Valkia's Universe of Darkness (Chaos, Inquisition, Necrons, Kill Team and Tyranids)

[Valkia the Bloody]

6 hours ago, Firedrake Cordova said:

Ah, so you got both a trick (infection) and treat (Cain audiobooks), then!

Pretty much. 

 

6 hours ago, Firedrake Cordova said:

I do like the very subdued look of your Tyranids

I will let you in on a (not so little) secret- pink and purple are my favorite colors. I even once created a Blood Angels army, which was "The Pink Angels" (and I think I just painted a life's worth of pink models including a land raider).  

However, I prefer my monsters natural and scary. I sadly have trouble taking gaudy pink Tyranids serious. 

With this army, I set out to create a natural looking horde of swamp monsters. 

 

So you know I am not telling tall takes, here is my lucky Pink Angels captain- besides a metal terminator, the only model I kept from that army (I sold them 10 years ago). 

Why is that captain lucky?

Even back then, 5th Edition, I just went with the rule of cool with him and taking this equipment (storm shield and storm bolter) was legal. I have been told time and again that this equipment is not very cost efficient. I insisted to keep him. 

Despite all the nay-sayers, he once managed to kill a Necron monolith in a final act of desperation all by himself and made the whole hall where the tournament happened turn around and applaud, since it was so highly unlikely (I rolled a hand full of sixes and the opponent a handful of ones). I kept him as a good luck charm. 

Edited November 3 by Valkia the Bloody

[Valkia the Bloody]

I would also like to add-

the Commissar Cain audiobooks are pure gold.

I have read all the books, but recently, I got the audiobooks to listen to it again.

And it is amazingly performed.

They have different voice actors to read out the different "source materials", they have (satirical) propaganda newscasts in there with sound effects, and the reader of the Cain parts is amazing in doing all the voices of the different characters. It nearly feels like an audio drama. It is very ALIVE. 

Very well done. 

[phandaal]

6 hours ago, Valkia the Bloody said:

I would also like to add-

the Commissar Cain audiobooks are pure gold.

I have read all the books, but recently, I got the audiobooks to listen to it again.

And it is amazingly performed.

They have different voice actors to read out the different "source materials", they have (satirical) propaganda newscasts in there with sound effects, and the reader of the Cain parts is amazing in doing all the voices of the different characters. It nearly feels like an audio drama. It is very ALIVE. 

Very well done. 

 

Those audiobooks are very well done. Amberly's voice actor cracked me up several times with how well she nailed Amberly's pedantic need to correct minor details, and her utter disdain for anything written by Jenit Sulla. And the main actor does a great Ciaphas, but also his Jurgen is spot-on.

 

Side note - People talk a lot about Eisenhorn, but if Henry Cavill is going to play a 40k character, it should really be Ciaphas Cain.

 

Edited November 4 by phandaal

[Valkia the Bloody]

6 hours ago, phandaal said:

it should really be Ciaphas Cain.

Exactly that.

I did not completely follow the whole Henry Cavill story, only know that there is a series planned / in production.

So the series is Eisenhorn? Interesting choice. The books back in the day were also the jumping-on point for 40k for me, before that, I was a devout Fantasy player. 

Still, I read Eisenhorn so many times and have my own picture of the characters in my head, not sure if a series would spoil it. 

[Firedrake Cordova]

Honestly, I quite like that colour - it's not what I'd imagined when you said "pink".  I'm struggling to work out what the colours you used are, though, and it's starting to bug me.  

 

14 hours ago, Valkia the Bloody said:

the Commissar Cain audiobooks are pure gold...And it is amazingly performed.

The execution of them is excellent - some of the best, in my opinion.

Edited November 4 by Firedrake Cordova

[Valkia the Bloody]

1 hour ago, Firedrake Cordova said:

Honestly, I quite like that colour - it's not what I'd imagined when you said "pink".  I'm struggling to work out what the colours you used are, though, and it's starting to bug me.  

 

The execution of them is excellent - some of the best, in my opinion.

Those were the old cidatel paints, one of the reasons I stopped the army was sourcing the old paints was a pain and the new ones did not quite fit.

Lich purple base, warlock purple on top, wash with Druchi violet,  highlight mix warlock+ white. 

A dream in magenta (for some people this does not count as pink, though). 

 

[Valkia the Bloody]

And I am back from my work related travel abroad! 

When I came back home this afternoon, a parcel was waiting for me on my doorstep.

I had browsed Amazon and saw something great for my Tyranid painting project for just 20 Euros! 

 

It's the McFarlane artist-proof unpainted Genestealer! 

I had to have him, and he will be painted up in the colors of my splinter fleet.

I am amazed how detailed these figures are. 

Plus, for just 20 Euros, this large and heavy figure comes cheaper than pretty much all GW character models in the small size. 

He will be a joy to paint! 

 

 

When I have painted him up, he will join my Night Lord (which I converted and painted from a normal Assault Intercessor) on my Nerd Shelf. 

These figures are nice and large and a pretty hefty hunk of plastic! 

Here they are, in a size comparison (although the genestealer is not really smaller, he is just hunched over). 

 

[Rusted Boltgun]

Love the bzig 'stealer. I have one I would like to slightly convert and paint up as one from the original Space Hulk box (my proper entry into 40k).

 

Edit: the Night Lord is pretty cool too!

Edited November 10 by Rusted Boltgun

[space wolf]

Oooh nice posing on that genestealer!

[Firedrake Cordova]

So your big gribblie was cheaper than the Kelermorph? Score!  

[Valkia the Bloody]

I just finished my vow for the month of November and painted up the Broodlord (including the Space Wolf trying to pull his tail) as well as 5 more Genestealers. 

 

Here is the Broodlord. As you can see, the Space Wolf is posed as if he tries to pull the tail or poke the bottom of the monster- and at the same time, the Space Wolf is already lifting up his bolter to let lose some bolts as soon as the Broodlord turns around. I am very happy about how this turned out. 

It was very fun to paint, that's for sure. 

 

 

 

And the Genestealers:

 

 

Up next-

I will make a start on my second entry for the Jokaero challenge as well as painting 6 Genestealer hybrids. 

Not sure I will be able to finish them this month, but I will definitely make a start.

 

[Firedrake Cordova]

It looks like you're making swift progress

[space wolf]

Ill have you know, ive NEVER stuped so low as to poke a broodlord in the rear!

 

Great conversion dude! Looks good!

[Valkia the Bloody]

28 minutes ago, space wolf said:

Ill have you know, ive NEVER stuped so low as to poke a broodlord in the rear!

 

Great conversion dude! Looks good!

Thank you.

Haha, yeah, just imagine the guts it would take!

I found it helps a lot to add such "narrative" elements to the bases to keep my motivation up.

When I stopped 2 years ago, I was just looking at my shelves of shame and all the rank and file of all the miniatures to be painted and had a total mental block. 

This time, I try to shake it up a little and maybe slip some of the "rank and file" in (for example, I still have 4 Kill Teams here that need to be painted)- I will try to concentrate more on "does this bring me joy now" instead of "these 40+ models need to be finished now under duress". Let's see if this works. 

[Brother Anderson]

These are great, the carapaces really look insect-like and thoroughly alien.

[Valkia the Bloody]

I had been sick with another cold this week, so I am happy that I was happy that I could use the "sick at home time" wisely with a blanket and lots of hot tea.

Plus listening to more audiobooks- namely "Cain's Last Stand" and "Day of Ascension". 

Just as a side note- I am also a big Doctor Who fan, and I am always very happy to hear all the amazing call-outs to Doctor Who in the Cain audiobooks.

There are quite a few in "Cain's Last Stand"- most prominent, the book features a "Sergeant Benton" and a "Captain Yates". 

Only thing missing really is Jurgen commissioning an old yellow car for transport....

 

 

I finished my second vow for the Jokaero Challenge- the converted Sentinel "counts as" Pyrovore.

The idea had been to imitate the scene from "Cult of the Spiral Dawn" where Genestealers ride into battle in top of Sentinels. 

I had played around with several ideas on how to paint the Sentinel.

Until yesterday, I actually wanted to paint the armor plates in a camo scheme, using the colors of my splinter fleet.

And I wanted to add bright rust to some of the metal parts.

However.

I realized that adding complicated color schemes would have been very distracting, and adding bright rust might have made this model stand out like a sore thumb in my overall Tyranid army. It should still fit in organically with the rest.

So I decided on a more muted scheme, using the dark (Castellan) green I use for the swamp bases for the armor plates and do some heavy weathering with a sponge. 

This works much better. 

I am actually quite happy how it turned out.

This was a really fun project which I very much enjoyed doing.

 

 

 

 

I also painted a group of Genestealer hybrids, which I will just proxy as normal Genestealers in the army. 

These were also quite fun to do and a nice change with different textures to the rest of the tyranid army. 

Since I had just listened to "Day of Ascension", I decided to go for the full body horror with these guys-

in the book, a Cult Doctor is actually able to enhance Genestealer members of the cult and bulking them out and have them grow and develop more muscle and chitin armor.

So these hybrids here are just in the process of being transformed into even more deadly and monstrous killing machines, the growing flesh even growing and fusing with their clothing and armor, and some oozing sores and scars developing where the original human flesh tries to resist the transformation.

 

 

 

Up next- 

I will paint something bigger for a change and will paint up the McFarlane Genestealers as well as a big Monster for the army- a mighty Swarmlord. 

 

[kabaakaba]

Good progress, I like sentinel but I don't understand why they ripped of gaunt head? Ain't they're friends?

[Valkia the Bloody]

4 minutes ago, kabaakaba said:

Good progress, I like sentinel but I don't understand why they ripped of gaunt head? Ain't they're friends?

This poor star child had died a violent death, killed by the valiant Imperial defenders.

So the head of the gaunt is a valued and venerated relic, showing all of the believers of the many-handed Emperor the cruelty and evil intend of the followers of the corpse god. 

It is basically the same thing the Space Marines are doing, every second Space Marine these days carries around a small relic (like bones) of some revered hero or saint. 

It is like a banner to rally around. 

[Valkia the Bloody]

Right...

so today I had another parcel waiting for me at home. 

 

So this now makes 6 (!!) Kill Teams that are sitting around here in various stages of assembly, painting or even still untouched in the box on sprues.

(I need to STOP buying models! Might make this my New Year resolution....)

These teams are:

- a Night Lord Kill Team using 30k models- converted and primed, but so far shelved and forgotten

- the Fellgor Ravagers (Chaos Beastmen)- assembled, primed and a few have the first spots of paint on (and then shelved and forgotten)

- the Nemesis Claw (Night Lord Kill Team) (still on sprue in the box)

- the Mandrakes (came in the Nightmare box with the Night Lords, also still on sprue)

- Various Inquisition operatives that could be proxied into a Kill Team (assembled and primed) 

And now the Raveners.

Since I am now in Tyranid mode- I think I will concentrate on the Raveners first.

 

Personal plan for the painting and modelling in the run-up to Christmas for December will be therefore:

- Painting the big McFarlane Genestealer model

- Painting the Swarmlord, master general of my Tyranid army

- Painting the Ravener Kill Team

 

[Firedrake Cordova]

So you're saying someone is randomly sending you kill teams? Sounds like a good problem to have.    

Edited Monday at 07:16 PM by Firedrake Cordova

[Valkia the Bloody]

34 minutes ago, Firedrake Cordova said:

So you're saying someone is randomly sending you kill teams? Sounds like a good problem to have.    

I wish....

it is more like my ADHD persona is making decisions for me that "trying to be sensible" persona finds a bit unreasonable. 

Still, ADHD persona is happy, more loot to hyperfocus on. 

[bloodhound23]

"Maybe this whole different new unit will be easier to build, prime, and paint than the half-done unit I already have"

 

Why are we like this?

[Valkia the Bloody]

8 minutes ago, bloodhound23 said:

"Maybe this whole different new unit will be easier to build, prime, and paint than the half-done unit I already have"

 

Why are we like this?

One theory is that during hunter-gatherer times, people like us were the scouts of our tribes. This is why we crave new things and want to gather them to present proudly when we return to the community campfire.

[kabaakaba]

No it's a people who find out which mushrooms are edibles and which aren't...

Good luck with raveners, it's my favorite kit in many years. Just remove everything else from your painting desk. 

[Valkia the Bloody]

I totally agree, these models look amazing and might even be the best Tyranid miniatures we have.