my force. I've had a half painted Lord of Plagues (or the plastic Nurgle Lord given that when I started painting it, it had a square base!) sat waiting for finishing for a while so off the square base it came with a round in its place.

The flesh is going to go a bit lighter then bruised up with some glazing while the armour im in two minds about - go with the chipped black and gold of the rest of the characters or a more traditional Nurgle green?

That'll be about it for today but with any luck I may have something else cooked up for the weekend.

Another go eh?

I know I say it every time but one day it'll stick - time to give the blog another go. Nearly a whole two years this time, possibly a new record!

I've not painted a huge amount of 40k of late, after 7th ed came out I lost all desire to play with a bloated, convoluted rule set and set about looking for alternatives. I've still got my 30k project ongoing (Calth era Word Bearers) and a possible new Space Wolf force, but my main gaining focus is Bolt Action at the moment. 

Since I've last posted the whirlwind that is Age of Sigmar has blown in and pissed a lot of people off and brought just as many people in. I've been on the sidelines and figured it was time to get involved so it was back to my Chaos forces with an Everchosen army. I've knocked up a test figure to get a rough idea of how I want them to look that I think works. 

That's about all the rambling for now, hopefully next time there may be a bit more structure. 

 

More Terminators??!!

Time for another post I think...

Had an eventful couple of weeks of late, i've ended up back at work for the first time since august, celebrated my 5th wedding anniversary and saw Nine Inch Nails for the 3rd time (spoiler, they fucking killed it).

That plus GW dropping 7th ed 40k makes for a pretty eventful few days. I'll leave the analysis of the rules to others better suited but with every edition I seem to be falling further out of love with 40k gaming, though i'll always come back to the figures and world. I've got too many army projects i'd like to see come to fruition to simply drop it right now. Most of my dice throwing comes from Bolt Action these days, and given that Warlord is working on Rick Priestley's new Sci-Fi game based on the Bolt Action mechanics, I can see that becoming one of my go to games in the future.

During that time I managed to finish up another 5 Death Guard Cataphractii and start working on the first HQ for the army, Typhon.

The Cataphractii are set up in a similar way to the previous unit (well, the first half of the unit as it's now 10 strong) with a plasma blaster, combi-plasma and a power fist in addition to the combi-bolters and power axes. Should make a mess of most things they come across.

Seeing as i've made it this far without adding a HQ to the force, I figured it was about time. I wanted to add a cheap Master of Signal to add to the armies overall firepower but didn't have the energy to convert one up.

I did however, have Typhon sat in his box since he was released so though now was as good a time as any to work on him. I did manage to make a monumental cock up in tearing off the pipes that run from the top of his armour - as I was test fitting the left arm I pressed a little too hard, causing my thumb to skip over the top of the figure, shearing off all 6 of the tiny pipes. Not impressed at all. I wracked my brain trying to work out how to replace them (all 6 were lost in the carnage) but didn't want to risk cocking up even more so decided to leave the tanks smooth. 

One last thing I did was to make up a new base for him, seeing as i'll be using him more as a gaming piece he'll be based in the same way as the rest of the force. More on that later.

Next on the workbench will be a trio of Primarchs - i've got Mortarion to do for myself, and Mortarion and Horus to do for a client. I'll be adding pictures of all 3 as I work on them so stay tuned for those.....

Once more into the Breach.....

It took me a bit longer than planned to get this post up, but here it is.

The Breacher unit, a project started back in august last year, is finally finished. About bloody time too as i've very nearly shelved them a couple of times during the build and painting, for 2 reasons -

• Game wise, Breachers are over pointed and not as useful as most other 30k squads. For example, my 10 man Breacher unit is 10 points more expensive than a 20 man Legion Tactical squad, and not quite as survivable, even with the shields.

• Secondly, i've never liked painting things with shields - they always have a tendency to get in the way if you glue them on before painting, or as I found with the Breachers, are a pain to glue on when you've finished painting them.

Don't get me wrong, now i've finished them I think they look ace, but can't see me using them that often.

I've got the second half of the big Cataphractii unit in front of me now begging for paint - they've had some basecoats and chipping applied, a few more basecoats then they'll be ready for washing. I'll look at getting a pic or two for the next post.

Rising, in a zombie like fashion.......

For some reason (well, after seeing my blog pop up on the small but perfectly formed blog roll of A Galaxy In Flames, cheers fellas) I decided it'd be worth a new post to show off a couple of things i've done recently that im particularly proud of.

First up is a freshly painted unit of Grave Wardens for my Heresy era Death Guard army, some of my favourite figures from Forge World's Horus Heresy range. They've been sitting in a box waiting for paint from release day but for various reasons only got a look in over the last couple of weeks.

Grave Wardens, Death Guard Legion Astartes

Chem Master

Heavy Flamer

Chain Fist wielding lunatic

Twin 1

Twin 2

Not the last of my trip back to 30K, or the Death Guard for that matter.....


The second thing I wanted to showcase was a project i've had on my mind for the last year or so, well, at least since I saw the Death Guard Legion Contemptor. I knew I needed to corrupt it to fit with my 40K Death Guard, I just needed to decide how.

Thematically I wanted to tie the Contemptor to the same look as the Death Guard Terminator kit by Forge World, primarily using the spikes on the top of the body, the broken pipe work and the boils.

I had a lot of fun putting it together, the next one will be in the white of the 30K Death Guard. I had though of keeping the weapon loadout the same on both pre and post Heresy machines but a Mortis with two assault cannons is too cool a weapon to pass up. I might have to play about with some magnets.......


Lastly today, a peek at what im working on next. Just before christmas I finished the first 5 figures for a Breacher squad, though it might be time to finish them off before moving onto something fun.

Command elements and special issue weapons, Death Guard Legion Astartes Breacher Squad

Thanks for reading, with any luck (and some appropriately placed pressure) I might try and keep the blog updated a little more regularly.

Brutes and Bronze Beasts.....

Firstly, the Brutes of the title, in the shape of the wip Death Guard Cataphractii. 

This is once all of the basecoats have gone on and the chipped paintwork done before oil washing. Probably some of my favourite Forge World figures to date, and certainly some that will grace my desk again at some stage.

Death Guard Cataphractii Terminators, wip

Secondly, the Bronze Beasts, or more specifically, Space Marines from the Minotaurs chapter. I've been threatening some 'Taurs for a while now and with the new Codex on the horizon I'll be adding a few units to my current force. I'll be using the Forge World books for much of my reference moving forward, Imperial Armour's 10 (Badab War) and 12 (Fall of Orpheus). Fingers crossed that we get an update of the Siege Assault list from IA10 as that's the list I generally run with them. 

For now though, a look back at a few of the Tactical Marines that make up the army.

Minotaurs Tactical Combat Squad

Next time I should have the Cataphractii finished, potentially something Contemptor shaped and the next stage in the evolution of the Minotaurs.

Finished Germans and untouched Astartes..........

The posts keep coming, much to my shock I can tell you, particularly given how infrequent they used to be!

I've finished up the Germans I was working on finally, glad to see the back of them to be honest, they've been sat on the desk for a while half finished and now they are done I can move onto something else.

German Infantry Squad for Bolt Action by Warlord Games. Click the pic for a better look!

Next up another 5 Mk3 Astartes for my Heresy era Death Guard army to add to a Tactical Squad. For those not familiar with Forge World's excellent Betrayal book, Tactical Squads can be up to 20 Astartes strong - with the Death Guard's preference for infantry assaults a 20 strong squad was to me the best place to start the army. This will be 11-15 of the squad, with the command element to add last.

Mk3 Legion Astartes pre-paint

When I get a bit more time I'll be looking to do a tutorial for how I paint the Death Guard, anyone interested?

Germans and Questions.........

Been a quiet few days around here, the only real noise being made being the screaming as I get to grips with Windows 8, but more on that later.

Operation: Clean Desk is moving slowly forward, with the German Squad now having it's basecoats.....

.......and wash applied.

A few quick and dirt highlights and basing and these fellas will be done. Next up for work will be another 5 Astartes for my Heresy Era Death Guard army and possibly a start on my Blood Bowl team, but that's for another post.

Painting Black

A lot of the 40k rumours over the last few days have been pointing to a Black Legion supplement for the Chaos Marine Codex, something I'm very much looking forward to as a Black Legionnaire for many years.

I've painted black many different ways over the years and I think it my be time for a change for my new Black Legion force - what are your favourite methods for painting black? Feel free to throw a link up to pictures of your own examples or stuff you've found online.

Photo Editing

I had a sad feeling this would come. I recently updated my main PC and it came with Windows 8 as the standard operating system. I'm going to be fair to it and stick with it for a month or two before making the decision to keep it or replace it with Vista. My one problem is the way pictures are dealt with - my usual process is to do a basic white balance/crop job using Gimp but I feel it's lacking of late. What do you like to use for editing photos? Have you found anything useful online to help out?

I'll throw up a post later in the week hopefully with the finished German unit and a collection of the links you might throw up.

Until next time, may your end stay wet and pointy.......

Another day, another late blog post.......

I think at this point im stuck with sporadic blog entries, for those that visit occasionally hoping for a new post, I apologise. I think If I can manage a new post at least once every 2 weeks then i'll be happy. Anything on top of that is a bonus.

On a modelling related note, i've been a slave to Forge World the last couple of days hacking away at Renegade Militia torsos to get arms that fit with a minimum of green stuff work. Im not afraid to throw a bit of the ol' green onto a fig but I resent paying top dollar for parts and then they fit badly.

But I digress. I've actually managed to get the 2nd and 3rd Autocannon teams I want in the army assembled, with the 4th on the way. The majority of the time is spent hacking up bases and plasticard to make a slot in the base for the 2nd crewman to go - I was torn between modelling each as mini dioramas or making the crewman removable for ease of keeping track of wounds. Seeing as the bases on my Nurgle Militia are quite plain, I went for the latter.

I also managed to kick out one of the gorgeous Forge World Nurgle Preachers in a record time recently. It's a very '90's' figure, but the sculpting and detail work is phenomenal. Very understated and one of my favourite FW figs. You'll have to excuse the rough freehand though, I was trying to get it finished at about 5am.

Until next time, thanks for reading.

As asked, a shot of an Autocannon team minus the removable loader. If i'd of thought about it before i'd of done a tutorial, but i'll have some more heavy weapon teams to do in the future so you'll have to wait for that im afraid.

Life, Death and Undeath

First up, apologies for the lack of posts recently, my current illness has quashed most of my hobby mojo. Hopefully I can start to get back on track in the next few weeks.


Been a strange few weeks in world, most of it spent in agony due to a bout of Sciatica - still on pain meds with potential surgery incoming.


Went off to Germany for a week with the wife, the majority being pretty uneventful until we hit a town called Darmstadt, where our host introduced me to a friend of hers that owns a FLGS, full of everything you'd expect in a decent store. The owners english was very good so we spent the best part of 3 hours talking hobby.


After having a look about I spotted a holy grail of sorts, a rack of OOP and generally old GW stuff, a lot of it from around 15-20 years ago, the oldest figs being Dark Elf Cold One Riders, back from the times when the mount was as skinny as the elf riding it. Not being a Dark Elf player I passed, but soon discovered some useful stuff.



GorkaMorka Digga Trukk (soon to be converted to Traitor use), a Chaos Blood Bowl team, blister of Chaos Cheerleaders and 2 blisters of Plague Marine Special Weapons, from the time of the current metal Plague Marines and shortly discontinued. Pretty chuffed with these as they were all mint, the boxes themselves still being shrink wrapped.


As a side note, if anyone has any of the old Chaos Blood Bowl minis to shift, let me know!

Later that evening we headed off to a Goth Club, strangely enough called Das Biergarten. Excellent night all round, much beer was consumed and much hobby was spoken of (the FLGS owner is a regular). It's quite an odd feeling hearing Rammstein in a German club.



Then we came home, and my cat died. Hit me pretty hard as he'd grown up with me since I was a child. In spite of that, I went out and got myself a new tattoo to remember him by.

Then, The Spider's Web, The Ammobunker forum's Games Day table for this year started taking shape, with myself deciding it would be a great idea to co-ordinate the kill teams. Got a room to build for that so keep an eye on the thread for all the progress.


We're nearly at the end, hang on.


After a few days of organising GD stuff I figured I better get some of my own painting done to ward of the madness. Enter some Zombies. 5 of exactly the same zombie figure (seeing as i've got 13 of this fig alone) to make a start on the 25 i've got to do. Im aiming to get these done in time for the Ammobunker Open as im planning on taking down a Nurgle Traitor list with me.

Nice and quick these, lots of washes and hardly any highlighting. Real lazy painting.


For those of you that made it to the end of the wall of text, cheers. For those that didn't read the text and just looked at the pictures, shame on you! A large man will be knocking on your door shortly.

In the coming weeks there'll be a couple of Retrospectives, first up will be the next instalment of the Space Wolves series, then a series on my Death Guard army.

Thanks for reading.

Well that was a slog......

Finished up another pair of Sanguinary Guard today, much later than I wanted. Ideally i'd be pitching them out at roughly 1 every 2 days, but im starting to hit the wall.

Every army painter knows this wall, it's the one that reads 'paint something else'.

Need to push on though, got too many projects lined up that I want to start.

Something else I promised for the weekend that didn't get delivered was the army list im working to. Well, after some thoughts on the list, here it is

1750pts

HQ - Dante

HQ - Librarian, jump pack, infernus pistol, 2 powers (undecided as yet)

Elite - 2 Sanguinary Priests, jump pack, infernus pistol, power weapon

Elite - 2 Sanguinary Priests, jump pack, infernus pistol, power weapon

Troops - 5 Sanguinary Guard, 2 infernus pistols, power fist, chapter banner

Troops - 5 Sanguinary Guard, 2 infernus pistols, power fist

Troops - 5 Sanguinary Guard, 2 infernus pistols, power fist

Troops - 5 Sanguinary Guard, 2 infernus pistols, power fist

If im feeling really vicious i'd drop the Libby and one of the priests and add Mephiston. 

The list is based around deep striking, making full use of the priests ability to give feel no pain and furious charge to the squads. The infernus pistols are going to be the can openers in the list, while the subsequent assaults should deal with everything else.

Any thoughts on the list feel free to drop me a line.

Thanks for reading.

1 Squad down, 3 to go.......

I've been plagued by laziness the last couple of days, which took a 2 day paintjob into something that took nearly a week. Not a good thing when your painting to a deadline.

Ideally this would of been posted a few days ago as I wanted to do a write up on the army list today, instead i'll post that at the weekend.


Lack of speed aside, i've managed to get the first squad of Sanguinary Guard complete. Very pleased with this as i've managed to paint 5 white armoured marines without harming myself or anybody else. Only another 15 plus characters to go......


Thanks for reading.

Bloody hell he finished another one........

Yes I did. Thats 4 down now, another 16 to go. Not including characters. In white armour. What have I let myself in for?

Not sure how im going to do it but im aiming to get 1750 points done before june. I'll be throwing up a list next week to see what everybody thinks.

Until then, i'll leave you with some pictures.

Thanks for reading.

Weekday wip.....

Just a quick post today, with a wip of the current Sanguinary Guard on the desk.

The parchment areas have had a wash of Devlan Mud over the white undercoat to block them out, then it'll be the wings and armour. Hoping to have him finished tonight so i'll throw up some finished pics then.

Thanks for reading.

Yet more white.....

Managed to get another Sangy Guard done today, with a few changes from the original.

As I want to get the army ready for the Ammobunker Open Bash in early June, and im not the fastest painter, i've changed how im doing the white - instead of washing the whole fig with the grey shading wash im applying it selectively to the recesses and cleaning up with white after.

Much faster than the original method as im no longer having to paint multiple layers of white over the grey shade, the majority I can do with one white pass. Downside with this is that the first one using this method is a little rough, can only get better from here though.

I think I might of finally come up with a method of doing the wings thats pleasing to the eye - went with a (very) rough black to grey blend going towards the bottom of the wing. I think it fits better with the rest of the fig myself.

Going to start another SG now, i'll leave you with a pic of where the painting is at so far. With any luck I should have him finished within a couple of days.

Thanks for reading.

Retrospective - Space Wolves - Wolf Scouts

Welcome to this weeks retrospective, this week dealing with the most sneaky of sneakys, Space Wolf Scouts.

This squad was very much my baby, with some over the shoulder input by Matt. A few years ago I stumbled across a (now defunct) website ran by sculptor Matt Gubser, and found an interesting article on building scouts using marine, guard and chaos marauder parts. I showed this article to Matt who said something along the lines of ‘you can do that’. So I did.

[Ss] Lol, I remember it a little differently but will run with that version for ease of narrative. 

Each scout was built around a specific theme, those being a leader, sniper, a couple of cc scouts and a pair of support scouts.

[Ss] Sure this is something we spent much time batting around trying to nail down each guy , think one or two may have been almost scrapped and re started , I always enjoy collaborative design more than doing it by myself, hoping slowly over time me and Steve can bring you some nice new stuff at some point.

The main parts of the figure are built from Space Marines (torso, lower legs) and chaos marauders (upper legs, arms), with pieces from the Kroot sprue, Catachan sprue and various accessories. The best use of parts I think are the backpacks – these are from the original metal Space Wolf Scout sgts from the early 90’s. Matt picked up a few while you could still order bits from GW, a service im still lamenting the loss of.

[Ss] One minute of silence for  bitz service ............ 

Lest we forget.

In all seriousness , never forget ...

The basic premise of the article was the use of guard/marauder upper legs combined with marine lower legs to give the impression of a lighter armour that still had design cues from power armour. Lots of green stuff was used across the squad, mostly to fill gaps in the legs and re-sculpt areas of detail.

My personal favourite is the scout we nicknames Knives, a shouty head and some extreme posing gives him a massive amount of movement which combined with the direction of the arms and knives creates a really dynamic figure.

[Ss] Yeah, its between him and the squad leader for me , he's a great model for MoTW these days , still struggling to come to terms with the decision to sell them ....

[Ss]But, wait , there's more , and we have been saving the best til last *wink wink* coming soon.

Once again, you can find Matt's blog at Rant in E Minor.


Thanks for reading.