Progress so far in 2015

Clacking, lacking and tracking, as it were.  Here's the previous version, with the round up from last year.

Now the up to date one:

DKK Salamanders - need finishing off.
ASL Crassus - Done
Valhallans - now so old they need touching up. 
3rd Thunderer Conversion.  
Additional Officers Nearly all done (but I keep adding more....)
"Word Bearers" er, um, tbc. 
Leviathan Mortis' - Despatched to the Dark Mechanicus
DKK Grenadiers WIP
Full Size ATAT fleet Test Mega Bolter Done
DKK Hydrae Built & Painted
Thunderbolts - WIP
Clone wars Vendetta conversions  Test Model Done
World Eaters Land Raider
Meridian Infantry
Inquisitorial Gun Cutter
Isenkearn APC Test Model Done
Isenkearn Command Squad WIP
Imperial Basillica
Elsyian Army  Done
TGG Kickstarter girls Delivered late May
And then a trawl of whats in the boxes

So it's all going OK, although you'll note that there are only two things "done" so far this year.  

In case you were wondering what 'and then a trawl of what's in the boxes' might involve; it does include things like significant amounts of iggy bitz which might make useful Blood Pact types when used with bits from people like Victoria Miniatures, Puppetswar, Maxmini and so on.  There are FW DKK and Elysian weapons which would look great on re-purposed bolt action minis - with the different weapons, new heads and different paint, you are going to be hard pressed to identify them for what they were designed as.  

Keillerkopf APC with paint.

Pre-shading in red brown and then the 'usual' Dark Sand base coat.  This colourscheme has to tie in with the one used for the DKK without being the same (sounds like an android advert..) - not the thin wriggly lines of the DKK vehicle fleet but something close.

So I plumped for a hertzer like 'ambush' scheme.  What his basically means is ensuring that coverage between the three colours is 1:1:1 and then putting brown and yellow spots on the green, green and brown spots on the yellow and yellow and green spots on the brown. Possibly would have been better with hard edged camouflage, but it looks ok.  Spots can be done with a cut down old brush; giving a decent circle.  What you see here is me throwing on 'circles' rather impatiently There'll be filters and so on so I'm not so worried. .

The windows unmasked and decals applied.  One thing that did not work so well was the hair spray and salt over the red brown undercoat.  No amount of warm soapy water caused the desired weathering effect.  Not surprising really, there were three or four other colours over the top by that point.  Ho hum.  Wheels back on soon.

Update Sun 17 May 15:  Here's a learning point - you'll need the rear wings/mud guards on to paint it.  However, the wheels will not go on with the wing/mud guard in place.  I had to break these off - fortunately I'm an old hand at dismantling my own handiwork, but will stick to blue tac next time.

With filters (AK interactives) and euro dust (er, erm, Mig.  Yup, definitely Mig 'European dust') the wheels will be blended in with the rest of the vehicle.  But this view gives you a nice sense of the almost brutal aesthetic of these bad boys.  And here's the backside - the first thing I look at, usually.

Oh and Tanith Lee died recently.  We all will, but when it's someone you read as a teenager, it is that little bit more poignant.

Keilerkopf APC

So here it is next to a Chimera derivative.  The model comes with a fully kitted out interior complete with crew and ten passengers.  If you're one of those weirdos who paints the inside of a Rhino before glueing it all up, this will really let you go to town on something no-one will ever see. 

The kit goes together extremely well; up there with Academy and Tamiya kits.  The engineering involved in this kit is comparatively up to date for a model kit; ie cutting edge for a wargamming piece.  The kit uses several materials, for instance, steel screws that hold the wheels on; these are allowed to bite into the polyethylene of the hull's axle stubs.

Real rubber tyres are not unusual in 'mainstream' models, but not that common in wargamming models. The multi jointed raising and lowering jig for the quad mount has nylon bushes, exactly like the swinging arm on your motorcycle.

Speaking of which, it might not visually scream fortykay at you, but having put it together and played around with it for ten minutes, I'm converted.  It's a crackin' little gadget.  Hat's off to the man or team (Mark Mandragon) who put this together.  I love it.  And it looks kool too.

Once again, Sgt Kwiz provides us with a sense of scale.  There are plates to cover the screws, but those wheels are coming off for painting.  Another thing missing is a wheel arch for those two back wheels, but it does just look kool without it.  It'll go on after undercoat, pre-shade and basecoat.

Sgt Kwiz says if he didn't fly everywhere, he'd like to ride about in one of these.  Paint next.

Full Sized AT AT Progress.

So these are the 'titan' gatling guns for Mark Mandragon's (Ironcore) 15mm models.  I was sort of hoping that they would size up ok for the Vulcan Mega Bolters for my 'counts as' StormLordies.

If you are careful with the glue the multi barrel bit in the middle rotates.  Sgt Kwiz there providing us with a sense of scale.  As you were, Sgt...

This is them blu-tac'd in place on the head of an AT AT.  That broken off bit did get stuck back on an hour or two after this pict was taken.  Hey, the garage can be a dangerous place, y'know !  I'm happy enough with this as a look.  Now all I need to do is identify eight of something the same to use as spacers to mount these babies...

And just for completeness, an all up shot.  Once again, Sgt Kwiz providing us with a sense of scale.  Obviously doesn't completely replicate all of the features of a StormLordie, but bollocks to that, I'm gonna put four of these on the table and stomp my way to their deployment zone before disgorging hordes of iggies into someone else's personal space.

MWA Ha ha ha ha,

Actual real mocked up footage.

Just in case you hadn't seen this on the book of faeces:

 https://vimeo.com/107454954

Not FW Tauros

OK, so you have seen all of the other models* out there which can proxy for these:

Arcing back to the 1990s, before 9/11 and the subsequent entanglements in Iraq and Afganistan, the British Army was trialling these:

Made by Wessex (and I don't know, but they might be the helicopter people ?).

The Wessex Saker is a space frame two man vehicle which mounts a heavy weapon.  The vehicle was envisaged as a recce vehicle; the FS role mentioned in the Tauros fluff is these days filled by the Jackel and so on; much bigger vehicles.

I think the upper two photos are old ones from the era when these vehicles were being trialled.  I'm also pretty sure that the bottom photo is from a re-enactment type event; hence the appliqué headlights and visible number plate (a "Q" plate in the UK is one given to a vehicle re-registered after being de-registered [by the Driver Vehicle Licence Agency] for some reason).  The number plate should really be arranged Q 598 OCR rather than Q5 98 OCR - it has been arranged like this to look more like a MoD registration.

Funny ol' world.

* Anyway, just in case you were wondering, here are some Tauros alternatives:

HALO Warthogs with the three barrelled gun replaced with an IG Auto Cannon

Here representing the Cadian 144th LRRR.

Antenocti's Warthog, Here serving the Cadian 127th.  A closed in lightly armoured four seater.

Antenocti's Viper, much smaller, a proper two man vehicle, again serving the Cadian 127th.

Antenocti's Bear SUV; unarmoured four seater serving the Cadian 24th

Antenocti's Zebu; four seater arbites cruiser.

The Later Phases of the War

Belligera Rex - Acquisition of this asset is the major war aim of the Skull Takers

Danny Bloodcoat knew from the outset that any military action staged by the PDF would only ever be a holding action.  Facing the Imperial Guard as foe, rather than relief force, his delaying strategy was only ever supposed to be buying time for a negotiated settlement.

This negotiated settlement could have included an amnesty for the PDF soldiers, even perhaps the officers in the early stages.   But despite ensuring his staff kept asking their political masters about the negotiations, time has dragged on.  By the time the Imperial Guard attacked the Cudlip defence lines, any hope of clemency for the PDF was long past. 

The rebel leaders told the PDF that the Cruel Imperium had rebuffed any attempt at communication.  The truth might be that any communication might have had to have gone through the Inquisition, however a perhaps equally entrenched view point and radical dogma existed in the cultist dominated Benq regime.   There is a strong suspicion amongst the PDF Staff that their political masters approached the negotiations in a half-hearted manner, if at all.

Porn Cultists - The Slaneeshi controlled areas a teeming with them.

However the cultists in the regime had not been idle and had been trying to find help.  And their requirements were being answered.  But as ever with the fickle gods of chaos, what Slaanesh and Khorne have provided is perhaps not exactly what they expected.

Emperor's Children.

 A cohort of the Emperor’s Children has arrived, led by Eidolon, former Equerry to Fulgrim, now a Deamon Prince.   Almost all of the cults on Devos IV are Slaneeshi aligned.  The rulers of Benq are Slaneeshi cultists.  Regardless of other Slaneeshi aims, Eidolon is still fighting the war his master and his master’s gene-brothers began ten thousand years ago.  He sees the war Danny Bloodcoat is fighting.  For the time being, the invasion retarding plan remains the best way.  But what Eidolon sees is a need for more resources, he can’t punish the lackies of the false emperor with the remnants of the PDF alone.

Eidolon, Equerry to Fulgrim

When the Emperor's Children arrived, their appearance was spun by the Benq Government, to the population (included) as the arrival of Space Marines to save them from the invader.  reinforcing this impression, the emperor's children were almost instantly attacked by Wild Riders of Siam Hain, the perennial bogeymen of Devos IV's culture since mankind first set foot on this green and blue world, whenever that was. Of course, Danny Bloodcoat and his senior staff, having served in the wider Imperium, are well aware who their new allies are.  What they make of this remains to be seen. 

The tattered remains of the Skulltakers Warband, much depleted since their zenith on Vraks centuries ago, have arrived led by Zhufor. The Skulltakers are on Devos IV to claim Belligera Rex, a warhound titan inadvertently left behind by the War Griffins in the wake of WAAAHG Burkat.   Eidolon has given Zhufor passage to Devos IV, a chance to get a titan and somewhere to use it.

Skulltakers

But Khorne is ever Slanesh’s rival.  So whereas all of these veterans of the long war have come from the Eye of Terror, there are also combatants arriving from the Sabat Worlds.  A detachment of Bloodpact have arrived; probably hidden amongst the convoys bringing supplies and reinforcements for 72AG.  Khorne likes iteration and after the PDFs experiences, there is a good chance that the Bloodpact will stiffen the Bloodcoats and draw them closed to Khorne.

The Lord of Decay will not be left out.  Warpsmiths of The Cleaved have arrived in the ruins of San Cantor and resurrected any servitor that they could find.