42nd Cadian

The Pack Elite - Part 2

2011-11-24T00:00:00.000+01:00

I haven't had much time to do stuff with a Bachelor's thesis I'm working on all the time now, so not much painting progress and I just didn't have what to post on Monday. I'm clueless on what to post next week as well, but I'll try to think about something. Silly posting schedule!

Anyway, to the point, back to the Terminators! Today, the second part and the other five men!

There are all brand new and share some interesting features, at the end of the post.. Starting off with Liufr Fireeater. His name doesn't come from nothing, but more on that later... Currently he is equipped with the standard terminator loadout, storm bolter and power weapon.

Eyvindr Frostwind, the second man-Cyclone. This one also has standard loadout aside from the rack of missiles on his back. I would say he is close to being my favourite terminator as well!

This terminator, Snorri Sharpclaw, has actually been made from an AoBR terminator. Could you guess that? I reposed him a litle and added wolf parts and he turned out quite damn well if you ask me.

Kettil Njordsson, with the thing to chew through vehicles in combat, in addition to shooting. He turned out very.. golden. He seems to have the most gold on him from all of them.

And Yngvar Bjornsson the third storm shield that might come in handy when there's 10 of them.

Now for some details shots, Snorri.

The storm shield detail along with the sword. I painted it rather blandly to make it stand out from Rune Priest's Runic Sword. I didn't like re-using that part, but I didn;t really have any other sword.

Fireeater's details.

All that gold...

"I'm looking at you and that means you're screwed"

But that's not it, the terminators come with some more features. First of all, I don't neccessarily need 3 shields, if I want to minimise the cost o the unit...

Assault Cannon was just too pretty not to paint it. An awesome weapon!

But if I ever deployed them in a Land Raider, perhaps Fireeater could live up to his name...

And finally, to minimise costs even further, in case I didn't need that much AT...

And that's it for now. Hope you liked it! Feel free to leave a comment.

The Pack Elite - Part 1

2011-11-17T00:01:00.001+01:00

Time to change the army for a bit. Since everything I had to paint for the Guard is done and posted, time for some Space Wolves again! Taking off with my favourite models, that I've put off for too long. I decided to split the post into two parts since there's plenty of pictures here. Each and every terminator is unique, so I got details shots of every single one. On with the show!

Starting off with the group shot of the first five. Perhaps you can recognise one of those from an earlier post!

First man, Randolf Shieldwall carrying a power weapon (originally intended to be a frost blade, but they aren't really worth it) and a storm shield.

And his back!

Egil Eitrisson, combi-melta and a power fist. I really like that guy!

Halvard Freyrsson, the second PW/Storm Shield. He has been painted in the second batch and I think it shows and he look a bit better than the other ones.

Hjalmar Bjornsson, the second melta guy. This one has actually been converted out of AoBR terminator sergeant. I think he fits the squad really well now after some wolf-ification!

The one I have posted a while back, painted a long time ago - the Cyclone totting Hrodgar Irongrip.

Now for some detail shots. Egil's Combi-melta - I added some runes on the chainsword bit.

Detail shot on Hrodgar's wolf pelt and chest.

Halvard, seen more from below, since he's leaning forward quite a bit.

Hjalmar's leather tabard and helmet.

Shieldwall's shield.

And that's it for the first bunch. Not many words in this post, but hope pictures more than make up for it! Stay tuned for part 2, which is a bit more interesting!

How to Magnetise the Dark Eldar Razorwing

2011-11-14T11:57:00.001+01:00

Right, about time for some tutorial! Dark Eldar Razorwings. Everyone loves the model. However it comes with a real ton of armament options and being a DE model it's all very flimsy thin and hard to drill in, so I had to come up with some way to magnetise those, especially the missiles, which are probably the thing that will get changed the most. If you ran into some problems I hope this little article will help you out!

So here we have our fighter. I have magnetised everything that is interchangable, as laid out in front of him, although I haven't magnetised all missiles yet. I am using cylindrical 3x1 mm neodymium magnets for this, small would be handy, but can't be even 1 mm bigger than that.

Let's start with the fighter's underbelly. First the two missile holders that are in the middle - the ones moulded onto the hull. Drill two smal holes in the red spots marked below. Easy enough.

Next the more tricky part, the outstanding missile holders. It's probably best done beore you glue them onto the hull. You have to cut them down a little bit, following the red line as shown in the picture below. Remove everything marked red and glue the magnet roughly in the same position as in the photo. Make sure all magnets you attach are polarized in the same direction - that way any missile will fit any spot, else it might get very annoying.

Now for the missile. Not as hard as one might expect. Drill (carefully), a hole in the spot marked by red roughly in the middle between the holes, a bit more to the front. The red lines show the distance from both of them

And that's it for the missiles, you can do that easily with each missile variant. Now for the rest - the hull guns. They're really easy to magnetise. First put a magnet inside the square hole in the fighter. The 3mm magnet should fit perfectly in. However push it in, so that you have space for two magnets inside. That way you won't have to drill into the gun. (So there should be a 1 mm gap between the end of magnet and the flat area within the gun "hatch")

Then simply cut off the square peg and glue a magnet into its place

The last part - the forward splinter weapons. You have to do that before you glue the hull together! First cut down the splinter weapon block thing, as shown below. Cut out as much as you can from the top. Below you can see a Splinter Cannon that is uncut and the rifles that have been adjusted. Then simply put a magnet at the backside.

On the Razorwing itself it's a bit more tricky. There is a "bar" inside that prevents the prow gun to be pushed too far in. Place a magnet flat on top of it. It will be powerful enough to hold the weapon, but careful with polarization there. The cutting down of the top of the block makes it possible for the weapont ob e taken out and put back in after you glue the hull together.

And that's it, I hope you find it useful. I'm slowly runnning out of things to post, will have to get working more, but Skyrim just had its release and I'm kinda stuck into it now. But still, see you on Thursday!

The Keenest Eyes

2011-11-10T11:00:00.000+01:00

Female Cadian Snipers! Now that I got your attention - Something that probably most of you have been looking mostly to. I have checked the statistics that Blogger started providing with the redesign and the first post on it is the 4th most viewed post on this blog of all time. Wow! I hope I will not let anyone down. Without further ado, the 304th Sniper Squad!

The all-female sniper squad that is count-as Ratlings. If you are interested in the modelling process and parts used I will just refer you to the main post on the subject. And now, on with the pictures! Many, many pictures, starting with an obligatory group shot!

The first sniper, one with the neat hair. Also the only one using original plastic sniper rifle.

Aaand the back. The camo cloaks aren't perfect, I was considering adding some static grass to get something similar to this, but in the end, dropped the idea.

The "sergeant". I really like how she turned out! Of course Ratlings don't have snipers in the codex, but this is the 304th vet squad pretty much!

And her... backside...

The very characterful "I don't give a damn my hair looks like a pot".

Casually smoking a lho-stick and waiting for the target to come into the field of view.

Another blonde, they also seemed to have turned out the best! This one is aiming at something coming close. This also shows that those gs sniper rifles aren't really too perfect.

Although they did turn out much better than I had anticipated at first. You cannot tell the difference from a distance and even up close they don't look particularly bad!

The hooded one. With a strange face too.

As I said in the modelling post, the hood feels a bit off, but overall the model is nice.

And the helmetted one! Unfortunately turned out to be my least favourite of the bunch, but she still looks quite good!

Also she's the only runner in the squad!

And that's it. That was the final update for the Guard for quite a while to come. There's other things I want to add, but mostly the Guard is done. I dropped the idea of a third platoon for now, since the ammount of cash needed is a bit too much for me now. Instead I am finishing up the Space Wolves and need to start painting those damned Dark Eldar as well!

Anyway, I hoped you liked them as much as I did! Let me know!

Fire from the Sky

2011-11-07T09:49:00.000+01:00

Aand another miniature that has been sitting there unpainted for years now. The final member of the Regimental Advisors, one that, sadly, turned out to be quite lackluster. The Master of Ordnance.

While I probably won't be fielding that guy much, he still has quite an amazing model, that I like very much and I thought it's about time to give him some paint, especially considering that his friends have been painted for a very long time.

He is quite a characterful model. Like the two others he has plenty of little detail hanging around. This time starting with a nice closeup shot!

Some overall shots. The lightning was very... yellow, so I did some adjustments in Photoshop. It seems colours are preserved well though!

I'm not absolutely happy with the face though. Turns out the brush was quite worn out the moment I was painting him.

Unlike the other advisors, he nearly blends in the 42nd with all the same colour scheme as the rest of the army. After all he is coming for a Cadian Artillery regiment so he gets similar gear!

After I've painted him I am a little tempted to field him, even though he isn't really that great on the tabletop. Perhaps in my all-infantry Guard list I've been thinking about lately!

And that's about it. Stay tuned for Thursday for a big reveal too, something a lot of you wanted to see! Also don't hesitate to comment on this one!

For He is Our Lord and Saviour!

2011-11-03T11:00:00.000+01:00

Another thing that has sat on the shelf for quite a while. While perhaps not the most noteworthy unit on the tabletop, it's definitely one of he more characterful ones. As I mentioned, it was inspired by one on Excommunicate Traitoris blog. What am I talking about? Iacton Thauss, the Holy Preacher and a Missionary of the God Emperor himself!

I really enjoyed building him (also gave me something to do with those excess flagellants...) but painting him was quite a lot of fun too! I decided to give him a little different colour, so that he stands out a little, although it is still a colour present in the army so he ties in visually.

At first his robes were supposed to be red, but then I thought he'll be too similar to my Psykers. So I went with green. Although I decided that his flak vest and weapons are more tied to the 42nd. Perhaps the regimental quartermasters decided to grant him these as a favor or as thanks for something he has performed?

The name of the character, is actually Iacton Leman Thauss, and he is a character I used to play in Dark Heresy. He was meant to be this crazy flamer/shotgun-totting crazy priest with a chainsword. At least on the outside as inside he is actually quite a smart and calculating man. However this is Iacton flash forward quite a few years.

Suddenly he is blinded, although he still sems to be quite capable of hitting enemies instead of allies, as he claims the Emperor grants him sight, so he does not need his eyes. It also seems that whatever blinded him has also made him forget the smart and calculating part and only made him more crazy. Although he still is quite an orator. And what of his ties to the Inquistion? After all, he used to be part of an Inquisitor's cell...

Perhaps the mystery won't be solved, especially since nobody really knows about those things! However he turned out to be quite a nice model and I really had fun painting somethinga little different. I especially like how the wood turned out. Hope you like him too, let me know what you think in the comments!

1st Platoon Command

2011-10-31T11:00:00.000+01:00

A small update today. But it's only foreshadowing what is to come. I present to you the re-built 1st Platon Command.

For a long time now 1st Platoon has done nothing more than just gathered dust on the shelf, since its loadout (Plasma + Lascannon) wasn't really the bread and butter of the new codex as much as it was of the old one. Also one of the squads got stripped down to the 32-A and 32-B Special Weapon Squads, so I swapped stuff around and they ended up with Missile Launchers instead of Lascannons. Which pretty much made for an even worse loadout.

But no more. Recently I have decided to re-structurize the Platoon entirely. While this particular Command Squad has been built at the same time as the 2nd Platoon one, it's been sitting there on the shelf, due to lack of use anywhere.

Now it changed. The Platoon was restructurised. Now the squads will be armed with just Lascannons, while the plasma guys have been moved, as you maybe noticed, to Emmet's Company Command Squad.

Of course that means I have to re-build the 3rd squad that I disbanded. It also means I have two Missile Launchers, so I'll be likely adding a third one to make a full heavy weapon squad. Just so that they do not go to waste, since it's hardly a useful unit (or one that I'd somehow like regardless)

You can see the base color-coding is now a permanent feature of the 1st Platoon as well!

And the poor JO that was used a lot in the last codex. He will now get a chance to get back into the thick of it!

That's it, but stay tuned for more. I will have you know, that everything playable (so excluding like 3 lone miniatures I have that don't fit anywhere) in the 42nd is now fully painted. Yep, that's it. I will have to paint up that squad I'm adding and I have aquired one more minor thing, but other than that 42nd is more-or-less fully finished (barring any future additions there might be!). Right now I'm also finishng up the last of Space Wolves. So soon there will be just Dark Eldar left to do and then probably Necrons. That of course doesn't mean I won't be adding to the Guard and SWs, I am actually about to do it (To IG what I mentioned, SW a minor thing as well, but for the sake of completness!). But now whenever I add something I can paint it straight away as there will be absolutely no backlog for those two armies! Yay me, I guess. Expect to see "a few" more updates very soon!

The Background section

2011-10-27T11:00:00.000+02:00

Introducing the background of the 42nd Cadian Regiment! A new section of the webpage that's dedicated to hold every silly thing I come up with every now and then. Once the background section rolls out more fully there will probably be a wider section for each of my armies as I write stuff up!

For now, it's just one page, sort of a teaser, the regimental organisation of the entire 42nd Cadian Regiment.

Making this chart makes me actually quite excited about my own regiment, each Company has its own distinct feel (at least in my head) and perhaps someone will like the idea and maybe one day there will be another company of the 42nd out there!

The panel on the right for now will serve as means to getting to the Background section. More will appear as I finish up writing it, for now, I invite you to check this cool chart out!

42nd Cadian Regimental Organisation

Posting Schedules and the State of Things

2011-10-24T11:00:00.000+02:00

A couple of days ago, Ron over at FTW has posted a very nice post with some ideas to improve a blog. They weren't any groundbreaking thruths, however it never occured to me, that I could simply make a regular posting schedule.

Since I have had long periods without any posts I reckon it's about time to put some discipline into my writing. So from now on, new posts will appear each Monday and Thursday. Failing to produce enough content for two posts per week, it will be just one of those days, still a post should appear every week. I'm going to be writing them during the weekend as per Ron's advice and we'll see how it goes!

There's plenty of content coming for all my armies, so there should be something for everyone out there. I hope you'll like it as much as I like it! The 42nd Cadian is now fully painted, with every playable model finished! There are some small additions coming too. I wanted to add an entire platoon at some point, but the ammount of money and work I'd have to put into it has put it off to a little later date. I have also come up with a very fun-sounding Space Wolves list, that would require some shopping, so I'm considering this next. If I bought the needed things, I'd more or less finish me Wolves too. The only thing left would be to pursue the entire Great Company, but that is a great task that should probably wait till I actually get a real paid job, rather than being a student, considering the ammount of stuff needed! The Dark Eldar are pretty much done building-wise. I am only lacking a second Haemonculus, that I want to make out of the new Lhaeman, but I'm still waiting for it to arrive to my local store. Other than that, shopping's pretty much over.

I have shown you a mystery project a while ago. Here you, go some more on it:

Got a clue yet? Pre-Heresy Marines, using the Grey Knights codex. I think it's fairly obvious which legion it could be now. However this is now put on hold. It was supposed to be a small force, however it still is expensive to make. Also, the new Chaos codex is coming out at some point soon they say, so perhaps it will have a better ruleset to represent the Thousand Sons. I could then make an army like the Death Guard that featured on BoLS at some point. Part-traitor, part-loyalist that could be played as either. That could be quite fun to make, so I'll wait for now. Also new Tzeentchian-themed kits from FW as well as possible plastics coming with new codex could provide for some nice bits.

The second thing I wanted to talk about is the new Necrons.

There has been a lot of talk about them in the internet. In case you missed the leaks, check them out on Dakka. I, for one, like them really really much. So much that I am seriously considering a small Necron force. I even have plenty of fluff ideas regarding them! I'll hold off till the codex actually comes out, but I have to say that they sound like a really fun army to play, especially with all the fun mechanics, such as the entropic attacks!

The models are also quite amazing, although I do have some conversion ideas for the basic Warriors in my mind. We'll see how it goes, although I would like to finish off the Space Wolves at least before I get another army. Also my cabinet doesn't have much room left...

Well that's it for today! See you on Thursday!Edit: It seems Blogger has broken my hiding of full posts thingy. I'll look into it later, but for now the Read More button doesn't really do anything...

Threads

2011-10-11T16:35:00.000+02:00

Time for something heavier again. Two newly painted vehicles sported by the 42nd Cadian!

Starting off with the Chimera of the 303rd Veteran squad. Nothing too fancy, just a regular Chimera, although I did decide to put a tank commander on there to help it stand out a little. Also since there is no accessory sprue in the kits anymore...

A little shot from a different angle.

From the rear, you can clearly see the 303rd squad number on it! Also shows how dull is a Chimera without the stowage...

And a closeup on the tank commander. I actually really like the new version of him, looks good!

But the Chimera isn't the only thing, there's also an additional Leman Russ in its most basic variant!

I did have some leftover accessories so I could spice him up a little. Also I have to say I really like the new LRBT design. Even though it isn't much different the turret just feels better.

A shot on the rear

And a little closeup on the turret.

All in all I am quite pleased with those. Although it seems that the humble LRBT isn't as efficient as it used to be and I am only noticing it now. Even though it kills Marines quite nicely it just doesn't have the "oomph" other HS choices have. Oh well, I still do have two and will field them from time to time. Maybe if I get to do the Armored Company I was thinking of...

Man of Iron

2011-10-09T11:25:00.000+02:00

Another miniature that has waited for its turn for years now. My first ever special character. Someone very special in the regiment itself! I give you Lieutenant Colonel Mordechai Emmet, CO of the 42nd Cadian 3rd Company!

It all started with the Cadian Battleforce which came out with the new codex. There was a second officer and at first he was to be utilised with a second command squad with meltaguns, but I scratched that project after a while and used the melta guns for the 303rd Vet Squad instead. And then an idea occured to me. What if I made Straken out of him? There are bionic parts in there...

Of course, there's more.

No wait. It all started with the 4th ed. codex, where Emmet was a Vet. Sgt. of one of the plasma-bomb squads. Do you remember? But Emmet has long since moved on. I am planning a background piece on all important 42nd characters. One is almost finished. If you really want to check it out, there's a draft (or rather drafts) which I posted on Warseer. I will be posting it here soonish.

So I continued with the project and made him "special". I added the banner to the base mostly because I love banners. And it makes him stand out really well. Bionics were added to his face to complement the hand. Shotgun and such to make him match Straken's wargear.

A detail shot to show his hand. I hadn't modified it much, I really like the way it looks unmodified. Power Weapon to represent the fact that his attacks ignore armour saves, bionics giving him S6.

During the painting however I didn't really like the face when I finished it. Honestly, I think I just painted it poorly. It was the originial commander head from the Command Squad box. And then I found the old metal Emmet and an idea struck me... A few minutes later Emmet had his own face back!

All he needed now was some attentind staff. Mostly I think I'll field him with the main command squad, that is the Regimental Command. But in case I would want to field both commanders at once (An Apoc game, or an all-infantry list I am working on now) I scrapped together a squad for him!

If you've been reading this blog for a while you've seen all those plasma gunners. They have been taken away from the old squads that do not use them anymore. The 1st Platoon Command, and two squads of the 1st Platoon, that will now be equipped with only a Lascannon - part of my small restructurization of the infantry. The photo has a wierd effect on it, not sure what caused it, but as I said, there's nothing new on it.

And that's it, hope you've enjoyed it, more coming soon! I'm painting on!

Lots of plasma death

2011-10-06T23:56:00.000+02:00

Another addition, painted for the tournament. What I reckon is more or less, the best Leman Russ variant there is with today's metagame.

Leman Russ Execturioner, is what you've probably reckoned what I'm talking about. A great tank, both in rules and in looks, I love the plasma cannon!

But since the new Leman Russes lack the accessory sprue and I have a few Russes already, I had to do something with this one. So a little conversion was made...

All in all I am pleased in how it turned out although I do miss the extra stowage and the track guards that the accessory sprue provided.

And here's the little conversion, a female tank commander! She turned out quite okay I think, although in the greater scale of things it's quite an unnoticable details. I did have to sculpt... some.. parts.. considering the tank commander has no armour..

A little closeups on the plasma sponson.

And the main cannon. The OSL isn't perfect, seems I've done better 4 years ago, oops.

Anyway, the tank is really good and is definitely worth fielding, especially when there's an abundance of power armors running around. I've tested it with good results and it's also pretty much the only Leman Russ found in competetive Guard lists around here. It's also great fun to use, throwing 5 plasma cannon shots and looking the enemies burn is always fun! Go get one, if you play Guard!

Obey without question!

2011-10-04T15:28:00.000+02:00

Here comes the first part of promised Guard content! Starting off with a not-quite-nice gentleman.

Lieutenant-Comissar Agnus Espian is an attachment to the 2nd Platoon in times of need, when the guardsmen of the 32- need that little extra morale boost.

Of course there are more pictures.

Agnus is converted from my favourite Comissar model - the guy with the power fist. Unfortunately, since Infantry Squad Comissars cannot equip fists, I had to alter him a little bit.

I'm quite pleased with the result, it was a simple arm swap that required some metal polishing on the back, to remove the power generator he carried there.

A little closeup on his breastplate and belt:

And on the Imperial Infantryman's Uplifting Primer he is reading from.

Also, the Comissar only joins the 2nd when I intend to use them as a power weapon blob, so the sergeants needed some new equipment sent their way.

Yay for first power weapons in the Guard! They're magnetised of course, so I can swap them with chainswords they usually carry. I will most likely end up doing a 4th power weapon for the 324 squad, but those were made with a tournament deadline in mind and I only fielded 3 squads there.

From a gaming perspective this squad is actually quite damn powerful, even without Straken (with him it turns into quite a killing machine). On the tournament they managed to chop up a Grey Hunter squad with Njal (the bugger survived though, long enough for more Grey Hunters to pour into the combat), 10 Eldar Harlequins that assaulted them and a squad of 8 Khorne Berserkers. It sure was a lot of fun to roll those dice and chop up such killy things in close combat as IG!

And that's it for today,s tay tuned for more! Also you might have noticed a new panel on the right. More on this soon as well!

Quiet before the storm

2011-09-24T18:06:00.000+02:00

May the quietness on this blog not decieve you! I am actually not posting much because I am painting quite a bit!

More, I have actually decided to go back to the roots a little... The IG is actually getting reinforcements! My love for the Guard hsa been reinvigorated recently and I have a ton of new ideas, although I probably do not have money for all of them... For now I am slowly moving onward! Dark Eldar have been put to a hold for now (also I pretty much got all the models I want...), mostly because I needed to paint some stuff to field on a tournament next week. But once I started putting paint on the last unpainted guardsmen I got a sudden nostalgia attack and now I'm planning new expansions that will allow me to play the 42nd in a different fashion...

Unfortunately I have misplaced my camera somewhere again, so I cannot take pictures just yet. But I will, as soon as I can! Meanwhile I am also finally writing down the 42nd background, which I was meant to do ages ago and which has forever sat in my head. Do you know how much fun is coming up with about 100 names for various regimental commanders? Thank god for the 40k RPG books with name lists...

Other than painting I have been busy playing Space Marine. Emperor, that game is good. In case you play it in multiplayer, my nick there is, unsurprisingly, Haljin. Maybe I'll get a chance to shoot some of you with a melta gun in the face!

Also I found some Space Wolf conversions that make me want to rip my Wolf Guard to pieces and do them again. Damnit.

See you soon!

Almost into the Realspace

2011-08-29T11:09:00.001+02:00

I finally managed to sit down and pick up the brush. Yaay. Here are the first test models for the Dark Eldar.

Starting with a humble Kabalite.

As usual, more shots.

I like how he turned out, was fun to paint something purple for a change. I am not entirely sold on the colors of the base however. Mostly because I need to buy new Catachan Green, mine is just very very very old.

And a WIP Raider. Okay, I suck at edge highlighing since I haven't painted in a looong while. Hopefully it will get better. It looks good from a distance though so it's not that bad!

And that's it for now, back to the Raider!

Too many projects at once syndrome!

2011-08-28T11:09:00.000+02:00

Damn you, Black Library, damn you!

Let's see if you can figure what's that going to be!

The Dark Mastermind

2011-07-31T12:34:00.000+02:00

More evil space elves! This time, the guy behind it all, the Archon - Ecthos, I called him.

I really liked the original metal model for the Archon, but I decided it needs at least a little bit personification. And I'd rather have him have different wargear. Thus, a little (Not too complex though. I hate Dark Eldar for that, I really want to do some heavily converted army but the original models are just so awesome I can't think of a way to improve them..) conversion work and here we go!

To add some more awesomness to the most important Eldar around, I put him on a much more elaborate base.

There are of course more shots.

He is equipped with an Agonizer, Splinter Pistol, Phantasm Grenade Launcher (although I probably should've magnetised that in case he doesn't go with Incubi as previously planned) and a Shadow Field. I wonder if I could do some fancy painting trick to represent the last one.

I used the pike from the Raider to add something in the background, so that the base isn't as flat. Then I though it would look much better if I sculpted some foliage on it, in line with that on the ground.

Originally I intended for the entire model to be magnetised, but those arms are small. Almost impossible. Unfortunately I almost ruined the entire model drilling the hole for the Agoniser arm, thus it is there to stuf. Splinter Pistol can be exchanged, for something else just in case.

And a little closeup on the skulls for the thro.. er, nevermind

Anyway, I have been readng Horus Heresy again. And I feel a huge craving to do another Marine army, curse you GW! But since there's still some Wolves left to paint, hopefuly I'll sate that Marine-hunger. Although Pre-Heresy Thousand Sons would be quite awesome, perhaps one day...

Introducing the Kabal of Last Hatred

2011-07-17T12:10:00.001+02:00

The moment I saw them I knew they had to be mine. Even though the Emperor resides firmly in my heart I broke. The first Xenos in my hands. But how many of us failed to resist those excellent models? Introducing... the Kabal of Last Hatred.

The Kabal has a pretty strong theme of necromancy going, although I am unsure how best to represent it. I would've done some conversions but.. the models are so exccelt without any modifications I find it hard to do. But the Kabal has a nice backstory I could expand on, while it also has my favourite paint style for the DE - purple! Some painting methods will be applied to reinforce the tone and I had a funny idea for the Beasts... Of course Wracks are perfect opportunity for those as well, but again, I love those models. Damnit.

Anyway, enough idle talk, the Kabalites!

Want more? There is more!

The Kabalites are armed with a Blater and a Splinter Cannon. Probably the best loadout they could have. I tried Dark Lance equipped ones in some battles and they failed miserably. Blaster and SC give them mobility which the DE are all about. Of course they should probably ride around in Raiders which unfortunately I did not have enough of at that point.

Anyway, the models are just models, you've probably seen hundreds of unpainted DE on the internet. Let's look at more interesting points, the bases for instance.

I got inspired by resin bases I found on the internet. I actually planned to fit this army on some, from MicroArt, but none really fit the army as I imagined it. I found bases elsewhere but then I though I need not pay so much, I can do it myself! With careful application of a compass (Seriously, that's an english name for that tool? Really?) I scratched into the surface of epoxide mass and made patterns and runes. I added some skulls (I bought 80 skulls for around 3 pounds, nothing like recieving a letter full of skulls!), some green stuff leaves, and soil, an idea I've taken from MASSIVE VOODOO. I love those bases, but making them is so time consuming..

And the Sybarite. I thought he deserved something more than just the fancy... back.. pole.. thing. So a small conversion. Alas, poor Yorick!

And another squad. I only have two for the moment. I should have three, but I really spent way too much money on those thus far...

You can see metal things in the back. More on those in future post!

Here is the other Subarite. Also slightly converted.

A sample squad of Wyches. Great models, awesome dynamism, horribly fragile weapons... The entire army is actually quite hard to transport, without suffering losses. Even before the battle! Especially the Raiders with various hanging parts...

Now a couple of more interesting closeups.

A skull. Those are made out of gypsum, by the way.

Plant! Making them is actually fun, I though it would be more tedious, but it's fast and easy. It's attaching them to the base that annoys me to no end, as they don't want to stick nicely sometimes...

I like the pose of that guy, although I think I took that picture (it was a while ago), to show the circular pattern on the tile...

So sample miniatures again.

And the Hekatrix. I swapped the Agonizers around a little so each has a different!

And since this post has been started long ago, but I never wrote the content, a lot changed since then, and this is the chart of the army as it is now. It grew quite huge, clocking at around 2500 points now. As I said, spent way more money on it in a short period of time, that I should have since now I have a lot to paint... Reminds me of when I was starting the Guard...

Anyway I hope you liked those. I will be showing more interesting parts from time to time, but the painted models are still a while off. I only have a few models left to paint for the Wolves and I thought I'll finish those first.

Like A Rain From the Sky

2011-07-16T11:41:00.001+02:00

This time, I think my favourite vehicle in my army, aside from the Land Speeders. The humble Drop Pod.

It was really great fun to paint I actually like the overall effect. It's been painted with the most "battle damage" of all my models I think.

I have used various methods to paint these, washes, drybrushing dark color (such as Chaos Black) and more washes. You can see the effect in closeups.

You can see I used carious different washes on the metal surfaces. Normally it is not a good idea to apply washes to a large flat area as you could get a blotchy result, but since it is a Drop Pod that enters via atmosphere it actually looks good!

I drybrushed the lower part of the hull with Chaos Black trying to make burnt smudges left by the atmosphere entry. I also washed the lower metal part a lot.

The stripes on the doors were painted using Ron's great tutorial, alas I could not find a link right now. But everyone knows where to look, don't you?

The interior itself was great fun to paint as well. You probably cannot see it, but I painted the cables using thin lines of grey to represent the reflection of the light, taken from White Dwarf's Spave Wolves tutorial.

I like painting screens, can you tell? Those display status of each individual Marine mounted in the harnesses, while the top shows the angle of descent.

And that's it. It's also a break from the Space Wolves. Expect something... new, soon!

Also I wanted to start by apologizing for not posting in a while, but the I read this and reconsidered! :D

Fast and Furious

2011-06-21T18:36:00.000+02:00

Yay, finally time to post some content, it's only half a year old!

Back to the Space Wolves, one of the last things I haven't shown yet, the Land Speeders! I think they're my favourite Space Marine vehicles and I really like fielding them instead of Long Fangs.

Obviously there are closeups.

I did some minor converting, as you can see here on the Heavy Bolter and the knife scabard.

I really like how they turned out, they're one of my favourite models in the army.

This one has slight conversions as well. There's a tiny wolf pelt on the other side as well!

And from the back.

And a little closeup on the controls, a little blurry unfortunately.

Hope you liked them, there's one more Space Wolves post coming up and then... Darkness comes!

My time in Denmark is also coming to and end, and at home over 2000 points of fresh, still packed Dark Eldar await! I can't wait to start working on them, I will most likely post some details soon!

Also I have bought my first Finecast - the new Haemonculus, just to be sure I get an undamaged model. Overall I really like the quality of it, will post more for sure when I get to working on it.

A bigger something

2011-06-17T13:36:00.000+02:00

After a week of really hard work...

It's not perfect, far from it. But it was hell of a lot fun making (when we weren't dead tired), and quite decent for a first movie ever made!

A little something

2011-06-04T21:52:00.000+02:00

Haven't had time to even post what I have already waiting to be posted, since I first had exams on my head and now.. Something I wanted to share!

Here is a little something that I'm working for a course in Computer Animation and Modelling.

Looking familiar?

Silent Wolves

2011-05-20T14:39:00.001+02:00

So a break from the exams and some time to actually post some content, woo! This time, something that has been done for quite a while and a break from boring Power Armor - the Wolf Scouts!

While usually they're fielded in squads of 5, just with a Melta and a Mark of the Wulfen, but a full squad is ready, just in case!

Unfortunately they're more or less a suicude squad that can take off a critical target, but then is likely to get killed by anything. But the models are quite awesome, so I still like fielding them! There's closeups of course!

The first three, regular chaps, I like the post of the one on the right.

I really enjoyed painting those models, sort of a crossbreed between painting IG and regular PA Wolves.

Next three, with Mark of the Wulfen model in the middle. Also, notice the base of the model on the right. I was planning to make it partly a mountain stream, but I still haven't found a good way to make water on the base, that would look good.

I decided to give him a chainsword to make him stand out, although the regular Scout chainsword was horrible.. So he got a regular one. Not too stealthy, I guess, but once in combat it doesn't matter much...

A Melta gunner and the plasma pistol on the right. Plasma pistol still hasn't seen the field of battle as it's quite an overpriced option, but I like the looks of it a lot!

Besides in a 10-man squad it could come in handy, since Scouts have only one special weapon per squad, no matter the size.

And the last model, armed with a Power Weapon, although not a pack leader, since Scouts are all highly individualistic.

There is a Power Fist/COmbi-Melta Wolf Guard that joins them from time to time, to add some additional firepower.

And that's it, hope you like them! Also, I just got another package full od DE stuff and I'm going to pre-order the new goodies as well, meaning DE will soon be very done and painting will begin!

Even In Death I Still Serve

2011-05-02T20:47:00.000+02:00

Moving on with the vehicle motiff, another heavily armored thing - Brother Vali One-Arm, the veteran of countless battles!

This started out as an AoBR dreadnaught that I did quite some conversion work to add wolfy details and make it look like a proper Space Wolves Dreadnaught!

He is armed with the Multi-Melta the AoBR came with default, although I decided to swap the Storm Bolter out for a Heavy Flamer instead!

Two sides of the Dread.

As you can see I added Storm Shield some wolf tails and such. Notice the small detail above the MM arm.

Detail shot of the Heavy Flamer, made frm the IG flamer and some wire. I think it turned out really nice.

A tabard and lower part of the body, as well as the base.

Unfortunately the Dreadnaughts aren't really a highlight of the Space Wolves codex and Vali hasn't actually seen a single battle, since interred in the Dread. It's partly the loadout he has, since such a short range Dread is mostly suited to walk towards the enemy, something that Dreads don't really do that well. I am planning however on maybe getting the Venerable one from ForgeWorld at some point though...

And that' it, hope you enjoyed it!

'eavy Armor

2011-04-26T22:28:00.000+02:00

Last post from my own comfy chair in Poland. Tomorrow a 12+ hour car trip ahead of me, hooray! But I have taken plenty of pictures to last for at least the next full month of content, woo! This time, some heavy armour!

Fun fact. The rear part of the turret is magnetised, in case I'd ever want th ebattery that goes with the Lascannons, but it apparently tilted a little (The magnet is a little too weak with all that plastic inbetween) and I haven't noticed, and I can't really take new shots. Ooops!

Of course there's more!

As I mentioned, oops! The back hatch is openable and it's actually the inside wall of the Rhino stuck right there. It isn't painted though, and is quite pointless anyway, so I didn't really take a picture.

Another tilted thing, the damned sponsons! One actually snapped on me, due to carelessly applied glue. It was a real pain to reattach! Still, seems 3 mm diameter magnets aren't that tough, but the bigger ones won't fit. Oh well. If you tilt them up they stay that way till you bump the tank, so it's okay

I tried to Wolf-ify the tank somewhat hence the tails, tails everywhere. And of course the runic inscriptions.

And some runic plates, just like the Land Raider.

And that's it. As I'm writing it I realised that I didn't take a closeup of the tank commander. Sorry! Still, I hope you liked it.

I think it looks pretty decent, too bad it doesn't see battle often. The Predators are really handicapped in this edition with all the defensive weapons nonsense. This loadout seems to be the best for the price, but it's still mostly a pillbox. But still, I liked the model so I took it. Also I'm not a fan of 3x5 ML Long Fangs... Although maybe the Vindicator would have been a better choice. I guess I'll have to have both!

And now, time to mentally prepare for a long trip. See you in 1200 kilometers!

Lightning From the Sky

2011-04-22T08:48:00.001+02:00

And here... we... go..! Starting off a new hundred of posts with another Rune Priest. This one is a fully custom conversion, made from spare Wolf Pack parts and some green stuff to boot.

His name is Radulf Wisewolf and he usually runs around with Living Lightning and Jaws of the World Wolf. He also lost an eye. Somewhere.

That's not all, obviously!

As you can see his second shoulder pad clearly bears the mark of the Great Wolf's company, to which all the Priesthood belongs and is only assigned to companies as needed.

The weapon he carries is the original metal Rune Priest weapon. Since the previous one got a little weapon swap, I thought it'd be nice to actually use this one anyway. It also helps him stand out a little.

The other thing, to make him stand out in the squads was to use nmm all over, as with all the other HQ/Elites. Since the model is made out of regular Wolf Pack bits it had to have something!

Here you have a closeup on the face, and the sculpted runic shoulder pad! You might also notice.. I have no idea what exactly it is, other than it is a part of the Psychic Hood, the metal Rune Priest has.

And the weapon, with the "glow" effect. It isn't as good as some out there, but I think it looks quite okay, since I did want a very faint effect.

And lastly, his Chooser of the Slain, which I would show more of except that... I only got him recently. Yep, a cheap idea, I will use one of the DE Razorwings. I cut off some of those shard claw parts and will paint him as a raven.

And that's it for today, thanks for reading!

The Great Summary

2011-04-19T17:27:00.000+02:00

Here we are, the second part of the 100-post, that I promised a while back. Photos of everything. Unfortunately I didn't have much time, to take the armies out and arrange them in some awesome back ground like Karitas did for example, still better than nothing, huh?

The 42nd Cadian and Sven Bloodhowl's Great Company occupy five shelves in total, leaving little place for anything else... And even for those I had to buy more shelves. Oh well, at least Space Wolves are quite compact and even if I add some more they shouldn't exceed their space... Hopefully...

Of course there's closeups!

Going from the bottom to the top! If you follow my blog you might notice there's some things I haven't shown before, well, they are coming, pretty soon as well!

Turns out I left the charger for the camera batteries in Denmark... Go me! Still, I managed to take a lot of pictures before they died, so there's plenty of updates coming in the next few weeks!

As you can see, the heavy stuff occupies the lower shelf. The upper isn't that much crammed, there's room for some Blood Claws *cough*.

The unfinished terminators in the foreground. The next thing to be done, whenever I get a chance to pick up the brush again!

Now the Guard, the not-so-vast-but-still-decent machine park of the 42nd. First Fast Attack then Heavy Support.

Damn those Valks sure take up a lot of space, don't they? Apologies for plastic attack! Those tanks are on schedule right after the last Wolves minis.

The Elite section. Or rather, Psykers with Veterans, who aren't elite anymore, but I don't really have many more Elites, and they used to be so...

All units in front of their respective Chimeras, or well, more or less.

Lastly the mass of infantry, with the new snipers in the front, who still cry out for some paint.

The platoons, which can't really be seen from that angle... Ooops.

And uh. That's it, looks like I ran out of minis. The ones on the top shelf are some single leftovers, like a single Cadian Sergeant left from the previous codex or a converted SoB Canoness I used to field in the past as well. They will get their time at some point though, I think.

I apologise for the quality of some shots, as I said above I can't really re-take them right now. Perhaps once I'm fully back I'll do some other army shots that will be more impressive..

Anyway, it also seems that the Dark Eldar have no space on the shelves... I guess some books will have to migrate and make room for more plastic crack. Soon I won't have room for anything in my room anymore, they're everywhere already anyway.

Looking forward to your opinions! And I hope you, on the other hand, look forward to the content coming up soon!

Moving on with the times

2011-04-07T16:53:00.000+02:00

What is that? Facebook widgets appeared all over the blog, gasp!

Since I moved to Denmark I had to actually make a Facebook account to keep in touch with people, and as such I though it might be an idea to introduce Facebook widgets onto the blog. I suppose every blog has to expand in some way, who knows what's next! For now it's the widgets, although I'm considering making a Facebook page for the 42nd and linking it together in some way, perhaps post smaller things on there, but... Is there a point to it? I suppose we already have Google Followers and such additional stuff is not really neccessary, but I'm interested to hear what do you think about it!

A new century of posts

2011-04-05T16:17:00.000+02:00

Yay, a hundred posts. Finally. This took way longer than it should have, but I'm finally there! There's a few changes coming to the blog, but nothing major. I was planning to take some nice group shots of all my armies, unfortunately, since I'm still not home, it's going to be delayed a little. But it will eventually come!

I guess the only thing I can do for now is show you the fancy army lists and talk about my plans. Hooray!

Starting off with the classic - the 42nd itself.

As you can see there's still a lot of Guard stuff I want to add and still a lot of unfinished new stuff, including the female sniper squad I've done a while earlier. Those will be dealt with as soon as I'm done with the Wolves (since those have the least unpainted models).

I'm planning to add a lot of vehicles as you can see and another platoon... Although that one isn't 100% sure since it's a lot of painting again. Probably going to finish off other things before that. The entire thing is about 4255 points. And that's a lot of stuff, geez! What I currently own alots to measly 3585, which compared to most of Guard armies I've seen out there is nothing. Oh well!

Next up are the Space Wolves of the Sven Bloodhowl's Great Company.

As you can see nearly everything I own is painted. A handful of things I'd like to eventually add, although none of these are a high priority for me (The Blood Claws are the most likely to come in the near future). The Battle Leader is only awaiting final assembly, because I'm still lacking a 60 mm base to put him one. The other things are just fancy options I wouldn't mind having at some point. This clocks at 4496 points of which I own 3856. More than the Guard, that's embarassing.

And finally the Dark Eldar.

Lots and lots of white here. There's a purchase for them imminent after which they should be nicely playable at low points. But there's still loads of things I'd like to do with them. 1160 out of 4173 here.

And that's about it. What to expect in the future? First of all I'm going home next week and I'll probably get an army with me, so you can expect some battle reports, also maybe some painting progress (although I might not have time for that as well as gaming, for a while, since exams are approaching). There's definitely going to be some tutorials upcoming for a couple of things. Some Dark Eldar conversions that I have in mind and such. Also I'm planning to do some shots of the store here and GW store in Copenhagen, at least for my polish readers to see. I hope you stay with me!

The Lonely Howl

2011-04-02T10:00:00.003+02:00

One more thing that was stuck on my camera. Probably one of the best models in my army. The Lone Wolf.

He used to be a proud Grey Hunter. Until that day. He used to have a name. Until that day. He had companions, brothers that relied on him. Until that day.

Now he calls himself Einarr (which roughly translates to "lone"). He seeks but one thing. Glorious death, in the name of his brothers.

As always, there's more.

Armed with a Chainfist and a Storm Shield this guy is pretty annoying to any opponent. You cannot ignore him, since the Chainfist can deal quite a lot of damage, especially to your vehicles, and the if you shoot him, you can waste a lot of firepower due to his quite high survivability.

He did some quite amazing feats, like holding 20 orks in combat long enough for the rest of the army to get into proper position to whoop them.

Here's a closeup on his face. Notice the tattoo is red, like the Wulfen in the squads.

Also it seems he isn't just avenging his Space Wolf brothers. Sees like some other Marines didn't do quite well here...

And the shield detail.

I hope you guys liked him at least half as much as I loved painting him! It was certainly one of the most fun models to do, but probabl mostly because I love Terminators.

And that's it, until I get my army! Don't be shy to leave me a comment.

The Longbeards

2011-03-28T14:17:00.000+02:00

Look what I found on my camera's memory card! Looks like I took some pictures back home with an intent of posting them, and I kinda forgot. Ooops! But nothing is lost!

So here I got some pictured of my two Long Fangs squads. Hope you enjoy them!

The first one, lead by Bjorg Longarm.

And the second, by Gudleifr Alienbane.

Of course there's more if you just click below.

So first of all, we have closeups Bjorg, a grizzled veteran of a thousand battles.

I gave him a modified Devastator backpack. While Space Wolves rely on their senses mostly, a little help does not hurt, something Bjorg has learned over all the years!

The next three chaps with Missile Launchers. As you can see each is slightly different. They're a combination of Tactical Squad ML, Devastator one, and the one from AoBR.

And from the back! Notice how all of them have grey hair, fitting for such old veterans!

The last ML chap and a single one with a Multi-Melta. Sadly, he doesn't find as much use, however the weapon was so awesome I had to use it!

And from the back!

The second squad leader - Gudleifr Alienbane. Once upon a time he has served in Deathwatch for quite a prolonged time and keeps a few keepsakes from that time, which he recalls with fondness. Firstly - his name of course. The second thing is his black helmet. And the third - the litanies and the =I= signs on his shoulderpads.

He now uses his experience to guide his fellow Wolves.

Lascannons! First made just because they're awesome, but turned out to be really useful on the battlefield, even though an expensive option.

How is that not badass!

And the final three. More cheap Missile Launchers and a single Plasma Cannon.

The Cannon is pretty much same as the Multi-Melta. However notice that he has no squad markings on his shoulder. That's because in the future I might make a third squad that uses Plasma Cannons more extensively which will make a tad more sense than such mixed squad. But not anytime soon!

Aaand that's it. I have one more update coming up and then it'll have to wait till I get my army with me again.

By the way I would still appreciate help with the Dark Eldar!

A Call to Arm... Names

2011-03-25T23:22:00.000+01:00

Sooo, I have a problem. I can't think of any catchy names that I could apply to my Dark Eldar.

Therefore, I need your help! If you have any awesome DE names for:

A Kabal
A Wych Cult
A Haemonculi Coven
An Incubi Shrine
An Archon
A couple of Haemonculi

Don't be shy and leave a comment. So far I managed to come with Kabal of the Withered Skull. And that's about it. Also, I seem to recall that White Dwarf featured some nicely purple-painted Kabal. If anyone has a name and some background on it, I'd be really grateful!

By the way, I've went to a local store here and it's awesome. I got to see the new Grey Knight terminators and now I have a really strong urge to build a small Terminator-oriented force. We'll see. There's still like 400 pounds to be spent on finishing the current 3 armies...

Oh and I bought a blister of Razorwings. Just because. Also, one will make an excellent Chooser of the Slain.!

Dum di dum

2011-03-21T08:52:00.000+01:00

Hey guys, remember me still?

Yep, it's been a long long time with no updates. There's reasons for that though! I'm spending a semester abroad, to be more precise, in Denmark. And unfortunately there was no way to pack any of my stuff onto the plane. I was just too scared of having a pile of bits instead of an army at the end. Thus, I had nothing to write about.

Hopefuly that is going to change soon, when I go back home for Easter, I might pick up at least some unfinished stuff. That means mostly Dark Eldar, yay. Remember the fancy sheets, I so blatantly stole from Admiral Drax? Here's one for the DE.

As you can see, my plans are quite big. It adds up to some 4k points of stuff. And lots of money, hooray. Also, it's still a very rough concept, didn't even have time to come up with good names for stuff! If you have any suggestions, feel free to throw them my way! The models are... "assembled" in fact. Not really finished either. The army still need a lot of work, but first I'll have to finish those 6-7 models for the Space Wolves that are left.

Still waiting for the new models which are supposed to come out soon, that's going to be a lot money spent soon... And now I actually have to buy my food, the horror.

That's not all though!

So, the Grey Knights came out. Awesome, awesome models, like always. The Dreadknight is a tad on the lame-side, but oh well. Perhaps.. Perhaps I could start a army of those at some point. I like a idea of all Terminator force that you could possibly make out of that codex. I love terminators and those are the most badass there are! But that's after I finish up everything else. And then the SoB codex will probably come out and I'll fail all my Willpower tests against buying a lot of them!

At least my cousin has a GK army, which he will now expand, so I'll be able to hold them in my hands and play a few games with them as well!

Anyway I guess commenting on stuff that's happening is all that I'm going to do for a while. So, see you soon (hopefully)!

The Heavier Heavy Support

2010-10-10T10:13:00.002+02:00

The vehicle park of my Great Company is getting quite close to completion. This time, a model I always wanted to have - a Land Raider where my freehand attempts strike again.

And the look half-decent. I should probably practice something more complex though. It might come in hand in the future (though not the DE I mentioned...)...

As you can see, I added quite a few elements in an attempt to Wolf-ify it a bit. Storm Shields, random wolfish elements, tails and such.

The top that shows yet another freehand, that is probably a little funny. Oh well, I can't draw too well. You can also see runic plates I added, inspired by the vehicles in the codex (Mine are a bit more uneven though!)

A shot at the interior. It actually looks good in that picture. The interior... didn't really turn out as I had hoped and for the first time I was glad it can't be seen too well... But as you see, I added a couple of things on the inside as well.

And that's it for the Land Raider. It could still use some weathering powder, I'll get to it eventually, probably in a batch with other vehicles. It's quite a dirty work, the powder ends up everywhere in the end, so I prefer to use it as seldom as I can.

Also that's what's on the painting table as I'm writing these words.

And on a closing note, both armies painting charts (as of 6.10). The IG one grew a bit... It also includes a Leman Russ I won in a combat patrol league recently. Yaay.

I Hate Right Hands - The Work Done - Squad 303

2010-10-08T10:09:00.001+02:00

Yes, finally the 303rd. They sat on the shelf comfortably for a while now, so it's about time to show my last veteran squad.

A word of warning. I have applied matt varnish to them, as I have done with all the Guard minis... Except this time it didn't want to be matt. After two coats, I gave up. Funnily enough, I varnished the metal Rune Priest with the same varnish and there was no gloss at all.

These are... slightly glossy. I was quite annoyed, but thankfuly it doesn't show that much.

They still look quite good I guess and I would be really happy with them if not that accident. Especially since they were the first Guardsmen I painted since quite a while... But enough me ranting, pictures!

Three standard poses. I really ran out of original ideas after two squads. Since they looked slightly bland with just rebreathers (and shotguns) as their main unique points, I decided to add a couple of litanies, 302nd style.

Run-by-shotgun-in-the-face, Mr. Sir I Have A Tactical Map For you and Charge'em! men.

And another three. Glasses with rebreathers look awesome. And I could use the standard sergeant head again and it isn't so obvious, thanks to the reabreather! Only in the middle I noticed the ammo case contains lasgun batteries and they've got shotguns. Oops. So I had to paint it differently.

Finally the sarge himself. A tough guy, with a little aristocratic look in him. He needs no pansy rebreather. Or a helm, for that matter.

So, what do you think? This is the last veteran squad I'll ever be making, so it's more-or-less the official end of the long-standing IHRH series. Wow, it took a while!

And a little something, that doesn't warrant it's own post. 302nd's new Chimera

Those new Chimeras are nice, but there's like, nowhere to put stowage on. I guess it's good, since I'm running low on the remnants of the old Accessory Sprues...

Woof woof! cough I mean, For the Allfather!

2010-10-06T10:08:00.001+02:00

After much delaying, Sven Bloodhowl, the Wolf Lord of my Great Company is finally done! I considered the Snipers I've shown you a while ago my best conversion work probably. Now, what I think is the best paint job I've done so far.

It still does have its errors and I'm aware of them. It could've been way better. But overally I'mr eally pleased how he turned out, check it yourself!

Here he is, sitting atop his monstrous Thunderwolf and surrounded by some Fenrisian Wolves so he doesn't feel too lonely (and doesn't go down because of stray bullets).

The fur on all the doggies was painted using Master Darksol's excellent tutorial.

A dirty, worn cape. I was considering adding more weathering to the model, including blood stains on the fur, but I'm afraid I might ruin it. Doesn't mean I won't add them in the future though.

Also, once I painted the cloak I came up with a waaay cooler idea to paint it. Perhaps I will use it on his Terminator Armor version. The codex says, that Sven tattooed his extensive saga, but he ran out of space on his skin, so he takes those of his enemies. I thought it would be awesome, if he also used every scrap of place possible, including writing the saga on his cloak and armour.

And a couple of closeups, on Sven's face, which also shows the runes on his armour, that are supposed to denote it's Runic Armour. They aren't perfect, they're more or less patching up of even worse work underneath (I thought red/orange would look better. I was wrong), but I managed to make them look acceptable I think.

His chest armor.

The doggie's.. snout.

And the other, cybernetically enhanced, side. I just love this sculpt. Having painted it, I decided these are the best Thunderwolves ever and no other sold anywhere else match those. I'm going to buy at least one more to make a second TW character (A Battle Leader, though probably fielded on Lord's rules). And maybe I will be tempted into making a unit of cavalry some time in the future...

I lack one thing however. A name for the mount. I need something Nordic and menacing sounding, but nothing to obvious. If you have any suggestions, I'd love to hear them out!

But that's not all! A little more shots of lesser dogs. On the left, one of two hamsterdogs. They have metal heads that I got with them, and of which origin I have completely no idea. They look a bit funny though.

I like the base of the left one here.

You will notice I did quite a bit of reposing with those. They were really bland originally.

And the Cyberwolf on the left!

Now it's done.

I seem to have some kind of painting fever, after I have seen the pictures of Dark Eldar. I decided it's probably time to move slightly away from the Emperor's light and collect some xenos. Yep, I'm going to be starting a DE army. Not straight away after they're released however, I still need to get a few things for the Guard first!

As for the fever - I cannot buy a new army that awesome, while still having unpainted stuff! As of now, I'm done with majority of the Wolves. I have scheduled a couple of posts now, containing a few updates, so stay tuned!

Hand of Iron

2010-09-29T11:00:00.001+02:00

Here he is, the WIP Commander of the 3rd Company, Lieutenant Colonel Mordechai Emmet, who is my count-as Straken.

He is quite finished, but I think he is still lacking something, but I have no idea what else could I do. Perhaps you could help me, dear readers?

Emmet has quite a backstory to him, which I think I'll share once he is painted up. For now I'll say he used to be a mere Veteran Sergeant, but won his way into the wearing the officer cap through his deeds and "friendship" with (then) General Havelock Hals.

A battlefield experience has left him scarred for life, but due to his skills, commitment and service record he was deemed well worthy of recieving extensive bionics, which allow him to continue his duty to the Emperor.

Thanks to this twist, I was able to give him all the wargear he used when I still fielded him as a Vet Sergeant, back in the 4th Ed. - a Power Weapon and a Plasma Pistol - which also match Straken's loadout!

The Standard behind him is supposed to make him stand out on the battlefield, considering he is a Special Character. Besides, I was itching to use that standard for a while.

But he still looks somewhat generic. And I'm all dry on ideas. If you have something on your mind, say it!

Arena 2010

2010-09-28T12:55:00.001+02:00

And so one of the biggest tournaments in Poland came to an end. 2 days, 5 battles, 70 players, 2100 points and a bucket of fun! Warning - picture heavy post!

Games result - 41th out of 70 people. I guess not bad, although it could've went way better. Unfortunately, I know exactly what I should've done for all this to end better. First, my list:

HQ: Company Command Squad - Std, 3xMelta 95
Chimera - ML, HF 55

Elites: Psyker Battle Squad(9) 100
Chimera - ML, HF 55

Troops: Veteran Squad - 3xplasma 115
Chimera - ML, HF 55
Troops: Veteran Squad - 3xmelta 100
Chimera - ML, HF 55
Troops: Veteran Squad - 3xmelta, shotguns 100
Chimera - ML, HF 55
Troops: Platoon Command Squad - 4xFlamer 50
Infantry Squad - GL, AC 65
Infantry Squad - GL, AC 65
Infantry Squad - GL, AC 65
Infantry Squad - GL, AC 65
Special Weapon Squad - Flamer, 2xDemo 80

Fast Atck: Vendetta 130
Fast Atck: Vendetta 130

Hvy Sup: Leman Russ Battle Tank(2) 300
Hvy Sup: Leman Russ Demolisher - Plasma Cannons 205
Hvy Sup: Manticore 160

First of all shooty Blood Angels suck. They really do. Especially if they begin or worse - sieze the initiative. Manticores popping before they get to fire aren't good at all. Still, most of my firepower works on close ranges and shooty BAs don't have to drive towards me, while I can't really drive towards them, ugh. Also reserves - two times my BA opponents hid their entire armies and nearly everything came out on turn 2, thanks to some lucky rolling. I'm never leaving home without an Officer of the Fleet again.

Oh, the only issue I had - 4 times I played against SMs (vanilla and 3xBA) and once against Daemonhunters, which really are like SMs anyway. Hooray!

On the bright side - squadroned Leman Russes aren't really that fragile as I thought. AV14 works well to scare shooting away from them and a platoon-bumper helps keep assaulters at bay. I'll be sure to consider them in the future. Meanwhile Demo Charges did not fail me - they killed themselves as often as they did the enemy.

Still, lots of fun games were played, with really nice opponents. And since a painted army was required there were quite a few really awesome armies. I tried to catch them all with my camera, but probably failed to do so. There are sure to be other picture sources later on however, which should contain them all.

I think that's it. I don't think I can force myself to remember all the battles now, to write detailed battle reports, I guess not this time! On with the pictures!

Pisałem już na Gildii, dziękowałem wszystkim, mogę jeszcze raz!
Turniej od strony organizacyjnej - mega pro. Nie sądzę, żebyśmy wam dorównali na Fire Frenzy, ale próbować będziemy na pewno!
W sumie mam tylko dwie uwagi "negatywne". Scenariusze i modyfikacja o KP - nie wiem, jakoś mi się to nie podobało, zwłaszcza, że w Gwardii stracić wiaderko KP to nie sztuka. Ale może po prostu ja nie umiem grać. ;) Po drugie - to raczej nie do organizatorów - ludzie, grajcie czymś innym niż Marines. :P

Przeciwnikom dziękuję za wymagające bitwy, zwłaszcza te z BA, dzięki którym sporo się nauczyłem na przyszłość.

Raportów raczej nie będzie. Pierwszy dzień słabo pamiętam, drugi niewiele lepiej. Było krwawo, było wesoło, choć na dobrą sprawę to były same remisy, poza Czaj-nikiem, który mnie zmasakrował, a moje kości tylko mu w tym pomagały no i biednym Mailem, którego DH miały niewielkie szanse. Lemany w squadronie okazały się być twardsze niż się wydawało i generalnie słabość squadronu nie dawała o sobie znać. Zginęły jedynie gdy szalone Bladzie przerwały już wszystkie moje linie, a wtedy nie squadronowane padłyby równie łatwo. Reszta spisywała się tak jak zawsze, oprócz Mantikory, która w dwóch bitwach bezsensownie umarła bez choćby jednego wystrzału. Patrząc po tym co działo się potem dochodzę do wniosku, że ona nie jest jakimś szaloną przegiętością, ale cholerną koniecznością, zwłaszcza przeciwko takim BA. Dobra, dobra, wiem że nie umiem grać. ;)

Za rok na pewno się wybieram, jeśli tylko będę mógł. I tym razem w 100% moją armią, nie dam już sobie obcinać punktów! ;)

Tym niemniej, słyszałem, że na Fire Frenzy będzie jeszcze lepiej. ;)

Striking from the Shadows

2010-09-20T11:24:00.001+02:00

Time for the full unveiling of the finished project! Cadian Snipers, which will be count as Ratlings. I have no illusion to mediocre effectivness of the squad gameplay-wise... But I think they're quite damn effective model-wise!

And obligatory group shot!

And onto the individuals...

The simplest one - using the plastic Sniper Rifle that came with the Cadian CS.

You will notice they have different bases than the rest of the army. Considering fluff-wise they're supposed to be a spec-ops squad, I thought it fitting, that they occupy a different area than the rest of the army. The bases however still retain the basic elements used in the rest of the army. I even wrote up a bit of fluff on that. Generally speaking, those are ruins of an old Imperial defensive structure...

A running sniper with a helmet. She is running past a gunport. Perhaps a Heavy Stubber was mounted there once, perhaps something else.

Zemthar Secundus is an arid mining world located somewhere within Segmentum Obscurus. Back in M39 it was a rich world, capital of the subsector, it's southern hemisphere laden with huge mining complexes. Due to it richness and position multiple defensive structures were erected dotting the entire southern hemisphere and protecting the mines and hives alike, by a slightly paranoid governor. Since the sector was always a peacful place, his predecessors never thought it neccessary. They were finished circa 567.M39. It turned out it was just about time...

My favourite - casually smoking a lho-stick while leaning onto a ruined wall. I think you can picture her personality just as fine as I can! She will need to have a Russian name...

Shortly after the constructions finished a vast Orkish Waaagh! Bloodspilla started to pillage the entire sector. Around 590.M39 it has reached Zemthar system, the Imperial forces unable to contain it, due to the great speed in which it conquered weakly defended worlds and moved on.

The first shooting one - my favourite head. I guess I like ponytails.

The Waagh! has smashed into Zemthar Secundus with great force. It however met uprecedented resistance, only thanks to great defensive network. While the north was ravaged, the south has managed to hold for a very long time. It was only when the Orks managed to capture the elements of the local PDF Artillery company were they able to break through the powerful bastions.

Second shooty - this time wearing the hood. It didn't turn out as good as I hoped, but there had to be at least one hooded!

However it was too late. The defence lines have bought enough time for an Imperial Guard task force to arrive and save the day together with the aid of an unspecified Astartes chapter. Zemthar was saved, most of its defenses were ruined however. And it was not the end of bad news.

Lastly, the sergeant. While such a thing does not exist amongst the Ratlings, it sure does in disciplined 42nd! I finally managed to use that nifty laspistol from ForgeWorld, only a power weapon remains, yay.

Not even a century later dreaded reports came from Magos Geologists working within the mines - the rich veins of ore were running dry. The planet slowly declined, with its population either leaving to seek fortune elsewhere or simply dying of starvation. It was estimated that within a few centuries the world will only remain a small backwater colony, if it will not die out entirely... The once mighty defensive structures and mines rusted and were slowly reclaimed by the desert.

And lastly, a group shot of the cloaks. This time I sculpted them using modified Col. Corbane's method.

It was only two hundred years ago that Zemthar Secundus unexpectadly rose as a power in the sector once again. By accident vast deposits of resources were found deep under the northern hemisphere, which was previously believed to be barren. While the planet's economy flourished again, the sector is no longer as safe as it once was and war came to Zemthar system once again...

And that's it. I hope you liked the models and the little background story! What's next? Probably shots of some Wolves I still haven't posted. As for the Guard - another Chimera is finished and more vehicles are to come as soon as I have some disposable income. I really want to paint the snipers too, but unfortunately I ran out of black primer again.

I also have one more fun Guard project - Colonel Mordechai Emmet, which will be a count as for some monstrous special character.

The Unveiling.

2010-09-15T16:51:00.000+02:00

Right. Still an early WIP with lots of work to do ahead of it, but I though it looks pretty damned awesome, so I should share it!

Without further ado...

Do not mess with Cadian women! Now back to the green stuff...

Guard tidbits.

2010-09-08T12:44:00.004+02:00

This time I'd like to show you a few tidbits for the 42nd I have been working on recently. Also some unveiling of the secret project!

First, a new Chimera I purchased recently. I have to say the new kit is great, so much easier to assemble! The refined look is quite good (aside from that Searchlight, I might change that), although it annoys me slightly that now my vehicles will differ quite a bit.

I do miss the accessory sprue, though only for the track guards - vehicles just look better with them. I still have a lot of stowage left and truth to be said, there isn't really a lot of room to stick them to the sides.

Click below to learn more! (I wonder if it's neccessary for me to keep writing that... I do that ever since someone posted a comment indicating he missed the Read More button, but maybe it's about time..)

Here is a Platoon Command Squad of the 1st Platoon undergoing reanimation and finally fitting it to the new codex! While the 1st Platoon itself will still remain mostly useless under the new rules (Plasma Guns? Missile Launchers? Yay for expensive and easy to kill squads!) I could sometimes break the 2nd Platoon into two in my army lists to use two units of fiery death.

The 303rd. Still WIP, but should be done soon. I want to finish them before the big tournament by the end of the month. A blurry shot that doesn't show much - for now!

Aaand more mystery unveiling. I think this should clearly indicate what kind of unit am I doing. But the details of the conversions remain shrouded... Unless you observe the picture carefuly..

And finally the painting chart for the Guard! It spoils the mystery quite well... But also shows what I call the 3rd Expansion Wave. (The 2nd was when I got the Valks and all kind of stuff to enhance onto the new codex, 1st way before that.) As you can see, that's a lot of vehicles. A lot. I wouldn't mind expanding infatry some, but the prospect of painting so many Guardsmen again... Not just yet, ugh. Maybe as a 4th Expansion, that I bet is inevitable in the future and is totally not hidden to right of the Excel sheet beyond sight.

Faith Is My Shield!

2010-09-06T12:32:00.000+02:00

A quick one this time, to show you another secret project I have been working on for a while! A project that has been on hold for a very long time, due to some issues I had with it, thankfuly inspiration fell from the sky - or rather a fellow blog!

Credit goes to Karitas at Excommuncate Traitoris. Without his work I would've never finished mine, thank you oh so much! I blatantly stole the idea of using a regular Guard torso over flagellant legs which made the Priest instantly look properly 40k - chainsword and shotgun (Which by the way is also taken from 8th Cadian, come back to us!) didn't cut it!

Apparently I also accidentaly used the same head. Oops! There's a few more shots of course.

I really like how he turned out, with the book on his back like the old WH Missionaries (Although they had them on their staves). So much, I decided to name him after my Dark Heresy character - Iacton Leman Thauss! He'll see the brush in near future, though there's still a lot to do.

The Crazy Ride

2010-09-04T12:00:00.000+02:00

After such a long time promising to post it, it's finally here. The third Chimera of the 42nd, one belonging to the Psyker Battle Squad!

As I have said previously, it isn't really that much special. It's converted only slightly. I toyed with an idea of a heavy conversion, perhaps a different paintjob... But then I thought not to.

The first reason was, that I enjoy the sight of a uniform Guard army, with all the units being similar and looking like a proper army! A different color Chimera (I though black or purplish, like the Psykers' robes) would break the uniformity, especially considering I only had 3! Perhaps if I had more...

That didn't stop slighty Psyker-ish conversions to appear all over it however. You can see a funny chain with a skull here.

And obviously lots of parchments and scriptured, to keep their great little minds safe.

A little closeup on the parchments. The idea of using red to break the plain black text was turned out excellent on the Psykers themselves, thus it is used here as well.

Do Not Enter If Your Head Is Not Prone To Exploding Or Demonic Possession notice.

As I said before, nothing so very special but still looks quite good and ties in great with the rest of the army. Now the times changed a little and since I more or less finished the Wolves, I am back to expanding the Guard. If I knew I would do this, I probably would've went differently about this project, especially considering the new Chimeras are slightly different..

Commanding the Power of the Elements

2010-09-02T12:05:00.006+02:00

A little break from monotonous Power Armor - special Power Armor! The first painted HQ of Sven Bloodhowl's Great Company - Rune Priest Anliefr Runespeaker.

As you can see Anleifr uses the "real" Rune Priest metal model - the only metal mini in the entire army. What has this world come to? However it is converted slightly - to offset missing pieces (I bought him used) and to make his Runic Weapon more runic, at least in my opinion.

Of course, more angles if you click below!

As the fluff says - all the priests are in fact members of the Great Wolves Company and are only assigned to others as needed. Thus Anleifr is sporting an entirely different company symbol.

And did not take the habit of tattooing his face. I decided to leave his eyes like that. Makes him look as though he is casting a power!

Here is his Runic Sword. I experminted a bit again and refined a technique to be used on power weapons (Which terminators hold aplenty)

And his lower half, including the base.

And that's it. More, that's it for Wolves at all for a few posts! The guns of the 42nd thunder once more as I feel a wave of inspiration. For the first time, I am going to try blogger's post scheduling and have already prepared a couple of IG posts to come up, stay tuned!

Also, for the great mystery I posted? All the answers were wrong. Whatever it is, it's part of the 42nd. More hints will come soonish...

A Guard Mystery!

2010-08-18T19:47:00.002+02:00

What could it be...

Clue #1

Clue #2

Clue #3

http://www.shop.microartstudio.com/heads-c-45_74.html

'nother pack - Grey Hunters #3 (Fixed post)

2010-08-17T15:28:00.005+02:00

It seems this post got broken when I posted it the first time. This is a repost, with the missing content in place! Sorry, I have no idea what happened.

Almost there! This time, yet another Grey Hunter pack with their Wolf Guard. Just one more pack and I promise I'll post something more interesting!

The obligatory group shot:

This is the last pack I've painted. Quite possibly the best looking one, but see for yourself, by clicking below!

The first three with a lot of Wolf pelts. The guy on the right is using regular SM parts, gasp!

'nother three. There's a more helmets in this squad than the previous ones. In the middle a helm I didn't like at first, but it grew on me and sees more use now. On the right - hairy Mark of the Wulfen!

Finally, another beakie (I think I overused that helma bit!) carrying the melta gun and the squad leader, Harald!

And finally Maili Oddrsson, the Wolf Guard attached to the squad! I think this is my favourite. The Power Fist, taken from the Devastators kit, is simply awesome.

Aaaand that's it! Coming up soon is their Rhino, then I'll post something other than Grey Hunters, though there's only one small pack of them left!

In the other news, I took the 42nd Cadian to a yet another tournament on Saturday. It seems the Emperor smiled upon me, for I placed 3rd (out of 20-something) and got the "Best Painted Army" award as well! However, the 2100 pts format made me realise it's time to add some stuff to the Guard... I'll show you my plans soon! Now it's back to the painting, there's not a lot of Wolves left to do!

The first Wolf vehicle

2010-08-10T14:11:00.004+02:00

After much debating and pondering on color schemes, which paints to use, techniques and such I have managed to settle on to something, that actually produced a *gasp* satysfying result! Here it is!

It turned out, following the shading method which is used for the Power Armor and drybrushing are the way to go. Here it is, the Rhino, Geri, in all it's glory.

And the glory on its other side.

Not how I attempted to "wolf-ify" it with use of some spare bits. There's of course more shots, if you click below.

The front. Slightly bland-ish.

The back that contains an important reminder for the squad within.

The very dark interior, first and only painted that way, though in retrospect perhaps this way was better after all...

The top. Vehicles, just like Marines, have their own sagas of the deeds they performed on the battlefield. Geri is an old Rhino, that has been in commission for longer than Sven Bloodhowl was the Great Lord. As such, it's exterior is extensively covered in writings, that depict it's heroic exploits. Also the top contains a scarily big freehand that actually looks like what it's supposed to be.

And lastly, the closeup on the gunner.

If you're curious, what does it say on top of it, I reccomend checking this out. All texts are in english, but written with Futhark, the runic alphabet of the vikings. I know I will be probably the only one who will ever know what does it say on it, but at least it looks good!

All in all I'm happy how it looks, especially from the distance.

Coming up next, more Grey Hunters. Also, the painting chart's current state:

The Second Pack done!

2010-08-07T11:29:00.005+02:00

This time 'round, another Grey Hunter pack, at last! A post filled with pictures this time.

Here they are, first a family shot.

And the other shots, in the full post!

The first three regulars. The left one and the middle one were painted a while ago, much earlier than the rest. They could differ a bit.

Mark of the Wulfen, My Favourite Beakie Helm and... Sally. That's not the best blonde hair I've done!

And finally, the Pack Leader (I believe I've explained it before, that it's just a fluff construct) and a melta operator!

And lastly, Tofi Thunderhowl the usually-assigned Wolf Guard with a Thunderhammer. I think he looks much better than the previous one, the PA Thunderhammer head that is in the Wolf Pack isn't really too great in my opinion...

Wolf Guard pack markings!

And some close-up shots.

Okay. That looks bad in a close-up. Ugh. Red red red Mark of the Wulfen.

But that's not all! The first pack got some extensions as well! Another melta (free for a 10-man) and a Wolf Standard!

And now that's it. Coming up next - the second pack's dedicated Rhino! Also I have managed to finish all the Grey Hunters now, whoa! Right now there's two last Wolf Guards on the painting table and then, the Long Fangs - finishing all the Power Armor squads I've got. Only vehicles are still delayed as I wasn't able to pick up a tank brush. Oh, well.

Hope you like those, don't be shy to say what you think!

A little update

2010-08-03T11:43:00.006+02:00

Not a post filled with lots of content, but I believe the quality of it is quite decent! I have spent the past few weeks painting quite a lot (with breaks filled with reading Horus Heresy books - I should maybe review them at some point!) and the progress is really starting to show!

This time round it's finally some painted mini to be posted! I present to you a Wolf Guard with a Cyclone Missile Launcher!

Of course, there's more angles if you only click below!

I decided to take a break from Power Armor everywhere. Cyclone was quite an obvious choice to go as first as it's one of the Terminators that gets fielded in majority of my lists. Wolves Terminators are unfortunately not too effective (especially compared to other Marines), but this one is an exception!
Overall I'm satisfied with the result. The NMM isn't perfect, that's still something I need to practice more but yeah.. To practice I actually have to paint something. And I'm satisfied with the base, to my own amazement.

And to perhaps wet your appetite, here's the painting chart as it looks now:

As you can see there's quite a bit of green out there now, especially in the infantry department. Unfortunately my tank brush is ruined so vehicles have to wait till I pick up a new one.

There are a couple new planned things as well - including another character on a Thunderwolf! After I add the terminators, which I've already ordered that's the most likely candidate for next update. I decided that Thunderwolf Cavalry unit is perhaps a tad expensive to purchase and create... but two characters (While only one is a Wolf Lord of course, I will most likely field both as such, just because WGBL is rather... lacking rules-wise, compared to Lord) pack quite a punch as well and look just as good as a TWC unit!

Power to the Power Armor!

2010-07-16T19:19:00.006+02:00

Ah, slow news time from my side... But definitely not slow progress! There's going to be a lot of things once I'm done with things here. Sadly I'm not exactly at home, forgot to grab the camera and I don't have anything to work with photos on the laptop right now, so no pictures to show, sorry!

However the local manofactorum is working all days bringing.. .Power Armor. I've spent the last week painting Power Armor. And only that (Well, not counting the distractions of the internet and Civilization IV I recently acquired). I'm going a bit crazy from the ammounts of Space Wolves Grey, but now I'm almost done!

Here's how the painting chart looks now, in this case "started" means "Power Armor fully painted":

Not bad, huh. Still a long way to go, but painting everything else seems... Well, just overally more pleasant. And I succesfully managed to basecoat everything save for 5 Scouts, but I make a bit more elaborate bases for those, so they took a bit longer.

I'll try to get pictures up once I'm done with something, now a few things to perhaps stir some discussion.

Are you aware of ETC? It's the European Team Championship if you haven't heard. Probably the biggest competetive event of the Europe. Now, this year, for the first time ever, there's going to be Team America present there. While I don't play there (Team Poland is actually taken from the top of our national league and considering we're one of the top teams getting there is really hard) I read discussion about it all around the internet. And I have to say I'm really surprised at American opinions, their self-righteousness and knowing-it-all, berating lists and such. Someone's in for a huge surprise. Have you heard about the discussion that's going back and forth? I'm curious what are your opinions.

Bases... basics?

2010-07-07T23:15:00.006+02:00

A quick one this time. I did some rebasing of my Wolves (wasn't a lot of them to do..) hopefuly to achieve a much better result.

But... I am not entirely sure if I did. Here are a couple of shots.

Help me out! Do they look good? Aesthetic? Realistic? If not, what should be changed about them?

I really thought I'll nail the proper look this time but there's just too much uncertainty so I have to ask for aid. Then again, I wasn't sure about the Guard bases for a long while and it seemed everyone loved them...

Grill 'n' Chill 2010 - Tournament Report

2010-07-06T23:35:00.000+02:00

It all started with an early ring of an alarm clock and going out of home when pretty much at dawn. Then a rendezvous in the Katowice centre with the rest of our crew (Przemo (SM), Skinek (BA), Grom (Orks), Mailo (IG) and Jarlaxe (Chaos)) including the folks from Cracow(Oświęcim to be precise) - Inkq, who was meant to be tha main judge of the event and his brother (who played BAs). Two hours and a half hour of sleepy travel we arrived in Łódź, where the event took place.

Two days. 5 battles. 1250 points format. 50 players from all over Poland. Entire evening of the first day spent at the grill. Bucketloads of fun. That's basically the summary of the tournament. But I know you probably want to read more than that!

Let's start with the basics. The tournament had a 1250 point limit and an additional restriction - taking the same codex choice in any other slot than Troops was forbidden. Considering it was (theoretically, as, as always, practice showed some slight deviation) supposed to be a "for fun" tournament that really hampered my choices. In the end I decided on a more competetive list, which actually did me a lot of good. Here it is:

HQ:	Company Command Squad - Std, 3xMelta, Officer of the Fleet		125
	Chimera - ML, HF		55

Troops:	Veteran Squad - 3xplasma		115
	Chimera - ML, HF		55
Troops:	Veteran Squad - 3xmelta		100
	Chimera - ML, HF		55
Troops:	Platoon Command Squad - 3xFlamer		45
	Infantry Squad - GL, AC		65
	Infantry Squad - GL, AC		65

Fast Atck:	Vendetta		130
Fast Atck:	Hellhound		130

Hvy Sup:	Leman Russ Battle Tank		150
Hvy Sup:	Manticore		160





		1250

And now for the "meat" of this report!

Battle 1 - Kruker and Dark Eldar
Primary Goal: Capture the most out of 5 Coal Piles
Secondary Goal: Deny the opponent the control of two Coal Piles near his table edge
Deployment: Dawn of War

When I saw my opponent pull Raiders out of his bags I suddenly started to wonder how do I deal with a sea of Dark Lances. Luckily it turned out he didn't have that much of them, however still had a lot of troops, which could prove dangerous in such a scenario. He also had a beefed up jetbike Archon, a single squad of Wyches in a Raider and Haemonculi in half the Troops squads.

That's the deployment:

And that's my first turn:

He pushed forward and managed to repel me from my left objective, but with decisive movement and effective shooting I managed to pop most Raiders by the end of the game. Including getting rid of Wyches before they got too close.

With Vendetta bringing support of 3 flamers inside I was able to get rid of the Dark Eldar holding my opponent's points earning my 2 large points for the Secondary Goal, however the poor command squad got shot to death by the remaining Eldar.

By the end the heavy guns of the 42nd Cadian managed to put down most of the foul piratical Xenos. At the end, there was one or two Raiders left, hiding away behind hills. It did not come that lightly though. The Archon rushed off forward in the heat of the battle and managed to withstand a turn of entire army's shooting with his horrible 2+ Inv Save. He hacked up the second infantry squad, getting me down to two scoring units. Luckily, he managed to fail a save on an instant death shot, ending his reign.

All in all it ended as a decisive victory for the 42nd. I forgot to put a scoring onto one of the objectives at my edge, so I netted my opponent additional 2 points as well, but that did not matter.

Result: 21 : 4-ish (I actually forgot most of my opponents' scores. Oops!)

Battle 2 - Kheed and Blood Angels
Primary Goal: Sieze control of as many Sausages as you can. Units pick them up by ending their move in base to base contact. You control Sausages that are broguht to your deployment zone.
Secondary Goal: Deny the opponent having any Sausages in his deployment zone.
Deployment: Pitched Battle

The victory in my previous battle landed me on one of the top tables. I felt, and was right, that I'll end up against a far more demanding opponent now.

It turned out to be Blood Angels. He fielded a large-ish DC unit in a Rhino, a small Assault Squad in a Razorback and a 10-man AS on jump packs. Add a single Sanguinary Priest, a Librarian, a Lascannon Predator and a Furioso Dreadnaught to that and you get quite a low model count, but it turned out to be really deadly.

Started out quite bad, by losing the Vendetta on turn 1. I decided to start with it on the table, instead of outflanking as I always do and it seems I got reminded why do I do that. It was also my first battle against the new BAs and I forgot quite a few quirks they have (How on earth could I forget transports are fast!) Besides, the scenario was much better suited to my opponent. Only after battle I learned I could grab the marker and hop back into a Chimera with it. Perhaps if I knew, I would be able to bring at least one home, meaning a draw.

Oh well! Needles to say, Blood Angels advanced and managed to catch my Leman Russ which I foolishly put too much forward, as you can see below.

Perhaps if I got one more turn of it alive, the battle would look totally different. As it looked now, at the end I was left with a single Infatry Squad in a corner of the table shooting ineffectively to the remnants of the DC. However my opponent lost quite a few models as well and it ended with only 344 VPs difference. Guardsmen managed to hurt advancing Marines quite a bit!

A cold shower after a decisive victory.

Result: 5 : 20-something

Battle 3 - Lesiu and Space Marines
Primary Goal: Control the most Great Places for a Grill out of 2 - in the middle of both players' quarters.
Secondary Goal: Dishonor your enemy, by having your HQ piss into their grill - an HQ model must be in base to base contact with the Great Place in your opponent's quarter at least for a moment
Deployment: Spearhead

Classic Marines this time round, an objective mission... Not bad! My enemy fielded two Tactical Squads, two Scout squads, a Predator, a Vindicator, a Whirlwind and a Chapter Master on a bike with fancy gubbins.

He started with reserving nearly everything... No, wait, he started with saying he has to go get a drink. Okay!

The battle raged, we shot each other, trying to put dents into the opponent's force, without overwhelming success. Aside from the beginning. I totally forgot about his outflanking Scouts. That cost me the Manticore at the very beginning of the game, which meant it didn't go smooth at all.

His shooting managed to immobilise my Leman Russ as well. Which then was used by my opponent quite well..

In the end, my Chimeras managed to reach the opponent's objective and even though it was blown up with most of the command squad killed, the Lord Marshal managed to reach the marker just in time to... er... Dishonor the Enemy *cough*.

On the other side of the table the Chapter master rushed forward and hit an Infantry squad near the marker, who unluckily (so I thought) managed to hold their ground. Somehow for the next 2 turns he did not manage to hit them at all! That didn't do much good for the poor infantrymen though and they were finally cut down. The Chapter Master then... fulfilled the secondary objective and rushed into another squad... Melta veterans were rushing to their aid but..

The Chapter master swinged his Relic Blade and killed a single guardsmen.

In return the guardsmen scored a few hits and managed to get 3 6s on To-Wound rolls!

But hey, he's got 3+ save, what can happen eh!

Ooops. One less Chapter master to contend with.

After both laughing for 10 minutes straight we continued the game shooting a bit here and there, but I just didn't have the firepower to push him out of the objective and neither could he push me, so it ended with a draw, slightly in my opponent's favor.

A really fun game, also thanks to my opponent's unorthodox behaviour!

Result: 11 : 13

After this battle we proceeded to enjoy grilled sausages and beverages all night long. It was this, that marks this tournament as one of the best and certainly one of the most enjoyable in the entire polish tournament scene! I managed to meet a couple of people that I only knew by forum nicknames and generally spent good time with our crew.

Battle 4 - Reyki and Space Marines
Primary Goal: Poison your enemy by bringing more Homemade Biologists to his deployment zone than he does into yours. Each player has 3 Biologists models with the following profile: WS3 BS3 S3 T3 I3 W2 A1 LD7 InvSv4+ armed with CCWs and being Independent Characters
Secondary Goal: Poison enemy's sasuages! To do that, bring a Biologist to one of two of your enemy's Grill markers (placed anywhere by the controlling player).
Deployment: Up to 18" from your board edge, over 24" from the enemy.

The battle I forgot to take pictures in. It was the first battle on the second day.. and let's just say I didn't feel that well, though it was mostly caused by me being silly enough and not taking anything I could put under my head while sleeping, which ended up in neck and head ache for half the morning.

Stil, my opponent fielded, a Tactical, a Scout squad with Sniper Rifles, a Devastator Squad with 3 MLs and an LC, a Predator, a Gate Librarian with 5 (..or was it more) TH/SS Termies and a 5 man strong Sternguard squad with lots of Combi-Meltas and a Heavy Flamer. A very annoying thing to deal with as Guard.

And then we shot each other and his Terminators pushed forward and there was much dying. I foolishly ignored one of his wounded Biologists at my deployment zone, to shoot terminators, because I though I'll manage to hack them up. Well I didn't and my opponent ended up with 2 biologists deep in my deployment zone, hidden within a unit of TH/SS terminators.

However on the other side of the table things went a little better.I regained my momentum after dealing with half the Tactical which advanced against my Manticore, killing their biologist. I also suicude dropped one off the outflanking Vendetta who ran straight onto the objective, to at least get the Secondary objective done. A Hellhound tank shocked half the devastator squad and the scout squad as well. Devastators failed their DoG attack meaning I had one less Missile to worry about and Scouts didn't withstand the pressure withdrawing a few inches back.

And then it all started. I shot my enemy and he just did not manage to pass a single save. Everything dropped down dead as though all the guardsmen had plasma guns. The suicude biologist managed to survive somehow, so did another one, who made a mad dash to my opponent's deployment zone.

The terminators dropped dead from Vendetta's fire, but the Librarian managed to hide the remaining 2 biologists in there, making the running one crucial to victory. So I gave him a Move! Move! Move! order.. and rolled 1,1 and 2 for the run distances. I cursed under my nose, as the game ended then.

And then my opponent cursed as the biologist was just inside his deployment zone, scoring me a major victory! All in all however, if my opponent rolled a little better I would be in much deeper trouble! At one point I actually felt stupid for shooting him!

Result: 20 : 5

Battle 5 - Raca and Space Lions(Wolves)
Primary Goal: Annihliation!
Secondary Goal: Control more table quarters than your opponent.
Deployment: Triangles. Players deploy up to 6" away from a diagonal of the table and over 24" away from the opponent.

And so it turned out I am 7th in general ranking. Whoooa. I certainly didn't expect that. But somehow I knew, that now I will go up against some real badass army that will kick my butt thoroughly.

And I was right.

It was my first battle against Space Wolves, so far I only played on the other side of the fist. And somehow that didn't teach me to play bloody defensively, especially in a Kill Point mission! My opponent fielded a Wolf Lord on a TWC with standard gubbins (though no Bear Tale), 2 5-man squads of Grey Hunters in Rhinos (only one with MotW, both with Melta/Combi-Melta), a 5-man GH squad with a Cyclone Wolf Guard, a unit of Long Fangs (small one - only 3 MLs), a Predator, a Vindicator... and the Bane of the Guard - 5 Wolf Scouts with a meltagun.

I had to employ an anti-scout deployment, as the table wasn't so great for me:

It started out "well" when I blew up both the Predator and the Vindicator and forcing the Long Fangs to flee, but it went downhill from there. I was just too close and the Lord was just too fast. I got chewed up reeeal bad and actually when the Scouts came, they weren't needed at all.

By turn.. er, 4 I believe, there was nothing left for me. This certainly taught me a valuable lesson about playing both with and against Wolves... or at least their ruleset. I didn't really like the Space Lions idea (I mean, aren't Dark Angels Wolves greatest rivals!), but the execution and painting of the miniatures was really good (I especially liked the idea of using a model of some Lion thing... possibly a Fantasy Chimera as the MotW model).

Result: 0 : 25. Ouch!

That loss pushed me away to 21st place out of 50 people. Still not bad, especially considering I don't do tournmanets a whole lot! A couple more of that, more practice and who know, maybe I could actually end up somewhere...

Other shots I did include neighbouring tables in some battles:

And Skinek's Blood Angels!

There are also more shots from the event available here: http://picasaweb.google.pl/plooschack/GnC2l10# Wonder if you can spy me there!

In the end, I would like to thank all my opponents for excellent battles, especially those where I got the kicking. It certainly helped me learn and remember a few things! I also want to thank the organisers who made this wonderful event! Next year Katowice crew will surely arrive again! And last thanks go to that crew, which helped make that evening party as well as the long car rides much more pleasant!

Also I have decided I should do this tournament thing much more often! It's probably the best opportunity to play the game competetively and to learn new things - the better you play the better the opponents you face, which make for every match to be exciting and challanging.

And that's it, thanks for reading!

A Polish version of this report will be available tomorrow. I'm a tad too tired to translate now!

A hundred readers and the Great Company

2010-06-24T13:39:00.004+02:00

Just yesterday I have finally reached the magical 100 followers mark. Wow. Thanks a lot for your continuous support guys!

But there's something entirely different I wanted to show you. I have been thinking for a while, about turnint my Space Wolf army into a full Great Company. A huge task, not to be achieved soon, but oh so tempting.

Expanding the Wolves is just so much easier and more pleasant than the Guard, at least that's what I feel. Should I want to expand the 42nd Cadian's 3rd Company, I would have to add... hundreds of guardsmen, the company being roughly 300 men(6 platoons with 5 squads each). The idea makes me shiver, thinking of all the painting, not to mention the though of the cost of the entire endeavour. Space Wolves on the other hand have roughyl 120 men in each of their Great Company, at least that's what I managed to find (Some other sources mentioned 150 - 1000.. which is quite a huge margin..), which is much easier to achieve (that's less than the guardsmen I already have...)

But to even start on such an ambitious project one needs a good plan. A great idea by Admiral Drax comes to the rescue however! Here it is, the (stolen!) Sven Bloodhowl's Great Company Chart!

It also makes it much easier to track down names of those characters for future background writing reference. The N/A parts are things currently not even planned, but would most likely be included in the full Great Company. Also there would probably be "a bit" more vehicles (But nothing as crazy as the Company described in the codex having 12 Land Raiders...). I don't know if I ever get to the full company though. Perhaps some other new shiny army will come round. And there's the Guard to expand as well.

Let me know what you think and if you have any idea on how a Company should look like! Also, I am working on a similar chart for the 42nd Cadian, should be done soon.

How to Make - Combi Weapons

2010-06-22T17:53:00.004+02:00

Here is the promised first Wolf-oriented tutorial! The exam sessions is giving me a little break, just enough to squeeze it in. The weapons I make are for my Wolves, but of course, the same idea can be used to make combi-weapons for pretty much every army (Imperial that is, not the Ork ones) that uses them! Hope you'll enjoy it.

First of all, what a list of needed things. First, a bolter, any will do (the one I used is actually a bit harder to work with).

In this case I am making a combi-melta, but the same idea can be easily translated to a combi-plasma and a flamer. Generally you will need the other weapon you're attaching. In case of plasma, a pistol would suffice. You don't need the entire weapon just a muzzle and some sort of ammo container. For melta it's the barrel shown below. For a flamer it would be a small tank. For plasma, the cooling system would work great, though it would require a bit of additional work.

Lastly a bit of plasticard. Some green stuff will help a lot too!

Now what? Click below to find out!

First of all, cut the bolter into pieces shown below. Yes, it is not cut into a straight line, but rather has a sort of a "step" there. Do not lose the tiny muzzle, you will need it!

File both halves of the bolter to make sure they're even. Then glue a small plasticard piece onto the "stair". My green stuff was exactly the thickness I needed, yours might need a bit of filing/green stuffing.

Now glue another plasticard bit onto the upper part, this time it should have the length equal to the one between the front of the weapon and that small wheel-thing on the bolter. Also glue a small plasticard piece onto the other half, just like before.

Now glue the two halves back together. Before you do that however, you might want to make a small hole in the lower-half plasticard to represent the shell exit hole(however you call that in military terms).

File the sides if they are uneven. The next thing is to cut off the protracted parts of the shell exit holes on both sides.

Now glue the melta/flamer bits onto their spots. The new muzzle takes the place of the old one, while the bolter one goes below it. The melta container could go a bit more into the middle, but in this case the skull got a bit into the way.
If you're doing plasma, attaching the radiator to the side might not be the best idea. Try cutting off the top of the bolter and attaching it there instead. Make sure it doesn't stand out too much

You're almost done! Now just cover the plasticard bit in green stuff to even it out further. But most importandly, fill in the shell exit.. ports?

And here are some examples of models with those weapons.

And well that's it. Hope you liked that little tutorial. Let me know what you think and if you know how is that shell exit thing called do tell, I will fix it in the post.

Also the end of my exams is drawing near, hopefuly there will be a lot of painted stuff to show soon.
Thanks for reading!

The Howl

2010-06-14T10:49:00.004+02:00

Time for some Wovles update now! Got a moment of break between the exams and finished something that's probably the grandest thing in the entire army! Its leader - Wolf Lord Sven Bloodhowl. On a Thunderwolf...

And here he is, in all his glory. Armed with "everything" that is, a Thunderhammer, a Storm Shield, Wolf Tooth Necklace, clad in Runic Armor and sat atop a Thunderwolf.

There are, of course, more pictures!

As you can see I also added a couple of other things, like the sculpted GS cloak with fur on it. I know it's texture is not perfect, but I will use that to make the cloak dirty and soaked with blood of his enemies. Or something. It turned out there isn't much room for anything else so the Runic part of his armor is going to be more painted, than sculpted.

Perhaps you noticed, that I used the same head, storm shield and backpack element as the terminator version of him. I just totally forgot about service studs I've added to the terminator later and so will have to add them here too. Ooops.

And for fun, size comparison with a regular Grey Hunter and a Rhino:

Now, some of you might wonder where did I get that wolf? It's been sculpted by a skilled polish sculptor and sold to one of your bits shops. You can see the other variants/get them here. (Now you guys owe me for a free ad!) I'd contact them via mail before purchasing it abroad though, I have no idea how/if they ship far away. I feel that this sculpt perfectly embodies what a Thunderwolf should be.

I have no idea how to paint it though, as in, what colors. I'll have to do much more research before that. And buy a can of primer...

Coming up next: Psykers Chimera and the first Space Wolves tutorial that you most likely will find handy for a lot of armies.

I Hate Right Hands - Part 3.5 - Strapped Lasguns Tutorial

2010-06-03T10:04:00.007+02:00

What is this? A new post?! Cannot be! Yes, it can! I found my camera, found its charger and finally found some time to post something. There's an exam session going on here right now, but once it's over, expect a flow of posts, both about Guard and the Wolves (And not just regular SW models, you'll see...). But first, the tutorial I promised a while back!

Truth to be said, this one is quite simple and short, however I think someone might find it useful. It is part of IHRH series as it's focusing on IG veterans, once more! This time, how to make your very own strapped weapons, just like the single lasgun available both in FW upgrade pack and the Cadian CS. Without further ado, let's begin!

You're going to need:

A lasgun arm (even if you're not doing a lasgun!), one of those "wide" ones, like below

The weapon itself
A little bit of green stuff

The first step is to cut out the lasgun, like shown below. It's easier to first cut out the weapon leaving the butt and cut it out later.

Be careful not to damage the trigger finger! Now, take the weapon you want to fit. The picture shows a lasgun, and I'll go through with it, being the most popular weapon people will attach. My veteran however, is getting a shotgun.

Now you need to cut off a little bit of the back of the shoulder. The picture perhaps doesn't show exactly how, but it'll be clearer with the next.

Now attach the lasgun to the gap you've made. It is important to have the lasgun at the same level, or below, as the part of the arm that's attached to the model, else you will have problems attaching the arm. Make sure the lasgun "sinks" a little bit into the shoulder.

That's how it looks, with a shotgun, glued to the model. Glue yours too, it's very hard to do the next step without that!

Now roll a single strap from the green stuff and cut it in half.

Take one half and attach it first to the butt of the weapon (or wherever you feel it's best, but that's how FW has done it). You can make a small cut on it there, which, when painted metal, will server as a sort of a clasp. Then attach the other end just below the extended finger. That's why it was important not to damage it! Be extra careful now, we want a smooth strap there, no cuts!

Do the same with the other half, but instead attach it above. If you are having problems attaching a smooth strap to the hand, use a little bit of superglue to make it stick, rather then pressing hard with your knife, tool, whatever.

And that's it! Simple, eh? This is how a finished and almost-painted model looks like:

And that's it! I hope you liked it and will find it useful. The IHRH column on the right will be updated for easy navigation to the article.

What will the future bring? First it's going to be the Numerical Methods test and Assembler Languages exam. Wish me luck!

But afterwards, there's one tutorial for Space Wolf players, a lot of new HQs for that, some tactical rambling... For the Guard there's Psyker Chimera, the 303rd and myself considering getting one of those new Leman Russ kits. See you soon!

Dum di dum

2010-04-25T19:32:00.002+02:00

Sigh, there's quite some content to be posted, the tutorial I promised, some painted Guard stuff (Gasp!) and such, but I just can't seem to find a moment to put all this stuff together into a post. Maybe this week...

School is currently not being nice and flooding with lots of stuff that I have, yet again, neglected this blog. I didn't even read other blogs as much as I wanted to. But that's not over, there's a bunch of stuff coming up, just letting you know!

Also, a report form Polish Team Championship was meant to be here... But it won't be. I fell sick with a horrible throat ache and general cold-ness that I just couldn't go attend a two-day tournament. Just my luck.

Anyway, not to make this a wasted post. I was thinking about it for a while and I'll have to ask you for an opinion! What is, that you like to read the most on 42nd Cadian? What is, that you would like to read about, that I do not write? Let me know, what can I do to make this place more interesting!

Wolves of Fenris

2010-03-29T21:38:00.009+02:00

Just a short update, but hopefuly a bit interesting at least! This time it's about wolves. But the real wolves. As in the furry grey canine!

I have acquired a couple of wolves from a friend of mine to incorporate them into my Wolves army. All in all Space Wolves are quite far away from being Codex Marines, but most highly competetive lists get closer and closer to such a thing. After all Grey Hunters are Marines. Sure, they're light blue and have lots of gubbins attached to their armor, but still.. There are a couple of units however that serve to differentiate them quite a bit from other Marines chapters, so that you just take one look and you're sure you're not dealing with regular SMs. Fenrisian Wolves are just such a thing.

But let's have a picture, shall we?

Here we are. These wolves have been stolen from a goblin Wolf Cavalry unit-thing from Warhammer Fantasy. This wolf is... quite boring. Being a mount it can't really have a super-dynamic pose as the rider might then not fit on top of it, plus it's not really the latest sculpt. But that's not really something that'll stop me! Click below if you want to know how I got around it!

With proper use of knife and green stuff obviously. Take a look at this wolf (which is not exactly the same, though similar. Also does this head look a bit like "rabbit with huge teeth" to anyone else?).

Looks a bit better? What I did is just cut it in half and turn the front "torso" a bit. It might not be evidend on this picture, but frankly... It's really difficult to take a shot on those. Since they're still missing their bases (and will for a while, till I order some 40 mm bases) they really don't want to stand still to get a picture. This is the best I could do:

They look a lot better, at least in my humble opinion. There's still a lot of green stuff work to do. So far, I only filled in the gaps. Now another layer will have to come, with fur sculpted on.

But that's not all yet!

Yep, a cyberwolf in very early stage of development. I'm actually pondering on adding more cybernetic enhancements on other wolves with cyberwolf obviously having much more of them and much more evident ones. Thoughts on this?

That's it for now. I'll write more on gameplay terms of those when I actually test them in battle. Also, the 303rd is on hold, still waiting for the SW battleforce to ship with missing shotguns.

303rd - A Sneak Peak

2010-03-20T12:46:00.003+01:00

Not a lot today, however I want to present you a little sneak peak of the upcoming 303rd Veteran Squad! Hope you like them. There'll be much more on them coming later.

First a little shot on "regular" veterans within the squad:

They all bear shotguns and rebreathers, there'll also be a few purity seals. They're still unfinished, I'll try to get some more on them to make them more unique, even though they should stand out quite a bit thanks to their loadout.

And obviously, there's more if you click below!

Here's the sargeant leading the squad. He's been done for quite a while now, but he gained a, sparkly... green, new rebreather!

And another regular vet. This one will have a tutorial attached to him as a new installment in the IHRH series! Can you guess what it's about?

That's it for now. The melta guys are also out there, but not ready to be unveiled just yet. Alas, I cannot finish the squad just yet. I am waiting for my second Wolves battleforce to arrive with the two missing shotguns! I'm hoping it will be here soon enough, since there is a big tournament coming where I'd like to field them and they would have to be fully painted before that!

Long Fangs and the Vehicle Conundrum

2010-03-16T20:23:00.005+01:00

Time for more Wolves, sorry IG fans! The veterans, as you have easily guessed, are not quite yet in a state to be shown. However there is a problem with which, I would love to get some aid solving!

But first things first, the long range support of the Wolves! An invaluable unit, a must have for every Wolf army - The Long Fangs!

Assembled fully recently, this unit took a while to get together. Getting hold of so many Missile Launchers wasn't easy and I might need 4 more for another pack! There's more shots of them and the aforementioned issue explained below!

The middle one is obviously the squad leader. The Multi-melta guy looks awesome, but I started to wonder how many battles will he eventually see. MMs are nifty, when something nasty deep strikes near you or a careless vehicle swoops by closely, but points-wise there isn't always room for him!

The second pack will surely contain a Plasma Cannon Long Fang, which might face the issues of the multi-melta one, by a much larger margin. But I just can't not make him. Why? Take the Space Wolves codex and look at the picture near the description of the Long Fangs in there. Must have.

But the problem I have is not related to Long Fangs and their armament! It's related to something even heavier - vehicles!

I still haven't show you the Rhinos I've assembled, though truth to be said they aren't that heavily converted, so I guess I'll just post the finished deal, but before it's finished... yes.

How in Terra's name do you paint Space Wolves vehicles?!

I just can't seem to grasp the color scheme used by GW. Instead I've done some experiments, but I need your opinions. Which one is better?

The first one: Basecoat is same in both, 50/50 Space Wolves Grey/Shadow Grey. This one is then drybrushed with Space Wolves Grey.

Second one: Is just basecoat, to show you how exactly it looks. This is much closer to what GW is presenting. I honestly have no idea how to highlight it properly, it almost seems as though GW doesn't do that at all and they still look amazing after applying all the battle damage.

Third option: Wasn't tested, but I was thinking that maybe drybrush is the way to go, but it should be made darker. So instead of SW Grey, there'd be something like 2:1 SW Grey/Shadow Grey. And SW Grey as the final, very delicate drybrush.

What do you think? Perhaps you have access to some awesome tutorial on those? I'd love to know!

And just to show some more, what is under the brush right now:

A new Guard project

2010-03-12T11:52:00.002+01:00

You asked for something and here it is!

Can you guess what it'll be? Shouldn't be too hard

The First Pack - Complete!

2010-02-23T18:25:00.007+01:00

There we go, actual content! The first pack, at long last, is finished, painted, varnished and based! After a long while, fresh pictures! Also, it seems I don't have witty post titles for Wolves. Damned Relic not featuring them in Dawn of War. *cough*

First off, a group shot. Not the best, I realise. Other shots are better. I actually found a way to do those pictures a bit better I think, reduced the way the camera lights them up so much. One picture is slightly too dark I guess, but still everything is perfectly visible. It seems to be a bit more of an issue with Wolves, due to their light armor.

Obviously there's more shots, just click below, as usual!

The first two, He-man and the Melta-man! I like them both quite a bit, though the tattoo on the He-man could've been better (it also isn't really visible in the photo...). He was also painted after slightly too long break, I think it does show in some parts...

The next two. The guy on the left is one I like the least. I somehow feel like I totally screwed up his face, but in the end and in the squad he doesn't look _that_ bad. The right one I actually like a lot, with the highlighting on the helmet.

The next two, left one that you've seen before as the first Wolf painted, and the right one which is the model with Mark of the Wulfen. Quite a bloody model. I found a neat way to paint blood. Might explain it in some future post, though I'd like to expand it myself first and that'll take a few experiments.

And the last two. The left one being a "Pack Leader" (purely a fluff concept, no such thing in rules). I like how the gold turned out on the er... winged...skull...on a stick.. backpack thing. The blood on the right chainsword is painted a bit differently and I think it doesn't look as convincing, but it isn't too bad either I guess.

Now a few closeups on things I found to be interesting. There might be more of those, but oh well. First, my favourite face. Maybe not the best one (they turned out quite evenly decent, of which I'm happy), but I like that tattoo design I stole from Morrowind a lot. I'll more than likely reused it later somewhere, though surely altered slightly.

The best freehand company logo I managed... Which is also the first I made, duh! And yes, the shot is quite ruined by that reflection..

Finally more blood for the... er, Allfather, obviously. After all when his chainsword got so messy, there's no way other bits didn't. Also the chainsword grip looks really nasty... So the Wulfen fella actually got the same idea I did when I first saw it!

Lastly the Wolf Guard! The glowing eyes on the Thunderhammer I wasn't really too sure about, they were hit or miss... and they turned out as an inaccurate hit, I think. Do let me know what you think, but I probably won't repeat that experiment again.

He also knows how to use that Hammer, it's surely not sparkly new.

Aaand that's it for pictures! As usualy I would love to hear your comments. Also, if you have any ideas or perhaps know Nordic mythology and culture so well you know about interesting things (mainly related to fire) that could be used (symbols and such mostly, I've got the names and read up a bit of "dry" descriptions) or serve as inspiration I would really appreciate the help.

Now I just have to come up with names for every Wolf or at least the Wolf Guard. Oh well, Warhammer Fantasy RPG supplement with a table of Norse names is certainly going to help!

As for other things, I'm working on a Vostroyan commision right now, being about 25% done, hopefuly will get more done this week. Also, I finally got the Wolf vehicles, so no longer must the Wolves borrow Chimeras from the 42nd Cadian regiment to ride into battle! I'm in the process of wolf-ifying them, will post up shots when it's done! The Long Fang pack is also put together now, expect some shots soon!

42nd Cadian

The Pack Elite - Part 2

The Pack Elite - Part 1

How to Magnetise the Dark Eldar Razorwing

The Keenest Eyes

Fire from the Sky

For He is Our Lord and Saviour!

1st Platoon Command

The Background section

Posting Schedules and the State of Things

Threads

Man of Iron

Lots of plasma death

Obey without question!

Quiet before the storm

Almost into the Realspace

Too many projects at once syndrome!

The Dark Mastermind

Introducing the Kabal of Last Hatred

Like A Rain From the Sky

Fast and Furious

A bigger something

A little something

Silent Wolves

Even In Death I Still Serve

'eavy Armor

Lightning From the Sky

The Great Summary

Moving on with the times

A new century of posts

The Lonely Howl

The Longbeards

A Call to Arm... Names

Dum di dum

The Heavier Heavy Support

I Hate Right Hands - The Work Done - Squad 303

Woof woof! *cough* I mean, For the Allfather!

Hand of Iron

Arena 2010

Striking from the Shadows

The Unveiling.

Guard tidbits.

Faith Is My Shield!

The Crazy Ride

Commanding the Power of the Elements

A Guard Mystery!

'nother pack - Grey Hunters #3 (Fixed post)

The first Wolf vehicle

The Second Pack done!

A little update

Power to the Power Armor!

Bases... basics?

Grill 'n' Chill 2010 - Tournament Report

A hundred readers and the Great Company

How to Make - Combi Weapons

The Howl

I Hate Right Hands - Part 3.5 - Strapped Lasguns Tutorial

Dum di dum

Wolves of Fenris

303rd - A Sneak Peak

Long Fangs and the Vehicle Conundrum

A new Guard project

The First Pack - Complete!

Woof woof! cough I mean, For the Allfather!