Christmas Post 10 Mud on the Macharius

 

More mud !  Done at the same time.  Just the same as the StormBlade, Same sort of deal - more weathering and work on the crew.  But this is progress and an end is in sight;  But it might mean stepping up the number of evenings when I touch hobby stuff; once more a week would double my part of progress. 

Christmas Post 9 Mud on the Storm Blade

That's what's on the Brick of Scrutiny tonight, painted on fake mud, because there's not enough real mud in my life (kids, dogs, work....)

IRL, you can only just discern the carrier film around that aqilla.  But the light shows up something rotten in the photos.  

Might mix up some more thicker mud for that gap. 

More actual weathering is in order. 

Can't make the BoS much safer than this. 

Christmas Post 8 Vostroyan Staff Officer & Body Guards

 

Vostroyans.

OK, if you are puzzling over the three ladies on the Brick of Scrutiny; the haughty looking officer is one of the Raging Heroes (Heroines !!!) Toughest Girls in the Galaxy range.  The two bodyguards are the same person, two versions of a Khadorian Warcaster from Warmachine. 

These were done by Kyle of Mr Lee's Minis fame; he did these a few years ago before the actual mini business began sucking all of his time.  The colours were chosen to match and compliment the other existing Vostroyan members of High Command.  

For those struggling to place the white uniformed Vostroyans in 72 AG; they are the ones deployed as formed sub units as Military Police.  So that marks her down as some sort of Provost; probably trying to keep the Commissariat and Adeptus Sorortias at bay whilst still keeping two armies from about 60 different systems in line.  

The StormHammer wielding bodyguards (I've got Iggy codices where Storm Trooper can have Storm Hammers so that's OK) are quite wonderful and it's on Fatit 212 that the Vostroyans are going to be on sale again (for a single week - WTaF ?!?!), so that's a thing.  

Quite wonderful.  Oh yes, I do have the broken bit of hammer, I just need to stick it back on.   Let us not loose sight of the fact that for all the men of Jornath, Kreig, Armageddon, Palladia, and so on, the man at the top is First Born.  When the history books are written, the reclamation of Devos IV will have been a famous Vostroyan victory.

Christmas Post 7 A whole lot of WiP

So you've seen a whole lot of nearly finished stuff;  There's a thing that Aussies call an 'eskie' (probably short for 'Eskimo', some of the ex-convicts having stolen some of the other letters), mine arrive full of frozen dog food.  This is not an accident, I do buy them deliberately.  

The lids, once the dog food is in the freezer, make for handy trays to move little men around on, and I have a never ending supply of them.  So the these are Grenadiers who just need a tidy up before they've done. 

The weird looking fellas in the corner are zealots from this Kickstarter. 

Blue Krieg for the Field Arty - I used Fenris Grey (its blue) but obviously didn't mix it mixily enough as it started to dry all shiny and quite the wrong shade of blue.  It was a disaster.  Out with the Shadow Grey (its blue) to try to rescue the paint job.  

Grey Kreig (they're grey - it's in the feckin' name GW !) will need the mustard facings next.  And the random Space Wolf will also be grey, because that's what colour space wolves are.

So that's how I do stuff in the winter - trying to do stuff by the warm mood lighting of the living room, which then always needs correcting when looked at by the light of day.  C'est La Vie. 

Christmas Post 6 Imperial Guard Pskyers

These guys, like the other psykers, had been to Alaska as well, only a decade or two quicker to come back, such are the vagarities of warp travel. 

These match the existing special warfare section of my Iggy army. 

Being on the Brick of Scrutiny is obviously giving these guys a headache - "I already know what you want !" as they say in DoW.   

Happy with these fellas.  

Christmas Post 5 2nd Ed Psykers WIP

These guys are from Alaska.  I know, forged in Nottingham by Citadel, got all the way to Alaska some twenty years (ish) later and now flown all the back again. 

You may have seen Mordian 7th's new Rogue Trader kill team where he used a limited pallet and basically blue and white.   These are only block colours so far.  (Gotta love their huge heads)

I hope that the colours on the collar and the darker, more purpleish colour of the cloaks comes out.  What I need here is Jeff (PVP Jeff this time) telling me about spot colours and colour balance.  Humm, I'm thinking something like goblin or snot green, rather than red.  But don't want to use both on the models because they'll end up looking too busy (?)  Oh well.

Christmas Post 4 FW/Anvil StormTroopers

These guys have now had their camouflage applied and look the part. One of the strengths of 40K is that one can have a professional looking military unit like this on the same table as the Sororitas Repentia, or even a Tzeenchian giant magic chicken, and no-one bats an eyelid.  Go figure. 
Oxford comma just for Admiral Drax there, something for everyone this year. 

A nice mix of shot gun and phase interlocked grunge rifle (hot shot las gun) 

 The posing has come out nicely as well, they do look like soldiers, rather than the slightly daft poses struck by some figures. 

Aside from a little static grass and their lenses, these guys are done as well.  I'm going to see if I can do mirrored/silver lenses. The lighting has gut through the washes, interestingly enough - the yellow sploges on the camo are not quite so pronounced IRL. 

They may all end up looking like they're wearing ski goggles, but I can live with that.  Oh and Merry Christmas, btw.  I never could figure out whether the Feast of the Emperor's Ascension is supposed to Christmas or Easter.  

 

Christmas Post 3 Sororitas Repentia

There's something hopelessly romantic in the enormity of the background of the dystopian grimdark of the 41st Millennium.  

There's a lot what is, quite frankly, mad shit.  All of which works in some weird way to give us a super world to play in and wonder at.  One of the things which makes, in the Grimdark, perfect sense is members of the Adeptus Sororitas doing self imposed penance. 

The fact that this penance involves volunteering to fight practically naked with giant two handed chainsword (itself a completely bonkers idea from the Sunbeam Rd era of GW).  Possibly with one eye bandaged up for luck.

The fluff, quite deliberately, never says whether that penance is ever expunged or whether they go on until they have given their lives for the emperor.  Of course this makes for great story telling.  

I do like these figures -  they've been kicking around the WIP pile for, erm, six years.  Bored now.

 

Christmas Post 2 Enginseers

Here are two enginseers.  A proper metal one and the new plastic one.  They are not unrealistically scaled; I know people (some of whom read this blog) who are either bigger or littler than me in the same ratio as these two. 

But unsurprisingly, it is the newer plastic one who is the larger, albeit not by much.  So the difference is not so much GW reflecting reality as scale creep. 

These two need basing but aside from that they're good for the table top.

Christmas Post 1 "Merry Siphmas"

First up on the Brick of Scrutiny are some finished models.  "Ah, it must be Christmas, Zzzzz has finished something.  But no, it wasn't me; Siph Horridus from Wee Men did these for me in exchange for some Sisters of Scissors. 

For those of you unfamiliar with such things, these are FW's Vorax; which are horde killing hunter droid.  Their aesthetic is based on the 'Crusader' robot from the old 1980's robots.  For some reason, they don't get pushed like some of the other FW robots.

These are obviously ancient assets belonging to the Ad Mech tide to the Legio Astorum, proudly wearing Warp Runners colours.  Unless you're tanks, plural (and even then, the Lightening Guns mean that's uncertain) then for the time being, the BoS is safe.

And just for scale, there's a Tech Priest. 

Many thanks to Siph for these - If I had the skill to assemble and paint these (they are fiddly kits) then I'd be sorely tempted to get some more; their sinister purposefulness makes them very attractive little models.

New from DragonForge in 2019

Long term readers will remember my fondness for Chimera conversion kits.  Always with an eye on what's going on I spotted these, from DragonForge, best known (so far) for outstanding resin bases and a 28mm jackhammer. 


Jeff (the DragonForge one, not the PVP one) is producing two things which might pique your interest.  One is a kit to up armour your Chimera - there's extra armour panels for the sides and for the front elevation as well.
 







That front kit is so nice; it's a clear quantum leap for those of us who lack the plasticard skills of Claus or Pim Mauve who could now use these to whup up consistently chimera looking chimera conversions.



And the second, possibly more exciting kit he's working on is the DragonForge 'Bison', which will be a multi option kit which can do (at least) Command Salamander, Recce Salamander and Griffon. 



So no, I'm not on commission (Jeff needs us to buy his stuff at face value, otherwise he'll go out of business and/or starve to death); but if someone puts this much effort into improving the hobby in terms of high quality options to expand my/your/our Imperial Guard army, then it deserves a bit more exposure.

And yes, I know I could have re-sized the picts, but meh, this shows of the potential of these kits.