Deathwing

Hey Folks...

So I accidentally started a Deathwing army. My inability to finish anything and to start new projects on a whim is getting ridiculous.

I have wanted a Deathwing army for a long time, its been 15 years but I never got round to it. I think this is mainly due to the paint scheme. White/Bone is tricky to paint, well for me anyway and I have painted many test Deathwing models but never been totally happy with them. Of course there is no reason why I could not paint them another colour and use the rules for Deathwing, but I wanted the white look.

Development in paint has come a long way and now with the use of washes and medium I think I have been able to get the desired affect. I recently started a 30K Death Guard army and using a technigue of white undercoat with a wash/medium I got a white scheme that I really liked. Then a friend of mine was getting rid of a ton of models he didn't want (due to the same issues as me with starting projects) and I found myself in posession of two units of Deathwing Terminators. Along with the other models I have in boxes thats pretty much an army.

Having just painted the Death Guard in a scheme I liked I soon realized that a Deathwing army I  liked was no longer a distant dream. So I got to work on yet another test model and this time I think it looks good. I used the same method as I did with the Death Guard but only used one coat of the wash rather than two. I think two would have made it look too dirty, it keeps the model looking whiter which I prefer to my previous attempts which had a more bone colour.

So here is (finally) the Deathwing model I am happy with.

Deathwing Terminator

Until next time....

30K to 40K

Hey.

It's all getting a bit mental on the hobby table at the moment. It's a subject I have talked about in the past but I am getting a bit swamped by new projects. As with many gamers I love the shiney, and am always getting carried away with new ideas before I have finished off my last great idea. I did a test at work the other day, it was one of those personality type profiles and it exposed something I have known myself for a long time. I am very good at starting things, finding solutions to problems coming up with novel and unique ideas. Sounds good right? What it also told me was that if you ever want anything finishing then don't give it to me - bummer right? 

However I did manage to finish one thing this month and that was a new crew for Malifaux. This also exposes another weakness of mine in that this is my second Malifaux crew, the first one is still unfinished in the case upstairs. But I digress. 

This is the Neverborn Swamp Hag, I picked it for a couple of reasons: -

1. There is a massive walking tree thing.

Swamp Hag Zoraida

2. Easy to paint.

I used the same painting method as I did for my Chaos Daemon army, white base coat followed by some washes. That enabled me to paint the main crew pretty quick then I just painted the a couple of other figures with a bit more attention to detail and the crew was done. I haven't managed to get them onto the table yet though so looking forward to that one. I did manage to paint one model for my other crew, Bette Noir for my Resurrectionists. She performed particularly well in her first game so I thought she deserved a paint job.

Zoraida, Bad JuJu and Voodoo Doll

Silurid

Bette Noir - Resurectionists

My main focus has been back on 40K. I don't know what it is about 40K that just keeps dragging me back, I try to focus on other games but I just keep coming back to 40K. The thing with 40K is that the back story is awesome, the fluff is awesome and the models are awesome. That is a powerful trifecta of awesomeness.

30 Death Guard - Deathshroud Terminator

I have pretty much finished my Daemons, I still need to finish off a unit of Pink Horrors though and then I will put the Daemons to the side for a bit. My main focus at the moment is my Heretic guard army using the list from IA13 and my 30K Death Guard........ yes thats right 30K Death Guard. This is so new that I don't even have any models for them yet..... well kinda (edit - bought some at the weekend, first one painted).

I love the Death Guard, I have a growing 40K Death Guard army that has just had some Terminators added to it (see below) so it seemed the only real choice for 30K. The Horus Heresy models from Forge World are just so amazing I had to dip my toe in the water. A bunch of my friends have been playing it for a while so it was only a matter of time before I took the plunge. I have painted up one 30K model for the army, a while back I had the idea to do a 30K Mechanicum army but it never really took off. I bought a couple of models for it so I thought I would paint them up in DG colours to that they can serve along side them when its finished. This is the Castellax model, I toyed with the idea of spraying white and painting silver or black and then silver and painting the white. I went with the second option in the end. The white is the washed with a couple of coats of Earthshade (watered down). I think it looks good, appropriately murky for the battle fields of the 30K universe.

Castellax 

Death Guard Terminator

So back to 40K for the moment, this is the first Terminator for my 40K Death Guard army. This model was inspired by a model I saw in Visions magazine. Its basically a plastic Terminator body but with the front and head from the Blight Kings kit. I had to use some Green Stuff round the edges to model the two together but the fit is actually pretty good. This guy will probably be the "Sgt" in the unit. I have the Forge World conversation kit to make the rest of the Terminators suitably Nurgly and they will also fit in with the Plague Marines which also use the Forge World conversation kits. I haven't used that army much, I think I have only played one game with them. I'll have to try and get them on the table a bit more.

For the IA13 Heretic army I finished a couple of Tanks. The first is a Chimera transporter and the second a Leman Russ Executioner. As its a Nurgle themed Heretic Army I am just using a rusted scheme on the tanks. Its quick to paint and looks effective. This army is so close to completion, I just need to get a few more tanks and I am done (one of which is a Baneblade). It won't take much to finish but will be expensive. Traditionally its the infantry that take the longest time and those are all done as I am using the Traitor Guard models I made a decade ago (never throw anything away folks, you'll never know when you need it).

Leman Russ Executioner

Chimera and Executioner

Chimera

Firebelly

This month I also dug out my Warhammer Fantasy Ogres. I have had these painted for a long time but I didn't really get into 8th edition so they have been stuck in a draw for a while. With the release of Age Of Sigmar I decided to get them out again to give the game a try. I have my first game at the club on Monday so i'll let you know how it goes over on the Age of Sigmar page of my Blog. I have just rebased some of the models onto round bases and to be honest they look so awesome on round bases. Why should the shape of the base make a difference? Who knows but I think the defiantly look better. There has been a lot of nerd rage on the Internet about Age of Sigmar but I am going to give it a go before I form an opinion. I have watched a few YouTube videos and from what I have seen it looks ok. But I don't have anything to lose, I wasn't ever going to play Warhammer again so at least there is a chance I'll get to use my Ogres for a bit.

Stonehorn

My 12mm American Civil War army is taking shape. I have to admit to not getting through it as fast as I wanted too. In fact I have only added one more unit and another command piece. I think the mistake I am making (apart from getting distracted with other things) is that I have the whole army on my paint station just looking at me. It looks a lot and that can be off putting. Perhaps I should just put it away and have just a couple of units out.

Well I think thats about it for this one, keep an eye on the other pages for updates on things, I update those a bit more regularly with snippets of stuff.

Until next time....

Little and Large and everything in-between.

Hey Folks.....

Well its been a while, real life got busy for a bit. I still managed to get plenty of hobby in though. The last couple of topics have been about Warmachine and a few weekend I participated in my first Warmachine tournament, I have participated in many tournaments over the last ten years or so but never Warmachine. It was 50pts with Deathclock and as mentioned in the last entry I had never played either so wasn't expecting to place well and honestly winning one game was my target.

Well in the first game the pressure of the clock got to me straight away and I played like an absolute muppet. However it seemed that my mistakes actually affected the way my opponent played, plus he had a massive army and clocked himself out, so game 1 win and object achieved. I lost the next two mainly due to unfamiliarity with my opponents models and just not really knowing what to do and then I won my last game with a classic Buthcher3 Assassination. In the end I placed 8th out of 16 which for my first 50pt timed event I was very happy with.

I think for the next one I will stick with the same lists with maybe a few tweaks based on my experiences at the weekend, that way I know my own lists better and can concentrate on the things I needed to do better, but it was definitely a fun day.

Khador Demolisher

To my shame I had to play with some unpainted models just purely because I just didn't have the time to paint enough to get me to 50pts. I did a Demolisher though as you can't really play Warjacks that haven't been stuck together and it would have been a nightmare to paint after sticking to together. Looking at the Khador army on the shelf I realise that I have a lot of Jacks for them but as a faction I very rarely play more than one Jack in a game.

On the 40K side of things I have been painting some more Daemons, mainly Tzeentch. I was going to stick pure Nurgle but it did lack a little something so I am looking to add a unit of 9 Screamers, a unit of Horrors and a couple of Heralds. I have finished the Heralds and Screamers already and am starting on the Horrors. I have a scheme that is nice and easy to paint and actually looks really good. To make the heralds I purchased the Tzeentch Chariot kit, this kit is great purely because of the options it gives you. With two boxes I have made a Herald on Disc, a Herald in a Chariot and I will stick have enough bits over to make an Exalted Flamer Chariot and Exalted Flamer on foot. I think thats great value and they are fantastic kits as well. I also picked up the new Greater Daemon of Khorne. I take one of these to each game I play with Daemons just incase one of my Heralds gets the Power that enables me to summon Greater Daemons. As I normally have a GD of Nurgle on the table I tend to summon the Bloodthirster, they can fly around and are more mobile than the rest of my army - plus they hit like a freight train. The new plastic kit really is awesome and I hope that they other Greater Daemons will be just as good when they are released.

Herald in a Chariot

Screamers

Greater Daemon of Khorne

Inquisitor Thanorax

I have also painted an Inquisitor model for 40K. If you flip over to the Wynnjitsu page you can read all about him there.

We have also had Salute since I made the last entry, Salute is the biggest War-games show in the UK, if not the world. The really cool thing about Salute is that you get lots of vendors selling stuff that you can't normally get in a regular gaming store and you get to see models, games and accessories that you would never have otherwise known about. Some guys at my club in Brighton have recently been talking about doing some historical gaming. We are currently looking at a couple of options. I have some Hail Caesar models and we have played a game of that and found it very enjoyable but we also wanted to try some American Civil War. I was up for this bit wanted to try something a little different so we have opted to do this in 12mm. I have wanted to try something smaller scale for a while and whilst at Salute we found Kalistra Miniatures. They do some cracking 12mm ACW models and you could buy a basic army set for £40. I snapped some up and have painted one stand just to see how they look and I think they look great. The beauty of this scale is that it is relatively quick to paint and they look fantastic on the tabletop.

ACW Union 12mm

ACW Union 12mm

 As mentioned the other game we are playing at the moment is Hail Caesar, I have now painted up one unit of troops and a single stand of Cav. I stuck some other Infantry to bases just so we could get going with the game. We just played the starter set on a 4x4 to get a grip of the rules but I think it will be better played on a 6x4 with a bit of scenery on. It looks like one of those games where the movement and table tactics are more important that the actual fighting bit, hope to get some more games in soon.

Celts

Celt Geneal

Celt Cav

The Warmachine league continues at the Hemel Club. I am proud to say that I am currently on top of the rankings being the only play to be unbeaten at the moment. I have played all my games with Butcher3 and, unsurprisingly, won them all by assassination. You may think this is pretty cool, the downside is that I don't have any scenario points as I have not won any games on scenario, this means if I lose a game the players that have only lost one game generally have better scenario points. So I guess I just need to keep winning.

And finally - A new Space Marine codex has been released much to everyones surprise. Along with this an accessary sprue has been put out for each of the main chapters. As a devote Ultramarine player I grabbed on of these an painted up a new Sergeant with the new bits.

Ultramarine Sergeant.

Until next time...

Khador list number 2.

Hey Folks...

So in my last post I wrote about the first 50 point list I am going to use in an upcoming tournament, here I will talk about the second.

The first list used a caster I am familiar with, this one uses a caster that (at time of writing) I have never used. I have seen him used and the Butcher Unleashed is brutal. Without any shadow of a doubt Butcher III is one of the hardest hitting casters that exists. With a massive POW stat, Weapon Master and a feat that gives him all his Focus back there isn't anything in the game that isn't going to die when smashed in the face by him. Whilst the first list was all about attrition and combos this list is delightfully simple, its all about getting the Butcher into range of the oppositions caster. Butcher III has a massive threat range and many spells to support him in killing things and the list is built around getting him to the point where he can assassinate.

I will use Beast 09 as his Jack, whilst the fluff part of me doesn't want to (because Beast 09 is the personal Jack of another caster) the fact that he is fairly self sufficient and has Thresher for clearing out troops and charge lanes for Butcher means he is a good Jack for this army.

The rest of the list is a support act. I have put Malakov (junior Warcaster) in the list for a couple of reasons. I haven't used him before and he looks interesting, it means I can run another Jack without using the Butchers Focus and he also has a cunning little trick. If he is hit with a ranged attack he can pass the damage off to a nearby model. If I keep him within 2" of the War Argus he can pass of damage and then the Butcher unit can make a vengeance move, this means the Butcher can move 3" closer to the opposing caster.

The rest of the army is there to clear charge lanes, Widowmakers, Greylords and Greatbears. The Shocktroopers are to provide a bit of cover to these units early game. With two Jacks, the Greatbears I have units that can take Jacks and these units along with Widowmakers and Greylords can deal with Infantry.

I am really looking forward to trying this list out and am hoping the Butcher is as bad ass as I think he is.

Kommander Zoktavir, The Butcher Unleashed - WJ: +4
- War Argus
- Beast 09 - PC: 11

Kovnik Andrei Malakov - PC: 3
- Demolisher - PC: 9
Iron Fang Kovnik - PC: 2

Iron Fang Pikemen - Leader & 9 Grunts: 8
- Black Dragon Officer & Standard - PC: 2
Great Bears of Gallowswood - Volkov, Kolsk, Yarovich: 5
Greylord Ternion - Leader & 2 Grunts: 4
Widowmakers - Leader & 3 Grunts: 4
Man-O-War Shocktroopers - Leader & 2 Grunts: 6

Return of the Khador, 50 points and fighting.

Hey Folks.....

I have put my name down for a Warmachine tournament in May and its actually my first ever Warmachine tournament. It will be a challenge for a couple of reasons: -

1. Its 50 points - I have played zero 50 point games.
2. Its Deathclock - I have played zero Deatclock games.

I suspect I won't do that well, but thats not the point. I haven't played a lot of Warmachine lately, I fell a bit out of love with it. I decided to try and use a Convergence of Cyriss (CoC) for a year, but after a few games I just wasn't enjoying using the army. Honestly it was keeping me awake at night trying to figure out what was wrong with it and how to change it. When something game related is keeping you awake at night its time to put it down for a bit. I'll come back to CoC in the future but for the moment I need to play something else for a while.

Epic Irusk

For this tournament I will be going back to my favourite army - Khador. The format for the tournament requires the use of two casters, so I am going to take one caster that I very familiar with and a new one. Epic Irusk will be the first caster on the list and he is one I have played a lot of games with. He is very infantry orientated and likes the brick/deathstar type build. My only concern is the amount of time my turns will take with a lot of infantry, ideally before the tournament I will come up with a basic plan and setup so that I can minimise the amount of time my first couple of turns will take.

I see it as very much an attrition list. There are two big defensive units in there, the Iron Fang Pikeman and the Man-O-War. The Winterguard and Doomreavers will stay behind them and then pass through and unleash at the right moment. Herne and Jonne work well with Irusk, with Valachev attached they become a Khador unit and therefore Irusks Fire For Effect will work on them. They get three templates from one shot and therefore FFE will allow all these to have boosted damage. Its a 5 point investment so I am hoping that its worth it, a few practice games should help to decide if this is the case. The other question I have is regarding the Doomreavers, they hit hard but can go down easy. I am wondering if its a case of take 2 units or 0. I figure that they will be safe behind the defensive line unit I want them to be unleashed. Again it will be one of those things I need to figure out after a couple of games.

Things to paint for this list: -
1. Iron Fang Pikeman.
2. Doomreavers.
3. Herne & Jonne plus Valachev.

So this is the initial list design.

Supreme Kommandant Irusk - WJ: +5
- Behemoth - PC: 13

Kovnik Jozef Grigorovich - PC: 2
Iron Fang Kovnik - PC: 2

Winter Guard Infantry - Leader & 9 Grunts: 6
- 1 1 Rocketeer's: 1
- Winter Guard Officer & Standard - Winter Guard Officer & Standard 2

Man-O-War Shocktroopers - Leader & 2 Grunts: 6

Herne & Jonne - Herne and Jonne: 3
- Koldun Kapitan Valachev - Valachev 2

Iron Fang Pikemen - Leader & 9 Grunts: 8
- Black Dragon Officer & Standard - PC: 2

Doom Reavers - Leader & 5 Grunts: 6
- Greylord Escort - Greylord Escort 2

Finished?

Hey folks.

So this month I actually finished something. Yes you heard me correctly, I finished something.

An argument can be made that no army is ever really finished and that's certainly a valid view. But I am now in possession of 1500 pts of fully painted Nurgle flavoured Chaos Space Marines. Of course this brings with it its own problems, what to do next?

I have several projects on the go at the moment, and I am trying to finish a few things off that have been hanging around for a bit (which regular readers will know is a common theme for me) - but then what happens? GW release Harlequins and OMG (to quote my daughter) they are some pretty amazing models, and then what comes up for Pre-order? A new plastic Bloodthirster. Come on GW you are killing me here.

Veteran Nurgle Chaos Marine

So what have I been up to recently? Well as mentioned above I finished off my army of Chaos Marines. Although this year I want to primarily play Daemons I wanted to get this army finished so that I could play something to mix it up a bit but also so I could play games by mixing the two armies together. As well as finishing the 1500 points of I have painted a unit of Veterans using the Blight King models from Fantasy, some more Zombies to use as Cultists and a Land Raider. I will add a unit Terminators, also a Heavy Weapons team with Four Heavy Bolters. I am also looking to add in a Bastion as well as a bit of scenery it will be great to mount the Heavy Weapons team in. Once those bits are done i'll put the Chaos Marines to bed for a bit.

Veteran Nurgle Chaos Marine Squad

Veteran Nurgle Chaos Marines

Chaos Land Raider

Chaos Land Raider

Nurgle Forgefiend

Nurgle Forgefiend

For my 40K Daemons I have been painting up a few Tzeentch bits. I want to diversify from Nurgle a bit just so I don't get too bored with the army and the Tzeentch models are awesome. I have just done one Herald on a Disc and a couple of Horrors at the moment just to get the paint scheme right. I mounted the Horrors on the new 32mm base size as they do tend to be a bit wobbly in the 25mm ones. I also did one Screamer, again just to get the paint scheme right. Not sure how much I am going to add, might just be a couple of Horror units and a couple of Heralds for the time being.

Tzeentch Daemons

Still with 40K I have been flicking through the IA13 book and thinking about a few Renegade lists. There are some really great oppotunites for modelling some unique looking units from this list and I would like to try and use some models that aren't seen in 40K games much. There is a unit entry that is almost like a Merc type unit, I think maybe something like the Imperial Astra Militarum units would look good, painted in a suitably ragged way.

Again for 40K I have painted up a few Harlequins. I hadn't planned on starting an army of these but the models are so good. I'll paint up a few more of them just because I like models and I can use them as allies to my Marines. They might develop into a full army in the future, having a flick through the Codex they look pretty fun to play. I suspect they will be a bit of a glass hammer though.

Harlequins

Its been pretty much all 40K this month. One target I have for the next couple of months is to put together all my troops for Hail Caesar. Having read the rules I really like the look of this game and want to give it a try. I have painted 60% of one unit just to make sure I like the look of them but there are a lot of models in that starter set. Its going to take me a while to put them all together though. I have also been experimenting with magnets on the bases. Its not something I have done before but the models stick to the movement tray really well and will make moving them round the board less fraught.

Madame Sybelle

I managed to add model to my Malifaux crew in the form of Madame Sybelle. I actually managed to win my first Malifaux game a few weeks ago. Its a really great system with fantastic models. Hoping to get some more games in soon.

Nurgle Chaos Squat

And Finally. I was digging through some boxes and came across a bag of Forge World Chaos Dwarves from a long abandoned project. They are great models and I was thinking what I could do with them.... Chaos Dwarf Squats!!!!!! Squats are the long lost love child of 40K, they still kinda mention them in the fluff occasionally. I plan to model a unit of 7 and using them as Chaos Space Marines. They should look cool.










Until next time.....

I hate GW (they make me buy models).

...... but not for the reasons you think.

Hey folks. 

I am buried knee deep in boxes of models and its because I can't stick with one system. Lots of people I know just play one or two systems and concentrate on those, I just can't seem to be able to do this. 

Our hobby seems to be booming at the moment. If there was ever a "golden age" I think its now. There are some great systems out there right now with Bolt Action, Warmachine, Malifaux etc and I am into them all but GW are just flying right now. Some people might say that their rules systems are not that tight and that their pricing structure is high. But what keeps me coming back to them time and time again is that their models are simply amazing - and no one can argue that. I also love the back ground it is so detailed and it allows so many oppotunities in army design and conversion its untrue. 

Example - I am in the process of finishing my 40K Chaos Army. For Christmas I got the new Imperial Army book that features a Heretic Army list. This has just opened a whole new list of themes and possibilities for my Chaos force its untrue and I suspect that my wallet will feel the pain - who wouldn't want a unit of 40 Plague Zombies with their Chaos Marines? (doesn't help that I am in the middle of watching the Walking Dead either).

Ku'garth the GUO  of Nurgle.

So what has happened this month? Well I finished the Glotkin model, I am going to use this as a Great Unclean one, specifically the character GUO Ku'garth. I rocked him out at the club this week he managed to avoid the new model curse and he didn't die to the first shot of the game. He managed to romp up the pitch and smash up a few Tau.

I have continued to work on my Chaos Space Marines with the target of getting them finished soon, I am focused... honest. I have finished the Predator and the Lord on a bike and the Biker unit. I am still not totally decided on a list wether to go totally Marine or to ally in some Daemons or Renegade Guard Units.

Talking about Renegade units I have been trawling through the Imperial Armour 13 book which is focused on Imperial Renegades. Many years ago GW release a book called "The Eye of Terror" I think which had a Renegade list in and I built an army using Imperial Guard and Zombie plastics. Its been in a box for years but the IA13 book as allowed me to unpack it and see what I have got. I have put together a list using the book and I have all the models apart from a couple of tanks so I suspect its an army that will hit the table soon. As mentioned earlier I can also use them as allies to my new Marines so I suspect this will be a very Nurglely year.

Predator

Predator

Nurgle Chaos Lord on Bike

Burgle Bike Unit

Some.... err.... Zombies.

So before I got focused on finishing the Marines I bought a box of Zombies and stuck a bunch together. There is just something cool about a bunch of Zombies on the table top and being a big fan of the Zombie film genre I can't wait and using the IA13 rules they will have a 4+ FNP save!!! Even I know thats pretty awesome.




Also this month (again before I got focused) I painted a Blood Angel Dreadnaught.... I got a bit distracted in GW when the new Blood Angles codex was released..... maybe a new army project for the future. I also painted Sanguinary Priest... I know... focus (but it is a lovely model).

Blood Angels Librarian Dreadnaught. 

Sanguinary Priest

Back to the Nurgle theme for a moment. One of the questions I am still debating with the Nurgle Daemon army is Daemon Prince/Soul Grinder or two Daemon Princes. Well I have tried the first option for a bit so now I am going to  give the second one a go. This meant painting another Daemon Prince. The model below I have had since it was first released, I can't remember when that was but it was a long time ago, at least ten years. This is the original metal model and it didn't come with wings. When I stuck it together I did it as it came out of the box, so I had to pull off the two parts of the backpack and I can tell you that ten year old superglue is solid. Once off I attached some wings from the LotR Balrog kit and modelled some Green Stuff round the joins. Paint was then applied with the same scheme as I have used for the Daemons, this fella also has some armour so I used the same scheme as I have been doing for my Chaos Marines.

Daemon Prince of Nurgle.

Daemon Prince of Nurgle.

And finally...... Still on a bit of a Lord of the Rings kick I dug out Gwaihir from my model archive. This is again another model I have had since release, this is the original metal, not the new Finecast. I have got a game of LotR lined up at the end of Feb, still not sure what army to take but it might have an Eagle them.

Until Next time...