Mantic Undead Review

Long ago when Mantic first released their ghoul models, they sent a sprue to me as a sample.  The ghouls were of high quality, except 3 of the 4 base hands on the models had broken fingers.  It didn't bother me as there was a variety of other hands that could be glued on in their place if one cut off the base hands and they were shipped to me in a bubble envelope from the UK.

Fast forward to end of June.  A couple of friends and I placed an order for a number of Mantic models.  We ordered one of the Morgoth's Revenge sets and a box of Orc Axes.  I received this order about a week ago now.  My part of the set was the undead, while the dwarves went to one friend and the orcs to another.  After assembling a couple of the models from the sprues I hadn't seen before (Skeletons, Revenants, Zombies), I would recommend them for anyone looking for cheaper alternatives to GW undead.  They're at least as detailed as the GW skeleton plastics, though much less customizable.


The Mantic skeletons vary from 2 piece to 6 pieces per model (excluding details like pouches), with a large number being in the 2 or 3 piece range, the parts on the command sprue half have the largest variety.  The Skeleton and Revenant sprues are also interesting in that they're designed as sprue halves.  There is a base skeleton half, a base Revenant half, a line trooper half and a command half.  Any individual sprue will have either the Revenant or Skeleton half with the other side being the line trooper or command half.  The 4 sprues that came with Morgoth's revenge had one of each combo, giving me 2 of each type of sprue half.  (I wish I'd taken pictures before cutting everything off the sprues.)  There is a total of only 4 unique legs, 2 with chainmail, 2 with rags, meaning that from the waist down there will be little variability.  The upper torsos however appear to each be unique (so 5 unique torsos per sprue half).  They are extremely close in scale to the newer GW skeletons, and I've already assembled a mantic body with a GW sword arm, only a little GS is required to fill the cavity the GW arm has for the connector nob that doesn't exist on the Mantic model.


The ghouls seem to just have a problem with shipping, of the 5 sprues that came in the set (totaling 20 open hands),  11 of the open hands had 1 or more broken fingers.  As there are only 2 ghouls per sprue (though they do have separate torsos and legs), with 3 head options and 3 replacement hands, there isn't much in the vary of variation if many of them are fielded, expecially when over half their basic/open hands are broken.  I'll probably try mixing them with the zombies for variation.

Which brings me to the Zombies themselves, which while look nice on the sprue have some of the strongest criticisms from me.  They come 3 models to a sprue, (2x torsos + arm, 1x torso + 2 arms), with 6 head options and 3 arm options for the 2 torsos with only 1 arm molded on.  it also comes with a spine and pile of organs with looks like it should slot into a set of legs, and a base that looks like it can slot a torso missing legs and trailing guts.  This could potentially bring the models up to 4 zombies per sprue.  There are 2 major problems with the zombies.  First, the torsos and legs do not fit together well at all.  They're going to require quite a bit of gap filling to fix the poor looking connections.  The second is how the heads connect to the torsos.  with the flat connection there is little in the way of posing the head, and this is most noticeable on the torso with 2 arms as any head attached looks like it's staring up at the 2nd or 3rd story of a building.  The neck would work alright if the torso was placed almost horizontal on the ground, but not even the legless base positions the torso that far down.  An interesting aside, is a arm holding a head.  I only counted it as a arm as I was unable to fit it on any of the torsos at any angle to have it look right as a zombie holding it's own head (either still attached to the body or truly floating free).  With some conversion it can be made to work, but I'm not sure how many people can sculpt good looking severed necks (never tried it myself).

All in all the models are pretty good, and i do recommend them for anyone looking for yet more undead to add to their force.  It's kind of a cruel irony that the Zombies are the worst of the bunch as they had the most cross-game utility in my book.  All the models (except the Zombies) go together quickly so assembling a large force in limited time should not be a problem. So far the best part of the entire undead range, in my opinion, is the Undead Giant Rats (Dogs?) models (that is the official title for them too).

About the image:  The back 2 models are Skeleton/Revenants.  The one on the left has the GW sword arm.  The middle 3 models are the Zombies, which look nice, but don't go together too well.  The blurry front most models are the Ghouls.  the dog sized undead critters are the Undead Giant Rats (Dogs?).

Tauchikoma Broadside

She is pieced together from both a regular XV8 Crisis Suit and a Forgeworld XV88-2.  I liked how the Forgeworld Broadside weapons look, and after inadvertently learning they could be easily mounted on the backpack mounts of a normal suit (the connector bar for the arm slots right into the backpack groove), I couldn't get the image of the broadside Tauchikoma out of my head.

I started with the normal tauchikoma body and trimmed down the FW Broadside 'heatsinks' to glue to the normal backpack's jetpack arms, trimming down some of the nozzles.  The space between the jetpack and heatsinks was filled with greenstuff.  I left the bottom-most nozzle open, figuring it might be fired when the railguns fire to help stabilize.

I had to ponder for a while to place the second array of missiles, the first set was obvious in the space the normal tauchikoma carry their primary weapon system.  I ended up attaching them to the 'screw' nubs on either side of the backpack where I suppose normal tauchikoma would have line launchers like in GitS.  This should allow the existing line launcher power and control interface to fire off missiles without having to run any new control circuitry.

Looking over the pictures, there are resin bubbles in the railgun muzzle vent things.  Those are going to be a pain to clean out >.<

As an interesting aside, I went hunting for the tau'chi'koma that were my inspiration, and while I believe I found the thread they were in; all the images have been removed.  I recall there being a broadside or 2 in that set, but can't verify it or compare the 2 units.  ;.;

Edit: Hahaha!  Thanks #2501 for reminding me that you were the one!  Here's his Tau'chikomas.  Though this does lead me to wonder what the thread I found was...  It's here by the way.  Anyway his broadsides are quite a bit different then mine, but that's ideal.  And my second one will look different from either as I don't have any more spare FW Broadside torsos (which is odd as I have another set of railguns >.> ). 

 

Real Life Delays

Well, sorry I still don't have the tauchikoma up, I'm still adapting to the new job and haven't had the time to photograph miniatures.

In more upbeat miniature news, the Kings of War starter set arrived in the mail yesterday right before I went to work, so I'll have zombies and skeletons to assemble and finally have the mooks, sorry, 'henchmen' for my Mordheim warband, hopefully I'll find some time over the weekend to catch up on miniature related stuff.

El'Larrun places second.

Well, I'm thrilled, I placed second in the Gifts of Mork Character Competition. I wasn't really expecting to place higher then honorable mention if I was lucky.  I will say congratulations to all the other winners of the contest, especially Dan1789 for being the Winner and Misty Rain (Honorable Mention: Rules) for doing a tribute to the Tau Guru Tael (and for doing a Tau entry at all).  ^.^

I'm planning on finishing up my Tau army now that I've had interest in it rekindled (I think I burned myself out trying to assemble and paint it all at once.)  And managed to assemble another Tauchikoma, this one outfitted as a counts-as Broadside.   Expect pictures...  probably Tuesday, depending on how my 4th of July day goes. 


In unrelated information, I apologize for not having a post ready for Thursday.  I was busy getting ready for a job interview and didn't do much miniature stuff anyway.  Oh, I also now have a job.

El'Larrun Painted

Well, she's painted and submitted to the Character Competition.   I could definitely tell I haven't painted anything in a while as I struggled through getting her painted.  For my fancy attempt I tried the camo-field (dis)engaging effect.  the Camo part turned out well, but I'm not super happy with the energy border.  Probably need to add a white core to it or something.  Oh well, next week should be on to something different, then a quick back to this post with the results from the CC (hopefully).  Then who knows.

The drones still make me giggle though.

Grr, forgot to 'publish' this post so it didn't appear on Thursday like it was supposed to.

El'larrun Special Character

Whee, assembly done.  Not super happy with it, but that's just my skill not reaching up to where my wants/desires lie.  I started with a stealth suit and cut it into many, many pieces.  Some of you might recognize the legs from the old O'larron sculpt which was cannibalized for this.  The rail rifle she has equipped came from a Sniper Drone (I believe, not positive). Her head is a daemonette head from the new plastic range, sadly her nose is crooked.

She's going to be painted green to match the rest of my army, though I think I'll try the partially disengaged stealthfield effect for her.

Tau Robots

While waiting for greenstuff on my entry for the Character Competition to cure, I built this little guy from a memory.  Sadly I don't have any Necron Warrior arms with which to complete it. (I have 7 other sets of Warrior Legs, and 16?  scarabs, but no arms ;.;  Imagine the back half of the basic Gauss Flayer and the long barrel of the Tau Rifle, maybe with some odds and ends to bulk it out.

I should have a couple posts up in the following weeks for the CC entry, and sorry for neglecting to post, was dealing with a Great Grandfather's passing, so got practically nothing done the last couple weeks.

Iron Corsairs SOG

I finally managed to paint my Iron Corsairs to playable...  About 5 weeks ago now (this post keeps getting pushed back as more pressing matters pop up).  I would've posted about it sooner, but I just couldn't get good enough pictures of them.  I'm still not quite happy with the pictures, but this last batch came out alright.  Everyone excepting the Leader (front and center in the picture above) has modular arms so it's relatively easy to change gear (important for my small collection of marines and with Killzone being a living manual with a campaign system in the works.  I couldn't get the crackle paint to work on a fine enough scale to do the weapon cowling, so I kinda tried to freehand the effect.  I need to get some gloss and go over the cowlings to make them shine.





The leader of the Team was a pain to remove the Dark Angels iconography.  He did pick up a large gear pendant as it was easier then completely trimming off the rope.  The sword is the Terminator Power Sword from the Dark Angels upgrade sprue and the arm had a mace originally, probably also from that sprue given it had a Dark Angels pendant.


The heat-stressed metal of the melta barrel looks much better in person.  I got the idea from someone's blog where they had done something similar to their dreadnought's assault cannon. (I can't remember or find it... if anyone knows what I'm talking about, please send me a link to the blog post so I can provide proper back link credit for the idea.)  I also noticed while I was taking this picture that I forgot to drill out the barrel. >.<


The rest of the team in no particular order.

edit: ok, so blogger is still acting up, this was supposed to be scheduled for tomorrow, not posted now with a date reading tomorrow >.<

A shift to Infinity

I've been drooling over infinity models off and on for years but nowhere nearby carried the miniatures and for various I reasons was unable to order any online.  Thanks to the recent surge of interest in Infinity (and other games) I learned the Infinity rules were freely available online just before my FLGS started carrying the Infinity starters.

I haven't yet purchased any as they don't have a Nomad set yet, and my fun budget is currently dedicated to a scifi cosplay I'm working on.  However, I've started the process of poking through the rather large number of pdfs available from Infinity (here if you're interested as well).  Interestingly, while looking for an official image for bloggers to use (didn't find one, I kinda stole the one i'm using off their website) I ran across a fan project that organizes the rules in a printer friendly form.  I haven't looked at it yet, but the other comments in the thread make it sound promising.  It can be downloaded from here.

I've considered posting progress shots of my cosplay work as it progresses, but as it's not miniature game related it feels inappropriate to post about it.

Noise Marine Progress

Also during this last month I managed to progress some on my Noise Marine.  The guitar, and the two arms aren't glued down, though the greenstuff might have forced her(its?) right arm to be still.  I still need to finish the guitar itself and adjust the left hand to be gripping the guitar neck.  I really wanted a different right arm, but after a week of hunting didn't find any suitable and I lack the skills to sculpt a pointing right hand.  Originally I wanted the guitar held in her left hand by its neck, right where the neck comes out of the body (maybe the body resting on the knee guard) and the right hand pointing out at the fans like rock stars sometimes do (at least what little of rock stars I've seen.) 

Nominated for being Stylish!

Quite the unexpected honor here, #2501 (who is apparently also known as Mark) from Musings of a Metal Mind nominated me in their Stylish list for the space hulk-esk terrain modules I've been working on.  Who I'd like to thank very much for that. ^.^  I would've posted sooner, but I was out of town and away from internet till about 3am today (Tuesday the 10th)

Backtracing the Stylish blog posts here to here to here to here, (it goes on but I felt I'd figured enough about what was going a couple or three back) I found that the Stylish blog has a number of chain letter-esk tasks to complete which are (thankfully) listed on all the blogs, so they weren't hard or confusing to figure out.

* Thank and Link back to the person giving you the award.
* Share seven things about yourself
* Select 10-15 blogs who you think deserve this award
* Contact these bloggers and let them know about the award.

1. Incidentally I inadvertently did that above, but Thanks again!


2. Seven Things eh...
2-1. I've played with minis sense I was a small child, including painting, assembling etc (D&D miniatures) but only picked up miniature war gaming around 2004-05 with mordheim, and 40k a year after that.  Sense then I've tried a number of the new ones that've come out and would like to try many more.


2-2. I've had about 30 computers running as a rendering cluster for a short animation of a gummy bear army marching down a street.  (8-10 of them were in my room...  and though not currently running/assembled, most of them still are.)


2-3. When I first started into 40k I fell in love with the Tyranids, but then shifted over to Tau due to issues generating personable individuals in the Hive Mind.  And am currently floundering all over the place. (As what posts I have posted or are working to post are showing.)


2-4. My first job was at the high school I went to, 2 years before I graduated.  I was officially a Computer Technician, but did a lot more Programming and Software Engineering.


2-5. Cyberpunk and other 'gritty' type settings appeal to me the most.


2-6. I've developed a pretty strong dislike for straight fantasy (D&D, Warhammer Fantasy Battle(s?), etc), or based on WW2 (nothing wrong with the war itself, but it, like generic fantasy, just feels way overused)


2-7. I started blogging to drive myself forward and actually finish some of my projects.  Oh how well that hasn't worked... ^.^;

3. Nominations, Nominations...  Not really in any particular order, they should probably be alphabetical, but eh.  And I'm positive a number of these blogs/bloggers have already been nominated, but I don't care, I feel they deserve a nomination from me too ^.~
3-1. A Gentleman's Ones - Brian for his work on Killzone, especially the tables for Adepticon, wish I coulda gone and seen them in person.  Also for his most recent stuff with Warmachine, showing his trials and tribulations on a miniature game I was tempted to start even though none of the forces really called out to me.


3-2. Galaxy in Flames - Big Jim and his amazing work on Killzone.  And with spreading the joy of well done fan-made content.


3-3. Musings of a Metal Mind - I know he's the one that nominated me, but when I saw Mik's post back in April regarding his claim to Style, I didn't figure I'd ever receive a nomination, but I started thinking about who I would nominate, and #2501 was high up in the list, both as a supporter of me, offering advice and ideas, as well as for his conversions, especially the Tyracons and Adeptus Mechanicus stuff, gorgeous stuff

3-4. Inq28 - For the simple joy of being introduced to the concept of using 28mm miniatures for Inquisitor (though I've yet to actually play inquisitor, I have some very vague ideas on miniatures for Dark Heresy/Rogue Trader/Deathwatch and I hear the two games are similar)

3-5. Warrant of Trade - For a lot of interesting and useful game mastering help/tips and stuff done for Rogue Trader.

3-6. Tau of War - For both his massive amount of Tau information/tactics/modeling conversions and his recent Infinity stint that somehow pushed me into actually looking into the game I've been thinking about for a while.  I've decided I like the look of the Nomads and it sounds like they'll be fun to play as well.

3-7. Dei Greci - The amazing scratch builds and dioramas just deserve another shout.  I'm just blown away by their quality.  Something to shoot for in my own endeavors.



grr, that's only seven but I'm tired, still haven't slept from my trip >.>

A Space Ship Module fully Assembled

Well, I've been quiet the last couple months.  This has been due to a number of things that I won't bore you with.  Anyway, I've done some work on the space ship modules as you can see in the image above.  It's the first module that has all it's parts together.  I've started the long process of filling cracks and gaps so I can make a mold of it.  Come to find out, Greenstuff and Hydrocal don't make the best of friends, though that probably has more to do with my Greenstuff working tools.  While Hydrocal is much harder then Plaster of Paris, it's still a rather soft plaster (Unlike Merlin's Magic or the like, but Hydrocal is the hardest stuff I can get locally... That I know the name of at least) and my tools are all metal.  So if I'm not extremely careful, I scratch the parts up while trying to fill gaps...  I'll probably end up shifting to my (non-hardening) modeling clay and a rubber tipped tool (assuming I can find/make one cheap).

Depending on how well this mold turns out I'll probably work hard and create molds for a number of other sections... Once I figure out which sections are worth casting.  I've had people offer very generic ideas for which modules they'd like to see, so I've dug up my tileset I was playing with using a program called Tiled which I've added with the other pictures of the T-intersection below.  I haven't worked out actual brick layouts for the modules in the bottom half of the tileset, but they're there mostly for completeness sake at the moment.  The image tiles are 36x36 pixels with a 1 pixel spacer between tiles (useful if you decide to try out Tiled).

Anyone with the time and/or inclination, I'd love if you would work out some table layouts and send me a list of how many of each module would be needed to create it, or the layouts themselves and I'll count the modules (Credit will be given for assistance with 'set' quantities, and for any layouts I post here).  The physical modules fit in a 6" by 6" gridwork, so a standard Special Operations: Killzone 4' x 4' table would be 8 modules to a side for a total of 64 modules.  A 40k sized table of 4'x6' would be 96 modules in an 8x12 layout.  I've worked out a number of 3' x 3' and 4' x 4' designs over the months (years now? O.o;; ) I've thought about this project, and have come to the conclusion that I need a lot of other player's ideas on what a maze of sci-fi twisty-winding paths should look like.  My local friends have been completely unhelpful with a 'whatever is fine' attitude.

Noise Marine WIP

Well, I've made some progress on my new Noise Marine that's going to be assisting my Chaos Cult in Inquisimunda.  The guitar has been fun to build so far, but I'm not sure what to do to provide strings for it.  I'm gonna have to greenstuff on some knobs (or find some 1/32nd inch plastic rod).  She'll be holding her guitar by the neck in her left arm.  I was kinda hoping for a pointing right arm (the only one I've been able to find is also a powerfist, so fail there).  but at the moment it looks like I'll be modifying a plasma pistol to be a Sonic Blaster.  Her right leg ended up being pinned on a bit low so I'll be trying to shift it up a little bit as well as continuing to greenstuff details and fill gaps.  The helmet will receive a band over the top so the horn mounts over the ears will look like massive headphones.  Not positive where I'm going to put the helmet as she's going to be bare headed.

Here's the parts as they stand so far.  A friend suggested that they look like they're on display to warn away people.

New Concept

As absolutely nothing has been happening miniature related (other then the reading of blogs, which is boring to blog about), i haven't been posting.  However, last night a new concept hit me while looking through my bits in preparation to start packing them up (I haven't done a clean up cycle for miniature stuff in ages).  I took a picture of the bits I'd pulled out for the project, and i think i'll probably be using parts from every bit in the picture (except one of the shoulder pads, not sure how I ended up with 3 there).  There will also be a fair bit of plasticard, wire, and greenstuff involved (but that's pretty standard for conversions, no?

The only other hint I'm giving is that it's for my Inquisimunda force, but can be used in normal 40k as well (though when complete, I'll have a whole 2? models for that army ^^;  )  Hopefully I'll have the first shots of actual progress on it sometime next week, I doubt I'll make much progress over the weekend (as that's dedicated to friends and video/card games instead of miniatures, of which I'm like one of 3 or 4 people in my social group that actually have any interest in miniatures)

Grey Knight Prices

With nothing of interest on my end to blog about this week (not sure where the time went >.> )  I figured I might as well rant a bit on the upcoming Grey Knights.

Maybe it's just me getting used to the cheaper plastic miniatures from other companies and the 10 models for $25 of the Dark Eldar basic plastics, but $33 for 5 'basic' grey knight midels doesn't seem like a price cut from the old metals, other then the ease of assembly and pile'o'extra bits.  While it is two sprues like the DE kits, it's an extra $8 a kit for half the models. 

Not sure what to think of the new Dreadknight, some other images of it I've seen on other blogs indicate it's a pretty large model with a dinky hammer.  But as a mecha, and other bipedal walkers fan,  I see it as a fail.  It makes me think of the load lifter from the end of the first aliens movie, a wannabe version of the guardians of Zion in the second(?  third?) matrix movie, or a rejected design from Avatar.  At least, looking at the sprues, it appears to be more posable then the plastic daemon prince.  I don't see myself ever picking one up at the $54 price tag though.  I'll pickup some anime/movie mecha model I like for cheap and just convert it if I decide for some reason that I want a Grey Knight army that needs a Dreadknight for whatever reason.

The new terminators are the same $10 a model we all know and hate.  They don't bother me much, they're following status-quo.

I'm hoping for new Inquisitional Henchmen models, but not holding my breath.  The Grey Knights themselves have always been 'meh' to me, but I've always had an inherent dislike of psykers.  Anyway,  I suspect all my 'Grey Knight' armies will be lead by Coteaz and be rather void of any actual Grey Knights.  Though I doubt I'll build any armies large enough for this to matter (I don't see making anything other then a couple or 3 killzone SOGs.)

Crackling Armour Cowling

So I've been pondering for a while on what to paint my Iron Corsairs weapon cowlings with when I ran across one of my sister's 'crackling nail polishes' in the bathroom sink.  This reminded me of an article I saw a while back about crackling paints (I can't find it now, which would be why I delayed this post >.>  ).

Anyway, Yesterday I picked up a bottle of Delta Ceramcoat 'Crackle' Effect.  I ran some trial paints on a piece of cardstock to see how it works.

It's really neat, but I'm worried the cracks aren't quite fine enough to look good on bolt pistols and bolters (Sorry I neglected to think to put a bolter in the picture for size comparison, the top The upper left test block's brown undercoat is 1.5" wide, by 1.25" tall.)

Sadly due to a sneaky cold this is about all I've done in miniature related stuff this week.



Fingernail picture from www.trendincosmetics.com, used without permission.

Old Stuff Day

 

It's Ground Hog Day! Err, I mean Old Stuff Day!  Sadly, having looked through my old blog posts I don't see any that are really worth bringing up again.  So instead of putting something from my blog up, I'm digging through some of the first blogs I followed and linking to the posts that caused me to start watching them.  These are in no particular order (except for Inq28 being first...  just felt it should be on the top and Tau of War being second.  It's the first blog I've ever followed).

First off is the Inq28 blog with their work on a female techpriest and here.  This blog is actuall what introduced me to the concept of even using 28mm minis for Inquisitor.  (Which looks interesting if only i could find some local players ^^;;  )

I entered into the blogging world with my head full of Tau so what better place to break in then on Old Shatter Hand's Tau of War blog?  I first found the blog due to his Secrets of the Fio'la post on how Old Shatter Hand's hand were done.  I stuck around due to the simply massive amount of Tau related goodness that is there.

I started following Collegia Titanica simply and basically for the Angels of Light story.  It's the story about how Jula joined the Space Marine chapter Rainbow Warriors.  I found it while looking for Tau stuff.  I warn you puritan true to fluff people that Collegia Titanica has no issues with female space marines, and Jula happens to be one of many in the story.

I started watching A Gentleman's Ones in August, but due to his posts in July about the Sin of Alacrity Mini Campaign It's interesting to see that he started his blog after mine but is quite a bit more successful (not actually surprised, from what I know he's a great guy and I'm an anti-social shut-in ^.~ )

I've followed Warrant of Trade pretty much sense it's beginnings, though that was more a dumb luck thing then anything particular.  It started right about the time I learned about Rogue Trader and started hunting for info.  How he did the character creation is what caught my eye.

Not sure what actually drew me to Defending Humanity initially as I really didn't like IG back then.  I do remember the chart thing here being really neat (so neat in fact I never got around to setting one up myself...  so my Tau army sits, half painted >.> )

I started watching Musings of a Metal Mind simply because of the awesome tyranid/necron hybrid conversions, my favorite being the Tervigon, though I'd been watching discreetly well before then.

Having gone through my list of blogs I follow, these are the main ones that I can identify why I started following them.  There are a few that I have no idea why I started following, nor am I sure why I continue to follow them (but I do and read all their posts)  Anyway, Everyone have a happy Old Stuff Day.

Slaanesh Cult Members

Not much miniature related stuff this week as I've been spending all my time preparing a costume for an Anime thing this weekend.

However, I did manage to get around to scraping together some miniatures for my Slaanesh Cult.  It's a mix of miniatures I had in the box I was originally collecting for an Esher gang.  A box with is mysteriously short of actual Necromunda models period...

The first thing I'd like to point out is I'm still a model short for the girls themselves and I haven't dug my daemonette out yet.  I also don't have a noise marine made.  The girls are from Reaper and a game called Rezolution.  The hired Beastmaster (which came free, but still consumes a hired gun slot,) is an old GW Dark Elf Beastmaster that a friend gave me a while back.  I'm considering hijacking a couple blood brothers (basic human men, used as a snack) from my Mordheim Vampire Warband to fill in a couple Noviciates.  I haven't really decided which models will fill in which roles as I have 2 models that need heavier weapons and none of these gals seem to fit that yet.  Though the red/brown primed gal in the duster seems to think she's the Magus.  The girl front and far right will probably be the Noviciate with 2 stubbers as I had her in mind when I made that stat set.  I'll be replacing models as I work toward getting them all dressed in school uniforms.

Hopefully I'll get some projects moving again this coming week after the event is over.  I am a bit worried about my upcoming time as Pokemon Black & White comes out the 6th.  (Don't judge! I happen to like enslaving random creatures by forcing them to live in little balls and fight my battles for me. Such a horrible concept for a game. ^.~ )

Inquisimunda

Sadly, two posts a week is not something I'll be able to maintain, there sadly just isn't that much miniature related stuff happening with me.  I think I'll stick to Thursday posts as even less miniatures stuff happens over the weekends so it'll be fresher in my head if I post about it on Thursday.

Anyway,  I've found 40k proper a bit too large scale for my tastes and as such have been trying various smaller things over the last year (which you may have noticed from the random small tactics posts that pop up every so often).  I had found the Inquisimunda stuff on J Olson's blog Empire of Ghosts a while back, but hadn't really done anything with it until just recently.

After finally wrangling a friend in to provide an opposing team, I've thrown together an initial design for a Chaos Coven.  I haven't thought up much background for them yet, but they'll be dedicated to Slaanesh, and mostly female.

My current list runs with 13 models, everyone is equipped with Light Armour unless they have some other armour in their profile and Respirators.  All models are human unless otherwise specified.

The Magus herself
Lithe Form, Bolt Carbine, Medium Armour, Stubber, Electro-Flail

2 Acolytes (heavy/special weapons troops)
both with laspistols, one with a Flamer, the other a Heavy Stubber

a lvl 2 Rogue Psyker
with a stubber and a sword (psychic powers to be determined... stupid random rolls)

a Cultist with Lithe Form, a Laspistol, and a sword

3 cultists with Las Carbines

a Noviciate with Lithe Form and a pair of stubbers

3 Noviciates, all with stubbers

A Dark Eldar Beastmaster from the Hired Guns list

I have 40 Geld spare at the moment, however I need to buy up to 2 beasts for the Beastmaster still.  I just haven't decided which beasts I want.

Sorry there aren't any pictures, I'm still collecting the force together.  And ideas for models to use for cultists (preferably female) would be appreciated.  I have a number of Reaper minis I'm planning to use, but I don't think I have enough for the entire force.  I have a last generation Daemonette to use for when they successfully summon one, and some plans for building a Noise Marine when it chooses to join the force.  Though as there aren't any options to mark a chaos marine yet, nor any options for noise weaponry, I probably equip him using the plasma gun option.

Image by imrac 1251  (original image),

Starship Module Progress

The Modular Starship has made a lot of progress in the last couple weeks or so as I've actually started casting parts again.  I have 1 new module assembled and 9 laid out (as you can see in the image above).  Three of the modules are missing parts, but they're busy drying when the picture was taken (Wednesday the 9th, sometime).  The obliterators are in the modules due to having been in the way when I started planning the modules out

Below is a closeup of the two tiles in the upper left corner of the main picture.  These two are special as the floor tiles I'm using on them include carpeting and I'm not sure what colour(s) should be used on them.  The rest of the modules will be painted an almost metalic dark grey, so almost any colour should work.



When this new set of tiles is glued together it'll bring my total up to 18 playable modules, halfway to a 3' x 3' table!

Land Raider Crusader

I picked this guy up along with 2 techmarines and a servitor at a swap meet for $35 a while back.  I wish I'd thought to take some pictures of it before I started repairing it.  It's one of the older plastic + metal models.  After extensive green stuff work and replacement of the treads I gave it a quick basecoat to try out my blue and gray Space Marine scheme.  Sadly these are the best pictures I managed to take, and it leaves the blue and grey a lot lighter then it actually is and doesn't show the sparkle of the gunmetal paint >.<  Not sure having a dedicated photo box would help that any though.

Second Obliterator

My second MT post! woo.  It's going to cover the second obliterator for my friend that's actually been sitting here at this point of progress for about two and a half weeks.  Irritatingly after taking the pictures I noticed I didn't have a good picture of the Tau Fusion Blaster mounted in his claw hand, though some WIP pictures of it are in my first Obliterator post.

Morguemeat likes it, so i just need to finish up some of the detail work (like plugs at the ends of some of the cabling) and a few places still need greenstuffing.  In somewhat related thoughts, I think #2501 is right that the first Obliterator's legs need some bulking up.  I'll probably post a group shot once I finish the two of them.

High Priority Targets

So epic fail on remembering to post.  I'm going to try some of the other bloggers suggestions and start posting every Monday and Thursday even if I don't have anything other then minor progress.  They will probably mostly be used to play 'ketchup' instead of being filler... at least for a while.  This post being the first of the M-T (hmm... sounds like 'empty' >.> ) scheme will be covering my recent game of Killzone with Morguemeat.

After rebuilding my Iron Corsairs for the new rules they sat on the shelf for weeks.  Finally 2 Saturdays ago we squeezed a game in before heading to another friend's place for Roleplaying.

We rolled up mission 34.5: Dead or Alive, the goal of which is to get the High Value Target off the team's board edge.  First thoughts on the mission is that the wording of how the HVT moves is a bit weird.  Not sure how I'd reword it, but we both read it twice.  We chose to not use Secondary Objectives or Fate Cards (mainly as they were way too hard to read being white font on the kinda pale cream-colored playing card backgrounds)

Anyway, we set up the terrain in a mutually agreeable manner (we set out pieces and moved them around till we had an interesting looking playing area) and rolled off.  Morguemeat won, choosing to be the attacker, I chose a table corner that gave a good access path to the HVT.  Deployment was pretty bland, nothing particularly special, Morgue's 'Zerkers and medic were closest with his termie and heavy weapon guy way in the back.  I set up my own forces around the forward edges of my zone, the heavy bolter and medic (which I had forgotten was a medic ><) in one corner with reasonable ground coverage should I need to 'remove' the HVT or simply shoot chaos scum.  The main assault force was set up as close as possible to the HVT (some spots were closer then others due to terrain layout), supported by the meltagunner and plasmagunner who were in cover nearby.

The first turn involved general moving up by both sides.  A good number of shots were exchanged but no serious damage was inflicted by either side.  We rolled for who goes when on the second turn, and Morgue won again, choosing to go first.  I moved and ran the HVT toward my SOG where she met up with one my basic marines.  Morgue moved his chaos up, and I don't remember if it was the shooting or assault, but my Leader got splattered.  We did a quick check through the rules but realized this wasn't Necromunda so I didn't have to roll morale for loosing my leader.  I also lost a mook assault marine, and he lost both of his zerkers.  My turn the marine with the HVT moved and ran toward my board edge, slipping out of sight behind some ruins while one of my lone wolves charged up and assaulted Morgue's leader (in termie armour).  Morgue ceded a loss with the defeat of his leader and the HVT out of range and sight.  We didn't add up mission points as we're more thematic, and getting the HVT at any cost was a victory.