Ventures into True Scale

Like so many others before me, I have begun to create my own true scale 40K miniatures. I plan on using them as minis for games of the RPG Deathwatch, Rogue Trader, Only War, Black Crusade, and Dark Heresy etc in which a better sense of scale between "normal" humans and Space Marines can really add to the narrative.

I've found that I like the approach of using Terminator legs, arms, and shoulder pads and standard SM torsos, heads, and backpacks. This creates what I feel is a very acurate representation of the Space Marine form without having to do a bunch of cutting and plastic card/green stuff work. I think the results speak pretty well for themselves.

The first one I made is a Black Templar sword master. I probably wont give him the wrist mounted bolter that goes to the Grey Knights left arm. I will be filling out the waist areas on all these models with pouches, grenades, holstered pistols etc.

The second TS Marine I made is a Salamander armed with meltagun and power fist. I used one of the new bare SM Tac Squad heads because I've always wanted to show off the Salamander black skin and red eyes.

I used a Space Wolves power fist and had to carefully shave off the wolf head molding on the power cord. This made the remaining skull  look a bit more like something the Salamanders might use to decorate their gear.

The generic chapter shoulder pad on the right is just a place holder. I hope to pick up some Forge World shoulder pads after Christmas.

You may have noticed that I've been using DA Terminator Command Squad legs for all the marines so far. I think they give a really nice sense of ornamentation that your standard Space Marine minis are always lacking IMHO. The artwork for WH40K always shows Space Marines so decked out in bling they almost look too fancy to be killing xenos and heretic scum... Almost...

Last for this round was a Dark Angels Apothecary wielding a plasma pistol.

This pic shows the True Scale Marine along side a "standard" Marine and a guardsmen for the normal human sized mini. The TS Marines stand a good head taller than the normal marine and even more over the human!

Now just a bit of clean up and green stuff in some of the gaps and these guys are ready for paint. I'm sure I'll get to that part really soon...

Evolution of a Hobby

Today I wanted to share with you two minis. Each represents rather well the evolution of my Warhammer 40K hobby.

First is where it all started. I purchased a small container of various 40K bits from a local comic book shop. The bits sat in their box for over a year, and every now and then I would glance at them and say to myself "I really should make something with those". Finally I bought some paints from that same comic book shop and broke out some old brushes from my time as an art student. I put together a Space Marine and began painting. It took me about 18 hours to paint my first mini, I worked well into the night and would stop periodically to watch YouTube videos on how to do effects like power weapons. The result was something that I am still proud of to this day.

Lots of time and overly cautions perfectionism went into this guy. The shine came from using a glossy sealer, and sharp-eyed viewers will notice a missing shoulder pad. I cannibalized it as the shoulder was a unique one I have yet to find elsewhere and is now part of my stand-in Inquisitor. I didn't do any light effects or shading, no washes or basing. The only thing "fancy" about him is the lightning effect I did on the sword which, at the time, I was quite pleased with.

Now the next model is a project I finished just a few weeks ago. I am not a fan of some of the HQ models that GW has put out. This is especially true regarding Chaos HQs like Abaddon. That damn refrigerator box he calls a demon weapon is ridiculous looking, and the Talon of Horus looks a bit small for a primarch's weapon... I could go on but suffice to say, I have always wanted to build my own Abaddon. For any who might not know, this is Abaddon in his current incarnation:

       

Not garbage by any measure, but for me it leaves much to be desired. So after about a month of planning and taking what I had learned from making my own custom Typhus model, I created this:

Lots of over-the-top ideas got crammed into this guy. The dead marine with battle damage, the carefully crafted Talon of Horus made from a storm bolter and an Anvil Industries claw and ammo belts, an Ork top-knot replacing the compensation effort of the original model. Of course to start I had to find a replacement for the 2x4 looking Drach'nyen, which was done with a lovely Bloodletter sword.

The Obliterator legs, arms, and shoulder pads really helps make my Abaddon look like the bulky force that all four Chaos Gods feel they can rally behind.

Its a bit harsh but you can see the OSL effect I put coming from within Abaddons armor and shining out around his head. I used a really cool pinkish purple color who's name escapes me at this moment.

In game terms, Abaddons claw weapon gives all Blood Angels the Hatred (Abaddon) rule (since they kind of lost their own Primarch to that weapon during the Horus rebellion and all). So naturally I had to make the most recent victim of said claw a Blood Angel! It really helps visually drive home the reason why the Blood Angels hate him so much.

In this pic you can see the considerable beefing up the base and body used gives my Abaddon. He towers over all those around him as only a true Warmaster of Chaos Undivided should.

I look at these two models and I can clearly see the evolution of my skills as a 40K hobbyist. Washes, shading, converting, green stuff use, basing, the list of skills I have picked up over the years goes on and on. I could never claim that I am a master of any of them by far, nor would I want to. So far some of the greatest enjoyment I have taken from my 40K hobby is stepping back and seeing how I am improving. I also could never claim that my improvement was due to my efforts alone. Help and inspiration from local hobbyists and those of you online who also take the time to share your beautiful works all deserve the lions share of the credit. Its been a long journey to this point, but my hobby train isn't slowing down any time soon! I hope you have enjoyed this little expose into my oldest and newest works. Look for more to come soon.

Hobby Blog Reanimation Protocols!

So after a rather long dry spell, I will be once again updating my blog with some regularity. I have a metric ton of new stuff to show you all so lets just jump right in!

Here are some of the minis I made for my Flesh Eaters chapter, two of which I used in my recent introduction to Kill Teams:

First up is the Sergeant (or Chaos Champion, depending on what I am playing my Flesh Eaters as). I never used him during this past Kill Teams competition at my FLGS, as I was running my squad with a Lone Wolf to lead them. I modeled him with storm bolter/combi bolter and power sword. A quick apology about the pics as I am working with some rather harsh lighting at the moment. One day I'll get around to making a light box...

I scrapped off all the fur from the Space Wolves pelts and painted the pelts like skin trophies. I even went as far as green stuffing some thumbs on the back pelt so it looked like hands instead of paws.

 I found that the GW pewter World Eater shoulder pads were perfect to use for my Flesh Eaters. A gaping mouth that looks just the right mix of chaos and non-chaos.

 I have yet to finish it, but there will be a horn from the Beastmen kit that sits above the Sergeant's knife on his hip. I thought it added a nice touch and helped enhance the hunter feel of the model.

I think this model has a great air of authority about him and just the right amount of "jazzing up" to convey leadership. I actually had to paint him twice due to an unfortunate sealer frosting incident. I really hate when that happens... But I digress...

Next up is the Plasma Gunner of the squad and my Preferred Enemy specialist in the Kill Team.

I gave him a power fist to use as an "oven mitt" of sorts. Helps protect him from those nasty plasma burns and thus explaining his re-rolls from Preferred Enemy in a fun way. This guy racked up quite the kill count and never died during the competition due to Gets Hot rules!

Now for one of my favorites in the squad so far, my Ignores Cover specialist. I wanted to go for an "expert gunman" look so I took inspiration from over the top action movie hero poses. The result is pretty good if I do say so myself!

I called him "Two Guns". To help explain visually how he can shoot in such an extreme manner, I used the advanced targeting array on his helmet and matched one eye color to each gun. Blue for the boltgun and green for the bolt pistol. To also help illustrate his "two is better than one" mentality I gave him the double knife setup and a chainsword for good measure. A true expert soldier can never have too many weapons after all!

Now lastly I have the other model that was never used in any of the Kill Team games so far, but will come in handy should I run a list that is either Chaos Space Marines or Loyalist Marines other than Space Wolves (who have a distinct lack of heavy bolters and melta in their standard infantry apparently...)

I picked up some new micro pens and they cam in handy for doing cool little designs on the purity seals and weapon adornments! I also need to touch up his organic eye so it doesn't look so lazy...

Overall I feel that all four of these models have a very nice continuity about them. Lots of bone charms, trophies, skin cloths and armor that looks just on the verge of full chaos. I am very pleased with how they turned out, and I wish that the pics were of a better quality. Its really hard to see the washes and dirtying I put the models through to make them look like a Kill Team operating behind enemy lines with no support should. Anywho thanks for looking and stay tuned for actual regular updates within the next few days!

Thank You!

590 views... WOW! I started this blog for personal reasons really. I wanted to catalog my work in the hobby. I never imagined that my blog would warrant this much attention. I'm sure there are blogs out there with millions of views but to me almost 600 is a lot.

Thank you all and I hope my work has provided some ideas for your own hobby ventures!

Kill Team Season #1: Game #1 Battle Report

Lord of the Feast, Master of Teeth, may this report find you sated on the meat of our enemies. Our hunt continues and as I form this briefing, we gather the corpses of those who would have opposed us. My Lord will perhaps be amused that it was our own “brothers” who stood against us this day. Iron Hands by the markings on their armor. Know that it is with much regret that I must report that they only sent a single squad of neophyte scouts to bar our way.
 

As the sun broke we came upon them. They appeared to be lying in wait for us, but the fools made contact via vox and ordered us to identify ourselves and our purpose. The one of us we call “Scorch” replied by charging the closest Iron fool and roasting him within the cover he cowered behind. I called for their leader to meet me on the field and die with what courage he could, and the slaughter began. I must assume that the neophytes thought to use the abundant cover coupled with their cowardly camo-cloaks to protect them. Our marksman expert “Two Guns” proceeded to show them that hiding would only lead to a shameful death, and our weapons specialist “Boil” used his plasma gun to melt away neophyte and cover alike. Their specialists were brought low first, as a hunter knows to break the teeth of the prey is to leave it helpless. Their neophyte armed with a missile launcher proved to be the most troublesome of the lot, but he soon found himself alone amongst corpses. Focus fire quickly turned him into a corpse as well. I charged forth to meet their leader, an Iron Hands Sargent leading these doomed scouts. He was armed like me with a claw, but he was no true match for one who has tasted the flesh. I struck him down in the middle of the field and then began to hunt the rest of his fast dwindling squad. Four more Iron Hands initiates died by my claws and their feeble attacks were met by my bone shield. As I approached the last of their number, my hunters secured the field and advanced as far as the late Iron Hands own deployment zone.

That morning we feasted on the flesh of our brothers, but they are not our kin. No Flesh Eater would have insulted us with neophytes to test our skill and our resolve. They know not the way of the feast. I felt my own constitution grow as I fed on those I had slain, and my hunters know the hunger will be held at bay by the Iron Hands sacrifice.

Our hunt continues, we shall not fail you my Lord. I expect many more will try to stop our advance, they too shall feel the bite of our teeth. The flesh protects!

This was the first game of the Kill Teams tournament I played. My opponent and I both rolled the leader trait that gave an extra victory point for killing the enemy leader with your leader, so we agreed that they would meet in single combat as would be fitting for Space Marines of their stature. No night fighting and we rolled Head Hunt for the mission. My opponent rolled to deploy first but I managed to seize the initiative. My first move was to take my flamer equipped marine and score First Blood on a nearby enemy scout. He would end up dying to sniper rifle fire that round but the FB point was worth it as the kill was also a specialist for the Iron Hands team. My Ignores Cover specialist was key in sniping the other scout specialist and his friends by stripping them of their precious cover saves. The plasma gun specialist managed to kill the enemy missile launcher Marine as well. The real star of the show though was my Lone Wolf leader. He charged the enemy Scout Sargent and slew him in a single blow, while taking no damage due to his awesome storm shield 3+ invulnerable save and natural 5+ Feel No Pain. He then charged and killed his way across the board, picking up four more kills with his wolf claw. I marched my Grey Hunters across the board each turn and by the end of the match I picked up Line Breaker. The match ended on round 6 with the death of the last Iron Hand scout to my Lone Wolf. Final score was 11 to 1. Not too bad for my first game of the tournament :)

As the game took place at the end of the first week, I rolled for my leader boon and my leader gained an extra wound! I also gained an extra roll for making some purchases earlier that week as the tournament started and gained a +1 to my leaders Weapon Skill. My Lone Wolf now packed Eternal Warrior, Monster Hunter, Fearless and Feel No Pain (all stock!) and now has Weapon Skill 6 and 3 Wounds total. Pretty awesome!

My First 40K Games!

After about a year in the hobby, I finally got around to playing WH40K! Our local GW store was holding a Kill Team tournament and I signed up for better or worse. Over the last two months I have been building my Kill Team based on my earlier ideas of a somewhat rogue Space Marine chapter. I'm still finalizing the lore but a rough explanation would be this:

Born from a campaign to find a cure for the curse hounding all marines descended from the Blood Angels and Sanguinius, the Flesh Eaters have found a measure of protection from the Black Rage and Red Thirst by devouring those they defeat in battle. While this is not an unheard of practice, the Flesh Eaters have taken these acts of seeming barbarism to new levels chapter wide.

So anyways, my first game... well was really a bit of a practice game about a month before my first tournament match. This practice game I shared with a fellow FLGS regular to get a feel for Kill Teams. I ran a team of 5 Chaos Possessed with marks and mutations etc. A very elite and small team (and unfortunately all melee... more on that later). I figured this might be the way to go, spend all your 200pts on making the best guys you can get even stronger. In my defense, this approach looks great on paper with all the nifty looking special rules that possessed get. This is where my opponents force of two Zoanthropes and 10+ Termagaunts with devourers (Devilgaunts as they are called) showed me the error of my ways... Long story short my force was tabled in 3 rounds easily. I realized two very important things that day. Volume of dice and bodies on the table are a huge factor, and melee in Kill Team games is something that you should not focus your entire force on (no more than 1-2 units/models for that matter). Things that look good on paper rarely perform on the table top...

My “second” game was to be the first of 13 I would play in our FLGS's Kill Team tournament. Luckily lots of the other tournament competitors were new players as well so it was a great learning experience for us all. This time I ran my Flesh Eaters. I used the Space Wolves Codex and brought 10 Grey Hunters lead by a Lone Wolf. My squad received a flamer and plasma gun for free thanks to the 5^th ed SW rules (the tournament started two months before the new SW book came out). My lone wolf was issued a wolf claw and storm shield. Math hammer readers may notice that this list would actually cost 220 points and you would be correct. Our local shop has some running house rules that if you buy merch in-store at the start of the tournament then you get an extra 10% in points to spend on upgrades. A pretty smart business boosting idea I must admit. Another cool house rule is that we track the kills our Kill Team's leader makes each week, and at the end of that week we roll on a boon chart and add the number of kills to the resulting roll. Your leader may be granted an extra wound, bonuses to Strength, WS/BS, Toughness, special rules like Fleet or Infiltrate etc. These bonuses stay with your leader through the entire tournament which is awesome. You can really watch your team's leader grow with each kill. And I don't mind saying that my Lone Wolf became a true beast by the end. My team specialists were the marines with the plasma gun (Preferred Enemy), the flamer (Feel No Pain 5+) and a normal Grey Hunter (Ignores Cover). Preferred Enemy was a great choice because it not only meant that my plasma gunner almost never had to deal with the Gets Hot rule, but also with scoring hits in general. Feel No Pain on the flamer marine helped him charge into range and fry enemies without dying half way there. Lastly, Ignores Cover on the bolter shots of the last specialist cannot be overlooked. Cover plays a big part in Kill Teams and stripping it outright was very useful!

The first tournament game I played was against one of the tournament coordinators. He brought a squad of Iron Hands scouts to the table with cloaks, sniper rifles/bolters and a missile launcher. I learned very quickly that those camo-cloaks are a pain in the butt, and that 6+ Feel No Pain can save guys at the worst/best times (depending on who's side you're on). Its also nice to be able to Infiltrate and Scout move your force for pretty much ideal placement every time. All these fancy tricks however proved to be false hope though, as my Flesh Eaters swept the board by the end of the game! We played Head Hunt so all I had to worry about was killing (perfect fit for the Flesh Eaters), and I used focus fire to quickly bring down his scout specialists. The Lone Wolf himself killed 5 enemies single handed, including hunting down and slaying the Scout Sargent. I will probably write some battle reports from the perspective of the Kill Team later. For now though, I'm glad to be able to blog again and I'm very excited about how these games have gone!

Flesh Eaters and a finished Tech Wraith

So I took a bit of a break from my Nurgle force this last week and focused on two projects I've been putting off forever. One was my second Tech Wraith that needed painting and the other was a WFB Chaos Lord that needed converting.

I've seen some nice conversions of the Lord but I wanted mine to be usable in 40K. I also know that eventually I want to make a Space Marine army that can be used as either a loyalist or chaos list. Now a perfect fit for this would be a chapter like the Flesh Tearers. They are one bad step away from Khorne's skull throne already, and their Chapter Master Gabriel Seth is desperate to find a way to stop his chapter from being destroyed by the Black Rage. So I figured "what if he heard dark whispers in his rage, voices that told him his chapter could be not only saved, but restored to glory and power?" Should he answer those whispers, he may be led down the path of the Dark Gods... and the result would be the birth of the Flesh Eaters!

With that mental picture in mind I set upon my Chaos Lord model and worked up the man himself to lead these marines on their downward road to redemption. This is what I came up with:

I wanted to try and tie my model in with all the standard elements of Gabriel Seth's standard look. I started by taking four (!) standard chainsword blades along with the engines and the hilt of a Grey Knight sword and and carefully cut, lined up, and pieced together a proper monstrous eviscerator chainsword for my Seth. I'm very proud of how nicely it turned out! I also built his Iron Halo with the wings from the Dark Angels sprue. Lastly I replaced the vents on the CSM backpack with carefully shaved skulls and added fist full of trophies for The Emperor Khorne. Oh and I snuck a holstered pistol onto his right thigh to give him a sidearm and 40K'ify the model a bit more.

I'm sure I'll figure out a fluffy reason why my Seth is rocking that second sword, but really... does anyone need a reason to have more swords? Maybe he "found it" along with his baroque artificer armor he now sports, which totally does not have chaos symbols on it... Gonna have to keep out of site of those pesky loyalists...

All in all... if the most holy Inquisition didn't have enough reasons to keep a close eye on the Flesh Tearers, they certainly will when I'm done with them!

And now some actual painting! Following the same look of my first Tech Wraith I knocked this little guy out rather quickly. I also got to use a new 30-0 sized brush which was awesome when it came time to try my first hazard stripes. I think they turned out okay... more practice should do them better justice.

And here is a nice group shot of the two servants for my fallen Magos (more on him later!):

Thanks for staying tuned in!