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Finished my 3rd vow! Warboss Blak-Barrell Ead'WAAAGH! Another member of Da Vulcha Krew, Blak-Barrell is one o'da shootiest o' Orks! With his loyal attack squig "Anne" and his two kustom Shootas "Ra'venge," and "Veng-ence," Blak-Barrell has a bullet for every score to settle.

he Apothecarion is running the 3rd Chapter of their event to raise money for Children's Cancer Research. Here are all the details, including a painting contest this year!! We will have a dedicated post in the Artisan's Workshop here and the various Army forums but particularly those that are detailed here in the post! You can check out full details at the_apothecarion on Instagram

One thing I forgot and I think might be the most important part of sculpting that doesn’t really get talked about: visualisation. Can you visualise that blob of material that you squished on the chest of your marine as the basic shape of a MkIII torso without the cables, trim, gorget, rivets and shape it? I don’t necessarily think my technique is fantastic, but I do have the ability to know that certain bits of material are in about the right place

And now...his brother. The Firelord bomber:

I have had a similar experience - I expect that it's due to difficult to remove residue from filing the original sculpted details on the shield. If this is the case, this issue is more pronounced in photos and, personally, I wouldn't bother with fixing it.

I mean I thought "time to buy" but I would wonder how GW has handled oil issues like this previously outside of price hikes first.

It's down 25% from the previous high. I think an important comparison to make is: If you grab any 6 month window the share prices look bad. mid 2026 mid 2025 Have you ever been walking up a mountain and the road dips down a bit? That doesnt mean you've crested the thing.

Sorry to hear about your access troubles - I think it was incredibly inconsistent and slow for everyone late last week, but sounds even worse for you. Love your take on the krieger sentinel - and the decals do add a nice bit of colour and realism to it. I like how you've made the missile slighter lighter in tone - adds a bit of interest while still making it look like it belongs on the model.

Codicier Baltus, matte varnish out of the pot applied.

A worthy recipient of Chestnut Ink!

I find Britney's first 3 albums make great ambiance along with the underrated Glory.

Suitably gross. I find your Tyranids quite unnerving.

I listen to synthwave, particularly dark synth such as Gost, Perturbator, Carpenter Brut, and Daniel Deluxe when I’m painting. That was my soundtrack when I built and painted my Chaos Knights back in the day and I still put it on (all the time honestly) when I’m painting my AT / LI stuff.

For those wanting to go for with the WH40K second edition rules, the psychic phase rules could be maybe made slightly more dangerous (to the psykers, that is), since the uncontrolled and untrained psykers tended to be a particular problem of the times. There is already the daemonic attack card in the rules, perhaps just adding -1 modifier to the tests for that would suffice? Virus grenades and Virus Outbreak cards would better be removed (there were serious environmental hazards, but nothing that bad). As well as a few other wargear cards that might be rather dominant (like Vortex Grenade or Combat Drugs). There is still plenty of wacky variety with the more mundane options.

You know....40k 2nd edition would probably really work here! "Just ban virus bomb" but the psychic phase with the Dark Millennium expansion....that could work!

I take it all back. I'm listening to the Mission Impossible Dead Reckoning soundtrack as I scour the floor for a tiny eagle head for my - todes.

Really interesting topic to read! There are some great 'Unification Wars' SM groups out there with a real variety of miniatures & conversions. There are a few good 3D prints now for Thunder Warriors as well, to have someone to fight against. I would love to have a go at this - in some ways it feels a lot like Heresy era did before the Forge World books came along and codified everything, in that there is so much room for imagination. We don't know what colour shoe-laced Nathan Dume had for example, so choose yourself. Rules-wise I would probably look at something outside the box rather than restrict yourself to the straight-jacket of HH 3.0, not least because you will need a lot of guys to play that game and that won't lend itself well to the large volume of conversions & random bits that you could use for this project. If I ever had a go at might look at adapted Necromunda rules for skirmish, OPR or an older 40k edition if you wanted squad-based combat. There is a lot of potential there!

Dungeon Synth is another great genre for that ambient, ancient vibe.

Yes, it's been kicking my ass this morning, too. I'm accelerating the software update/server migration.

There once was a great internet platform called Radio IO that streamed a ton of different genres & ambient was one of the tops for me. It was hosted by Forrest (I believe he goes by DJ Forrest now) but you can pick up his old playlists on Spotify under Starstreams ( I think) it runs over 24hrs so plenty of tunes to keep you moving. Nightride FM plays mostly Cyberpunk/Cyberwave or whatever you wish to call it but does play more ambient style music Friday nights after 9pm (Canadian (Ontario) here so not sure on world time slots) , there is a ton of stuff streaming on Yourube, Chillwave, Chill Music Lab, Chillsynth....ect

Yeah, like every song sounds like it's a video game trailer, right? And all vocals are like chants, less distracting. I got an alternative take. I listen to documentaries while painting, like BBC Nature ones. Sir David Attenborough. "The Genestealers have a reMARKable adaptation..."

Ah, music! I love it, it's magnificent. I hate it that I never learned to play some musical instrument and I'm SO jealous of people who know how to do it. When I'm painting and my wife uses my computer to kill peasants in Age of Empires, we usually listen to either true crime podcasts or audiobooks. We've listened to H.P. Lovecraft's full collection, a BBC audio drama called 'The Lovecraft Investigations' and we're now just past the Weathertop, where the Witch King of Angmar stabbed Frodo and they hurry him to Rivendell. When I'm sitting alone, and the wife doesn't want to lose any audiobook or true crime new episode, then my slightly autistic nature dictates that I have to listen to either minimal Dungeon-Synth stuff, such as Hole Dweller for example, or heavy industrialised Retro-Synth, like Master Boot Record. Give them both a try, it's a rabbit hole from there: Music | Hole Dweller MASTER BOOT RECORD - SPREAD THE CODE

I'm surprised no one has mention the soundtrack for the Mechanicus game. I'd say Noosphere is my favorite with Millennial Rage a close second. For non-40K music I tend to go with the soundtracks for Ace Combat, you can't ever go wrong with the sky speaking Latin.

The Return of the King soundtrack is great modelling music.

I turn on a movie I've seen a hundred times for background sound. The odd bit is that I have specific movies that I put on for different armies. I'm sure there's some deep psychological reason for these... Imperial Guard: Zulu, Sharpe's Sword (Eagle, Gold, Battle, etc.) Dark Angels: Star Trek - First Contact, The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare Adeptus Custodes: The Lord of the Rings Trilogy, Pacific Rim

I tend to listen to doom metal while painting, it's a great accompaniment but I appreciate not everyone shares that proclivity. The rogue trader RPG soundtrack is very good and is up there as one of the best soundtracks for 40k vibes I think: https://youtu.be/nHi-LjQ4528?is=aXKDgEWrAQRqOA9L

I often listen to Two Steps From Hell while painting. Very epic vibes to this stuff.

I normally stick on a Black Library audiobook. I try to theme it to the force I’m painting so if I’m painting Custodes it might be master of mankind or if it’s White Scars it could be path of heaven etc. I find it helps keep the motivation going during the boring parts of painting :)

I listen to Britney Spears. That is my ambiance. I suggest you try it. It feels pretty great assembling/painting to her.

Thanks! I'm really happy with how the defiler, in particular, turned out. You might also want to check out Valkia's Night Lords' themed knight despoiler here. Infantry guard (though I had a few tanks, the core was infantry) was actually my 2nd army (back in 4th to 6th edition) so I know the feel of painting a million guardsmen (well, I have about 200, but it feels like more). Not many of my photos survived the demise of photobucket, but you can see those that did here if you are interested. I also have 30-odd chaos guard which you will come across in the thread with my other conversions (the one with the defiler and mauler). Anyway, I'm looking forward to seeing your own work - you should consider sharing it in the Artisan's subforum, and/or the appropriate faction subforum (like here for chaos marines). How far are you into your army/armies?

Thanks for the recommendations. I’ve had a quick look at some of the early pages of your thread and the Defiler and Mauler Fiend conversions are amazing! The work and detail that went into them is superb. I do tend to lean towards Chaos in most things, though have also always been fascinated by the concept of infantry only guard throwing bodies into the meat grinder to win the day and have maybe 40 hapless unpainted guardsmen relegated to sitting in a box on a shelf.

Are you just interested in Night Lords stuff - if so, Tallarn Commander's thread has some insane conversions. If its chaos marines more generally, I can come up with some suggestions, including my own conversion/kit bash thread (though, that has things like knights in it too). Others include Volgon's undead heretic astartes, and I'm sure I could come up with more with some head scratching and digging. Indeed, if you are interested in conversions irrespective of faction, there are worst things to do than brouse the various threads in the Artisan's Workshop. As for lore, you'll need another frater to help you with that - that's not really a part of the hobby I'm personally into.

Thank you to everyone for the warm welcome! I really appreciate it. I’ve managed to get to grips with the photo setup now, however some of my group shots I was going to use in my first blog post wear pretty poorly composed so want to retake some more. if anyone has any recommendations of good blogs with deep lore and nice kitbashed models let me know! Thanks again!

I'm glad you decided to join us, Heretic! Feel free to ask us anything, we love to post rambling responses too!

I mean... would any of us be surprised if the Blood Ravens were sons of the Lion? They have some... questionable behaviours and customs.

They really need to stop using that boltgun sound effect. It sounds like you could make it with your mouth and it wouldn't make any difference.