Ork Mob paint WIP

Yay for basecoats.  I haven't actually gotten much done this last week what with the holidays, I did manage to paint some more base colors on a (mostly) random selection of orks.  I've been working on them off and on for pretty much the entire time I've known about Special Operations Killzone.  There isn't really any theme unifying them into a single mob, but as they're a skirmish kinda gathered as they went, I feel that fits.  Their (as yet unchosen) bases will be their unifying feature.  A number of them are supposed to have additional armour plates that I've made, but not yet attached (or even primed yet).  I have 2 more of the looted weapon(?) orks similar to the one on the far right of the picture and another big shoota boy that were supposed to be part of the mob, but have no paint at all yet.  Painting random colors on 13 different orks is an interesting process and getting the red for that pair of pants was a pain.

They were (are?) for Special Operations: Killzone, but I haven't really thought about that system in a while now.  I don't know when I'll get around to working more on them, as I finally have all the parts for my Showgirls crew in Malifaux so I'll probably have some updates on assembly and painting ideas soon.


Oh, also does anyone have any experience with the Savage Worlds Showdown game engine?  It's a free miniatures ruleset available here.

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 >.> ). 

 

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.

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)

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.

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.

Modular Starship Progress

Well, I've actually done quite a bit of work on the modular starship sense the last post about it.  I'm up to 8 modules now, 4 of which are room segments (the ones on the far right in the picture).  I have 3 more modules planned out and currntly stored in baggies due to having to clean up my work area for well...  work.  Anyway, the top two room modules are representing some cryostasis room (I had parts and wanted to know how it'd look ^.~ )  the bottom 2 have conveyor belts on them.  They've been a pain as I must be really careful about making sure they line up and go the same direction.  One of the planned modules is a T-intersection with a conveyor belt.  If anyone has good ideas on what types of modules would make a nice diverse starting set, I'm all ears.  So far it seems the T intersections will be outnumbering the others (except maybe room modules, but it requires at least 4 room modules to make a single room.

I need to restart casting of the parts to make the modules as I'm effectively out of floor tiles with the 3 modules in bags.  Hopefully I'll be able to get some made up over the holiday season and have enough to actually play some killzone on by January.

Iron Corsairs

Almost 2 months sense an update.  I'd protest being busy, but I've just kinda forgot about the blog >.> Anyway, this post is about my space marine chapter.  It had it's name stolen by my new Dark Eldar (of which I have 5 assembled now <.< ), so are now called Iron Corsairs...  which fits better anyway.  I've been thinking about paint schemes for them sense the last killzone game I bat-repped, which has also sadly been my most recent game.

My current working concept is partially thanks to this article by Jeremy Olsen over at Empire of Ghosts.  I've always liked the woodblock style art but hadn't thought of bringing it to the wartable, so I worked up the mockup above to try it out.  I've tried to sculpt up some shoulderpads with the symbol on the door, but haven't had any luck getting even one I like.

Not sure what I think of the blue primary yet.  Probably add a hint more purple to it.  I'll also need a lot of practice painting woodblock cherry blossoms before I put them on an actual tank.

Hopefully I'll be able to get back on the ball and catch up with miniatures stuff for my blog.  I have a couple projects and things to post about that should be of some interest.

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.