Tentacoos and more Tentacoos

After seeing 40kaddict's article on a cheap and quick alternative for the tentacle maker I couldn't help but make some myself for my Slaanesh daemon princess.  I've run two batches so far, and tried a preliminary tentacle ball beast weapon thing on the daemon princess herself.

Above is the first batch of tentacles, and most of them ended up rather thick.  So I worked out a second set (below) after the first had cured. Which turned out better, I tried twisting a couple together in this batch trying to figure out how to pose the tentacles while the greenstuff is still uncured.  I'm sure a few cycles down the road I'll actually start being happy with them.

I have a couple Slaanesh project ideas currently, to use tentacles in, so i figure many will get used anyway.  I'll probably end up placing these and making more to mount while still uncured to make them look like they fit better together.

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.) 

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)

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),

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.

First Obliterator

Sadly there hasn't been too much progress on the miniatures front for a while from me.  However, ?I did manage to get quite a bit of work done on the first obliterator.  I like how it turned out for the most part.  the legs need some cleaning up (and probably more wires).  As well as some more flash filing apparently (the things I notice after a photo has been taken).  The conduits are made from florists wire and work amazingly well.  It's not glued to it's base, Morguemeat wants "some kind of industrial stuff, I think" for that, and I'd like to see it at least primed before it's glued down.  And no, there isn't much of an organic marine left as he's been replacing his parts with machinery for who knows how long.



Click on the thumbnails for larger images.

Obliterator legs Second Attempt

My second attempt at Obliterator spider legs, these are made from various various random plastic stock i had from other projects.  The pile of copper colored balls are copperhead BBs that are going to act as the hip joint for the new legs.  The joints themselves are 1/8th inch tube with a 1/16" rod running through it's core.  The copperheads are 4.5mm diameter.  Had I been thinking I would have put the terminator torso in the picture for scale.

I'm experimenting with what details to add to the basic frame.  The far left leg has a piston (on both sides, but the second was added after the picture) made from a piece of 1/16" rod and a paperclip.

Special Operations: Killzone

Well, a friend of mind and I played a few games of Killzone Thursday evening at the FLGS.  This was mainly as the FLGS had finally finished their expansion adding a tonne of new tables to play on.  A total of 7 games of Killzone were played (before we left, I only participated in 4).  The first two were my Iron Corsairs against Morguemeat's Storm of Sorrow.  (You'll eventually be able to learn more about the Storm of Sorrow Warband here.  Who appears to have posted about his thoughts on the games already.)  Sadly I neglected to bring my camera so was unable to get any photographs of any parts of any of the games.


The list I ended up bringing broke down as follows:

1x Wolf Guard with frostblade, plasma pistol, the 6+ invulnerable save general skill and the 6" FnP leadership skill (I shoulda gone with just a power sword, as I kept forgetting about the +1 S)

1x Wolf Guard with power sword and bolt pistol

1x Wolf Guard with chainsword and bolt pistol (who is now named Firstblood)

1x Long Fang with a Heavy Bolter and Suspensors

3x Grey Hunters with a Melta gun and a Plasma gun


The Sorrow's team was 4 Termis and a mook marine.


All the games played were Mission I.2: Encounter. Mainly for consistency.


The first game Morguemeat chose to go first, the terrain favored me.  I set up my vanguard in a nice piece of cover that they didn't end up leaving.  The rearguard set up the long fang on the third story of a building with good LOS on the field, the plasmagunner in the ground floor doorway of the same building, and the rest of the rearguard roughly behind the vanguard's terrain piece as close as I could get them and I gave morguemeat a sound beating, though firstblood was killed in melee by a chaos terminator.  It wasn't really that interesting of a game and ended on turn 2 or 3...


The second game Morguemeat again chose to go first and again I chose the same table quarter.  This time however, he deployed his forces in a ruin to the one side of the deployment zone.  A much better strategy in my mind.  I deployed my vanguard the same as last time, along with the longfang and plasmagunner, but other 2 rearguard models shifted over to a ruined wall just inside my deployment zone that provided 3 nice firing holes at the other edge of the ruins Morgue had setup in.  His force moved through the main ruin while mine took pot shots through the windows.  His Termi with his big gun (a reaper autocannon I believe it was) got caught in the open by a plasmagun shot on it's way over to join it's teammates in the ruins.  Again on my team Firstblood died first due to his charging terminator again the powersword wolf guard joined the battle and slew the terminator, but I also ended up loosing the melta Grey Hunter, the basic Grey Hunter, and the Long Fang.  My leader did make an epic save vs death sometime in there by actually rolling a 6 on his invulnerable save. ^.^

At this point we took a break and mingled with some of the observers and other players around the area.  This ended up causing our terrain setup to be lost.  So when we re-setup, we ended up with 2 different terrain layouts so we could run 2 games at a time.  Morgue and another Space Puppy player played on the first while I was on the second.

My third game was against an Eldar team, that had a psyker of some sort for the leader, 2 fire dragons (or somesuch) and 2 other sets of 2 models (I can't remember what either of those were called, one set had really mean long range weaponry, and the others died before they did anything). He chose to go first and set up the 2 unknown models and his leader in the vanguard, and the others in the back kinda spread out.  Sadly at this point there was 5 or 6 games running and the terrain ended up being a bit thin.  I positioned my vanguard (all 3 wolf guards, and the melta guy) behind some tank traps with my rearguard clinging to what little cover was available back further.  His first turn had nothing happen...  at all.  Mine put a lot of firepower into his models but did no damage between his invulnerable saves and the FnP AoE on his leader.  His second turn saw his vanguard retreat back toward his table edges and the death of Firstblood.  From there, we basically traded kills model for model (except I got his leader as my 2nd or 3th kill while mine lasted all the way to the last of mine that were killed).  In the end I ended up routing due to rolling a 10 vs Ld of 9 >.>  All in all it was an extremely close game the whole way.

My last game was against the other Space Puppies player and I mopped the floor with him.  I don't remember much about his list other then it had a Terminator with Wolfclaws in it.  I switched tables so was against someone already familiar with the terrain... though he chose to go first and I ended up with a reasonably nice quarter.  I set up my vanguard behind yet more tank traps (why there were so many tank traps in the middle of both tables I dunno).  with the rearguard kinda haphazard in the back where they had good lanes of fire. His first turn involved his vanguard missing my two models in range with his pistols and his rear guard moving up.  My first turn involved killing his leader.  A plasma shot from my leader took out his first wound, the power sword wolf guard missed with his bolt pistol, and the long fang splattered him with three 6s to hit, and two 6s and a 5 to wound.  He rolled a 1 and and two 2s for armour and died.  His second turn had his termi assault Firstblood, with my power weapon wolf guard reactive assaulting to join the battle.  The Termi rolled bad but still killed off Firstblood, but Firstblood and his companion in some amazing luck put 5 wounds on the Terminator (3 of which were power weapon).  The terminator failed 4 of the 5 and went squish into mush.  My last turn had my models move up, shoot the death all but one of his remaining troops (I think there were 4), and the last died to an assault.  Ending the game with a complete tabling.  The dice gods were not with my opponent's puppies.

The 7th game of Killzone for the day was the other Space Puppies vs the Eldar group.  I didn't see how that one ended, but the Space Puppy termi was the first model to die and didn't get to do anything.  Morgue and I headed out after I purchased some a new tube set of greenstuff.

All in all, I like the Killzone format, and really can't wait to see what the team is cooking up for the campaign side.  It was hard to set up a force in only 200 points with 25 points of skills.  I'm thinking I might suggest our group relaxes that to 30 so we can have 3 specialists instead of just 2 and a generalist.  Some of my earlier lists suffered from the 40k unit norm of equipping everyone the same.  But after seeing some of the lists posted by the killzone team, I rebuilt and feel my list is much more interesting.  I did find it funny that in just those 4 games some of my team started building up some flavor and fluff.  Firstblood taking the first face full of dirt in each game, the wolfguard with powersword rushing into whatever close combat was nearby and earning the title Terminator Slayer for having taken one down in each battle he participated in (that had one).  Now I just need to choose a paint scheme and get my Spec Ops team painted.

Obliterator Cult progress... Or lack thereof

Well, I've learned some important things about my cutter.  Mainly, it can't do sharp corners very well.  It rounds them off.  It's not a big issue with the larger stuff, but with a 5mm x 2mm piece, it's an issue.  I'll still use it to cut out cardstock vehicles and buildings, but it means the detail stuff will have to find another solution.  It also cuts plastic better then cardstock (which isn't so much a complaint as an interesting thought as it was designed for paper cutting).  Though I guess I can't complain too much about a CNC cutter that only cost $400. 

I learned this trying to cut out the obliterator legs I designed a while back.  they came out kinda bloby and misshapen.  (And due to my own stupidity not cut through all the way.)  I'll just have to resort to more classic ways of making them. *sigh*

All in all, I don't suggest the Cricut series to wargaming modelers. I've never used a robocraft, but from some of the cutouts I've seen it's a better choice and you don't have to buy a $50 third party piece of software to make it cut more then the junk images on the cartridges.

Obliterator Cult progress

Well, I've worked out some designs for the obliterators. Above is one of many doodles on how they'd work. (It happens to be the one I like how looked the best.) I worked up some plans in Inkscape yesterday and I'll have my cutter produce them for me. The idea is the basic parts are cut from 1mm stock and layered together, the individual parts can them be put together, allowing for a full range of posing possibilities.


The red lines are 1mm x 1mm boxes. The outlines on the leftmost are the center, and the other two in each row are glued to either side of the center piece. I'll have to do a few test cuts to see if i like how they're coming out. Then on to real detailing of them.

I've yet to sort out the specifics of how they'll attach to the torsos... the piece in the upper right will likely change when the specifics are worked out.

Custom Chaos Obliterators

Just recently I've agreed to create 4 Obliterators from a SM Terminator squad and a pile of spare bits.

Fluffwise these Obliterators are relatively recently turned to chaos from Techmarines, so will have minimal 'fleshy parts'. They'll also have helmets looking like the Power Armour MK3 helmets (which are also similar to Grey Knight helmets).

The helmets came out alright so far, I've left a couple unmodified helmets and brought in a metal Grey Knight terminator for comparison purposes.


I've also started work on an arm. It's currently in resin, and hasn't been patched with greenstuff, but it's also coming along alright. I sawed out the lighting claw's palm and glued in a chopped down tau fusion blaster barrel, while extending the top (back?) of the hand with a second lighting claw. The claws themselves ended up backward (they were from a right arm instead of a left), so they were trimmed off then carefully pinned back in place. A second power cable was added as well... just because I thought it looked neat. The shoulder pad is the stock left(?) shoulder pad sanded down with the fuel canister from the fusion blaster used in the claw arm surrounded by grenades from the Khorne Berzerker sprue (I believe). The claw didn't come out quite like the picture in the codex, but I think it looks pretty neat anyway, so will probably leave it and try again for one of the other 3 Obliterators.

I'm not sure what I should do to make them look less like Terminators. I haven't worked much on them yet, so there should be more posts on their progress relatively regularly, along with more work on the modular starship tiles project.

Magnetized Defiler

Well, I haven't posted here much, but sadly that's mainly due to not much wargaming stuff happening with me. I have however magnetized a Defiler for a friend, so I have some pictures.

Nurgle Terminator

This isn't actually a new project, I've been working on it off and on sense around August 2009, but I noticed it sitting there and thought I'd post about it. I don't play Chaos myself, but my gaming group was discussing ideas a long time ago and our resident minion of Nurgle wanted themed terminators. After much batting of ideas he decided that the best description of what he wanted is to "Take a terminator and inject him with cheese till it's oozing out of everything."

I thought it was an interesting idea, but wasn't intrigued enough to even consider actually trying it. But I was bored one day, saw the pile of extra termi parts from a friend and for some odd reason the description popped into my head again. I sat down, spread out the parts I had on my desk, and took stock. I had enough to assemble a terminator, though the parts were a mix between the Chaos Terminator Lord and either a chaos terminator or a regular terminator, not sure which.

Here's how he looks at the moment. Or not, apparently my most recent pic is between adding the shoulder pads and filling in around them with greensuff >.<

He's still waiting on fine details and some minor touch up. And a real base. There are some additional pictures of this stage at the end of this post.

Anyway, to start I took the termi lord legs and carved out the feet so I could reposition him, sadly the feet were mangled coming out so I tossed them in favor of the feet from the standard termi. the crotch and upper legs are also from the same standard termi as the feet. To give the impressing of cheese oozing out of the joints, I carefully seperated the front/back of each part of the legs and glued a wedge shaped piece of plasticard between them to maintain the spacing I wanted.

This is actually part of the initial posing of the feet and shins.


Here the leg's pose is defined and wired together. Paperclips are your friend.

After choosing the pose for the legs and getting them happily in place, I bulked up the cracks with greenstuff teardrops, I did general Google searches on topics related to fat, fat people, rolls of fat, etc to get a feel for how excess flesh hung. And reached this:


The torso was a bit different as I split it in a number of places regluing the side panels away from the lower torso to allow more fat to seep through.

Yes, those are magnets in his arm sockets, I'll probably remove them as it makes it hard to get the greenstuff to cure in the right place for the rolls of flesh between the arm bits and the body proper.

Once i was generally happy with the shape of the torso I moved on to the arms. I spent a lot of time trying to decide which arm bits to use. I ended up using parts from a couple, but equipping him with what is apparently 'standard' equipment. The sword blade is made from plasticard sanded and x-acto knifed down into shape. I chose to mimic the Daemon Prince of Nurgle from the GW site (Chaos Marines -> HQ section).


With the arms attached:


Most recently (December?) I added the shoulder pads and finished bulking out the mass there, though as I mentioned above, I seem to have taken the picture between adding the shoulder pads and bulking them up as they're not bulked up in the picture, which is odd as it was all done as the same step in my mind. Also, for those curious, I took his picture with a terminator from the Black Reach set:


He looks kinda funny without the extra rolls around the shoulder pads. I'll have to take a new picture and post that at some point.

Eventually, I'll add many many pustules and oozing sores to it. Probably.