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AdMech Patrol #2 - Progress report
By Bouargh
Blog entries pass and sometimes look like very similar to some previous ones. It is one of the issues when dealing with army building on base of multiples buy outs of the same Patrol Box... Yet we might eventually expect some variation if the models are fitted in different fashion, ain´t we? The Onagre DuneCrawler as already been spoiled in the FOrums, but it has been the major progress of the past week so I will "proudly" republish it there. It is also an unhonorable wa- 1 comment
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Dakota Minor Defence Corps (PDF)
By Mike Zulu
Introduction Like many established Imperium worlds, Dakota Minor has a planetary defence force simply known the Dakota Minor Defence Corps (or DMDC). Most of its number are conscripted from the local population; a small number of citizens willingly join to escape the tedium of farm life that is prevalent on Dakota Minor. The DMDC is organised in a manner similar to Astra Militarum regiments, albeit more limited in their makeup. For the most part, it consists of dozens of infantry battalions- 0 comments
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With Codex: Imperial Agents on the horizon, in a previous Blog post, I talked about my Grand Army idea......
that was almost a year ago.... so I guess it is time for an update. According to the WarComm article :
"Should you instead wish to field an entire army of Imperial Agents, the Codex offers four new Detachments which add their own Detachment rules, Stratagems, and Enhancements to the mix, allowing you to support a full Inquisitorial force with no limitations on the number of units you can take. Three of these Detachments are themed around the major Inquisitorial Ordos, while the fourth represents those forces with significant Imperial Navy backing."
My previous Grand Army Idea consisted of Inquisition, Astra Militarum, Sisters of Silence, and Grey Knights. Sisters of Silence have been moved to Horus Heresy as the allies for my XIXth Legion and Adeptus Custodes. So now there will be 4 Detachments, Ordo Malleus, Ordo Hereticus, Ordo Xenos, and Imperial Navy in Codex: Imperial Agents, and let's focus on those potential updates.
Ordo Malleus:
With my completed Custom Terminator Armor Inquisitor Lord , Work in Progress Inquisitor Lord Erasmus Cartavolnus, and unbuilt Inquisitor Rex, Ordo Malleus will be included in the Grand Army. (I want this Battle Force!)
Ordo Hereticus:
Originally I was not including Adepta Sororitas in the Grand Army but they are being added now. This battle Force is not a must buy for me, compared to the Ordo Malleus one. I have 2 unbuilt Kill teams of Inquisitorial Henchmen already, my custom squad of Henchmen, and then another 14 from the OM Battle Force,
Ordo Xenos:
Another box I don't need. Will I add Deathwatch Veterans to my army.....Only under the command of Inquisitor Lord based off the Lok model and Artemis cause that model is awesome.
Imperial Navy:
Well new army...sorta. With my 30 Imperial Navy Breachers, Star Strider/ Voids Men at Arms, Rogue Trader entourage, Astropath Varne Eckza (Count as Legends Espern Locarno), and the 4 major Ordo Assassinorum Temples.
So that means from 1 Codex I will have 4 Separate Armies for my Grand Army.
To be updated for the Grand Army
Astra Militarum
Adepta Sororitas
Grey Knights
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Understanding [Most of] the B&C Site Features
This blog post started life as an effort to better educate members on the benefits of Pages/Articles after some posts, especially the one by @INKS here. The information herein goes beyond Pages/Articles, however, so I decided to locate it within my blog and then link to it in the aforementioned discussion, and maybe also in the Amicus Aedes forum. Realistically, this is just a precursor to something that should be either an article or a series of articles. It is being presented in this abbreviated format, however, in the interest of time (i.e., getting the information out there now) as we lean into making the Pages/Articles feature public.
A key issue is understanding the various features that the site offers. These include:
- Blog
- Club
- Discussion
- Download
- Event (i.e., Calendar) - I'm not going to discuss this feature much herein)
- Gallery
- Pages (hereafter referred to as Article)
The features that are well understood are discussion, download, and gallery. These features are mutually supporting and distinct from each other.
Conversely, the features that are not well understood (and woefully underutilized) are blog, club, and articles. As you will see below, there is a lot of overlap, but each serves a distinct purpose.
DiscussionThe core feature of the site, and that for which the site was created, was discussion. As the name implies, discussion is about various members providing their viewpoints/responses to various topics, engaging in a discussion with each other. The methods for formatting discussion posts transfer over to the other features. Discussion also supports the other features via the ability to post comments, notably in the blogs, galleries, and downloads. When members submit new downloads or articles, discussions are created to announce those additions and provide visibility for other members.
Since the other features came later, discussion has been used to emulate/bastardize those other features. For example, members often use discussions to present their blogs instead of using the actual blog function. Similarly, many articles are presented as discussions rather than via the actual article function. These emulations/bastardizations are functional and familiar, but they are sub-optimal, underutilizing the site's capabilities (for reasons that will be demonstrated later). That said, these emulations/bastardizations are effective (so we're not going to stop anyone from using them), though they are less effective than the actual features.
One aspect of discussions that many members don't notice is the archiving process. In the process, the site software automatically archives a discussion topic after a period of time. Once this happens, members can neither edit posts nor submit additional replies to that topic, effectively locking them.
GalleryThe use of the gallery feature allows members to host images online so that those images can be used in the other site features, such as displaying an image of a painted miniature or a header image for a club/blog. Members have other options for hosting images online, but the B&C galleries are convenient and free. Since the hobby is so visually intense, the ability to display images is essential to effective discussion.
DownloadIf you look at the top of the page, you'll see the site's mission statement. A key element of that is the final sentence - the sharing of hobby-related content [to help others enjoy the hobby]. While images (see gallery above) are an obvious element of that, there are many non-image forms of content that members can share with each other to fulfill this portion of our mission statement. Over the years we have seen myriad types of files shared via the downloads, including roster templates, homegrown rules, decals, missions, etc. In many cases, these content types can be shared via discussion, but the ability to download files provides much better control and enables more efficient printing of these files. An announcement is created in the discussion forums any time a file is submitted to our downloads, and members are able to comment in that discussion or directly to the file page to provide feedback to the content creator/submitter.
BlogA blog bears a very strong resemblance to a discussion forum, but where the structure and scope of the discussion forums are controlled by the B&C admins, each member has control over their own blog. The real value of a blog is that a member can have a central location for all of their various projects. Discussions might fall off the front page, so if a member decides to update a project, they may have to perform some level of searching to find an existing project discussion (and there are various ways of performing such a search). If a member has a blog, however, they simply have to open their blog to narrow their search down, making it much easier to find the project they're looking for (and for others to review all of a member's projects without laborious searching).
One of the great things about the blog feature is that it provides members with a convenient and free way to present their own blog, saving them from having to host/download some other blog software and learn how to use that software.
ClubThe club feature is easily the best of the new features (since the site update a few years ago). Clubs fulfill a variety of purposes, limited only by the community requirement that a club be relevant to the Warhammer 40,000 hobby and members' imaginations (with the caveat that we won't approve of clubs that effectively duplicate public discussion forums - for example, we don't need a club for fans of the Dark Angels since we already have a discussion forum for that purpose). Clubs may be created to focus on products (e.g. 40K Action Figure Afficianados for fans of the JoyToy and McFarlane WH40K action figures), allow for coordination within specific geographic areas (e.g., the Europe club for those WH40K issues that are specific to the members of our community that reside upon that continent), allow for coordination within WH40K game clubs or stores (e.g., Metal Head Armory in Phoenix, Arizona, USA), development of homegrown rules (e.g., The Chronicles of Saint Katherine's Aegis), etc.
One particularly great capability that clubs provide is the ability for members to work on group projects without the need for B&C administrator support. In the past, we had the Special Projects forum in which members could create discussions to coordinate efforts in a special project (typically working towards the creation of some set of homegrown rules). Particularly complex projects often required the creation of dedicated sub-forums, allowing participants to have multiple discussions for better organization and partitioning of their project; and the creation of such sub-forums required administrator approval and a degree of work on the part of the approving administrator. With clubs, however, members can simply create a club dedicated toward their project. The really great part, though, is that the club owner/creator can include various features in the club, including one or more discussion forums, files (i.e., downloads), galleries, and events. This enables participants to upload project-specific files and images within the club, and to coordinate efforts on their own calendar. The club owner/creator can decide upon the features that will be available in the club, and these features can be updated later. The only hurdle with the clubs is that clubs must be approved by administrators, but with no other effort on their part, speeding things up considerably. In addition, club owners/creators can be given permissions similar to those of moderators within their clubs, allowing them to control content more easily without the need for administrator/moderator intervention (though they won't have disciplinary permissions). Overall, clubs provide members with a great deal of freedom, better supporting member-created content with much less need for moderators/administrators.
ArticleThe (soon-to-be) newest feature is the pages (article) feature, which resurrects the functionality that we used to have in the Librarium (way back in the day). The key distinction between articles and discussions is that articles are a way for an author (or authors) to present their content to others, much the way articles are published in magazines and journals, whereas a discussion is much more open and anyone can participate. If a member has conducted a lot of research on a subject and wants to present their conclusions to other members, an article is an excellent format. If a member wants to debate issues or if they have questions for which they desire answers/feedback, however, a discussion would be a better format. As with downloads, the submission of an article creates a discussion that serves as both an announcement (providing visibility to other members) as well as a medium for others to provide their feedback on the article (and which the article author may consider for possible updates to the article).
Articles can have different origins. For example, a discussion topic may prompt a member to compose an article, whether some discussion of lore, the presentation of their homegrown Chapter of Space Marines, etc. Alternately, a member may complete a project that they presented in their blog, then they might collect the blog (or highlights thereof) into an article. Or a group may develop some project, presenting the finished product as an article.
It is also very important to identify the relationship between downloads and articles. Each of these features enables members to present the same (or similar) information via different mediums. The articles [pages] function allows for online/digital presentation of content (that is formatted based on the user's device), whereas downloads allow for that same information to be presented in a format that can be printed (in a format defined by the author). Many of you may be familiar with a variety of online libraries such as those that are available at learning institutions; those online libraries allow members to view an article online and often to download that article (typically in .pdf format). Our software doesn't allow for online presentation of a .pdf, unfortunately, but the online format (via the articles feature) provides better accessibility that is tailored to the user's device. There is no automatic linkage between the two features, unfortunately, nor is there (and there will not be) any mandated requirement from the site for members to submit content in both formats. In my ideal world, however, members will take the time to develop content in both formats to better support the various needs of other community members. At this point, all we can do is provide incentives to those outcomes via achievements/badges (i.e., the system tracks your content submissions and awards badges at different thresholds).
The most important thing to realize is that all of these features exist within an ecosystem. Each has a specific function and works best for different types of outcomes, though there are many commonalities. Yes, the discussion feature can be used to emulate blogs and articles, but blogs and articles each do their own thing better than discussions. Many of these features support or are supported by various other features.
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Iron Hands Predator
I gave started work on a predator for my Iron Hands:
When I bought this it was the only plastic Predator available but I also like the more square aesthetic (particularly with the IG dozer blade).
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Bitz Box Bingo
Through this together via bitz I had: archon, void weaver, and death jester kits. I'll run this model as a character in my corsairs army. Sort of a death jester homage.
I hope to get it primed this week but have no idea when I'll get started on the paint phase.
Thanks for looking.
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Latest Entry
Call to Arms 2024 - 3rd progress report
Hi Folks,
After 5 weeks of challenge, and a welcomed holiday break, I am back to the brushes since last week.
these past 10 days I managed to have some progress, although less lighting fast than it isued to be last year at the same period in the previous challenge. But, hay, it is an endurance run afterall, and I may eventually boost up my productivity latter.
I started with the Serberys mounts. I have been excesively enthusiatic and I did not consider prepainting at all. Big mistake. these model require being as much painted as possible befor being glued together. Their sheer complexity makes that many parts are hard or impossibkle to reach with the brush once assemblied. anyway, after a lot of corrective touches to cover paints spots left here or there during the contorsionist´s exercices needed to paint the bellies of the cyber horses, the mounts are done. Next job will be the riders.
I also spent time on the 3 minor heros, completing them all.
The Marshall and the Technoarquelogist went rather fast, keeping the usual pallet of colours. It makes that the Marshall does not stand out much. But it is a cyborg and is not supposed to have any personality, so I guess it fits the big picture. Getting some more baroque stuff and a cloak is probably much more a sign of the ego of his master than wants a shiny puppet to show to his mates.
The last figure is the kit-bashed Mining Priest, with hydraulic claw and mining laser, I previously introduced in a blog entry (May 9th). This one went even faster. 6 hours gran total inc. basing and drying, and a quite long drive to and back from the supermarket to fill up the fridge.
Here is the resulting progess status: 38oo69 pts. So a little bit more than 55%
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1 Admech Patrol box inc.
- 1 Manipulus (5pts)
- 3 Serberis (6 points) - WIP
- 10 Skitarii (10 points) - WIP
- 5 Pteraxii (5 points) - total 26 points
- 1 Master of the Watch (5 points) - WIP
- 1 Archeotechnologist (5 points) - Completed
- 1 Engineseer (5 points) - Completed
- 1 Marshall (5 points) - Completed
- 10 Negavolt cultists as proxi Electropriests - Completed
- Admech scenery inc. 3 small machines (3 points), 2 big machines (4 points) and 1 generator (6 points) - Completed
Not too bad, but there is still some work ahead. Riders and rangers have received the black and metal drybruch and I will focus on them next. The Master of the Watch is waiting for some attention now that it has his black and his maatal done. but I keep him for dead times.
Manipuls will the the cherry on the cupcake once Pteraxii will be done. These look rather complicated to assemble. I do not want to screw up so I am thinking on the best way to do.
See you soon.
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1 Admech Patrol box inc.
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As inevitable as the (Green) Tide
A small update to help remind myself that progress has indeed been made.
Life has continued to be life, and while I've made some time for da boyz, they are many and batch-painting means that progress feels slow. Since the last post I've moved from cloth to what will be the non-khrome metalic portions, put in time on the scales/hides/furs, gotten a first pass on all bones/nails/teeth and continued pick up belts/pouches/bands that I missed on the last go-round. Initially I used the same base colors for the shoulder pads as I did some the cloth. The result was me kind of hating it. The similarity in the colors bothered me and made the model feel drab in a way I wasn't satisfied with. The fact that the tone was very close to what I ended up using for some of the scales/hides lead to the models feeling one dimensional.
Fortunately satisfaction within reach. I went to brighter tones for both the yellow and red, and after a couple layers (or more in the case of the yellow) both colors lost the muted tone that dirty/worn cloth would have and started to look brighter. I added edge highlights and scratch/damage where included in the models and I'm pretty satisfied with the results.
I might go back through and add some more detail/weathering in the future, but certainly for now I'm satisfied enough to move on.Laziness took over a bit with the furs and scales. When I took a look at how much more I had to complete before my "due date" I reached for the ever faithful bottles of contrast paints. I'm in a love-hate relationship with contrast paints. I think they can do a lot of heavy lifting with a small amount of effort, but they lack vibrancy and are difficult to mix or vary. I also had a problem with the fact that most of the areas I was going to use them on had been over-sprayed during my airbrush portion, so the zenithal that really makes contrasts pop was gone. I went back through with a white ink on all the fur portions before painting with contrasts and then dry-brushing to push up the high-tones. I'm satisfied with the result but there is certainly room for improvement next time.
The pelts are a similar story to the furs, in that I used contrasts with drybrushing.I wanted to add some flair to a couple of them and thought that making the hide a pseudo cheetah print would be fun, but after a bit of effort decided that it wasn't working and painted over it, but it was kind of fun to give it a shot.
I'm still not 100% on the end result of many of them and might tinker more later, but I'm satisfied enough to move on for now. Next phase is going to be getting started with the khrome effect. I've been stuck so long looking at the over-sprayed/primed portions of the models I think I'm starting to hit a bit of a lull in motivation. As a result I'm going to try and knock out another "test" model with a slightly different approach to the khrome to give me a more clear picture of the finish line, plus help me estimate how much more time I need to work on these boyz.- Read more...
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Sick!
I do apologize for the lack of content I gots the covids, this one hit me hard, 3 days stuck in bed. but I took pics of my current status of my heresy collection.
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Call to arms- I month gone
I month down and 2 more to go. Still managed to get a fair bit done in the last 2 weeks:
I finished both tidewall components, a Cadre Fireblade and a squad of breachers, as well as their drone turret and a recon drone for the upcoming Pathfinders, which is when I realised that I hadn't allowed for drones in my original pledge! Not sure if the drone port drones should count for seperate points, but at least iwth these other two that takes my target total up to 120pts. This new batch is a nother 27pts owrth completed taking my running total up to 59 pts, so pretty much half way at least points wise.
Next up are the pathfinders, which ive got the base colours on, then it's on to the Kroot half of my pledge.
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Intermission 2 (WIPs)
Nothing very fancy from me today, just a potato cam images of some WIPS.
Two Khymaran Veterans. I might even finish them at some point. These are deliberately rough as a badger's chuff, and I'm a little fed up with myself, since despite practice, I just couldn't get the battenberg shoulder scheme down. In the end I settled for a mixed veg melange of red and yellow as their pauldrons would be if they were in normal livery.
The pic robs the guy on the right of his MK VII-esque armour, as I've trimmed his poleyns and his gorget. Worked a treat and very easy to do. Unfortunately this is the only phone/camera I have, ad this is the best pic of a dozen.
The weathering powder filled up some of the bolter holes in the legs, but at this point IDGAD, because they look great standing next tot he Deadnought (no not a spelling mistake) that can be found a couple of entries back. I both did and didn't enjoy doing them. Frustration is the worst type of motivation killer.
Speaking of which, that's it for today. Happy blasting.
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Ky'Vash Recon Cadre - Piranha Skimmer
KY'VASH RECON CADRE
PIRANHA SKIMMER
TX4 'Piranha' Skimmer.
Despite being an older design, the TX4 Piranha has remained in constant service within the T'au military since the time of the Second Sphere Expansion. A light, but combat-capable grav-speeder, it serves as an all-terrain scout and harasser, often in support of Stealthsuit and Pathfinder teams. Ky'Vash forces most often field the Piranha with a hull-mounted fusion blaster for tank-hunting, though it is unsuitable for targeting heavier vehicles such as Imperial Knights or main battle tanks.
Pilots wear stripped-down fatigues, though retain a full helm and chest piece due to the open cabin.
Piranha pilots are pulled from the same pool as Devilfish and Hammerhead-variants. The driver, a Shas'ui, also mans the primary armament, with the Shas'la co-pilot manages the twin drones and Piranha's comms and sensor suite. While the drones are capable of splitting from the main body of the craft for limited attack runs, the connection to the 'wings' allows for experienced pilots to perform sharp turns by manipulating the micro-grav engines within the two drones an tandem with the Piranha's primary anti-grav system.
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So, there's a story to this one. I spent well over a month trying to settle on a colour and style for my camo, and finally settled on one displayed on a Piranha! It's fun to finally do one myself, and I think it's come together pretty well. The kit is showing its age, being pretty awkward in placed, especially the two pilots, but it was fun to put together anyway, assembled over Saturday and painted Sunday in a burst of Call to Arms-bolstered eagerness!
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JUNE - Where did that month just go?
How is it already July? What happened in June?
Let's get the elephant in the room out the way. This is going to be a short blog entry. Next to nothing hobby related has happened in June. The best photo I had for this month's cover is an unpainted Land Fortress. I haven't completed a single model this month, representing a bit of a stall in my mission to remove the pile of shame/opportunity.
But that's not to say it's all for bad reasons. It's largely down to the fact that we welcomed our second child into the world this month and discovered why people kept laughing at us when we said we were going to have 2 under 2. Three weeks in and I'm still running on about 3 hours sleep a night if I'm lucky. Painting, as you'd expect, has taken a slight backseat.
I have also discovered that my work situation is likely to change (for the worse) in the coming months, so that's given me a real incentive to cut down on the incoming models as well. The only additions this month were from a distant galaxy (and a long time ago) and so I won't go into those here. They are represented in the numbers below though. Next month will see a small bump for the AoS 4.0 launch, but no more than that.
So yes, a short entry. To go with my sleep-deprived, unfocussed brain and impending poordom. Fingers crossed though that a slowdown of work next month will at least free up a bit of hobby time to get some painting done. Goal for July is some more SA and then maybe some Votann.
I've painted one squad of Votann before the entire army got put on the shelf. I'd built 2000 points, which was suddenly worth 2400 points and then 2000 points again and then 1500 points and then......
It got boring and frustrating and so I left them alone.
Now when I look at the squad I painted I like the paint job. However, they're red and white and so many of the other projects I have are roughly in those 2 colours. Clearly I like red and white, but a bit of variety would be nice. So I'll be potentially redoing them in something new and slapchoppy. Maybe orange. That's (almost) not red.
Anyway, the numbers, such as they are:
Models IN: 16
Models OUT: 2
May TOTAL: +14
YTD TOAL: -94
So yes, a small backtrack, but under the circumstances I don't mind. July will be better.
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I’ve Dropped the Ball!
Man did I fail hard and immediately at posting once a month! Good news and bad news. Good news, I’ve kept intermittently painting through the first year of grad school. Bad news, I didn’t get anything photographed until just a few weeks back! Here’s a collection of some completed models and some WIPs from the last year.
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McFarlane figure basecoated
Got round to taking my McFarlane apart, cleaned and painted on the base coat in the colours of my Imperial Reivers. I'll move onto the details now, but I think it's looking nice so far!
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Which Company for my Bladeguard - help me choose!
Call to Arms has started, and I'm going to paint a squad of Aggressors for it
But at the same time, I'm painting three Bladeguard Veterans; I'll chip away at these in the background, aiming to have them done by the end of the year.
In the meantime, I'm mulling over which Company these Veterans are going to be from
They're intended to go with the Boarding Patrol I've already completed, which is from the 4th Company. I had originally intended that these would be from the 1st Company, so they'd have white/cream robes - but now I'm wondering if I should do them as like a 'bodyguard'/retinue for the Captain I've recently finished; in which case I'll give them green robes.
So, what do you think, Fraters? Should these be...
1st Company Veterans, with white/cream robes or...
4th Company Veterans, bodyguard to Captain Ouranos, with green robes?
Thanks for any input!
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anyone know what the cheapest kill team to play is?
I'm trying to to start playing
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What do you mean I'm a third done
Due to being off work a week for surgery I've caught up on some modeling
Somewhat depressingly the infantry here are less than a third of the total in my 3000pt list aha.
I'm now off to lazily build 7 whole stormcast models over a weekend
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A review of different Sci-Fi miniatures
It has been a while since I posted something on my blog and since I have been thinking about different miniature lines and their advantages and disadvantages I decided to do a short review comparing miniatures from 3 different companies: GW, North Star and Wargames Atlantic.
The cover I chose for this blog entry is a conversion made of bits from different companies, including the 3 companies I will evaluate in this review.
As a initial warning, this review is based on my personal preferences and should be seen as a perfectly impartial review, but I will try to describe the advantages and disadvantages as straightforward as I can.Lets start with GW
GW has a lot of experience and you can notice that easily with their model boxes, including the painted examples and the instructions that are often detailed enough to help with assembly.
Still the models have varied greatly throughout the years and there is a clear difference from older models to newer ones and in my opinion not everything is good.
Many modern models have loadouts that are only meant to be used with specific bodies/heads/other parts which wasn't the case for the older ones and this is particularly noticeable on the models with the more dynamic poses, where it can be painful to try and use slightly different loadouts or heads to give a different look (examples from my experience would include the escher models, some of the gsc infantry, but obviously there are more examples).
Advantages:
- Experienced miniature designers
- Useful assembly instructions (although not always perfect)
- Painted examples (often with indication of the paints used)
- Clear description of contents (in most cases)
- Good sprue photos (most often than not)
- Lots of extra parts for customization (although often not usable for all models)
Disadvantages:
- Modern models tend to be less customizable without extra work (poses, places where parts fit and so on can be tricky to work around)
- Heavy cost
- Often difficult to find through EU retailers as many items are exclusives or have limited availability
- Push fit models often have areas which lack detail despite being cut in lots of different fragile parts (seen in some of the old 5 cultists sprue and some of BSF renegade guard)
North Star Stargrave
The models done for the Stargrave game are mostly recent and thus the line is still relatively small, but the kits are overall well designed and the parts put on the sprue in a decent manner.
Some numbers on the arms are not always easy to see from some minor mould issues, but overall the quality of the sprues is great and the models are easy to assemble and can be customized in several different ways.
Since they were developed for small games the models are less standardized than something like IG in 40k but they are great for representing ship crews, militias, mercenaries and renegade forces that don't follow a strict uniform policy.
Sculpts for decorative parts are usually simpler compared to GW but extremely pleasing to the eyes and easy enough to paint.
The heads are often sculpted as different people and not just clones with different expressions/hair/beards, although you might see repeated bare heads across different kits in the same line.
Advantages:
- Painted examples
- Clear description of contents (in most cases)
- Good sprue photos (not always but on most occasions)
- Lots of extra parts for customization
- Unique sculpts for the heads that avoid repetition
- Decent sprue layouts
- Good fitting of parts
- Relatively cheap
Disadvantages:
- Minor issues with areas of the sprue that are not well detailed (the numbers placed on the area of the arms that fits the body are not always visible)
- Lack of experience in terms of model design (not an issue with Stargrave in particular but some of the first Frostgrave kits were a bit less customizable and designed in a simpler way)
- Not as common as GW kits (still relatively easy to find through retailers but not everywhere)
- No assembly instructions (although the models are easy enough to assemble so not a major issue)
- Not standard in terms of equipment so not suited for things like IG regiments
Wargames Atlantic (mostly Death Fields)
Wargames Atlantic has the Death Fields line as a sort of IG proxies line, with many kits being roughly compatible with IG infantry in terms of weapons and gear, although there is a clear effort to be slightly different in terms of loadouts to avoid issues with GW.
There is a clear lack of experience in terms of kit development and while they are still relatively high quality, some part fitting is difficult (arms for example might not fit exactly right for some pairs) and some sprue layouts are not necessarily the best, with many kits having areas of simplified details to get around their inexperience.
There are no instructions and in some cases pairs of arms are found through experimentation or by checking reviews of the models.
Sprue pictures are usually available, but most seem to be taken with potato quality smartphones.
Lots of repeated sculpts, especially in the heads, for example with gas mask heads it is often the case that all of them are the exact same sculpt, no small details changed nor anything similar in order to add lots of customization.
Advantages:
- Painted examples
- Lots of extra parts for customization
- Relatively cheap
- Standard equipment
Disadvantages:
- Bad fitting of some parts
- Lack of experience in terms of model design (lots of issues come from the fact that the designers are good at making designs, but not good at making sure those look good in a sprue)
- Not as common as GW kits (still relatively easy to find through retailers but not everywhere)
- No assembly instructions (sometimes this can be an issue for some kits)
- Repeated sculpts for the heads that cause lots of repetition
- Bad sprue photos (not always but on most occasions)
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[Ref. Captain Malphas of the 3rd Company, Angels Apocryphal, Patron of Klan Dunmael, Lords of Blackholme]
By the third moon of the Boethean Strand, and the dark temples therein, you will burn this day.
~To Crulliorre Vehnuym, Arch-Heirophant of the Unmade, during The Rivening- Read more...
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Lord Solar in a Weekend: Bringing the Hobby Back
Lord Solar: Yes, I know. It's been done. We've all seen 100's of conversions of Lord Solar. Leave me alone. I felt the hobby inspiration. I had to go with it.Construction - building off of my previous display boards.Base: went to mdf round 80mm base. This is no time for the slanted standard GW base.Shape: two half circles of cork, with styrene wrapped around the half-circle shape. The MDF base allowed me to glue the styrene to the flat edge. No water effects this time... but we could have. on top of the cork I added apoxy sculpt to shape a bit of a hill for a good pose. In hindsight i ought to have spent more time on the pose to get a great angle overall.Wood: Styrene strips. Razor saw, x-acto knife & 220 grit sandpaper for wood grain texture. UMM-USA punch for nails. My favorite tool. The best tool. Come at me. I'll die on this hill.Sandbags: could have tried harder. Apoxy sculpt 2-part mixed for 5 minutes, rolled into log, then the roll is sliced into small sections with x-acto knife. Press each section with finger to form sandbag - use cloth to make texture. I should experiment more with getting a more exact shape. Still, apoxy sculpt is a cost-effective method.Corrugated metal: heavy tin foil costs a tenth of the foil/hobby pewter sheet via greenstuff world or wherever. I did spend some more time on this adding a lower wooden section to the walls but I was too impatient. I should have went with a much larger wood plank along the bottom. It looks too close to the floor boards.Razor Wire: I rushed it a bit without a clear plan - just wanting to get it done this weekend. I don't use the twisted wire. I see now there are 3d printers making interesting small scale barbed wire for basing. Here I'm adding rows of it. I use Royal models 1/35 barbed wire brass etch. Like real barbed wire it is a problem to work with.
Conversion: The replacement head is Reptilian Overlords (i think) off of an etsy printer. I use the green stuff roller to make the mouth/breather tubing. On the back is a backpack from Tiny legends 3d printed range.
Medic: old Krieg model with new kill team medic bits.
Stretcher & casualty: Tiny legends.
Painting: Got some color on it. Aging wood is always fun. Simply wiping off excess paint reveals the white styrene underneath creating a decent distressed effect. I had to play around a bit.Details: I really really wanted to add a nurgle rat from Cursed City, but ran out of space. A 1/35 panzer shell and a crate will have to do for detail bits. I'm ok with the light and wire, but it seems like it could have been more.Mud: With dry dirt I have little trouble adding various browns. In fact I figured out how to add oil stains and all sorts of color variation on the last display board. But... Wet mud is somehow very hard for me. Basically I'm just slopping on Vallejo Russian Mud. It works I guess...
Painting: I got the paint blocked in. This is the part where not rushing the early stages and getting it right matters. I'm too impatient though - Forward! I find that painting white or cream is easy on the airbrush, but awful on a simple paint brush.Grass: i tried some grass tufts. The uniformity of height was a real turn off. I've still got some scale 75 natural fibers. Using that makes a much more realistic dead plant, at the mere cost of my sanity in trying to get the super glue to fix them correctly.
Can't wait for some 'try-hard' to argue with me about modelling to advantage at a tournament. Time to get 2 more DORNS painted. Then we ride.
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Zahhak - Tyranid Splinter Fleet (927M41)
Introduction
Splinter fleet Zahhak was part of a much larger Tyranid hive fleet that entered the galaxy from below the galactic plane, which would be designated Leviathan in 997M41. Zahhak first entered the Matteus Subsector in 927M41 and struck the various worlds within, focusing on the worlds within the Matteus Epsilon system. However, the relatively remote location and the resilience of the native flora prevented the Splinter Fleet from breaking out into the neighbouring subsectors and the greater Segmentum. Combined with a timely Imperial response to the Tyranid incursion, Splinter Fleet Zahhak was crushed after several months, reduced it to nothing more than a seasonal pest for the two Imperial worlds.
A Tyranid swarm charges the Imperial defences on Barbed Gate.
Splinter Fleet Zahhak’s appearance, galactic movements and strategic behaviour was very similar to Leviathan, which was the reasoning for being later designated as the same Hive Fleet in 999M41. What distinguished Zahhak from the bulk of Leviathan was inception into the galaxy seventy years ahead of the rest of Leviathan. Additionally, many bioforms were identified in Zahhak that had not been recorded in the First Tyrannic War, and most have not been seen since. It is theorised by members of the Ordo Xenos and other Imperial biologists that this splinter fleet was more experimental than its bulk, and was assessing potential attack vectors before committing itself to a wide-scale invasion through the galactic plane.
Unique bioforms that have been sighted among Zahhak’s forces; some of which have yet to be sighted in other Hive Fleets.
Sometime after the galactic invasion of Hive Fleet Leviathan in 997M41, Splinter Fleet Zahhak would be re-designated as Hive Fleet Leviathan Splinter “34-Omicron”, and remembered by the Imperium as a lesser conflict with the Tyranid species. Some of the bioforms unique to Zahhak would reemerge in Leviathan and other hive fleets, albeit with variations and improvements.
A Tyranid Mawloc (above) and a Hive Crone (below), of Splinter Fleet Zahhak. Both bear similar markings to Hive Fleet Leviathan.
The Invasion of the Matteus Epsilon System
Hive Fleet Zahhak made planetfall on the two Imperial civilised worlds of Black Jewel and Barbed Gate in the Matteus Epsilon system, in 927M41. The alarm was raised by Inquisitor Malethann of the Ordo Xenos, thanks to the efforts of Kill Team Rapier on the outer reaches of the system. They confirmed the presence of a Tyranid hive fleet en route to Barbed Gate from below the star system plane.
The sudden incursion of Tyranids so far from the Eastern Fringe (the locale of what would be known as the First Tyrannic War) prompted a drastic response from Battlefleet Agripinaa and the local Astra Militarum regiments. A Black Templars crusade fleet that had been using Matteus Epsilon as a refueling and rearming station also heeded the call and declared the beginning of the "Barbed Gate Crusade". Finally, Kill Team Rapier and members of the Ordo Xenos were involved for the more complex assignments, namely assassinations and recovery of key Tyranid alphas and synapse creatures.
A Black Templars strike force engages Zahhak in a spearhead assault, in the wildlands of Barbed Gate.The Tyranid splinter fleet quickly found itself in a ruthless conflict with not only the human defenders, but also the hardy and protruding flora of Barbed Gate and Black Jewel, for which even the ravenous xenos were under-prepared to consume. These difficulties saw Zahhak easily divided and cut off from the bulk of their hive species, making them easy prey for the Imperial forces. The effective culling of the various synapse creatures and leaders, thanks to the efforts of Kill Team Rapier, also saw the efficacy of the splinter fleet's strategies and tactics significantly weaken over time. Eventually, after several months, the splinter fleet had found itself disconnected from the Hive Mind; the Tyranids bioforms of Zahhak reverted to their base instincts, and took refuge in the barbed foliage native to Barbed Gate and Black Jewel. They ceased to be a true threat to the Imperium, reduced to nothing more than a season pest to the human controlled worlds.
But with the ever increasing number of Tyranid hive fleets entering the galaxy in the decades to come, it is likely a question of when, not if, the remnants of Splinter Fleet Zahhak will rejoin the Hive Mind...
The Tyranid Prime known as the the “Caustic Menace”, is ambushed by Kill Team Rapier within the protruding flora native to Barbed Gate. -
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Tackling my T’au - Stormsurge Part 6
Basically a photo gallery of the finished model.
The armour panels had a final edge highlight of Skarsnik Green, while the gold areas were highlighted first with liberator gold and then mithril silver (very old Citadel pot). Red areas are highlighted with Evil Sunz Scarlet and then Fire Dragon Bright.In case anyone is interested, the smoke coming from the Leman Russ is an old trick of mine, harking back to my teens when my mum used to make teddy bears. The smoke is actually teddy bear stuffing! I still have a bunch of this stuff in my hobby box and it traditionally gets used during games to mark where a tank has been wrecked but not exploded.
The stuffing works well as smoke because it is a bit more coarse than cotton wool so it holds its shape better. I fixed it in place with PVA glue and brushed a bit of Abbadon Black onto it with a large brush to create some of the oily smoke effect.
Hope you like it!
Lots more images in the album: - 8
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Snakes of Ithaka's return to the Phratry
The Iron Snakes
The Iron SnakesFear not the snake for his guile, nor his silence.
Fear him for his speed at striking,
The clenching strength of his coils,
The armour of his scales,
And the sharpness of his bite.
Fear the snake, oh enemies of man,
For his coils encircle us
And his bright eyes, unblinking,
Watch over us forever.
From The Lays of Proud Ithaka.
Time to start anew. It has been almost a year since I posted anything here., my small Ultramarines project that I started a previous thread for fizzled due to real life issues and hobby burn out, so I decided to take some time away and got stuck into a solo Gloomhaven campaign instead.
Over Christmas while I was off work I sat down and re-read brothers of the snake quickly followed by the 2 Urdesh novels and found the itch to dig my Iron Snakes back out.
Usually with hobby projects I rush into them with lots of enthusiasm but without too much thought into how to put my idea's into reality and this leads to a scattergun approach which usually leads to me to spending plenty of characters converted and painted but nothing much else, so this time I have sat down and made a plan of sorts. With the Urdesh novels fresh in my mind I plan to make the squads/characters from that novel first:
- Damocles Squad - using the sternguard kit as a base
- Kalliopi Squad - using the jump pack assault intercessors as a base
- Erasmos Squad - using the assault intercessor kit as a base
- Platonos Squad - using the intercessor kit as a base
- Captain Priad - using dark angels master lazarus as a base.
- Pyrakmon - techmarine kit
- Hamiskora - librarian kit
I have sat down and painted a couple of test models which I am happy with these use slightly different colours to my previous models the biggest being the golds and have also pick up some awesome new decals from Aquila Relics to use for this project .
Below is the test model that I painted up using the old company champion mini that I have laying around.
I have had a rummage through the pile of shame and collected a few bits together and have started kit bashing a 5 man squad that I'll get painted up before I set to work on the above models.
Thanks for looking, until next time.
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A quick visual battle report of a recent game where Legio Tempestus faed down th Evil Mordaxis.
Legio Tempestus
Corsair Maniple
Reaver - volcano, laser blaster, missile
Reaver - melta, gatling, volkite
Reaver - fist, chainfist, laser
Warlord - volvano, quake, missiles
Legio Mordaxis
Venator Maniple
Reaver - volcano, melta, lasers
Warhound - plasma, lasers
Warhound - plasma, lasers
Reaver - laser fist, missiles
Nemesis warbringer BVolcano, volcano, melta
We rolled diagonal deployment, and random missions I got hold the line (points for how far from my board edge they are, secondaries for killing) and they took kill (double scale in points for kills).
My as of yet unnamed Warlords second ever game. He's never died yet, so maybe unkillable? Or untargetable? "Neglecta Rege" is high gothic for 'Ignored King'? Either way, he sat on one side of the table and took pot shots at stuff all game.
My warlord spent the game on first fire orders as he had a decent field of view and the range to do so, and had 3 turns shooting into that impossible warhound trying to drop shields, who wound then emergency repair and somehow bring them back up as I chipped away damage. In turn 4, he finally killed the little blighter, and in turn 5 he shot back at the shield stripped venator reaver, nuking it.
Deployment - you can see my 3 reavers at the bottom, protected somewhat by the central buildings, and my warlord off image to the left.
My melee reaver shimmied sideways around the central buiildings to line up a charge on he nemesis titan and the other reaver. The silver reaver activated first and charged mine, getting within 2" to attack with the chainfist, doing some serious damage. To avenge this slight, i redirected my charge from the nemesis to the new reaver, and made contact, rolling poorly with the chainfist.
My opponent had the initiative and attacked first with the silver reaver, chainfisting my boy to death, who blew up dropping my opponent's voids.
The lone ordaxis reaver at the back then shot my meltacannon reaver, killing it. Passing my tempestus command check, I went down fighting and shot everything into the silver reaver...with it's shields dropped, the meltacannon bore a hole through the reactor and it went boom, the explosion damaging the legs on the mordaxis reaver that fired the initial shot.
In the end, I managed to take down everything but the nemesis, finally silencing the warhounds that plagued me, losing 2 reavers in return. My opponent gained 30pts for killing 2 reavers. I gained 20pts for hold the line as the nemesis was so far back, and killed 2 reavers and 2 hounds for 14pts, 34 in total. A narrow victory to tempestus - if my opponent had just moved the nemesis 6" forwards in his final turn, I'd have scored 5 less and he'd have won!
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Painting the Rest of Leviathan...
Well, it's been a while since I blogged last...too long in fact. I was only supposed to have a short break while I finished my Bladeguard and Assault Intercessors (and Bladeguard Ancient, and Captain...). They didn't end up being done till late November time as other things piled up.
Here's how they turned out:
This led to me finally starting the Marine half of the Leviathan box (I think I said before I wanted it done before New Year...That didn't happen).
I started with my favourite Marine sculpts, the Terminators. While I may of saved the best till last with the tyranids, I wasn't following that trend with these. So seven models hit the table (Captain, Librarian, Terminator Squad):
and at some point I added the old Terminator Marneus Calgar finecast (I didn't know this when I bought it) model to this.
They got a coat of blue, and silver aaannnddd that was it for a month or so.
Flash forward to January (same time I revived my thread in the wip area) when I picked up the paintbrush again.
I tried something new for these which I had only done in trial cases before, and that was building up to white (and going further for the chest aquillas, up to gold). I worked through dark grey to light grey to white. With the helmets, I worked in as layers, leaving grey showing as shadows. It was a time consuming process but I liked the results.
The capes on the captain and Calgar I'm particularly proud of, more so than my primaris calgar.
I was grateful that the captain's base gave me an opportunity to do another tyranid...even if it was a dead one.
I also attempted my first free handing here, and clearly I need more practice.
The rest of the models turned out quite well, I also held back a little on the blue highlights, not sure if it was effective or not.
It was about this time I realised that Calgar's little shield wing was glued on by the previous owner the wrong way.
I didn't push myself on the Librarian as I should of but the GW standard paint scheme didn't appeal to me.
The Terminator Squad though, I'm quite happy with these guys, in fact I'm itching to get the multipart set now, just to have their various weapon options.
So, there was 25 models for the space marines in Leviathan, and I've done 7 models here. By my quick and dirty calculations, I've almost done a third.
This brings us to the next batch for this mini project:
Orto Cassius aside, it's another 7 models (one being the big boi of the Ballistus Dreadnought). Completing these will take me over the half way point. Let's see if I can get them done in under three months this time! People who follow my other thread will have an idea of where I am with these guys...
Till next time,
Keep hobbying!
ZeroWolf
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By The Yncarne · Posted
I didn't have a cowl at hand. I looked for something a bit more skull like for the face mask, but this is what I had. TBH, I thought a hood might look a little off since the cape is skin/leather. I encourage you to give it a go and let us know how it goes. I kept the skulls on the back rack to reinforce the death reference rather than use a corsair or reaper one. -
Very nice idea. I may eventualy become a copycat for this one as I have an Archon waiting to be used for... something. Do you think a hooded head, either from the Corsair specialist or the Dark Reaper kit might enforce a little bit more the "Grim Reaper" effect ? Or would it be too close of a Maugan-Ra inspired model?
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By The Yncarne · Posted
Thank you for the kind words. These do look better from 4’ than 4”. -
By TheArtilleryman · Posted
Nice colour palette. I love the “dusty” painting style; it gives the models a lot of depth. -
I made the bet, just yesterday, that Boarding action was about to die (based on the fact taht Kill Zone Gallow Dark being now Sold-Out online)... Was I mistaken? Looks like.... Paint a Space Hulk Red with Brutal Close-range Brawls in the New Boarding Actions Supplement - Warhammer Community (warhammer-community.com)
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