You can never have too much metal.

Trying to get caught up with my Blog Wars painting, this week has seen my finish a Russ, two Hydras and a Bane Wolf. I also finally got round to using two of the metal crewmen I’ve had for a while.

   

The Russ, nothing special, in it’s normal configuration here, but this is the one you saw me magnetise fully the other day.

Told you those magnets on the side wouldn't look too weird :)

 

Bane Wolf. again this is magnetised, but photographed in its Blog Wars configuration. I tried to branch out a little with my markings here, while still making everything thing feel like it belongs to the same force.

 

And the Hydra. pig of a model to build, but decent looking once finished.

Again I mixed up the markings, and am quite pleased with them, and again used a metal crewman in emulation of the build on the FE website.

These vehicles have had my usual paint and weathering treatment which can be found by clicking the links.

This leaves me just with twenty single minis to paint and another russ.

I can do that. *ulp*

Thanks for reading :)

Gunnery Sgt Harker – Conversion 2.0

If you remember last year, I made Cadian versions of a few of the character models from the Guard Codex.

This was my Harker -

 

Well With Blog wars looming and my plan being to take Harker as my Unique, I thought I’d revisit the concept and see if I couldn't manage something a bit more dynamic and interesting than just “guardsman with a Hvy Bolter”

Here's 2.0

Some of the pics are a tad shaky, but I think you can just about make out what’s been attempted.

Yes, that is a green beard.

he’s more dynamic that he predecessor, leading his men on, which I feel is apt for an assault squad, I’m not toally happy with the angle on the ammo belt, but bolter round sized ammo belts are hard to come by (these are from the dark angel ravenwing bike sprues.)

I’m not adverse to tweaking if anyone has any recommendations.

I’d even take a “why bother the first one is better” ;)

Primer

 

Having built a few new things recently seemed a good time to address this question I’ve been asked a few times.

“What primer do you use?”

Well, I don’t use anything fancy, although in the past I’ve used Vallejo and citadel aerosols, Japanese smelly airbrush stuff, and Gesso.

Now I just use Halfords automotive primer, in Grey.

It has a good spray, behaves well in all conditions, sticks well due to its high solvent content and never goes powdery on me.

I make sure to hold the pieces I’m spraying with a glove, and to use a respirator, especially is doing multiple pieces.

 

I usually rack them up in an old tray and spray them in the garage.

Here’s a bunch ready for spraying. The primer dries very fast, finger dry in 15 mins, but I usually try to leave it 24hrs before paint to ensure the solvent is entirely gone.

 

And this is how it behaves, you can see it on (left to right) Pewter, Plastic and Resin. there's no loss of detail, the colour is a nice neutral grey and there's decent coverage.

I use grey as default now as I like the neutral, flat undertone. There are occasions I would either use white, or apply zenithal white, but I can’t think of a reason to use black anymore.

Anyway, that’s what I do, hope you found it worth your time to read.

Cheers!

Blog Wars list

lots to do, oh my, oh my.

1. Primaris Psyker

2. Veteran Squad with 3xMelta guns and Chimera (Hull flamer)

3. Veteran squad with 3xFlamers led by Harker in chimera (Hull flamer)

4. Veteran Squad with 3xGrenade Launchers

5. Vendetta Squadron

6. Leman Russ MBT, Hull Flamer

7. Bane wolf (hull flamer)

8. Veteran Squad with 3xPlasma Guns

9. Scout Sentinels (Autocannons)

10. Hydra Flak Battery (Hull flamers)

11. Storm Trooper Squad (2x Melta)

12. Storm Trooper Squad (2x Melta)

There’s a second russ in this list, but not appearing in the shot.

It’s exactly 1750.

I expect to get my ass kicked.

I’m not a tournament player. With the frequency of my games I’m barely a player, but I intend to turn up, roll some dice and have some fun. I know it’s too many kill points, I know I’m lacking redundancy and I cant deal well with termies, and hordes will tear me a new one etc etc, but I don't care.

Alright, I care a bit. I cared enough to drop the silly 400+pt strakenstar, as its too specialised for an all comers list. and I care enough to pack a bit more melta than usual and trim some fat. but that's it, you wont see me “castling” or using silly formations or any of that, I’m going to play.

And I’m going to spend the next two weeks painting my ass off :)

Leman Russ Smoke Launcher tweak

After Commissar Dave’s comment pointing out what I already knew, –( that my placement of the smoke launcher on the most recent Russ looked daft :) ) I set out in search of a solution.

I hacked it up to look more like a “proper” one, as the supplied part looks daft to me, and that monstrously big thing sat on my track covers usually offends me so much i dont use it.

I felt I had to put this one on tho as I’m off to a tourney and want to try for wysiwyg as much as possible, at least as far as weapons and gadgets go. I’m not about to start pulling dozer blades off tho. :)

Cheers!

Magnetising Made Easy – Leman Russ

My previous post carries my endorsement for magnetisation, if not full then at least the options that interest you.

The Russ is an odd beast, and this tutorial will show you how to achieve full magnetisation, however I’m most likely only to ever run the russ or vanquisher variants, so one bit later on might be more annoying if you plan of regular use of the other two.

 

We’ll start with the sponsons.

Build you chassis following the GW instructions to this point, leaving the tracks off for now.

Then build you sponsons following the GW instructions.

 

The first deviation is here, where we reinforce with a section a sprue, providing a mount for a magnet, and insert a slamm flat magnet into the cupola on the sponson.

The sprue we insert needs to be offset to avoid obscuring detail on the russ’ side. this is achieved by resting the sprue piece on the tank in the desired position, and placing a pre-glued sponson down onto it :)

The weapons get the rear of the mounting strut shaved down to allow for the passage of the magnets, and a magnet inserted to mate up (watche those polarities!)

We now have a finished sponson, with magnets, ready to go.

At this point we need to blob a bit of black paint on the sponson magnet to help us locate the hull magnet attachment point. once we find it, drill, insert and glue.

Tt is entirely possible to make the magnets invisible by flush mounting them, and even GSing over them. I have left this one proud because I intend to magnetise some “gubbins” as I like my tanks laden with supplies similarly the slightly jutting shape wont stand out badly if simply painted in with the rest of the hull.

 

These new kits dont half have lots of options!

Onto the turret.

This is dead easy. first off, just glue some 1mmx2mm magnets into the mounting brackets on the turret.

 

Assemble the various weapons.

Then clip off the mounting studs on each weapon drill out and insert magnets. simples!

 

You now have a Russ chassis where each sponson and front mount weapon will swap out at will, the sponsons are detachable and the turret weapon is snap fit :)

I hope that helped, and gave you a few more tactical options :)

Thanks for reading!

Poigniancy

I'm sure I've mentioned before that I teach Game design.

Sometimes at my college we have guest speakers, and most recently my colleague managed to book Ian Livingstone.

It led me to an interesting day. with the recent furore over pricing and corporate direction, and the move to resin instead of pewter, i found myself in a GW yesterday, looking at Yarrick and pondering weather to buy him in pewter, or wait for resin.

I have a feeling i will miss the challenges and the heft of lead. but in the end I decided to wait and let him be my first finecast.

So fast forward and I'm watchin Ian livingstone start his presentation to out students and lo and behold he starts with his GW days, and shows us a bunch of photos of the first citadel miniatures facility. three men with beards and a few vulcanised rubber molds with a vat of boiling lead.

I know he was there to talk about Eidos and the report he recently published to government and Lara and all that, but having a day where the current state of GW was on my mind, culminate in seeing one of it's founders show us it's begginings twanged a string for me.

Where do I stand on finecast? I'll be happy to give them a go. but I've been playing with "little lead men" for nearly thirty years, so it's a tad sad that I wont have that feeling of weight anymore, more from nostalgia than practicality i think.

Magnetising Made Easy - Hellhound

 

Magnetising vehicles is an investment of time in the build phase, but it’s such a good idea to take that time and do it. the flexibility this gives your models as playing pieces is huge, I wish I’d started doing this earlier, being the list tweaker I am.

The Hellhound is a very simple model to magnetise, requiring no advanced modelling skill, just a few magnets of different sizes a sharp blade, some superglue and a little putty.

 

The first thing to do is glue some plasticard behind the opening for the hull mounted weapon. If you done have plasticard, a small piece of sprue would work, or in a pinch thick card.

glue a small flat magnet to the middle of this.

next we need to stick corresponding magnets into the weapon options. (watch your polarities!)

Where we have a solid weapon, drill a 1mm hole and insert a 1mm diameter magnet. job done.

Where we have a weapon with a void, I use a larger magnet and gap fill the void with GS.

Voila, done. this is the same for every chimera chassis you own.

 

the turret is slightly more complex, but not by much.

 

the first stage is to glue magnets to the back of each weapon option, then allow it to grip a second magnets and dry fit this in the turret receiver.

You'll see the magnets is am using fall short. I simply measured a peice of pcard, (again use sprue) as a spacer and glued the spacer and magnet in place.

you will need to widen the square hole a little, but gentle rotation of a scalpel blade will take care of it.

Then simply assemble the turret (you can see the weapons in the background) and you’re good to go, the weapons clip in and out and wont fall off.

Hellhound

Devil Dog

etc.

Hope that was of use. The Russ is next.

Other bloggers aren’t cannibals*

*Mostly. (not a guarantee,excommunicate traitoris takes no responsibility for other bloggers who choose to visit with people who may or may not be cannibals)

last weekend I jetted off down a very wet M42 to meet with a few fellow bloggers and roll some dice. Zzzzzz was our gracious host, also in attendance were Admiral Drax (who I found out was at the same uni at the same time as me, for a year. bloody odd place this world.) and Sovietspace who has a new, beautifully painted nurgle army led by an evil thing I'd never seen fielded before.

I took some pictures, but my blackberrycrappycam and the lighting did not aid me in my reportage.

The day saw Drax and I on the side of the imperium, while Zzzzzz and Sov took on the more disloyal side of the fence.

Zzzzzz’s own blog already has a lovely account of the combat patrol we played, in which Drax’s guard gunline climbed out of the trenches and walked slowly towards the enemy, strangely prevailing almost totally unsupported for three turns until my air cavalry arrived in the proverbial nick of time. (actually, probably a bit late, but hey )

We then played a crazy apoc game which saw scores of valks, tanks and light armour, and no less than three super heavies (two Baneblades and a Stormlord)

It was really good to meet everyone and to get some gaming in, I don't do enough of it.

Rest assured these pictures don't do it justice.