Shoulder the dissapointment

I wasnt happy with last nights shoulder pad attempts.

Both of them were too large in my eyes, and so today i set to to have a fettle.
I only did 1 pad, In an attempt to work quickly and make some descisions.

this first one apes one of my earlier Power Armoured =][=. Its rough and not entirely pleasing, but the size is a little better.

This, I dont know, this just dosent work for me, something , I dont think the original plastic has enough bend in it.

This is a slightly better proportioned take on Ron's pads. I'm leaning more in this direction.

I tried a "lobstered" look, but the results were too bulky to be worth photographing.

Maybe I need to pad out the greaves to balance the additional "weight" up top.

man, the thought of doing upwards of 15 of these guys if I eventually use Ron's method.

ouch.

I wonder if Card is easier to work with.

AOBR Grey Knight?

The fevered brain that I posess has kicked into a strange place.

A place where it seems to be daring me to make my own Grey knight analogs from whatever I have lying around unused.

It is a sickness.

However, with the usual caveat about these guys representing Grey Knights who have been out in the field a Loooong time, in the company of an increasingyl radical Inquisitor and without the benefit of proper repairs etc etc.

I present a couple of attempts at something grey knigtish.

In this first instance, the plastic used for the shoulder has been cut too wide. and there is NO gs at all on him yet, which will be used to smooth some areas and tie things in better. he also need a small sand becuase i had a superglucident and left half my thumb on him. grr.

This second attempt is much more effort, and still needs a tidy up once the glue is set, but may well be a better option, the template is stolen from Ron's pre-heresy tutorial and is remarkably easy to use, I'd appreicate the thoughts of the blogshpere on which is preferable, and in general on the heretical Idea of making GK analogs from aobr termies :)

So very WiP

So You'll have to be gentle with me, In the interests of getting updates out there, I'm posting things in states I wouldnt normally share with the world.

These guys need tons of work, lots of GS and detailing, but I think most of the poses are "done". that said you must bear in mind these are working bases not final, you'll see why :)

I know, GK with a sword, I personally like the idea that they will use different weapon forms, so brace yourselves :)

This is the roughest GS, it's structural rather than finished, and this fellow is likely to be the justicar for the first squad.

Yeah, hes not actually going to lean that far back when he's mounted on rubble :)

this guy also got the first investment, I bought the weapon pack - so thus far these fellahs have cost me six quid. I did originally want to keep it to a totally bitz box build, but i weakened.

This guy has an old old old bolt pistol, which is going to become a wrist mounted psycannon with a little more fettling.

they al need chest work and GS work, detailing, seals skulls etc, and maybe some script, I'm not sure.

The thing to remember is that they aren't really grey knights anymore, I mean, they were but they've been away form home a looong time, and this Inquisitor they follow has a lot of influence. they havent fallen to chaos or anything but thier gear is a bit more ad hoc and "self-serviced" and thier outlook is a little more radical.

oh and they won't be silver.

comments always welcome :)

A little more

Well It looks like I'm actually making some progress, allbeit in small chunks

These fellows are begging to look more like Grey knights, and to be honest I'm not entirely sure that pleases me :P

Thus far i've done some of what I might call "structural" GS work on one of them and actually glued most of his bitz into place. he still needs "detail" GS work and some more bitz like pouches icons etc.

But here he is, His weapon has been added to quite a bit and some of the planes of his armour and helmet rationalised.

I've also blu-tacked another guy together

Some kind of attempt at a justicar, with a cape of sorts and no helmet. the feral hairy head is to tie these fellows in more with the rest of the army and also to provide a boost of individuality.

I like the forward-moving pose, all these guys are coming out fairly dunamic so far, but I think I need a better sword arm. I may have to reverse the sword/bolter arms. also the chin dosent yet sit right within the armour so the head is a little high.

I'd love to know your thoughts, weather you influence me or I ignore you I always listen and deliberate :) and these guys are very new territory for me.

Let's call them.. Sketches

I'd usually be a little hesitant about sharing things in such an early state of development, (yes, state is the right word) But I thought I'd open the door on the whole process with these guys in hopes of shedding some light on the randomness that occurs within.

I decided to have a go at some grey knights. Now as you will expect if youve read much of this blog, I wont be buying off the shelf GK's and painting them silver. I'll be doing my best to add my own "spin" and to keep them tied in with my Lord's forces.

He's basically consolidated in my head into a radical, theres a daemonhost at his disposal, and probarbly a few more on the way, But let's for the sake of argument say that these GK's dont know that yet. that allows me to keep the rules (i'll never have them both on the field at once, he has to keep his more nefarious doings from these guys) and keep him as the kind of radical I envision, whilst still playing these fellows fom time to time.

Like the IST's and acolytes I want to make them feel a little feral, a little nonstandard, and definately appear as vetrans, I see this whole force of inquisitors and various troops having been aboard the same ship together for a very long time, and almost come to the radical beliefs together. they wont themselves feel like radicals. its that slow creep of compromise that'll kill ya :)

Anyway you come for the models, (you stay for the chicken!) ahem.

I'm basically riffing on the GK notion, by taking this -

Sad accretion of stained plastic that was once a 5 man blood angels assault squad, combining it with my bitz box and producting, thus far, these two "sketches"

I'm saying "sketch" because this is the very first stage of building for me, most things are held on with blu-tak as I experiment to see if I like the pose and parts I'm using, there's very little detail as this will be added later with bitz and GS.

My plans for the GS envolve everything from the structural, such as armour joints, helping with positioning etc, to the neccecary such as new thumbs and fingers, resculpting helmet details and so on, to the final more decorative stuff. and something I havent tried before, Text.

I have some Ideas how to try and sculpt GS text, but would appreciate any pointers or links to tutorials on the subject, as it's new to me.

so there you go, another update please let me know your thoughts, and please forgive the early, rough nature of the offering.

Time and Energy

It’s been a while since my last post, and partly that’s down to being disheartened that I didn’t make it to GD, partly it’s a little burnout, I’ve painted four armies and build a lot of terrain in less than a year, in one of my earlier blog posts I added it up in painting points as was stunned by how much I’d done.

It’s also about time and energy. Without going into boring detail let’s just say work has been incredibly demanding the last few months, way more than it should be. But hopefully that will be resolved shortly. The time/energy equation should then have a little more room for Warhammer.

I’ve played a few games with my DH army, and have some observations to share, I’ve also bought armybuilder (what an ace package that is!) and have realised one error I had made.

So observations. Without using GK as I am, and with no allied WH, my army was entirely inquisitors and ISt’s and it did well the first few games, the melta gun-chimera tactic is solid, but a few things kept happening, my chimeras get popped and my troops don’t last long at all, especially considering their cost. A hangover of codex creep I assume.

I rectified this by allying in some guard, that got me a leman russ and some cheaper troops to help out and my force now felt much more successful. Until you realise its codex creep coming back in again and I’m essentially playing a guard army with some DH flavour. I didn’t want that, but I also don’t want to give up my leman russ, as the DH codex has pretty much no heavy in it at all.

So that’s where I was. I then tried something I wasn’t going to, a small (3 man) GK terminator team. They were okay, and it felt quite nice having a 2+ armour save on the field, even if the unit did get wiped out (bullet magnets)

Then comes the realisation, which prompts a change for me. In terms of allied guard, to save on miniatures I’d used veteran squads. Army builder tells me (rightly) that a DH army can’t ally in veterans. So my force isn’t legal.

Okay I’ve got some options, I can slap in a guard HQ and strip down my Inq lord and call it a Guard army with allied DH and it all becomes legal again, no problems. And I might well do that when I want to put the russ on the field, but. And heres the big but. I wanted a viable DH army.

Something about playing a guard army with flavour just doesn’t sit right.

So I’m investigating the idea of fleshing out my DH with some proxies for GK and GKT, I wont use the guys themselves because I want to keep the unique look of my army, and I want to maintain the colours and flavours, which means not throwing a lot of silver In there. I’ll start smallish, 1 gkt squad and 1 gk squad, and I’ll probably take them as FA so I can deep strike both and have them as reactive elements. I know it wont make up for the loss of a russ, but then, what will in a DH army.

Hrm, maybe a Dread :)

As for the conversions, I want to try and make them different, but still fairly wysywig, so the weapons will look like power/nemesis weapons, and the firearms will resemble either the archaic psycannon I already have on some of my inquisitors or a storm bolter of sorts. I wonder how I can make a storm bolter stand in, hrm.

Anyway enough rambling, I include also some “in action” shots from my last game vs Tau, a much closer match than many I’ve had with heavy losses on both sides.

The forces of the inquisition move into the deserted township

Where the vile tau lie in wait

Kroot mercenaries are spotted advincing through the woods

The inquisitor wastes no time is having troops deepstrike in to assist

The sight greatl;y heartens the Imperial guard levvies

The tau soon find themselves face to face with the forces of the imperium

GD09 Update

Since finding out you can pay on the door, (yay) I'm much more relaxed about these entries.

I thought i'd post progress, I do expect to finish in time, as I feel I've got a handle on them now. I'd still really appreciate any feedback.

I took these pictures because in the main I've found that taking pics for this blog really helps me to see the miniatures in a different way and the flaws are hugely magnified, it helps me improve. and hey, if I've taken them, it's like a law that I blog them, right?

so the first thing that happened was to the base, it snowed.

It hasn't yet snowed on the trench, and I'm not sure if it should. I'm leaning towards yes, but will happily take any input :)

Here's the progress on the big gun, not inspiring, but at least I haven't messed it up yet.

I'm quite happy with the progress on the guys, the melta gunner is getting all the paint first so if I screw up it's with him not the other guy.

They both need a detail pass and they need extreme highlight and shadow, after that I'll add some weathering. please let me know what you all think.

AsI've said in previous posts, I know I don't have a cat in hells chance of winning anything, but I wanted to build this kind of model, and I'd be delighted to make the first cut :)