The Oppo: Bonehead's Lost, Damned and in all likelihood Disappointed

[Bonehead]

Thanks both of you, I appreciate it a ton. Please do nick as many ideas as you like, Tallarn. I think the spikes and stars are the only original ones- everything else I stole off someone else somewhere along the way. Seems only right they should be passed on.

The thing about the Vraks lists I remember most is the random leadership values. God knows how I'll deal with that.

[Gnasher]

The spikes & stars do a really good job of homogenising these tanks so that they really feel like they are from the same darstardly outfit of the Emperor's fallen, nice one, like it!

 

I can only say these boyz need some taxis to get them around the battlefield, that or reissue boots to the poor buggers!

[Gnasher]

 

The spikes & stars do a really good job of homogenising these tanks so that they really feel like they are from the same darstardly outfit of the Emperor's fallen, nice one, like it!

 

I can only say these boyz need some taxis to get them around the battlefield, that or reissue boots to the poor buggers!

 

& they need spike & stars too! Perhaps one of those stars on an icon bearer as well to tie infantry & tanks together?

[Bonehead]

Tell you what Gnasher, that's a properly good idea. That's definitely happening. Thanks for the nice words too buddy!

Meanwhile, I've been somewhat busy. I mean, what else do you do when you've ordered parts for 60 troops except build them?

Therefore, here's lascannon team #1 and a new sergeant.

Pretty happy with the lascannon gunner. Getting his hands to fit was a total pain, but he came out alright in the end; The one hand bracing the gun for firing while the other one holds the trigger looks pretty decent. Failed to get a good shot of it though;  no problem you'll not have to wait long to see it again. The binoculars guy is less good, but he's good enough. The rifle's a little annoyingly far away from the body but it's pretty hard to find good arm poses on VM models that I haven't used before.

The sergeant now, him I'm very happy with. I was working towards a totally different pose, but I had second thoughts. Then I found that the choice of arms I'd gone with to make a heavy bolter gunner had left me with a pair of odd spares that just worked together, with some trimming. I lost the left hand after trimming it off to reposition it- damn grey carpet- but this isn't my first rodeo so I have a bunch of spares from Anvil. Bit of trimming here and there and bosh. I think I'm going with 'lost other weapon in melee' as the excuse. I'm really pleased because this is the leg pose of the 5 different ones you get in a set from VM that I like the least and always have to be most inventive to get a good pose with, and I've got away with it again.

I also found a bit of time to give the cultist drummer wierdo a slung shotgun. The good Doctor was right, he needed a touch of 40k about him. The perverse thrill you can get from imagining vintage model purists recoil in disgust as you drill a hole in a 35-year old piece of metal never gets old. For the record, he was a horrible cast, with more than a mil of mould-slip. Should have been melted back down and recast.

I like the pile of bodies- it represents untapped potential. And more offended vintage nerds.

Finally a shot of the day's output from a moderately different angle, and I'm out of here. Forgot to order enough crouching legs so it's back to the VM website.

 

[Bonehead]

Few quick shots of some more cultist I knocked together today. Did a couple of simple jobs on the old regiment of renown red redemption guys, and then got some head swaps in to more closely tie the heresy miniatures tunnel cultists to the citadel cultists. It's looking like I might get somewhere around 22, maybe 25 guys for the Khorne cult, which is pretty decent.

The tunnel cultists need a little green stuff at the shoulders, but it should be a totally easy job. And yes, the one guy needs a new left hand with a gun, and the other lad's long pole will be cut down so that instead of a spear he has a two-handed axe. Holsters and grenades for both and boom, they're 40k-ified.

Meanwhile, I've green-stuffed over the chainmail armour sections on the red redemptionists, so now they just look like they're wearing extra cult raiment of some kind over their robes. Should provide a suitable alternative surface to paint in the blue/green.

Height-wise, they fit the existing redemptionists pretty well.

Alright, that's enough for today

[Bonehead]

Bosh! More 2nd ed cultists have been blended with the Heresy miniatures tunnel cultists to make the khorne cult. I'm tempted to make 24 of them because that's a multiple of 8. If I did, I'd need three more. I'll keep looking out for good models round and about. I could just buy three more tunnel cultists, of course, they do come in threes.

Here's the ones that are (largely) finished so far, give or take the odd head and arm:

As you can see, the heads have been swapped between them somewhat. The headless guy in centre left is a fanatic era redemptionist; currently blessed with a big chainsaw and a 2nd ed cultist head, which I did after taking the photos.

I think I'm going to end up taking several more tunnel cultists' heads off and giving them gw cultist heads, mostly because there's a fair bit of repetition among the cultist models I have, as you can see in the photo below. As I've said, I just don't like having any identical models. The fairly limited number of cultist sculpts means it's probably going to be time to break out some VM bare arm sculpts and start chopping pretty drastically.

I've grouped together the repeated sculpts and there's only seven, and that includes three pairs of very close variations. So, soon it'll be hacksaw surgery time. Mwahahahahaha etc.

As I said, these idiots' exclusively close-in armament makes them the default khorne cult; I did buy a few sets of VM's bare arms with close combat weapons to spread amongst these guys and the cawdor gangers and hopefully they'll mix in nicely and require minimum green stuff. With luck I should get a suitable variety of frenzied poses. I'm also thinking to add in a couple more of those Maxmini heads with more obvious mutations. They generally have belligerent expressions, that should fit in.

Made some more traitor guard too, but haven't finished them (not pouches, knives etc) so didn't bother photoing them yet.

It's been a fun, productive little burst so far though.

[Tallarn Commander]

It looks like you have your work cut out for you. 

 

I rather like Maxmini. As you know they have lot of nice bitz. For my Nostroman 9th I especially like the Toxic Guardsman and Desert Dweller heads.

 

 

Blood for the Blood God!

[Bonehead]

Thanks for the encouragement, commander. Always nice to get a recommendation, too.

Anyway, here's another quick update with some mostly finished traitor guard.

Both jobs a bit too busy for painting at the moment, but I'm finding a minute here and there to build things- mostly while waiting for the damn remote work VPN to come back online, which seems pretty commonplace these days.

I'm not building squads as such, more just sort of waiting until I get an idea for a decent pose and then putting it together. Pretty pleased with the left-handed guy: as I put the heavy bolter trooper together I realised that the right hand I'd removed from the VM arm I'd used was about a perfect shape to be placed under a rifle barrel. The only problem was it was filled up with a lasgun, so that got trimmed away. First I drilled a hole between the thumb and fingers, and then I cut away the remaining resin until just the delicate hand itself remained. It came out so well that I was very glad to realise I have another four HB troopers to build. Four more potential left-handed troopers is how I see that. Hopefully each liberated hand will inspire a pose as it arrives.

Bases need some sand and maybe a bit more irregular debris, and the troopers need a few more pouches and grenades, but they're coming along nicely.

I'm going to try and do a few more action poses than the typical either shooting or advancing duology that these all essentially boil down to, as well; from posing my earlier action shots at WW I've learned how much more fun they are to look at, and how much more dynamism they give a collection when they're in a higher proportion. I'm going to try for at least a couple of reloading troops- god knows if I can manage that for a shotgunner. I think I'm underserved in terms of 'blokes pointing at things of interest' as well as 'troops peeking round corners/holding position by doorways' and probably a few others too- but some suggestions would be very welcome.

I'm also going to see if I can get some tau hands as well- adding some mutated hands in a decent number of models should help reinforce the various unmasked gargoyle faces in making clear the Mari regiments' fallen status.

I've only got two redemptionists left, on the cultists' side: I'm waiting for some tentacles I've ordered from a random 3rd party company and hopefully those will make them memorable. Once theye're done the more god-specific cultists should have a higher proportion of mutations, I think. More horrible and impractical ones too. The traitor guard are far more favoured disciples of the gods: the cultists are desperados and fools.

Anyway, enough waffle. Laters, yeah?

[Dr_Ruminahui]

Liking your most recent batch of ex-guardsmen - they look great.

 

Forgot to respond to your September 12 post with the cultists, but I think the guy holding the bolt pistol in the air should really have a smaller pistol - yes, 40K guns as a rule are comically large, but that pose really calls attention to the pistol being bigger than his torso.

Edited 9 hours ago by Dr_Ruminahui

[Tallarn Commander]

I agree. Most of my Renegades and Heretics use autopistols I converted from plastic IG lasguns.

 

However, I do have a few Militia troopers with giant bolt pistols that are to big for them. I really should go back and give them smaller pistols.

 

For example, Private Zhan, 3rd from the bottom right in this photo has such a pistol.