Grey Knights

Hello all.

Well its been a busy few weeks on the paint station. In preparation for the game at Salute next year I have been painting up some Grey Knights, we still have a long time to get them ready but I thought I would make a start as I intended to start a GK army when they were released and after purchasing a few models never got round to it, so two birds with one stone as it where.

Not really sure what the full composition of my army will be but for Salute we need Draigo and some Paladins so its going to be something along those lines. I like the idea of Draigo, Paladins and Terminators flying onto the board mounted in Stormravens so thats where I am going to start.


I have owned a Stormraven since they were released, again with the intention of painting it up right away but ..... well you know the rest. I actually found this a bit of a challenge as its got a lot of large flat surfaces so getting it to look shaded and not just a big block of colour was hard, and silver isn't easy to make look good, I think it looks ok but could be better. I airbrushed Bolt Gun metal over a black undercoat and then washed in Blue, and a watered down Black. I then hand painted over it with Chain mail a couple of times and then used a Blue glazed over the whole thing. I then painted Chain mail over it again but leaving some of the blue hint exposed. I highlighted the edges in Mithril Silver and picked out the detail. I then painted some areas in Red to break it up a bit. I also realised I had stuck the the tail on the wrong way round, but if I had tried to break it off I doubt it would have broken clean, so I have left it. Question is when it comes to building a second one do I do the same thing so they look the same?

So now we need a unit of Paladins to go into the Raven. The unit is assembled and undercoated Black, I also base coated them with Bolt Gun using the airbrush at the same time I did the Stormraven. They are then washed in Blue and watered down Black, then highlighted up through Chain mail and Mithril the same as the Raven. Details of the scrolls, ornaments etc were done using a palette of Gold, Red and Bleach Bone, these colours will run through the army to keep it tied together. The first Paladin is done and the rest are on the way. 

As well as making progress with the GK's I have also painted another model, this is actually a Dark Elf Sorceress from the Warhammer Fantasy Battle range but I am going to use her as an Inquisitor. It was kind of inspired from the female Jedi from the Revenge of the Sith movie, the pose is very dynamic like she is casting a psychic power and with a few modifications she will fit right into a Grey Knight army. I clipped the top from her staff and added the top from a Nemesis Force Stave, I also added a Servo Skull to the base. Standing next to the GK's she looks so small, but fits right it and looks really cool. I haven't decided on her retinue yet so will take some time over this, but as a model for an Inquisitor I think she looks really awesome. One thing I do when building armies is use things that look really cool, not necessarily what is best in terms of game play, for me its all about the cool. 

Until next time...

  

Wraith Engine and "the list".

Hello all...

I found myself in a situation, that most hobbyists have experienced at some point, where I have so many projects on the go I am in danger of not finishing any of them. So many ideas, so many models that I felt I was drowning a bit and not really getting anything done. Especially with the new 6th Ed of 40K out, the potential for new armies and projects racks up. So I decided to use a method my girlfriend uses for such a situation and one that I mocked her for - I made a list.

The idea of the list is to write down the things I have half finished for various armies and actually get them done before moving onto something new and buying more models. For example I am two Mournfang, two Ogres and an Ironblaster away from finishing my Ogres at 2400 points. Of course no army is ever finished and I will get more for them but this will give me my basic 2400 list and it will all be painted. I have a Cryx Wraith Engine that I got, built and then half painted before moving onto another new idea and it has sat on my table half painted for months. I started a Grey Knight army and then moved onto something else. So, I have made a list of the things I am going to paint first and I will get those done. Now painting something because you have to often leads to resentment of said model, so I am going to alternate. The club is going to Salute next year to run a game and as part of this I need to paint some Grey Knights, so I am going to alternate between a model on my list and some Grey Knights, this also means I will get to paint that Grey Knight army that I have bought already and has sat around in boxes since release day.

So number 1 on the list was the Cryx Wraith Engine. I managed to get one of these pretty much on release day and eagerly stuck it together and undercoated it. I based layered it and then it sat there for months looking at me. Once I had done my list and got cracking with it I was done in a couple of days and now I have a Wraith Engine to use in games, and it was all down to the list. So to my girlfriend - I apologise for all the times I mocked you for list making (don't think she reads this so I won't be getting any "I told you so's").

So on to the model, I wasn't too keen on this when it first came out, but it has grown on me and now I have one all painted up I actually really like it. I went for my basic Cryx scheme that I have used on the rest of the army. After a black undercoat it was dry brushed in Boltgun and then over brushed in bronze. The armour was painted in a dark Grey and highlighted with a lighter Grey, the whole model was then given a Black wash. After this had dried I did some highlights on the silver, painted the cloth parts Brown with a Bleach highlight and then washed the whole thing is a watered down Green wash. I think it looks pretty good and fits perfectly with the rest of the army, now to go crush some hobby.

Until next time....

Abersoch Surfer

So after one of my recent trips I managed to get a couple of days away for a bit of a surf in Wales. As I mentioned before Abersoch is one of my favourite surf spots, it can be a bit hit and miss in terms of waves but when its on - its on. I managed to hit a day when it was sunny and the waves were awesome, alas it was only one day and then it preceded to rain constantly destroying my camper van awning in the process. Well after the session I took to the beach with the camera in the hope of getting some nice shots of the scenery and surfers. the picture I captured hopefully shows both.

This guy was just walking up the beach after a surf and managed to capture the scenery hopefully capturing some of the remoteness of the location. I made some adjustments to the image and surfer did come out a little darker than I was hoping bit I think the overall point comes across, one surfer seeking the perfect wave on four miles of remote beach.

From the Eye of Terror

So I have finally got my hands on a copy of the 6th Ed 40K book and one of the new things it introduces is a new feature to army building - Alliances. Now there are two ways of looking at this: -

1. What are the best combinations I can think of from different armies to crush hobby and win.
2. What cool combinations of army will look awesome and what modelling opportunities will this give me?

I am most defiantly in the number 2 camp.

Many years ago GW would release the occasional book that was almost a campaign style book, it would have some scenarios, new units but it would also have some alternate army lists, one of these books was the Eye of Terror and it contained a new army list called The Lost and the Damned. This was basically a traitor style guard army but it also allowed you to take a squad of Chaos Marines for example, it was a great list and I built a pretty affective army out of it. My army had a Nurgle theme and I made units of guard by mixing the Cadian and Zombie kits, it looked great. But alas the book phased out of use and my models became redundant, I could have expanded it into a full guard army but other things came along and they got packed away....... until now. With the new allies rules they can come out of their hiding place and take to the table again.

I am thinking along the same lines as my original army with Nurgle as the theme, so the main army will be Plague Marine based and then I will have an allied force of Guard using my Zombie Guard models. The new Chaos Codex is round the corner and is rumoured to have Cultists as a new unit type so I may not even need to use the guard allies to get the models into the army. If this is true then I might be able to squeeze some Daemon allies in. I have a Daemon army that hasn't seen much action yet as they turned out to be a bit rubbish in the latter half of 5th.

So with the new addition out there appears to be a lot of opportunities modelling wise, I am just going to wait for the new Chaos Codex to come out before I fully decide which approach to take. My Orks will be getting some attention too but I need to play a few games with them first to see how the new edition has affected them.

So below are a few pictures of my Zombie/Nurgle/Guard army.

White.

Hello folks,

White is my nemesis. I rate myself as a good painter, not GW professional standard but above average, that is until I try to paint something white. I discovered this when I started to play Warmachine a few years ago. My first army for Warmachine is Menoth and their primary colour is white. The models are awesome and I really like the armoured religious nutters and I think the white really suits their theme and it was something I wanted to try and paint. Now a really well painted white army looks amazing but trust me, it takes a lot of work.

Approach 1.

When I started the Menoth force the first models I  painted were started off from a black undercoat and then worked up through various stages of greys to get to white. This takes a long time and on some of the detailed Menoth models thats a pain. Also as you are applying a lot of paint it can dull some of the details unless you do it properly and water down the paint. The first model seen here was painted with this method and I don't like it and I think you will agree its not up to my usual standard. It also took me about two years to finish, I started it, got bored and then painted a whole Cryx army and half an Ogre army........ and a Dystopian Wars fleet.................. and some Killa Kans before finally getting back to it to finish. The advantages of this method if you get it right are that it looks really good and the white will look solid and you can get some nice shading towards the edges of the armour. If you get it wrong then it can look rubbish, I think am half way with this result, if you don't look too close then it looks ok on the table.


Approach 2.

After struggling with the first approach I tried to do something a bit different with the next model. GW had just released they new Washes so I thought I would put them to the test. For this model I actually undercoated it in with white spray, second step was to paint the all the base colours on in one go. I then drowned the model in a black wash - almost in a "dipping" style. After this I then painted over the white again with a brush and also when over the base layers again before then highlighting everything. I think the look of this model is so much better. The reason it works is that you are starting with the white straight away, the "dipping" phase does the shading and then the second phase white paint looks better going over the white undercoat. The model looks cleaner, brighter and tidy. I was very pleased with this method and the new GW washes really help with this look.

Since I painted this model GW has revamped the whole paint line, and now include a White Base paint which is supposed to cover better, I have tried this on models and whilst it doesn't live up to the hype it does cover a lot better than the old GW white which, as we all know, was rubbish.

So now I have finally found a painting method for white which does provide results, whilst I still don't think they are up to my usual standard I do think the methods I have found look good and a whole army painted in this way should look pretty good on the table. So after three or so years I might actually get to finish the Menoth force that I always wanted.

Unti next time....

Here today Skorne tomorrow.

Hi Folks

I am off on my travels again for a few weeks working in Taiwan, so hobby time will have to take a break for a while, so thought I would just post up something before going. I have again been a little distracted and have moved off my painting plan. The Ork Mek models have been finished and I now have a completed list of Kans and Deff Dreds and i'll post up some pictures of them when I return. Over the last week I have been distracted by some Warmachine/Hordes stuff and this was compounded by a recent visit to my mothers..... I am originally from Burton On Trent and there is an amazing games shop there called Spirit Games. I spent much of my pocket money in this shop when I was a lad and its a gamers dream, I can spent hours (and a lot money given the chance) in there, they have everything for every game system there is. Right from D&D books, board games, card games, every miniatures game system the full works. If there was a gamers paradise then this place is it, if you are ever in that neck of the woods then you need to pay them a visit, just make sure you take a credit card.

So when I went to see my mother I thought I would pop in and have a browse, well browsing turned to buying when I found that they had a Skorne starter set and the faction book. I have been thinking about starting a Horde faction for a while and I really love the Skorne models, the war beasts are amazing models and some of the Warrior units are pretty awesome too. So with my resistance slowly slipping away and 60 quid burning a hole in my back pocket I left the shop with the smell of the old game shop of my youth in my nostrils and a bunch of new models to paint, because I figured the large pile of unpainted models in boxes I have wasn't enough already.

The box comes with the caster and two Cyclops light war beasts and one heavy war beast, I thought I would start by just painting one of the light beasts. This set contains the plastic versions of the models and I haven't painted up any of the plastics yet so was interested to see what they are like. I have to say, I am not that impressed, they are still great models but its not like the GW plastic, its a kind of resin type plastic. Not quite FW resin, but almost in-between true plastic and resin, it has almost a rubbery feel. It took a lot of cleaning, and I hate cleaning models and probably didn't do it justice as I was eager to get paint on the thing.

The paint also goes on a bit shiny, of course this can be cured with a coat of matt varnish, this model isn't varnished yet as it was raining when I finished and you should never varnish when there is moisture in the air as it can make the varnish go cloudy and ruin your newly painted model. I went for a traditional Skorne paint scheme of gold rimmed red armour. I am pleased with the result and am looking forward to getting the rest of the starter set done so I can have my first battles on the Horde side.

Until next time...

The Mek Daddy

I seem to be somewhat in the zone at the moment hobby wise, although my painting plan has gone a bit out of the window. I was planning on putting all my attention into finishing my Ogres but then the new Ork planes came out and I have been sucked into painting some more 40K stuff. So work continues on my new themed Mek army and I have finally finished the second Mek. This model is the Forge World Mek released a couple of years back, I got it the day is was available and in typical fashion it has sat undercoated on the paint station since then. Its a great model, full of detail and character. In the game I am going to use him as a KFF Mek armed with a Power Klaw, although not actually armed with a PK the pack he has on his back does have a Klaw on it as well as a flashy light (KFF) so the choice of gear fits the model nicely, its almost like the Ork equivalent of a Tech Marine with servo harness.

The paint job was actually pretty straight forward as most of the model is metal. The skin is goblin green with a thrakka green wash and then a couple of lighter green highlights. The metal is my traditional bolter/bronze dry brush and then black wash followed by a couple of silver highlights. Then the detail picked out at the end.

I think he will look pretty cool in amongst the Killa Kans and with his Power Kaw and Cybork body isn't too shabby in combat either, especially if he has some of his Killa Kan friends to help him out.









I have also built the last three Kans to bring my total up to nine, I went for a Big Shoota and two Grotzokka's in the end, this will give me a unit of three with rockets, three with Grotzokka's and then a unit with two Big Shootas and one Burna. This is a nice variety that can target vehicles, and large units of infantry, hopefully the Grotzokka's will achieve accuracy through volume.

I have also built the second plane, in true Orky fashion i basically stuck all the guns and bombs on it I could from the kit and left overs from the first kit. I put the wing extensions on (where the guns are) and also the extra fuel tanks on the end of the wings, I wanted the wings to look as long as they could to give it that real bomber feel  and to make it look bigger compared to the first that has more of a fighter look. I also added so extra bits on the tail fin to add to the bomber effect.

Hopefully I will have the Kans and the extra plane painted up in the next couple of weeks to take to the field at the next club day.