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Rogal Dorn #1. Casting Defect Texture. Previously I laid down the Tamiya putty texture, and added some brass handles. I lost my metal files somewhere... so the flame cuts still need re-working. Using various files, sandpaper, and a hobby knife creates a varied texture. This is too uniform. I'll either re-work it, or hit it hard on Rogal Dorn #2. In law, legal briefs are never done, just due. Just the same in Hobby, there's always more to do--but, I need an army ready for 10th edition upcoming this summer. But, this might be an easy enough fix. Also, I should have made more brass handles. More customization is always better. In some ways this is just an opportunity to experiment and figure out what should be on the next Dorn. Yes, I bought 3x. Under coat/Primer. Since I'm using Tamiya, which has great coverage, I'm not really anticipating much of the black and white from an under coat will show through. I've seen some use a splotchy, uneven black/white/grey as an undercoat. This creates a very interesting complexity to the paint job. I went instead with white on the raised surfaces, and black in the recesses. I used vallejo white and black primer. I suppose I could have also just went all black or all white. I see lots of youtube videos doing all black and it just seems like a tremendous waste of time to build up color over it. But, what do I know - talk me into it. It's all a learning experience. Main Paint. I went with Tamiya Medium blue this time. Usually I do the medium blue followed by a zenithal spray of mixes of progressively lighter blue. Here I just experimented a bit with the undertone to see what it'd look like. It definitely reads much more blue than grey. Interestingly on camera here it looks all grey and doesn't pick up the transitions. Hmmmm. I can modulate that with the oils too. But, I did want to push a bit more contrast on this model. One hard part is being impatient - I should be taping off every panel for each airbrush spray. In failing that there is a lot of imprecision in my light sources. Another hard part is getting the values right. Let's say we've got a nice square panel, and I'm working from light (almost white) blue, down to a dark (almost black) blue at the bottom. Should 80% be the normal blue, with 10% transitions at the top and bottom? Hard to say. The classic misstep is seen in painting black. A sharp edge highlight of grey/blue and you've got a model that reads to the eye as black. But, if you add too much highlight, the black doesn't read the same and you just have a grey model. Oil Paint Rendering. Following Rinaldi's tank art book is what needs to happen next. Little dots of varied oil colors, subtley wiped down with odorless turpentine create great varied surface effects. It also helps smooth out the 'airbrushed look.' It's amazing to me that the 1/35 scale modellers use yellows, magentas, all kinds of colors to subtly change the hue. Anyway, Forgot this step, and going back for it. Also, some white can really help push contrast. It can also help make an aged paint look. It can also do rain streaks (well, an off-white anyway). Lots of fun to be had here. We'll have to separate out various oil stages to make sure the paint doesn't reactivate and ruin the effect. Decals. Ok, Decals these days are awesome. I use microsol and microset, but I see Ak, MIG and other companies all have their own proprietary version now. Maybe they're better. I don't know. Again, I guess this is a warm-up Rogal Dorn. The oil paint rendering/modulation needed to happen before the decals. I got too excited and didn't follow the process. Also should have slowed down for the lore - what specific brigade/battalion are these guys supposed to be from? Then again, uniforms at Vraks don't dictate uniforms in every environment. Chipping. I just used a sponge with some Rhinox Hide for a quick heavy weathering. It's far better with a brush, but very slow. It's also better to use instead of brown, a lighter version of the paint color - here I've got Tamiya medium blue, and I could have made chipped paint with the light blue. I do typically do the hairspray technique for chipping instead of brush or sponge, but again, I just wanted to move this thing forward. Oil weathering. I'll do a wash/pin wash of burnt umber or some such in oil across the whole thing. I also like to add black oil rather thick in controlled points around various panels/parts that might have some oil leaking. Some light rust color also helps blend the chipping. Multiple colors is much more realistic. Pigment powders. I'll be handling the model a lot. Powders will wipe off. They're also hard to see if you apply a clear coat over them--they never look quite right. I think powders will come into play more with mud and dirt in the tracks. Also the exhaust right now is just rhinox hide with a light rust wash. I'd like to stipple lots of oranges, reds, and browns on there. Mud on the tracks. I'll slow down for this. This is a big step, and one people usually go way too far on. Right now I just have some browns on there as a base color. I'll add a lot of vallejo mud effects, then probably a lot of pigments, static grass, and sand to get the right variations in the texture. Maybe I should add some barbed wire too. Tank commanders. I got out an old 1999 tank commander. Man, I don't even remember this guy, I think he was pre-krieg lore. Been in the bits box a LONG LONG TIME. Even if he doesn't look great, it's good to finally use him. He needs some wash and some detailing, but he's on his way. Very tight fit. Uniform 143rd I went in with some tan and black to get some contrast going on the mask. Obviously still a lot of work to do, but it's starting to read a bit better to the eye. I stippled some brown and silver on the helmet New Project. Servo skull. I wanted to improve the display board in everyway I can. Part of that is the overall presentation. I've long thought Candles, symbols, and daemonology books would be great alongside an Inquisition army. Test tubes and medical charts might be great for Tyranids. Maps and operations orders I think are on point for for astra militarum. But, I want to make it more in universe. So, I'm working on a servo skull. If I knew more about Arduino and programming I think some really cool things could be done with special effects on this - motion tracking, lights, sounds, etc. I even found Halloween tutorials! But, realistically if anything went wrong, I wouldn't know how to trouble shoot it. It could be another $100 dead-end. Still, there's something to be said for pushing my abilities and trying new things. In fact that's a huge driving force of my last two years at Adepticon. For now I got cheap pipe fittings, hoses and cables, and fake plastic spikes for a halo. Lots of completely unanswered design questions here. No idea how to make the eye-pieces yet. Is this going to be much more difficult than I thought? Maybe. I need to look up some tutorials on servo skulls. IF I can figure out a servo sweep program for Arduino, I still have the laser line from my aliens project last year that never panned out. I was thinking I could have the laser line sweep over my army list, like the skull is reading it or something. Of course I'd still have to figure out how to fit the laser and servo into the skull... The problem is the skull I bought is much more detailed and awesome than I anticipated (very cheap on amazon). And, to have such detail, it requires thicker harder resin. So it'll be a pain to mount things on. Lots of heavy drilling work ahead. A cheaper plastic skull would be much easier to work with, but this thing nearly looks real. I wonder if I should try scribing latin phrases into the skull?

10 Year badge today?! Well then. Making the Mask The Russian GP-5 is a great start. I watched 'Iron warrior's' youtube video and that talked me into making a foam face section with the GP-5 parts. He apparently had followed from Janovich on Etsy and youtube. So, I ordered some 5mil foam and got to work. I'd never done any work with this flexible foam; it's all new. Iron warrior also has a downloadable stencil you can buy to just cut out the mask section. This is very handy. I had to do some fitting work but it was fairly easy to get it all in place. I think if I did another one I'd use heat and try to bend the foam more (get it a bit more realistic). I just used brown craft paints. Unfortunately it dried very mono-tone. So I've been updating that to add some contrast - adding a bit of black and tan. I did take out the rubber gear and breathing pieces at the mouth, so I'm just breathing easily through the bottom hole- not breathing through the hose itself--that would be very uncomfortable. One could probably add a little 12v fan too, but I'm lazy. Eyes Iron warrior used window tint. I tried that and really didn't care for it. It was a lot of work and didn't really seal correctly. I kept it on the eye lenses, but added a sheet of green transparency. Since adepticon I've also now added some sponged on brown paint to add a bit of weathering. I think I'm going to try a patina as well... It's all too clean. Chest Gear/Piece. Knobs. So, I wanted some knobs to adjust whatever the meter is supposed to be. I found bass knobs on ebay for dirt cheap. Good enough. I actually attached them with magnets so they can be turned easily. This is an easy & fast option, but the magnets aren't that strong and I did lose one during the convention. There are probably many ways to attach knobs. I'm open to options on that. Gauge. Next I just picked up an air pressure gauge. I fit that in there but realized I hadn't yet figured out what I want to do with the main-center portion of the chest gear here. As usually I lack a lot of planning in my projects and just start working on stuff. Iron Warrior and Janovich didn't have a ready tutorial on this part. I looked around online and actual leather kits were like $200-300. Nope (though they do like nice). I therefore went about making my own. I continued to use the 5mil foam because, well, that's what I'd ordered for the face mask. I don't know that I'd go with a much thinner foam as it might not look right. Size and Shape. The real trick here was finding a perfectly sized cardboard box that I could fit the foam over to make my little chest satchel rebreather thingy here. I wanted to make as few cuts as possible (as I can't cut a straight line all that well). I found the box. Turns out a Milkbone box was just what I needed. The dogs rejoiced as I emptied the treats from the box to them, and went about destroying their sacred milkbone box. Using contact cement, and a hot air gun I was able to mold the foam over the box and then cut and glue sections on the sides. Very easy. Front Flap. I used velco sections with a sticky/tape side. It might not be the coolest way to secure the front, but it's super easy and hidden - and cost effective. I can cut some foam bolts or buttons or whatever and secure them on in the future to make it look more detailed. For now it works really well. Assembly. The milkbone box was and is removable - the foam is just wrapped around it and I can still pull it out. This is super important as I'm hot gluing buttons and gauges inside the milkbone box. Need room to operate here. Measurements. I used tamiya tape to sketch out where I wanted everything to fit. This allowed me to cut straight, keep my lines straight across the whole project, and to plan on where things would go next. This was a good idea. Securing the Chest piece to my field gear also could have been difficult. I chose an easy option - obviously real leather might look better. I think I should have bought brown webbing at least. Whatever, Velco works super easy to get this on and off. This was an easy solution. Detailing the Chest Piece. Rivets and Screws. Making rivets is one of my favorites. I use UMM-USA punch and die sets to make rivets on leman russes, bunkers, railcars, zeppelins, and now cosplay. So, here instead of just blank styrene sheets painted black, I added a bit of detail. I also punched out circles, cut them in half, and added them as screws. Radiation Gauge. I thought it'd fit a particularly grimdark vibe if I installed an actual Geiger counter replacement part. I've got an air pressure gauge already. Even if it's not strictly cannon-lore, why not radiation? This is krieg after all. This was also cheap on Ebay. I was thinking of installing a backlight LED in there... I may do that. Or, maybe even a blinking light to signify too much radiation? There is perhaps some practicality in such a gauge. But, from an old soldier's point of view - anything on the chest like this is getting destroyed when diving to the ground or crawling on the ground. So for Krieg (especially) a low crawl is going to mean being absolutely smashed to the ground, crawling under and through barbed wire with machine gun fire over head. The chest piece design overall isn't really practical. Learning about Radiation. Here we have mili-roentgens per hour. The US Environmental protection agency website was informative on what this reading actually measures: "Exposure rate is the amount of ionizing radiation per hour in a person’s vicinity (measured in milliRoentgen per hour, mR/h), whereas dose rate is the biological effect on the body from exposure to that radiation (measured in nanoSieverts per hour, nSv/h). As an approximation, a radiological dose rate of 1 mR/h is roughly equal to an exposure rate of 10,000 nSv/h." They also note, "[t]he differences in exposure and dose are very subtle. Basically, exposure is the amount of radiation in the area, and dose is the amount of that radiation expected to be absorbed by a person. For gamma rays, there is approximately a one-to-one ratio between exposure rate and dose rate. One (1) milliRoentgen per hour (mR/h) is approximately 10,000 nanoSieverts per hour (nSv/h)." Painting So it's all coming together. Very cheap brushes and acrylic paint at Michael's. Again, it needs more contrast and weathering, but no project is ever really done. Magnet: Hose from chest to face. Ok, an important point I forgot here. There is no hole cut into the side of the chest piece for the hose. To secure the hose, I cut a circle piece of styrene to make an end cap. On that I put a giant magnet, like an uncomfortably powerful magnet one must be careful with. 1"x1/4" N52 Disc. Well, I'm sure putting together a warlord titan probably uses a larger one. Anyway, I made my end cap, put the magnet on there and filled it with hot glue. The hose normally would screw on, but this is really inconvenient. Magnetizing it all makes it super easy to take on and off again. Still, I don't know that My magnet is actually as strong as I'd like. It still comes off fairly easily. Too strong though, and I'd be getting caught on other people and things during the convention. There's definitely a tradeoff at some point. Helmet. Here we are at Adepticon! I went with Janovich's helmet. I have no 3d printer skills. With a few months I'm sure I could get up to speed, but time is always short. It took a fair bit of sanding for the 3d printer lines, but this was expected. It's a great helmet and I recommend it. I did add an imperial eagle. It took a lot of time to cut it out as it was on a big sticker. Subsequently I've added a bunch of weathering and mud. I did experiment with helmet netting and a band (from my old kevlar), but ultimately it didn't look quite right. Again it's not cannon-lore, but that's not really my thing. I like to personalize. Anyway, I cut a lot of foam rectangles to make an interior helmet band. So this thing is actually very comfortable. Since I'd bought a lot of webbing off of Amazon I also made the chin straps here too. This could be one part to use real leather as it draws a lot of attention, but time is short. I'd also thought about going with the camo patterns from ww1 stahlhelmets but I'd prefer to avoid more historical reference which might be interpreted wrongly. Field Gear. I got an old Sweedish flashlight and mounted it to my gear. An actual WW1 trench flashlight/torch would be like $1000. Nope. So this is close enough. Badges I added an inquisition and imperial guard symbol to the collar. This might also be a good place for rank symbols... perhaps a captain rank. Though I'm also thinking about stitching on some sergeant rank to the trenchcoat instead. Adepticon It was fun. I'd never went in costume to such at thing. Lots of people pulled me aside to take photos, which I was happy to do. Many dads were excited while their kids were very afraid. It was funny to watch. I met others in costume. They were good fun. Some went so far as to refuse to speak, apparently remaining in character? I don't know. Seems like Krieg uses vox casters... I didn't build a lasgun, or bring a shovel. I didn't want some weird argument about having a 'weapon' and I was just there for the team tournament anyway.

I'm going to have to set this up in the basement tonight to get better pics... WORK IN PROGRESS PICS So, the initial considerations were (1) truck space; (2) tournament imposed (convention center space) limit to 12x structural 3x5' bases; (3) man portability; and (4) entering the technical display category. We figured we wouldn't get a structural display spot as they are limited, and really couldn't transport it anyway, so we'd just go in the 3x2 category. So, I set about making the columns with the proxxon foam cutter circle jig (Shifting Lands is a cool shop to check out). I also made the center alter area for Angron. I used crumpled up aluminum foil to texture the columns. This is all new to me and was a learning experience through and through. I should have taken more time to design a complete layout. I don't think it really turned out how I'd hoped. Still, the fog and lighting was a fun effect. Experimentation was necessary before gluing... this is a big thing. It all worked. My initial plans to have fire all around the edge were just cost prohibitive. Most LED string lights are not dense enough for the fake fire effect. In fact this fake fire effect is what is used in many fireplaces. Anyway, I found a video on youtube of a guy making one. I followed it and the fog actually worked... just the LED system didn't give the fire feel. So, I scraped it. The project was nearly lost until the sale on Amazon. $10 for the fog machines, ho! Usually these devices are $30 a piece. They all plug into USB ports, so I had to buy a USB hub too. I ended up buying some bloodletters too as I wanted an unfolding narrative scene. I didn't even realize they'd look cool in the background fires until my teammate JJ set them in there at the hotel during our final prep (this is another case where earlier prep would have helped a lot - putting things down and returning later, or just having friends look at it can really open up creative ideas. In this display as with any creative writing - you need rewrites. The initial idea is rarely complete). The symbol is a little too rough for my taste. It'd be much cooler to have the old oop forgeworld khorne symbol up there. But, time, money, and patience all were wearing very thin. Maybe just building some metal symbol on it and painting it brass would be enough detail. As to the actual stalactites/mites I should have added more. Again without a real plan I think the ritual area is a bit too vague. We ran out of time, but I also wanted to model/convert several improvised explosive devices for the kasrkin to try and detonate and STOP THE RITUAL! Theme - The Flags! Theme is not really scored at the Adepticon Team Tourney, but it's more of a tie-breaker and there's a lot of judge's discretion. It's very important tradition to go hog-wild. Some teams will be dressed as orks, some as raiders, some go shirtless, some in suits, and some as harlequins. Engagement and participation make this a fun tourney. So, we tried more this year. In addition to t-shirts, and my costume, I brought a Guidon/Flag. Ah, brings back fond memories of my former life. And, Campaign streamers are mandatory. My old unit had some wild ones - Battles of Antietam, Leyte, etc. The lineage of units always fascinated me. So, for the narrative here, we have Death Korps Troops in some famous 40k battles. How did they make it off Gryphonne IV? Why were they there in the first place? Enough with the questions. Anyway, I first looked online for campaign streamers and they were like $50 a piece. That's a hard "no." Nope. So, with $2 stencils, $2 ribbons, some brass fittings and an airbrush a made a few to accompany our flag. I'd love to make like a dozen for next year. Octarius, Fenris, Caliban, Baal Secundus, etc. Love it. I had the spelling ready and next to me, double checking as I went. Do. Not. Spell. Armageddon. Wrong. The Narrative pt 2 - In Detail: I had a lot of fun with this, but it ultimately was too small to read. I should have made more copies, or designed it differently. Also, I think it could be re-written a couple of times. The board didn't meet the expectations of the story. I needed an arch-traitor, Apostate Cardinal (yes, very original) in some kind of big cathedral per the original idea. OPERATIONS ORDER AND ASSIGNMENT FOR MANEUVER AND SUPPLY IN SUPPORT OF EDICT: ADEPTICON DISSEMINATION: [BEYOND TOP SECRET // GRADE OMEGA III] Pursuant to Imperial Law this Order is to be “viewed only in the immediate proximity to and presence of an armed Lord Commissar.” Munitorum Code § IENKV 9274657290.2028267.12, subdivision 68, subp. 17(e)(ii). DATED: 999.M41 MISSION: “Bob’s your Uncle” CHAIN OF COMMAND: LORD REGENT; SENATORUM IMPERIALIS; ORDO MALLEUS TORQUEMADA COTEAZ; LORD SOLAR; MISSION COMMANDER COMMAND INTENT: Under pain of death, by the direction of the Lord Regent, Roboute Guilliman, and Senatorum Imperialis, under the direct supervision of the ORDO MALLEUS [-----REDACTED-----] you are hereby commanded to carry out this edict by any means necessary. Under no circumstance and in no possible universe shall any of those excommunicating themselves from his Emperor’s Grace be left alive. Failure in this task mandates summary execution. There are no exceptions. The Officio Prefectus shall be assigned and apprised of said duty. Further, any soldier engendering delay, malingering, or insubordination, in the course of this mission is subject to—at minimum--Servitude Imperpituis. SITUATION REPORT: In support of the edict against ADEPTICON PRIME, your forces are to splinter to the neighboring planet, Armageddon. The Officio Assassinorum reports the Apostate Cardinal Vespasian Moloch has uncovered an ancient alter containing eight points, its fell-mechanism apparently functioning on blood and violence. To this end, the Apostate Cardinal has begun some manner of ritual sacrifice murdering tens of thousands of wanton disciples daily. On the ground, Commissars across dozens of regiments now report full scale mutiny spreading throughout the trenches. All appear consumed by an as yet unknown malady characterized by insatiable rage, bloodshot eyes, and foaming of the mouth, which typically culminates in suicidal violence. Meanwhile, the frontlines remain beset on all sides by traitor and xenos forces alike. As to fleet operations, several sector fleets have converged to repel the Despoiler’s latest incursion. All available ships have engaged in desperate ship-to-ship combat for three straight weeks. Despite brutal casualties, the Despoiler continues his assault. No relief is possible to the ground forces. And, though the Lord Regent has mustered a retribution fleet off Port Maw, warp travel is presently almost impossible. Over 1000 Astropaths in the sector are reported dead or incoherent. Prior to summary execution, virtually all are reported to have stuttered a single word incessantly: “Angron.” Terra cannot relieve the forces of Armageddon in time to prevent the culmination of this ritual. The Ordo Malleus is convinced beyond certainty this ritual is intended to manifest the Demon Traitor-Primarch Angron of the XIIth Legion. Should this happen, it is the end of the Imperium. Thus, at Dawn tomorrow Sector Command has coordinated a frontal assault across all battlelines of 100 million men. Casualties are estimated at 98.8%. Your mission is then, under the cover of this assault, to stop the ritual. COORDINATION: Accompanying units are set to breach the enemy lines. Their mission is a “thunder run” led personally by Lord Solar Leontus. They are to stop at nothing causing as much damage and disorientation as possible to cover your mission. No reinforcements or supplies are expected or possible. Their sole directive is to breach the lines as far as possible to facilitate your delivery to (and breach of) the ritual site. Each Battle Tank is fitting with 5,000 pounds of man-portable explosives for detonation at the site. In concert, the Officio Assassinorum seeks to deliver a thermo-nuclear device. Tech priests are blessing the devices already. 12 Krieg Siege Artillery Regiments are standing by to initiate the creeping barrage, synchronized at each half-hour. DESIGNATION: Identification “888th Execution Company” ORDERS: Mission Commander, While onboard the Frigate Eisengard Secundus you are to consolidate units into what is now deemed the 888th Execution Company. The Ship’s Quartermaster division is directed to make all efforts to assist you to rally men and material to staging point ALPHA III. Refer any unfit units to Officio Prefectus for remediation, and airlock removal. Opening orbital cyclonic salvos are set for time synchronization at DAWN. Planetfall is to be made at Coordinates ZULU 8970 0867 6289 1019. Reconnoiter with 1st Army local command by ZERO + 00:60:00. During the frontal assault, commence the thunder run, proceeding along assault route ROMEO VI to the Traitor Command Spire. Accompanying units will breach through the citadel and terminate the Arch-Traitor Cardinal with extreme prejudice, by any means necessary, and without delay [See Attached Dossier on Apostate Cardinal]. Aeronautica Imperialis has identified the entrance to the caverns housing the ritual site as 500 Meters to the SE. Coordinate with the 24th Forward Engineer Company, 5th Siege Regiment, to breach the caverns containing the ritual site. Kasrkin teams are to detonate the site preventing the manifestation of the Demon-Primarch. There is no time, opportunity to reach across enemy lines, or forces available for a second mission. You are the only option. If you fail, the Imperium is lost. MISSION PARAMETERS: This mission cannot be cancelled by any means and must proceed at any costs. Suspicion is deemed proof beyond doubt of complicity and guilt. Leave none alive. Casualties must not delay efforts or fall into enemy hands. Terminate without hesitation. No one reading this document leaves the field alive. No one coming within 500 meters of the ritual, or Apostate Cardinal or who has seen the Cardinal or ritual can leave the field alive. No evidence of the Apostate’s operations may fall into enemy or friendly hands. Burn after reading.

10th Ed. Blues Well, I can wait and paint nothing. Or, I can cast a wide net, hoping something, anything, I paint is actually usable in the new rules. Well, the old malcador infernus will keep coming out to play until she's relegated to legends... but for the most part I think I want fundamentals ready for June 2023: Commander, Infantry, heavy weapons, special weapons, vox, leman russes, etc. I mean the other option is to sit and paint nothing, wait for a meta to emerge and race to catch it. This option is almost never satisfying (it borders gambling or smoking in harmful dopamine rewards). In fact I'd LOVE to get another 5 death riders... but with rough riders out now I have to imagine my beautiful boys are headed to legends soon. Ursula Krieg (Creed). It'd been several months since I sat down with blending and glazing. I was extremely rusty and impatient. I Attempted the sword in grey scale with red ink over the top. Not a huge fan of how the paint scheme is coming out. I should have planned it more. But, I need to get more units mobilized for 10th. She's a practice model. I got the head off of an Etsy shop selling Reptilian Overlords Miniatures. I think these will be the heads for my rough riders - that or Brodie helmets from Anvil Industries. I sculpted the breather hose with the green stuff roller, and took an extra backpack from my Tiny Legends Miniatures Kasrkin/Grenadiers. Quick and simple. Rogal Dorn I bought this at the pre-order, assembled it, and it collects dust now. I got wild with focus only on Adepticon. I need to get back to getting units serviceable. After years of reading the Rinaldi books, and AK Interactive's FAQ, I decided to try some texture for the hull. So, tamiya putty and cement. I also tried flame cut marks and weld lines. I suppose lore-wise these all ought to be standard design STC templates (welding and casting imperfections aren't in the lore). But, if I wanted to be bound by historical constraints I'd play a historical game. 40k is open by design. Interestingly I saw a golden demon entry at Adepticon, where these same 1/35 scale techniques were applied to a Dorn! It looked great. I would have loved to have talked with the painter. Also brass handles and antenna are 100x better. I'll die on that hill. Grenadiers (counts as "Kasrkin") Oh man, those Tiny Legend Miniatures sculpts are just spot on. 3d printing seams are very minimal. Bad idea? Chasing the meta? Yeah. But, the sculpts just rock. The volley gun poses are beyond awesome (clearly designed after the M60 machine gun). The price... well that part is rough. Anyway, presently they can take 4 specials, 1 sniper, a vox, and a melta mine. What are the odds in 10th they can take 1 special weapon and that's all, all stop. It's the old GW hat trick, "buy 3-4 boxes and max out the crazy rules!" And, next edition the unit gathers dust. Where are my manticores again? Luckily I didn't buy 9 sentinels, or 18. Notably Tiny Legends Miniatures also now makes rough rider conversions to krieg. They look great, but I don't know I can justify it. Anyway, back on topic, the kasrkin here all need a lot of work. So, bit by bit they are coming along. I was thinking of getting in one last 9th ed. tourney. At Adepticon my teammate took Lord solar and kasrkin. He didn't even use barbicant's key. It was vicious. I mean incredible damage output, to the point I felt bad about it while watching it. Still against Custodes I miss my vanquishers - gotta get through those invulns. I'll be interested to see if 10th Ed. reworks invulns and saves generally. Thanks! Happy Hunting.

Narrative Army List. I wanted an actual story to accompany the board. Getting the lore to match up to my armies is more difficult than one would think. Why is Agrippina supplying this? Why is Krieg part of this mission? Anyway, the basic narrative is that Angron is being summoned on Armageddon. I've got the whole thing written out, but in short - 10's of thousands sacrificed in blood daily. Full Divisions are going mad and in open rebellion. Thousands of psykers mind's have exploded (the classic astropath found on the ground, stuttering one word repeatedly before he dies... "Angron"). Lord Solar launches a full frontal assault 100 million strong, on all fronts. Meanwhile, under the cover of the assault, as the aeronautica imperialis have discovered the location of the summoning ritual, Kasrkin forces seek to breach the cave system and kill the apostate cardinal conducting the ritual. They'll detonate the nuclear device if they fail (sector imperialis objective marker). Guilliman himself is raising a fleet off port Maw, but it'll be too late. Spoiler... Angron makes it into reality. Ultimately the print was too small. I should have made more copies for people to read. Well, I suppose I could find bigger paper, or just glue stick some sheets together? Stamp. So I had a custom stamp made for Excommunicate Traitoris. This rubber stamp was hard because I had to clean up any grey-scale on the symbol. I'm not tech saavy. This took a while. But it worked. I love the final product. The ongoing joke of the tournament was teammate John attempting to excommunicate the judge during judging. Obviously this is ridiculous. We had fun anyway. Wax Seals. I'd wanted to use wax seals on an army list for a long time. I use them for wedding cards. Now it's time for 40k. So, I ordered some pins/badges, and also had some stamps made off Etsy. Super easy to work with and easy process. Also, coffee and lemon juice is a great mix to stain the paper. It gives a nice age to it. I put that mix in the spray bottle at 150-200 degrees and sprayed it on the paper. Unfortunately printing on paper outside of a 8.5x11 sheet is apparently rather difficult. So while I'd have preferred something like a scroll, I'm stuck with what I have (for now...). Also, it'd be cool to actually seal a letter that the judge must open. I'm still working out how I want to do it next time. So, we have the signature stamp of the Lord Regent, the Cardinals Palantine, the Fabricator General (signed in binary code), and Departmento Munitorum. My personal favorite touches: The first line of the Operations Order - DISSEMINATION: [BEYOND TOP SECRET // GRADE OMEGA III] Pursuant to Imperial Law this Order is to be “viewed only in the immediate proximity to and presence of an armed Lord Commissar.” Munitorum Code § IENKV 9274657290.2028267.12, subdivision 68, subp. 17(e)(ii). The name of the Abbess Sanctorum (I need to start a sisters army now)- Hatred Dos Vorden, of the Sisters of Our Lady of Perpetual Vengeance. The seal of the ecclesiarchy - CASUS BELLUM Just Cause, and Holy Righteousness Thrice Reviewed; Thrice Deemed Beyond Refutation; Under pain of Death, Adeptus Ministorum Official Signet Seal BY: By Cardinals Palantine, Unanimous; And Ecclesiarch Theodacus V with Special Concurrence Noted in Verdict: "There can be but one Emperor, one God, one Saviour, one Deliverer. Without Him, a billion billion souls are nought but fodder for the ever-thirsting evils of the Warp." Going Forward Pt. 2 - the Next Display. Tyranids. Ok, next years' design. I have a Bellicosa volcano cannon. I could retry the rail gun idea. ...I could just build a warlord titan. But, I think an anti-ship cannon could be the center piece. I'd also like to add Hydra Flakk turrets. While the team doesn't want to do Guard in 2024, I still think they'd be a good antagonist for the theme. If it's a tyranid invasion, I do worry about (1) painting a whole new army. I actually played tyranids back in about 2002. No idea what happened to that army, probably collecting dust in some strange garage somewhere. Next I worry about (2) coordinating paint schemes. Winter Setting. I've long dreamed of a mawlock bursting through the ice... But what scheme will this fit? Also I worry (3) that since a new range refresh is coming in the summer, I can't start a collection now. And, that leads to back to problem (1) how are we going to paint a whole army? Conversions are a must. Cinematic scenes are a must. And, doing ice/winter is new to me. Time to learn something new? I like the idea of The Thing - finding a space craft in the ice. Though I think Necrons might do that easier. I'm not sure I can sculpt a tyranid ship... Jungle Setting. Then again, I like the idea of a jungle fight - maybe a big temple in the jungle overrun by tyranids, like Aliens v. Predator. Of course any new settings will mean my krieg antagonists aren't based correctly. I kind of like the idea of a genestealer cult tectonic fragdrill boring into some kind of ancient chamber. City Fight. I've got imperial fists in city/rubble bases. Maybe the centerpiece could be inside a city, or walled area. What about my Krieg Costume? Hmmmm. Maybe muddy streets can be tied in with rubble? Maybe keep a trench or two :). I will say I have a lot of mechanicus terrain that could fit this well. So that's an easy-ish transition to this setting. Thanks for reading.

Krieg Display Board 2023. Spotlights. This year I wanted spotlights. The forgeworld version are long OOP, and when they show up on ebay every other year they're about $50+. Zinge makes great spotlights. However, I also need a stand for the spotlight. Kromlech makes a great heavy weapon base with a tri-pod. It's a bit too tall for my liking, but it'll work. I chose to put it on a 65mm base because I wanted to hook up electrical. I gave it a quick zenithal with the airbrush on Castellan green working up a bit with layer colors. Importantly I had to drill out the wiring holes prior to assembling the battery and LED components (only the wires would fit through drilled holes, not the LED or buttons). I set the button up on the base itself as the base isn't deep enough to hide everything. So there's a little push button on top there. Evans designs for electrical - works perfect. I'm sure if one was tech saavy it could be constructed cheaper than a pre-made kit. And they Work! Sand Bags! Way cheaper than green stuff. Roll out logs. cut small bits. Depress those bits with cloth for texture. Cut the sides and add a little flair for the cinched opening of the sand bag. Board Construction. Basically it's the same as last year. I'm not happy with that, but it's a practical reality. I put a lot of effort into the altantic wall/maginot line style defense, but it still reads very similar to last year. If I'd started earlier in the year, I might have had more time to think over what works and what doesn't. A vision rarely matches the actual product. Oh well. Experimentation doesn't always work out. I didn't have time to run planks down the trenches, so it's lacking some detail too (though this can be added now). I will say I do l like the texture more this year. Wood glue and sand - not mixing in plaster as it looks too sloppy. Rather, plaster ended up looking like plaster, and I want this to look like sand. I have no doubt there are many great recipes for mud and dirt out there in the diorama world. I think I also want to experiment with some grass and trees for more detail. Getting ready for judging! Hi everybody! Here's me. I finally went off the deep end and and joined the costume club. I'll post separately on that. So, this was an early morning. We'd stayed up very late and worked hard hours leading into it. I'd made most of the board, and brought it down to finish at the hotel. The team really stepped up and helped slather some paint all over the board for me. I was too far behind to finish it alone. For the team tournament there's judging starting at 7 am and 12 noon. We go with the morning spot because it's easier to get situated in the morning instead of after game 1 at lunch time when everybody is moving around. It's chaos at noon. However, noon is also when all the hobby stars, youtubers and games workshop is walking about. The fun part of the day is looking across hundreds of gaming tables and seeing the zepplin still standing on the sidewall. Lots and lots of players are really great, and come over to introduce themselves to get pictures.

Krieg Diorama 2023 Ok, still catching up to where we are presently. So, back to the making of the board itself. Constraints/limitations. Space. Firstly, space is an issue. I'll need to transport this by vehicle. My truck only fits so much. I have to drive 7 hours to Adepticon. It's cramped. I have a truck bed, but March does not have pleasant weather in Minnesota/Wisconsin/Illinois. Rules. Second, the rules of the tournament only allow certain sizes. I suppose each tournament is different. For the Adepticon Team Tournament, we have three categories of display, traditional 3'x2', technical 3'x2' and structural - 5'x3'. I've always wanted to do the 5x3, but it won't fit in a single vehicle in my situation (gear, bags, paints, printer). With a bed cover in the back of the truck, maybe it'd fit, but it's also a large liability for moving around in stops and starts. Still, this isn't a tournament of strict/harsh rules. You probably could build whatever and they'd be happy to see hobby effort. I can't imagine they'd throw us out for a size infraction. Still, there were awards for each category in 2022 and 2019. So, crossing into the wrong category could mean untenable competition against larger 5x3 boards. Models. Third, we have model constraints. We've got 4 team members, each with 1000 points. 3x2 is not big enough. So, my board from 2022 and this year is going to feature 2 levels. I mean we could have every model on the board, but it'd be so tightly packed there'd be virtually no interesting terrain whatsoever. It'd simply be a textured flat board. So, using multiple levels is the only way I can see to fit the rules. Well, we'd thought about a vertical board with every model magnetized, but this has all kinds of problems of it's own. That design might be a great void combat board - like space marines walking on the outside of a ship, or on a moon. Design. Bunker. The problem this year was trying to avoid repetitiveness of doing Death Korps of Krieg again. I love the trenches, so they'll stay. But, I'm adding a bunker. I liked the atlantic wall style bunker and gave it my best shot. With a proxxon hot wire table, and the circle cutter jig, I was able to make concentric circles for the gun emplacement design. The circles were fatter/thicker than I'd like, but due to time constraints they were good enough to move on. The bunker will need gun shot holes, and chip damage (also some rusty rebar sticking out of any damage is a great effect). I've experimented with camo netting, but am still not satisfied. That needs a rethink. Too WW2? Maybe go more gothic? Hmmm... Turret. Also, I wanted to include elements similar to the Maginot line. So, I went about a second experiment with a moveable gun turret. It's supposed to be a retractable turret - it pops up to fire, and sinks down to load. That said, I left the guns sticking out even though this is impractical, as I figured many would not realize this is a gun turret without the guns showing. I'd like to add more of a base for it, so it has more detail. I'm also thinking of scraping it and just adding a hydra turret... That might look better anyway. ...also should have designed a ring for it to be seated in. Little details add a lot. I still like the concept, but I think execution needs more. Layout. The team wanted smoke effects in the trenches again, so I caved and made a crater to pipe in a fog machine. I did want to redesign the trench works, maybe run a communication trench too. And, instead of two opposing trenches as a theme, this year is one defensive trench system being overrun. And, I think I actually want the krieg overrunning the bad guys. So, I'm looking to get some chaos stencils from Fallout Hobbies. I love that old forge world renegade stuff that had rusty eight pointed stars on it. In hindsight I should have paid a lot more time and attention to the design. I'm not thrilled with it spatially. Like at least each table quarter should have something to draw the eye, if not every inch of the table. So, here I've got a somewhat interesting right side and just plan no-man's land on the left. I think tree stumps, water filled craters, or even a destroyed bunker might help fill it out. *note, it's a lot easier to cut trenches and craters before gluing sections on... carving out three layers deep takes much more time. *also note, should have labelled these as it became a huge mess...

Hey gang, Like me and every other hobbyist, I snagged some of the gorgeous Death Korps Guardsmen from Kill Team Octarius. I've long been a fan, having had a few scattered bits for them lying around. I tried out a tester first, which I'm fairly pleased with, just to get the scheme right, so I'm plowing on with the rest of the squad. I was going to go for an Armageddon-esque scheme but I adore the blue-grey commonly used so plumped for that. It's a little on the messy side, but I guess if anyone suits that, it's the Death Korps of Krieg! The base needs doing, but I've got some stuff to make muddy bases turning up tomorrow so can get onto it then. After that, I have: HQ Command Squad Platoon Command Squad 5 plastic Deahth Korps squads 10 Death Riders 3 Leman Russ Battle Tanks. Will give me a nice start anyways! Here's the tester:

361st Krieg Mechanized Regiment 116th Assault Korps, Salient Cluster Garrison ++++++++ ‘...as to the reason for their presence here in the Cluster, I am unsure, although I hypothesize that one of the more reclusive among our number is the architect of this decision. They are a potent tool, the mere threat of their arrival enough to dissuade rebellion from rearing its traitorous head. In those instances when that is not enough, when a demonstration of their power is required, they serve unerringly, unwavering in their purpose, and brutally excise the cancer of heresy, crushing those who would flaunt the Emperor's light. Indeed, the need for the 116th Korps is a mystery to both myself and many of my colleagues, but I sleep more soundly for their presence.' ++++++++ - Lord Aevander Amaxus Bel Theryk, Inquisitor, Salient Conclave (attr.) Hello everyone! I recently took the plunge and bought some DKoK minis from Forge World, as I've always wanted to collect an army of them. I figured that with so many other fine regiments present, this was the place to post my progress as my collection grows. With most of my other logs, I've focused primarily on narrative blurbs and background (like the above), so this time I wanted to try my hand on the actual WIP of the army, as it is something I've never really done before. With that said, as a total fluff junkie, I'm sure one or two narrative elements might find their way onto the log. Anyways, here are the obligatory pictures, the first recruits for the 361st!