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!
Sweet. I cannot wait to see this army come together. Maybe do a big mashup of parts between all the different manufacturers, so that the models are no longer recognisable as what they were, but have become your own fiendish creations.
ReplyDeletecheck out blight wheel miniatures, they have some cool mechanicum like models, and puppetswar also have some nice bits and models.
As good as the GW brushes look, do not buy! They are horrendously overpriced. You can buy a much better brush for alot cheaper at most art stores or Ebay and Amazon. Windsor and Newton series 7 brushes are the dogs bollocks (what I use....the brush not the bollocks ;) ) and you will never look back. 00 size is the fine detail, 1 for standard and 2 for more blocking in.
I am finding the rapid re-release of codexes intensely frustrating at the moment. I feel my codexes that ave not long been released are suddenly irrelevant and severely underpowered (I am no competitive player but I do want to have a good, balanced and fun game without just removing my models in bucket loads). I hope your black templars get some love in the new space marine codex. It will be a shame if you have to sell them.
Yeah I am really excited to put this together and because I'm not trying to match to anything other than the grim dark aesthetic its let a lot of other sources come out of the wood work! I have purchased a 7 inch model of one of the Jaegers from Pacific Rim... Watch this space!
DeleteI do love blight wheels stuff, its on the fairly expensive end for me but its definitely on the wish list for some of its bigger beasties!
Ah thats good to know, Nick has also recommended the windsor newtons for detail and blocking work. Is there any brushes for drybushing that you recommend in particular (not that I can imagine you drybrushing tbh naf!), as those looked to be quite interesting in the new GW range.
I think the outdated feel of a codex in this rapid release has been felt particularly hard by the True Kin sadly, especially in light of both the Harlies and Craftworld release being very flavourful and powered well and overlly so respectively.
I don't do much drybrushig tbh, but recently I have been getting into dropzone commander and I have started to drybrush those models. I have an old gw drybrush which I use but it is ready to be replaced. Had a look at the army painter range of brushes. They are reasonably priced and I think they sell a drybrush
DeleteOn the templar stuff...there are existing chapter tactics which match them pretty closely (not vanilla) you could still use. I'm a templar player myself, and won't ever sell that army...though I am planning on making them "first" templars, but that is more a reflection of the awesome FW templar bits available now :)
ReplyDeleteIf I had a super extensive collection of Templar bits I wouldn't do away with them, but as is I think I would keep some of my choice models, strip them and re-paint them in Heresy colours and make a Sigismund led force to use in 30K. Incidentally I cannot wait for the retail release of Sigismund! I love the pictures we've seen so far. Are you going to be picking one up? I think he'll make a great Emperor's champion or chapter master in 40K games.
DeleteI am waiting patiently for the orders to go up. He's going to be my first character purchase from FW. :)
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