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.

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.

More clutter and some scales.......

Been a little bit quieter than I'd like the last few days, had a few days away with the wife for a bit of R&R before it all gets crazy again.

I've got a few ideas for posts lined up, but for now I'll open a little window to the state of my desk -

What a mess.......

Excuse the mess if you can and I'll talk you through what's there.

More marines for my Heresy Era project
Grey Knight Terminators
Plaguebearers
and the interesting one - the brown box and tubs are the remains of my wife's Lizardmen army - she picked them up around the time the current plastic Saurus and Skinks were released, oddly enough around the time we got together - nearly 10 years ago.

I'm going to have a look at stripping a couple of the Saurus back to bare plastic and have a go at a couple of test schemes - one in the 'traditional' blue and a more natural scheme. More on those later though, for now, I've got a desk to clean......

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.......

Cleaning off the desk.......

Wow, 3 posts in a week? Don't get too excited, it probably won't get any better. Might even get worse.


The wonderful British weather has well and truly buggered me the last few days. I'm very sensitive to heat, and being a grumpy sort to begin with my fuse gets a bit shorter the hotter it is. It also means that trying to paint anything is an absolute nightmare as the paint decides to dry up before you get it on a brush, let alone on a figure.

I did however manage to finish off a unit of Forge World Tartaros Terminators to add to my growing Minotaurs Space Marine army (i'll show that off in another post). They were an impulse buy at the 2012 Forge World Open Day and hadn't been touched since. I had a look at the parts and made an immediate call to Forge World as the castings were disgusting to be frank. The replacements weren't that much better but workable.

I'll be the first to admit it's not my best paint job, I just wanted to get them finished and off my desk. I did however have a bit of a brainwave - none of the figures come with any kind of purity seals or scroll work sculpted on, something I didn't spot until they were practically finished. Enter the Grey Knight Terminator kit and a handful of long flappy purity seals later the unit was complete.

Minotaurs Chapter Tartaros Terminator squad

On the subject of cleaning off my desk, my next project presented itself - a 10 man Heer Infantry squad for my Bolt Action German army. Bit of a departure for the blog as normally I'm a 40k guy, but I was really captured by the mechanics of Bolt Action. Also lets me dip my toe into historical gaming.

Instead of the 'you go, I go' system that 40k uses, Bolt Action uses a container that holds a selection of counters for each player. A counter is drawn, and the player who's counter was drawn completes an action with one unit - whether it be move/shoot, run, overwatch, ambush or similar. Once that action is completed, another counter is drawn and the process followed again until there are no more counters in the container. At that point the turn is over and the counter is re-filled. Doesn't sound that exciting now I've gone back and re-read that but it's great in practise and well worth checking out if you fancy a break from 40k or other GW games.

German Heer Infantry Squad by Warlord Games

I've had the above squad sat on my desk in that state for at least 3 weeks now, think it might be time to get them finished. My Germans tend to get a pretty basic paint job as it's more a gaming army than anything else, though i'll  make sure the vehicles get a decent job with some weathering and other effects.

How my Germans look in the basic uniform. Very basic paint job but they look good on the table.

With any luck the next update should be some more work on the Germans, really does depend on the weather. Thinking the evenings will be the best bet.

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.