Space Wolf Allies

What? oh, C’mon.. the chance to add a few new models? of course I am thinking about allies.

I started with models I already had.

Imperial Guard

I have a fairly large guard army, and the cheapness of the stuff.. for the firepower you get.. it’s just wrong. example, two veteran units, primaris Psyker and two vendattas… sure you could bump those up to three and still be inside the forge org for allies.. but wait..In the heavy slot you could add three leman russ MBT’s.. or three Hydras… and a psyker battle squad in the elite slot.. wow.

Add some cheap enginseers to help out your vehicles and backfield shooters…

And we haven't even discussed artillery. this codex is the ultimate for power gamer mining outside of the GK it’ presents an awful lot of options.

But.

My guard are painted in desert colours.

And my wolves have snow bases.

that, right there.. I can’t do that. Maybe somewhere down the line I’ll add some vostroyans or vallhallans.. or model up some housecarls.. but nope, wont be using guard right now.

Grey Knights

No.

I have an old Inquisition army, that’s how this blog started and why it’s called what it is, a radical inquisitor… but I cant bring myself to play from the fromagerie that is the GK codex.. and I know that sounds rich coming from a guy with wolves and guard.. but there it is..

also, GK aren't battle brothers with wolves.

Maybe later.

Space Marines

Here’s a nice option, and one of the two I intend to explore.

Battle brothers, check, able to still model them as Space Wolves and therefore keep using the models in the core army.. check..

So..

Fast, Scoring, T5, shooty and survivable in assault.. awesome. also opens up the stormtalon, a much needed anti air unit for the Space Wolves.. space marine captain with relic blade, sgt with fist, MM attack bike and a Meltagun and flamer in the squad..

I still have a spare vanilla biker so I can still run the unit as swiftclaw if I swap him out for a special.

Only question is whether to use Khan.. with the cap added to the squad and the talon escorting that’s a decent blob to come in from outflank…

Blood Angels

More battle brothers.

 

Let’s first consider a cheap option I already have the models for. I mean sure, we can talk about death company in stormravens modelled as wulfen, and we might have to go there.. but for now, lets look at:

Assault squads, x2 5 man, melta or flamer, led by a libby.

can still model them as wolves, can still use them as sky claws and rune priest..

and two of my favourite words.. fast.. scoring…

sure I could run a single squad and combat squad them.. I could do that twice and get twenty of these blokes on the boards.. but this is a decent start..

Also.. I could run a Baal pred…… assault cannons are going to rule this edition, I can feel it :)

 

Heres the quick libby conversion I put together wile considering this.

Deathwing

The last viable option in my mind, and still a bit out there as Dark Angels aren't battle brothers..

 

Worthy of consideration I believe because cheap, scoring hammernators are going to be everywhere this edition, and one of the best counters.. is more cheap, scoring hammernators.. :)

This one doesn't open up much though, and while the scoring part is nice, wolf guard are still a viable option. Its a nice idea, but I like speeeed….

So the Space marine and Blood angel codices will be the ones I explore..

I haven't included templars not least because I don't know the codex well, but moreover because I feel the above offers better options than anything that codex could offer.

so let me know your thoughts, am I derranged? am I heading for trouble modelling my allies the same as my core army? should I consider GK codex options?

What units should I consider acquiring and modelling next? a Space Wolves Baal pred? more bikers? Wulfen in a stormraven?

I’m just full of questions today, huh? :)

Requiem for a Daemonhunter

So the new GK models have landed, as you can probably tell from a glance at any blog roll

or you email

or your local GW store…

Anyway, I’ve played DH since the codex first came out (with some time off in 4th I grant you) and I must say I’m not as excited as I should be. I suppose it was always the weirdoes and pseudo-heretics of the Inquisition who got me most excited as far as modelling goes anyway; and the new GK codex, while possibly allowing them to be fielded, certainly seems not to have those elements centre stage.

So will I buy them? Will I play them?

Well the terminators are the same price as CC termies, So I might well rationalise my army to be built around a few Termies in transports and leave it at that. I’m not sure my earlier conversions will hold up anymore,

There are some similarities, for sure, But I don't know if they look sufficiently like grey knights anymore.

 

Although, the AOBR > GK tutorial is consistently my most viewed page; and at nearly thirty quid for five, you could be forgiven for wanting to give it a go when this technique would get you considerably more for the same price, (Bitzbox.co.uk would let you have fifteen AOBR termies for thirty quid,) you never know, I might see the hits for that article go up yet more.

All that said, I have to consider that I’m quite taken with the play style of the guard. although I always did like to be outnumbered, so a deathwing style force of GK might flip the switch.

Let’s just say it wont happen yet. I hate people thinking I’m a “next best thing” player, so it will be a while before I go back to DH. I have my guard in my sights at the moment, and a bunch of wolves to paint, and a bunch of orks to build. Aaand I always thought an all-jump pack army would be coool.. and it’s been about enough time since the BA codex released…

Did I ever mention BA were my first army?

Well blood drinkers technically, it’s how I painted my first Rogue Trader marines box.

I digress… I have guardsmen to paint!

Final thought – Who’s been watching too much Avatar then?

An unusual game.

So a few days ago some buddies came round to play, and being three of us we had an unusual match for my combined DH/Buard's first outing.

Seeing as my army is almost two setachements in structure, I took them both on. Just under 1k of tau, and just under 1k of Dark angels against my just under 2k DH/guard force.

I wont go into a full batrep, but I will give an overview and some highlights.

We were playing for five objectives and I ended the game holding three with the other two unheld but just out of reach of my troop's move through cover rolls, the DA pretty much got tabled as I thought they were a more significant threat and the Tau ended with pretty much just the crisis suits left because the tricksy bugger kept hiding from my big guns.

The layout of the table was such that the terrain realy impeded my movement, that meant that my longer range shootyness and my reserves did most of the work, without the guard on my side it would have been a very different outcome.

Some highlights -

Blurry pic of the terrain layout -

I went first and this deployment

caused this deployment,

which in my first turn of shooting resulted in this.

Man of the match - I owe this guy some paint.

These guys tried to pop my other Russ, they didnt quite manage it.

These fellow did however pop my Lord's ride. bah teach you to shoot my best painted vehicle!

Actually, it's nice to see the theory work, the best painted vehicle with what is in the end a medium threat target, gets a lot of fire.

this guy earned his ponts, rolling the assault power just when I needed it he took the stealth team out on his own in 1 round of CA and saved the Russ from a second round of fire.

not that that Russ deserved it, one of the demolisher shots actually took out a weapon on the chimers sat next to the russ!

last stand out unit, and they really did, were my reserve Guard unit, they came on from the table edge right next to the marine captain, pie plated him, shot him up and assaulted. after that the captain was the only one standing, and he fell in the next round of CA. awesome work from a guard unit.

I enjoyed the game, and I really enjoyed seeing that the army I honestly was expecting to really suck, came together.

Shortcomings -

The first couple of rounds didnt go well for me, the rtestricted movement of the table layout hurt me, and having so many metla weapons the army dosent do well outside 12", but once that distance is closed it can really bring the pain.

that said I built this knowing my meta, and I'm going to have to get someoen to play this army against my own orks as I dont think they'd fare so well against a horde.

My Lord

Following on from the disclaimer in my last post, these are a little "off" colour wise, a tad cold. But here he is, I finally manned up and painted him.

Here he is with his posse. (retinue)

And thier ride

I always struggle with group shots as the lens I use wasn't made for this, it struggles with depth of feild with things that are so close to it, so foreground members of the groups end up blurry.

I'll do better I promise.

I've got 1 more chimera to paint, which I might try and do tomorrow, then this strike force is "done" I use those horrid "" things because I hae plans for lots to add to them, but the original plan was for exactly whats here. So If I manage the chimera, I'll try for a whole army shot.

Last two acolytes

I'll openly admit this is a bit of a shoddy job, but they are pretty much just ablative wounds :)

I'm concerned now because I'm running out of excuses not to paint my lord. I've basically got a chimera and him left to paint.

I know! I'll build my guard ;)

Daemonhost Greenstuff step-by-step (part 4)

This post sees me finished with my first Daemonhost sculpt. I have trouble with the concept of "finished" as I can always see more I can do, but The balance of being happy and not overdoing something is a hard one to strike. anyway, onwards!

As I said in my last post yesterday I intend to add mouths. harreh has said he thinks he knows where, and he's probarbly right. I've said these are going to be themed to different chaos gods, as I find that a shortcoming in the current DH models that GW produces, so this first one an attempt at, of course tzeentch. I hope I've pulled it off, and that these mouths complete it properly. anyway here's how I did it.

Start with a modest ball of GS, thus

squish this ball onto the location you intend to place it.

Use a round ended tool to impress an opening

and a pointy tool to exaggerate that opening to have a "lip"

Next I add the teeth I made yesterday

Then I move on and add putty to the ends of some of the "support" limbs, a triangular peice, ploked into place and joined to the main limb with a clay shaper forms a lovely tentacle tip

So here he is after his first round of GS. I realised at this point I maybe hadnt taken good enough shots to explain what I was doing so I stepped up my game.

His head looked a bit odd to me, a bit shall we say "distanced" from the rest of the mini, so I decided to tie it in a little more with extra hair - lets face it, whose going to shave this guy?

So I roughly site two small pieces of gs that are the loose shape I want

Then with my needle tool I scrape and shove them into the right position, taking care to keep the dynamic flow of the hair consistent with both the direction of the model and of the existing hair.

I repeat this for the other side, keeping the spacing in the middle to emphasise the metal bands.

That's better, so I move on to tackle the other two mouths. A different and slightly easier technique to the first one, above, I form a ball and press it onto the limb

Then I gently remove it and here you can see the "cup" formed by the limb

I reverse the cup and I press the cup into place, wide opening outwards.

It's at this point that I screw up. I do this at least once per sculpting session as a rule, I smushed already completed work.

anyway heres the new mouth, with a few impressions made with my needle tool ready to recive teeth

and the teeth in situ having been picked up on the lubricated tip of the tool and gently pressed into the waiting holes.

The last mouth was to be larger and so I formed the cup using one of my clay shapers

Attach as above and insert teeth.

And here, a better lit image of the finished piece.

I said this was Tzeentch themed and hopefully now you can see my inspiration, I've always loved the flamer models, and the thought of someone binding a flamer of tzeentch into an unwilling host, and having that creature struggling to manifest itself against the Inquisitors wards. well the idea appealed to me.

Hopefully he will cure in the next few hours and I can wash and prime him. I always feel a sculpt is more complete when the glaring green is gone and i can see the model without those distraction. Once that's done I'll take some better pictures and add them to this post.

I'm like to thank everyone who has commented throughout this, and say that it's been a very good experience for me, motivational to say the least. I hope it's been of equal value to those who read it. who knows I mgith actually get to like this step-by-step lark and do a few more.

happy sculpting everyone.

Daemonhost Greenstuff step-by-step (part 3)

I toyed with several subtitles for this post, "A brown moment", "teeth and chains" and whatnot, but as it IS progress I settled on "part 3", not as exciting I know, but not misleading either.

So here we are, another update tonight, as promised. This is my first time working with brownstuff, but dont let that put you off, what I'm showing here I've done many times with Greenstuff, the change to brown Is for my own experimentation and I'll let you know how I feel about it once it's cured :)

So, first things first, I'm going to make some teeth and set them aside to cure for later.

This couldnt be easier, all you need to do is make a fine, sharp point just like the end of a sausage-

Then snip it off with a lubed scalpel.

Here's a collection set aside to cure, some have had a slight bend added, others are straight. and yes, that is a CD, I use failed-to-burn disks as everything from pallettes to bases for craters :)

Next job is a tad more complex, still here? good. :) Lets talk about chains....

still here? :)

First thing we need is a - yeah you guessed it, sausage of stuff.

Which I proceed to flatten gently with one of the sculpting tools I use.

I make sure to square it up from time to time to keep the now squarish section. youll get used to doing this often as you make these chains.

Next I "nibble" a series of impressions along the length, both sides, with a single press of my tool.

Repeating this along both sides, trying to keep the spacing even.

Eventually we arrive here. at this stage I bore a small hole in the middle of each link, shoring up the sides as I go if neccecary.


Giving us this.


Then I take another slightly thinner sausage of stuff.



And lay it on top.

Then Proceed to press down in each of my already made depressions.

The end result is this:

Which gets a final flattening of the top links, before being called ready.

Once the chain is complete it can be applied to the model, securing it at suitable points.

I then go on to make a few more chains of various sizes and raid the bits box for something suitably chaosy to add something to the model.

So that's where he's at now. Thanks for staying with these those of you who are still here, tomorrow I hope to add a few mouths to some of his body parts, :)