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 :)

All your base are..

Well, pretty nearly finished actually.

I've never done bases like this before, no matter what the purpose, it's always been on a GW plastic base or it was terrain.

Consequentially I didn't feel I could "tutorial" these so didnt take any in progress shots. If I ever do anything like it again I will make sure to document the process however.

I'm quite pleased with them so far. They are a little large for "single miniature" bases, but I'm going to live with it :)

Each one is getting a member of the forge world DKOK heavy weapon pair mounted on it

This one :

Is for the heavy stubber operator, he'll be kneeling on the treadplate with his weapon perched on the earthworks.

This one:

Is for the melta-gunner. He'll have the earthworks behind him, and be facing out over the oil can (ish)

The only trick now is painting these guys

To a decent standard.

Before the 30th.

Fear, Neglect, Indescision and work

Mostly those words can be used to sum up why there haven't been any posts in a few weeks. I admit to a little burn out, I painted a hell of a lot of stuff in a very short time.

Beyond what you have all been gracious enough to witness here on this blog, theres a whole ork host, and a space marine force too. Hints to these are dotted about the blog, in early posts and some pictures :)

I've made a ton of terrain too. and I'm by no means done. I love this hobby, so despite the few weeks without word, theres still activity buried here.

That's the neglect part. Let's talk about the fear and indescision.

I live very close to the NEC in Birmingham and I've been wrestling with wether or not to enter anything for GD 09. Heck i'm not convinced I'm going yet.

Now don't get me wrong, I KNOW I'm not remotely accomplished enough to win anything, I would be entering with the lofty ambition of hoping to make the first cut, that would be brilliant. But the fear part is in entering at all and allowing people to see my work in person. Without the comforting wall of blog.

The indescsion part is having a clue what to enter. I started in on a chaos marauder, but I'm halfway done and I know I wont enter him. Today i started on a pair of DKOK guys I've had for a while, and I've attempted scenic bases the like of which I've never done before. if they look okay, i'll go to GD and enter them.

I think (i did say indescision, right?)

Aaand lastly, work. Work is very hectic right now, it's the start of a new academic year, and we've moved to a new building, but it's not done yet so we're living out of boxes trying to keep the students engaged with worthwhile activities while we get sorted out.

I'm getting home too tired for much else these days. I know from experiece once the teaching routine is established things will calm down and my other activities will once again have room in my head, and my life.

So in summation, I'm working on some guys, I'll share soon and you can let me know wether to bother entering GD 09 or not :) and to all of my readers, and the couple of new guys I see, thanks for sticking in there while it's quiet.