Friday 17 May 2024

Techno Barbarian Crusader

He's got the war club and shield from a Saurian which was a free give away model from Banbury GW a while ago.  Those feathers are a plant from someone's scenic base.  And the Crusader helm with the eye peice is resin, so it's an aftermarket peice from somewhere.  The backpack is a white metal pig iron item.



 ...And all becuase if anywhere needs random heavily armoured people of unknown disposition with power weapons and shields, it's Devos IV. 

Sunday 12 May 2024

Tiny Leg Ends DKK grenadier conversions

It is a sad fact of existance that things wear out, that stuff that used to be part of the fabric of our lives, Woolworths, stable government, peace in Europe, road bridges in the USA, all eventually disappear, leaving us wondering where we could possibly buy pick'n'mix, 45 singles and ironing boards in the same shop.

On the Brick of Scrutiny today: 

Most of my DKK was bought, over the phone, during a break in a clients rest area in about 2008.  Come about 2020 people on the interwebs were a bit vocal about the non-availability of some of the DKK range (whilst utterly oblivious to the disposition of the Tallarn and Elylisian model lines).   It's not that FW didn't want to to stop making them, but those moulds must of given up the ghost.  So ignoring that FW has been folded back into GW for a minute, the advent of the plastic DKK Kill Team box set reignited interest in the whole DKK catalouge.  


Into this breach steps a guy in Estonia, one man banding a conversion set, to let you change your Kill Team into a Grenadier squad.  "Ha," I hear you say, "Zzzzz, I see where this is going, you don't really need any more minis at all, you're right outta space to keep them in, you never build them all anyway and then you just twine on about the amount...  What ?  already ?!?!"


 

You're quite correct gentle reader.  But yeah, I did.  Bite me. 

The website is pretty good, the kit you get is crisp, complete and competantly thought out and modelled.  There are little guides as to which of your new sets of arms and heads will match which bodies.  Once you get around that, it makes sense enough to use the kit properly.  The armour bits are at the limit of current resin technology.  If you look hard, even some of the filter/power backpacks are for the left handed variants.  You are not going to notice in a game if someone has used the wrong one, it's only noticable if you pick 'em up and look hard.  These kits are great 10/10, would recommend.  

As well as a rough rider to Death Rider kit, he does Engineer kits as well.  Obvs FW's DKK moulds had all given up around the same, except the Line Infantry ones, which, producing more models, had been refreshed some time before, which is why they're still going at the minute.  It says quite clearly on the website that for the engineer kits, you might a result you like better, using the new Cadian box.  So Tiny Leg Ends is paying attention to aesthetics and technical compatability with the kits, which must be harder than concentrating on one of these aspects alone.  Kudos to such a craftsman. 

Thursday 21 March 2024

Sarenian Grenadiers

 

I found myself in possession of a box of the new plastic grenadiers.  I like the sculpts and the selections available, all good stuff, although the grumpy ol' man bit of me would like to see truly modlular kits like the old Cadians, I do recognise that most of the time to resulting units would have a certain uniformity that belied the modular nature of the kit - ie almost all of the models produced fell into handfull of basic poses. 
The new Kill Team (at least the Sisters, DKK & Kasarkin I've sampled) and Necromunda (Cawdor) boxes I've sampled, due to their non-modular nature, must prima facae have less poses.  But apparently not, apparently we can build enough variety with the seemingly more limited amount of choice with these new kits and still create enough variety to actually satisfy ourselves. 
And if we want more, then it's down to what we've always done and source 3rd party parts and chop up the GW kits to increase the diversity of the kits.  Anyway, as you can see, these ones have Eisenkern heads, so they match the existing Saranians whilst being ever so slightly different - to draw attention to them so you can spot the armour and hellguns.
So these fellas have my bestest ever attempt at Flektarn, in the traditional autumn colours.  I got the wolf totems on their shoulders and the Iggy flash on their other arm, so they match.  Allow me to draw your attention to this man here, so you can compare and contrast. 
There are nine of these dudes, incl the sharpshooter, squad leader, radio operator and medic.
They are also accompanied by a Cadian Combat Engineer.  Because reasons.
So I've found a little time and the weather is a bit better.  This afternoon I have had the Vallhalans out and worked on their bases - some of them have lanquished on unfinished bases for well over a decade, so it's good to be making a bit of progress there.
The amount of random crap to do in the garage will certainly keep me busy for another decade at least, even if I never buy another mini.