All Quiet on the Hobby Front

Another big gap between posts but I do have somethings in the works moving forward.

First up my shipment of Chieftan MBTs came in and this week I've been slowly assembling the 2 troops. Hopefully they'll see some paint in the next couple of weeks.

Every year it seems to lure me back. 

Second the drums of war from the Grimdark future have brought me back to 40k once again. I purchased the new Dark Imperium box after following along with GW's lead up to releasing 8th edition. Having read through the rules I'm pretty impressed but I still need to try playing a game to make a final determination. I'm really looking forward to getting some paint on the new figures.

I'll need to pull that crystal flash off and finish these off with some of my new static grass. 

The return of 40k has seen me returning to my Red Planet terrain project that stalled about this time last year. I didn't like the way they were turning out then and put everything on hold for a rethink. I'm scrapping my overly ambitious original plan and going with tried and true plastic plants instead.

A selection of future vegetation  recently picked up from the local craftstore or unearthed from storage.

That's looking forward on the hobby end of things. I haven't been idle in the past months but I've found more of my time taken up with non-miniature gaming pursuits. A big part of it was helping my we ife stock up on inventory for some upcoming shows for her side business of needle felted birds. We've also started looking into expanding out into the wooly world of amigurumi crochet. I never really felt these side projects belonged on this blog but at the same time I do enjoy posting something about them so I decided to create an Instagram account to act as a miniblog/project log for these non miniature related projects. I expect the occasional miniature stuff will make it on there too. I want to update the look of this blog soon and I'll add a permanent link then but until then if you want to check it out follow along here.

Big Giant Stone Head

With a new set of terrain I'm once again indulging one of my pet fascinations. I got a chance to make some gabions which I had been trying to do for years and now the Big Giant Stone Head.

Why massive stone heads? Not sure. Partially I've always liked the mysterious look of the statues at Angkor Wat and other Khmer sites. Or it could a weird hold over from the resin stone heads that were put out by Dreampod 9 for Heavy Gear. (which of course indulged my other long time fascination of giant robots.) I've made some previous attempts at making stone heads before but they never really came out right.  I was never satisfied with the faces that I was able to make for them.

This time I decided to draw on my recent experience with polymer clay and sculpt the face from scratch. I wrapped a chunk of foam with aluminum foil so that I could separate the face, bake it, and then glue it back on.

At this point I'm sure the question arises "Why a screaming face with pointy teeth?" Well I like my terrain to tell a story. It might be subtle and probably a lot of people wouldn't see it if you don't point it out but it's usually in there. In this case I wanted to create some history for the planet we would be fighting over. In the distant past it was once colonized by humans on the edge of Imperial space. At some point the civilization was taken over by a powerful religious movement causing a regression in technology and the eventual fall of the planet. The statues were erected to honor the new "demigods" that now controlled the planet. In reality this new religion was controlled by a Genestealer Cult and in this case the stone head is of a 1st or 2nd generation hybrid who I would imagine would of been seen as a semi divine warleader or protector. That's also why this head is built into a defensive wall. Maybe a bit much back story for a piece of terrain but when you are spending a couple of hours making a giant stone head you have time to think of these things.

Back to the actual construction, after sculpting the face I carved blocks into the foam and added two pieces to make the remnants of the wall. After gluing the face on I blended it together using some DAS air drying clay.

Next it got a coating of wood putty mixed with gesso to hide all of the different materials. It them got a flexible caulking base which is gonna be a standard for all of this terrain.

The base was painted the same as the mat. For the head I went with a simple grey. Although I stippled it on mixed with browns, greens, and purples. I might try a more brown coloration in the future but I wanted something that would contrast with the red colored earth. I also got in some yellow turf that I mixed in with my previous turf and added to the head to finish it off.

Finally a couple more shots of my Tau hanging out with the Big Giant Stone Head.

Detour to the 40th Millenia

There has been a bit of a delay since my last post. I had been working to get some more gabions and a few pikeman painted when my wife suggested she'd like to paint up and play some 40k again. This was an opportunity not to be passed up. She decided that she would play with her Tyranids again and look into adding some new figures. I looked over the armies I had stored away and choose my Tau to once again see the light of day.

One hurdle facing the project is that I really don't have much terrain for 40k anymore. I have a few Imperial buildings that I kept and an old 4 x 8 board but it needs some serious refurbishment. So the first step would be making something to play on. While I really like big set boards whether modular or not I don't have the storage space for them and they take too long to build. Instead I'm going to make a flexible mat borrowing techniques from the flexible pieces I've been making recently.

Since I've never made a play mat before I decided to make a sample piece first to work out any kinks. I purchased a canvas drop cloth to form the base. For this piece I cut down a piece from a 4 x 5 cloth. I also got a 6 x 9 to use for my final mat.

There's a mix of different colored and size sand and fine gravel applied to the caulk. 

Next it got a coating of caulking. I worked this into the cloth using a drywall tool to get a fairly thin even coat. Then the sand went on for texture and was pressed into the caulk. This was left to dry overnight.

It was painted a red brown with a dark brown wash and then i picked out the larger stones with black and a grey dry brush. Everything then got dry brushed up through a brick red to tan. After that Earth tone fine turf was applied. I think the turf is a bit too green overall so I ordered some yellow grass to use with it on the actual mat.

With this sample piece done I'm ready to move onto the main event. I'm also working on some terrain and trying to figure out how I want to paint my additions to my Tau forces.

The mat is very flexible and easy to roll up for storage. 

Some of my Tau scout out the new terrain.

One of the nice attributes of the mat is its easy to make rolling terrain by simply sticking objects underneath.

Future projects: A test paint for my Tau reinforcements and some more terrain.

Timewarp Thursday! Orks!

With the talk on various blogs of the new arrival of the Ork Codex for 40k it got me thinking about my own long mothballed Ork army. Many years ago I was a pretty dedicated player of 40k although even then it was mostly about the background and modelling. My clan of choice for the Orks was always the Blood Axes as their bizzaro interpretation of the Imperial Guard always struck a chord with me.

Da Kaptan and his pet Squig

This is actually the second time I built a Blood Axe army and I still regret selling off the first one especially since I never took any pictures of it. In particular I wish I had some pictures of my Rambo-styled Kommandos and the fearless leader Kommisar Klang. This time I at least want some pictures to be able to remember my work if I ever have to part with them again.

'ard Boyz made with Black Orc parts

All of the work for these guys was done way back in 2008 and they were put together pretty quickly hence the simple, rust and red paint scheme. I wanted to get a force on the table and then add the character to it later. I originally planned to go with more of a Orkish Afrika Korps look for later models, especially the tank hunters and kommandos. I still have some partially converted but by then I had moved onto other projects. Maybe one day I'll get back to them.

My lone Mega Armour Ork and the back half of a Trukk

This looted Leman Russ was one of my favorites but routinely performed horribly in games. 

Most of the boyz were built from the Assault on Black Reach box. 

Shoota Boyz - I had a bunch more ready to paint with the forage caps sculpted on but that was when I ran out of steam for the army. 

Lost in Space

I was able to finish up painting the new additions to my Chaos force. On Sunday I participated in a special space hulk event for the campaign. My squad of Chosen marines, the aptly named Forsaken, heroically managed to open a door, get shot by laser defenses, were stuck in close combat with some Genestealers, and finally had the chunk of space hulk they were in blasted off by a massive decompression. Currently they are drifting through space but I expect they might show up again in another game.

The whole squad just before embarking for their ill fated trip to the space hulk.



He was previously destined to be a sergeant for my regular Space Marines. Funny how career paths can change.



The guy all the way in the back is an older paint job. You can see that the new ghost parts are much more turquoise. I like that green color better personally.

I also finished my Obliterator. About half way through sculpting I figured out a new method of creating the ectoplasm that I really like. It's simple and basically is just sticking a pin through the putty to pull and shape some holes. I'm not as satisfied with the paint job. I tried some of the new GW paints and wasn't much impressed. I might end up repainting all of his ghostly bits so they better match the rest of the force.





Next up are 1000 point games so I'm going to have to put together an army list and see what else I want to add.

Unit Cards

One of the things I hate about playing games like 40k is flipping through rulebooks looking for information on units. I always liked the unit cards that came with the warmachine models so I decided to do something similar for my 40k force.

I put together a quick template and added pictures of my units I took on one side. I also added a short background blurb. On the other side is the statblock and a short description of pertinent rules. I print the cards out at index card size and stick them into photo sleeves. That way I can write on them with a dry erase marker, put extras into the pockets like psychic power cards or whatever else I need.




The other advantage is since I'm using nonstandard models for my troops they can be used as identification cards for my opponent.

These are my first run of cards. I'm already thinking of changes and additions now that I've used them in a game. I'll definitely add more rules info on them and maybe play with the layout.

Phantom Firepower

I had a lot of fun in the first campaign games and with the new 40k, so I'm looking to expand my force. Next weekend starts the 1000 point level and while I have enough guys right now to reach that I want to add some variety and more long range punch.



Quickly put together from partially assembled guys I had lying around from an old project.

 First, I want to expand out a squad of basic chaos marines. I have three right now and my goal is to get three more done for this weekend so I can switch out a squad of the Wights. I'd like to add a heavy weapon to squad but the codex says you need a 10 man squad for that option. So a plasma gun is as good as it gets for them right now. 


He still needs all of his ghostly ectoplasm sculpted on.




Next I had an idea for making some themed Obliterators. I feel like I'm going to need some ranged firepower at the next point level and these guys should fit the bill nicely. Plus I always liked the concept of guys manifesting the right weapon for the job and it seems like a rather spectral ability so it fits my theme.





Lord Orpheus and the Spectral Dead

I'm going to play in a 40K campaign that is running at the local game store this weekend. I was pondering which force to play with when I remembered my ghost marines that I painted up about 4 years ago. So I had my lovely photographer take some quick pictures of them using the lightbox that I just made. I wanted to do a force that I didn't really need to spend much time painting and focused mainly on converting them to look like ghosts.I use the Chaos Space Marines army list for them and kinda stretched the unit types to portray their necromantic might.

Wights ordered into battle by their Necromancer (Thousand Sons Marines)

The Tomb of Zagreus (Dreadnought)

 

The Spectral Dead! (summoned Deamons)

Lord Orpheus ( Chaos Sorcerer)