Mars Mania and the Templar Lament

Hello dear readers! (All 5 of you!) I have been having the usual real life problems getting in the way of my hobbying lately. I have spent a couple of weeks in Hong Kong with work though so I shan't complain too much.

Obviously this means I will have done very little hobbying. So this post will just lay out some of my new purchases and my plans with them and I will also muse a little bit on some of the releases coming out and how this effects my collections and plans with the armies going forward.

Adeptus Mechanicus

Anyone reading a blog about 40k will obviously be aware of the new kids on the block, all the way from the mean streets of Mars. Now I was pretty iffy when the Skitarii came out, and I still feel as a release that they feel terrible incomplete, in a way that the Harlequin codex never did. Yes the price point was lower, but in the same way that a motorbike costs less than a car, its because you get less wheels!! (But you look oh so much cooler...). 

However, the release of the mechanicus proper as it were has me pretty happy, and I cannot wait to download my ebook on release day. I have the Horus Heresy Book 3 rules for the Omnissiah army in 30k and I'm looking forward to designing some conversions that mean my models can bridge both codices and rulesets. 

I have been bigging myself up for some time now to develop an entirely converted entirely none GW army and the time has finally come. The mechanicum will be that army. This is in many way an odd choice as the models across all ranges are simply beautiful, however, I feel that given their multitudinous aesthetic and style it is an army that will led itself to my meagre skill set conversion wise.

I plan to design an explorator/tech heretek style force, that will be big on weird and creepy with mixed mechanics within it. I have two 15mm dreamforge mortis walkers on there way to me, these will most likely end up as Thanatar stand ins and thus be unlikely to make it into the 40k list. I also have some spider walkers from Robogear on there way which were a steal at 3 quid a pop! The legs for these walkers will be attached to ogre bodies to make some grotesque walker flesh fusion automaton that will stand in for Castellax/Kastellan and possibly a Kataphron if I go crazy with the magnets. For my bog standard rank and file I have ordered some covenant of Antarctica automata from dysopian legions at spartan games. These 32mm beasties are bigger than the usual tech thrall but that will add to their cold menace hopefully. 60 of those!!! These should be able to pass as skitarii in a bind.

Thats the ordered parts so far, so hopefully as I get distracted and excited pictures will pop up. I have the age old problem of not fixing myself to a project at once...

Space Marines

So they are coming. I have mixed feelings about the timing. I sincerely believe that vanilla marines should be done first and then all other codices stem from that release. As it is we have space wolves and blood angels (as well as grey knights) possibly left out of the loop of some changes that may occur. We may not have that but I fear for the worst. What will happen with Dark Angels will be very interesting to see where the balance of power lies.

The rumour mill is a cruel mistress and for every faction she promises to bring with the other hand she snatches away your first love. Will my beloved Black Templars still be in the codex? I dread to think, as I struggle to really see the Templars coming back as their own stand alone codex. If they are expunged from the codex and no independent rules are forthcoming I will be sad to say but I will sell my army, I have no desire to play my templars with vanilla rules. I love them for their run headlong to smash the enemy in the face attitude (might be way I collect blood angels too...) and none of the other 40k chapters that I don't already have really interest me sadly.

General Hobby

I desperately need some new brushes so they will be a quick purchase in the future, I am interested to try the new Citadel brushes as some of them look they might have really got it right for once, but I will have to have a feel up close before making my mind. GW have in general been heading in the right direction I feel with their releases in the past year, with fan favourites, new cases and functional brushes plugging genuine holes in their line rather than questionable money grab releases.

Other than that I am desperate to get a big chunk of models painted, they are mocking me on my shelves but I have a terribly hectic couple of months coming up so I would suggest that a model or two a week to completion would be a good aim for me to have. It will be sometime till I can churn out some decent sized units in a reasonable time frame sadly.

But, I do hope those of you who do read my blog and humour my paint sploshed bits of plastic will stick with me and I hope to get more people interested in my stuff and chatting away.

Peace out

Rob

PS if anyone has any good guides to blogger and setting it up for a 40k style blog I would really appreciate some links! Leave in a comment or email me :) ta!

Blood Angel Terminators and weathering - Advice needed

Hey everybody,

Another long week and another hobby light week sadly. I'm off to Hong Kong on the 16th to present some of my scientific data and all the preparation for that as well as work has me going a million miles an hour.

Anyway, this week I re-painted some Blood Angel terminators that I had become dissatisfied with. I'd previously painted them very dark and weathered them with drybrushed silver followed by bronze, in all honesty it looked as bad and lazy as it sounds. Below are a few pictures:

So, these guys had all the red open areas re-painted with a thinnish coat of wazdakka red and a thin layer of white scar over all the white areas. In the end I think this actually has lent a bit more depth to the models which was an unexpected surprise. Here's a couple of groups pics:

Or perhaps as I look from the back it less depth? Darn I cannot make up my mind.

However here comes the bit where I beg steal and borrow advice from any of you that wish to give it. As much as I like the clean cut look of them now I would like to weather them. However I'm struggling here, I've practised with a few tutorials and I just can't seem to pull off an of the main effect. I'm pretty shy from using weathering powders as I feel I would just balls up all the work painting (and then re-painting!) these guys.

I had a go at the layer light paint followed by a metallic weathering on one guy who you may have noticed at the back of the group photos. Here's a few pictures of him plus and minus flash:

What do you fine people think? I'm undecided on it, some times I think it looks good, other times I thinks its not so good. Or do you think I should leave them clean? I'm not totally adverse to that if people really think they look better. I paint for myself but also so someone can enjoy a nice cinematic battle against a painted army so its always nice to know how other people will view it.

I had  splodge around with a sponge dipped in the underlying pink used on the above model, just on tissue paper, but felt equally nervy about taking that and applying it to a model. 

So if you have any opinions on what I should or shouldn't do, or if I've already got it down OK, please do leave a comment below and help me make up my mind, I would be very appreciative for any help :)

I'm hoping to post this friday coming before I go to Hong Kong but I feel it will be a hobby-less week and it may be a week or two before I post again,

Hopefully I won't lose my 1 or 2 readers!!!

Over and out,

Rob

Assassins, D&D and lazy bones

Hello everyone,

Its been a very hobby light 7 days this week. A combination of being ill and a bit of burnout from the lead up to last weekends tournament has resulted in a lack of motivation to make any real progess.

However I have picked up my Officio Assassinorum game this weekend which was exciting, not least because the box itself in a bag made for excellent impromptu protection from the rain that poured down as I left the shop!

There are a few pictures of the sprues below. I must say that on first glance the models look to be very well thought out and beautifully detailed. There a few parts, particularly on the callidus, that look especially thin and tricky but on the whole they look well thought out. Of note, the assassins all come witht he larger 32mm bases, as do the standard chaos space marines, so I anticipate that when new models get released for chaos they too are being moved over, which is re-assuring that GW are being consistent on that front.

CULEXUS

VINDICARE

CALLIDUS

EVERSOR

The culexus assassin, being the go-to bad-ass when it comes to anti-psyker will be teaming up with my black templars in a themed 'we hate dem psykers' army list, but I am also very tempted to make an elite army based off my little grey knights collection but utilising the assassin formation. Sure it has a load of weakness' but I bet it will be fun and fluffy to play with or against.

The chaos models that come with the pack will be painted up to match my Night Lords and will give me some extra flexibility when it comes to fielding them with the addition of a terminator lord, some additional standard marines so I can bulk squads out and also chaos cultists. I am not a fan of running cultists with night lords, sincerely feel that night lords would view them as prey and nothing more so it just doesn't fit well with my fluffy view of the sons of nostramo. However I am considering painting/converting them up as dark mechanicus tech thralls to go with my planned mechanicus army.

Speaking of the dark mechanicus I have spent the week planning out my shopping list for these guys, I have promised myself that all the models will be converted and I am also keen to source them from third parties. This is not because of a lack of the range from GW and FW as both ranges are beautiful nor is it a desire to stick it to the man, for all GW does wrong I think they come in for a lot of stick that is unnecessary; it is simply the challenge of it that I'm interested in as well as the opportunity to really sample other miniature companies that I would otherwise never invest money in as the games, for the most part, simply aren't there.

Finally, I run a dungeons and dragons group at the moment. I'm the only member who actively participates in table top miniatures at the moment and I am the DM. Beause of this I have agreed to paint any model the players buy for their characters. Below is a picture of the first miniature I have painted which is a Gnome called Yolla. I loved painting this miniature as it was a nice change to a) only paint one miniature over an entire day and b) to paint something in a fantasy setting. I tried to get an OK OSL effect from the glowing stone in her hand and I'm relatively pleased with how it turned out but think I need a lot more practise.

Anyway, plans for next week, involve re-painting some blood angel terminators so I can try a more accomplished weathering style on them and sadly (in terms of content for the blog) kill a lot more things on Bloodborne which is eating a lot of my hobby time up.

Till next week, have a good one all!

Rob