Recent work: Making Custom Spawn, Painting a Bastion

Hey all,


So I've been absent lately. I blame my burning desire to paint models and work for this. Mhmmmm. So I've signed up for the fall 40k league around here. Its 2k this time, and for funsies, I've decided to run what no doubt will turn out to be a fairly bad list, given the current tau/eldar meta. But I'll give it a go without complaining!


So

HQ:

Juggy axe lord w/ all the good fixings, including Boon of mutation! /le gasp
Nurgle mace Lord w/ all the good fixings, including boon of mutation! /le gasp x2!

I know, you're all shocked to your cores already! Well get ready, here's some more shock!

2x cultists!

OMG!

2x maulerfiends

2x spawn, one nurgle, one plain

1x helldrake w/ flamer

andddd
*drummroll here*

Bastion! With Quad gun!

But wait, that's not all!!

Havoc squad! With 4 lascannons!

But wait, theres more!

ALLIES! - Black Legion

Abaddon

1x Cultists

1x nurgle spawn


Sayyyy whattttttt?

Yes, i know,  Las-havocs probably the worst squad ever, not to mention so many other units can do it better..

HEAR ME OUT!

So these guys, when combined with hiding inside of a bastion give me an answer to a few things -

1) Killing broadsides by doubling them out.

2) Wounding riptides, wraithknights, t-fires, and other pesky units at range.

3) Messing with opponents target priority


So, why do I want this?

Bastion gives me a place to hide my troops, which suck horrifically against t-fires with barrage now. If I need to, i can easily swap out the havocs on the top, and hide some cultists inside.

Havocs inside the bastion give me a good platform, plus an extra heavy bolter or two, to put out some las shots which can go after units which may try to run away or otherwise be difficult for my assault rush army to get to.

The quad gun is somewhat obligatory, and lets me have a chance to fire at the new swarms of Storm Talons i suspect will be emerging from under rocks. It also just means some extra fire support as needed (until its destroyed turn 1 by any good opponent, but hey whatevs!)

Broadsides are super annoying for me, not anymore! Even if they have a butt-ton of drones to hide behind, that's why we can prioritize what order we force people to take saves in!

The bastion gives me a LOS blocker for those times I can't start the game with one, a vital necessity in todays I SHOOT< I WIN meta, of ignoring cover, a.ka., terrain is pointless. So that's good.

Havocs inside the bastion mean they probably won't go away quickly, so they'll probably earn their points back.

Ok.

So painting wise, i obviously need a third spawn squad. That's well under way, see the pics below.

I also need a Bastion + quady, so, short story on this. I actually bought a bastion back when they were the retarded awful terrain GW sold, instead of badass fortresses of getting blown up by wraith knights turn 1 all the time for no reason that they are now.

I played 40k, and didn't realize what terrain was supposed to be, so of course i turn to GW, and get a big honking fortress of redemption, and a bastion....

Put it together, and after two games, immediately discard as retarded.

RE: me, several years later digging through a bin, on a half-remembered idea that i might have owned a bastion, and bam! One piss - poor painted - half destroyed bastion later, i'm good to go.

Also i fixed the shit out of it. See the pics below.

So I dropped daemon allies not because I think they are bad, (they are not) but because I wanted an excuse to run three ridiculous beat-face lords in one army. This lets me do that.

That was my entire train of logic.

How else can I run three characters who can smack some bitches up in combat? Oh wait, Chaos daemons, who do it way better in some respects (and now vanilla marines! boooooooo-urns). Blah

IGNORE THAT!

Also I tried about a million ways to make myself feel comfortable with running CSM's as troops, didn't really work. Maybe one day I'll find my courage. I was reading some other guys blog, and he was going on about using noise marines, maybe I'll give them another look in the near future.

So to run my master-crafted list of excellent excellentness, I had to build another squad of spawn, as mentioned above, so find below, pictures of before mentioned, after mentioned, spawn.
I decided I wanted to kitbash quite a bit, and build spawn who looked like for the most part, they either were super mutated, or just started the process. I chose brown as a color, so I could run them with any lord in the future if they turned out. Hint, my entire army is generally color coded to match the gods of choice. Brown is ubiquitous, so can go either way. I've also been watching a lot of bad 1980's and 90's animes lately. I've decided the way daemons and evil things were drawn then are wayyyy more disgusting than the way they are presented now. Go watch the Daemons in Bserk, for serious. Yuck. So I stuck some GW daemon heads on three of the guys, as they actually somewhat  resemble a few of them.

The spawn arn't close to done yet, they only have had a base coat, 2 washes, and some light drybrush and highlight. I'll need to do a lot more =/ le sigh


The fire guy, I thought actually could be a good representation of a mutated tzeentch sorcerer.


Ok enough rambling and silly talk. I'll have to post more later. But now, its bed time. Enjoy the pics.




This was a pile of crap before, now its less of one
Winner? Me. And that nurgling, that guy is
awesomeee

the whole gang of the new spawn
don't let them confuse you with their wiggly bits

I don't even know. Make up something

BOO!

Failed Tzeentch guy, obviously!

Nova shames, Painting updates

So NOVA is done.  I should probably have an extensive posts on my games as they were actually quite interesting. I did very well, and almost won my bracket. I quite literally, lost the game for myself, which has had me somewhat upset. I know a lot of people "say" that, that is, that they lost the game for themselves. But in this case its quite literal.

I took two dangerous terrain tests on a biker lord, thinking that he needed to, and caused two wounds. This sounds fine, except the problem is, he was attached to a squad with move through cover, which confers... =( So I didn't need to take the tests. This was compounded, as last turn, I broke him away from the squad in a desperate bid to last turn contest an objective my opponent was holding. This was fine, except in a effort to save time, I asked my opponent if I could go ahead and move the full 24" in the movement phase. He agreed, all was well. Then my vector striking helldrake nocked said squad off of the objective, meaning bro didn't need to be there anymore. Of course, there's no backsies on the lord being there, so I'm stuck now with a move I wouldn't have made if I hadn't been hasty. On top of that, my opponent (quite rightly I might add), blasted him in the bottom of the turn in a bid to get slay the warlord + an extra kill point (to win on Tertiary objectives). It all came down to a single 4+ dice roll (lord is T6 and hard to wound). Which I failed.

So he won.

If I hadn't taken the dangerous tests unnecessarily, he would have been cool beans bro, giving me the win. Him dying gave my opponent 2 points, which flipped the game from me winning by 1, to him winning by 1.

Shame on me.

I don't want to sound bitter or angsty towards my opponent. Its my fault and my poor knowledge of the rule. It's just how it goes. I'm just annoyed at myself.

I've been doing this forever, so there's a lot of wounds I've taken over the interval of the last year, improperly.

/le sigh



So back on track, i'll post up game recaps in the near future.

I've been painting models, as I felt obliged to for some strange reason. So I decided to paint my ravenwing army that came with my dark vengeance box sets. I decided I'd go all out on Sammael to set the theme. See the pics below. He's not quite done but he's pretty close.

Enough people have posted about the new vanilla marines codex, I don't feel obliged to comment at this second except to say that i'm pleasantly surprised. I was expecting more OP bullshit like wave serpents, and found nothing of the sort.

I do see the further death dirge of vehicles being sung by vanilla marines though. Those grav guns are ridiculously stupid strong vs. vehicles.

Everyone keeps going, oh but you need a 6 penetration result. So what? You're firing enough volume, and with the potential for re-rolls from tank hunters or other buffs, you're going to get more than enough of them.

One squad of bikers fires 6 shots, 3.96 hits, so rolling roughly 4 dice to see if you get a 6. If you roll even one 6, it basically cripples the fucking thing.  You roll a second one, and if its 3 HP or less, its gone! BAM! (Immobilized results are -2 HP if already immobilized).

How many times do you roll a quad gun hoping for 5's and 6's to pen or glance a flier?

Exactly.

Current Project: Painting Chaos Deamons

Greets,

I'll post up about the RTT later today, but for now, I just wanted to post up my current projects. An in-progress soul-grinder. He's about halfway done at this point. I need to give him a tongue of some sort for his mouth, and then finish all my highlights, touch-ups, and another wash for some parts.

The other project is nurglings! I bought two boxes of nurglings and I'm going to sprinkle them around my entire army on the bases and the occasional model. I think they'll add a bit of theme to the army and generally look cool.

Painting and more Painting! Chaos SM

Greets,

Even though Adepticon is well on two months away, my team and I have been working hard on painting our models well in advance so as to ensure we are ready in time. Although we are still working out the final details of our lists, we are no longer bumping around in the dark. So we've been working on painting models which are most likely included into the final product.

I know I haven't mentioned running plague marines personally except for my last post, but I have been painting up a squad of chaos SM to use as "counts as anything" marines. I've been using mostly the models from the dark vengeance set. They actually have a really nice look and dynamic feel and I'm really happy with them.

To paint I've been basing black, then doing bases colors for red, gold, silver and bone. This is followed by a wash of ogryn / fleshcolor wash.  The model is then drybrushed all over with a very dark grey, mechanicus I think. The bone is drybrushed with rotting flesh. Afterwards I start highlighting with a bright gold, red and silver. Then do touchups with a watered down black.

For Adepticon we are using two different chaos SM armies, one is based on The Purge the other is based on Black Brethern of Ayreas.

My half (the brethren) of the army is at the "clean up and highlights" point, except for a few chaos rhinos we need to strip and repaint, for the glory of chaos!

I really like the dynamic posing of the models

Typhus, badass, once tried to get the better of the Lion. Failed horrifically of course, but still tried.

I tried to do some "heroic" posing not sure how that's working out. This is a much earlier in the process shot, note the guys are not even on their bases yet.

most of the crew lined up for a "progress" portrait

even unbased, typhus is a badass

I love the Chaos Icons, so cool

Painting: Making bases and Chaos SM progress

Good Morning all!

So this will be a picture heavy post. Yesterday I successfully made 87 skull, bones and blood bases for my Chaos SM army (80 25mm, 5 40mm, 1 bike, 1 60mm). They sat overnight to let the liquid water effects dry and I've now mounted about a few of my mostly finished models to them. I really like the way they look.

For anyone following along, to do the bases:
 Supplies: Secret Weapon Minatures Red Black wash
                 Secret Weapon Minatures liquid water effects
                 GW Paints: Khorne Red
                 GW Paints: Rotting Flesh
                 GW Paints: Palid Flesh
                 GW Paints: Reikland Fleshshade (previously Ogryn Wash)
                 GW Paints: Rhinox Hide
                 GW Paints: Ushabti Bone

87 Bases, woo. The right 40 have been
drybrushed, the left 40 only washed.
The difference is very noticiable.

1) Base coat with Rhinox Hide (Brown).
2) Do a quick brush over all the skeletal bits with the Ushabti Bone, don't worry about getting some onto the brown based areas, just make sure you coat the skeletons
3) Wash the skeletal bits with the Reikland Fleshshade. Let it sit for about 30 minutes to make sure it really dried
4) Drybrush the skeletal bits with the Rotting Flesh
5) Drybrush the skeletal bits with palid flesh
6) VERY LIGHTLY drybrush the skeletal bits with white(optional)










adding a few drops, the other two sides
have already been done.

7) Place 3-4 drops of the secret weapon miniatures liquid water effects into the desired location, then using a toothpick or similar tool, mix a very small amount of Khorne Red into the liquid water until it reaches a desired shade















mixing in the Khorne Red
with a toothpick

8) place 1 (2 for larger bases) drop of the Red Black wash into a center or deeper portion of the base. Use the toothpick to spread out the darker areas to give the effect of varying depths of blood.
















adding a few drops of
red black

Allow to sit for at least 10 hours before touch. Note that the depth of the "liquid" water effects will shrink as water evaporates. So don't worry about accidentally adding to much.



Overall progress on the Chaos SM is going pretty swiftly. I'm at a stage now where I'm facing the prospect of painting 60 odd cultists. I want to do color themes in blocks of 20 so I can at least have a pretense of squad cohesion.








Same guys as before, now with highlights and a base
for the juggy lord! Note I am not using the W-Fantasy
base this model comes with. I decided after it was pointed out
to me by Jon P to use a 60mm base as in WH40k
Juggys of Khorne are also on 60mm bases.

The Screamers, under different lighting.

The Plaguebearers, finally on bases they still need
to have their eyes and a few other details painted

The Flamers, now on bases, they like the plaguebearers still need
some details painted like their eyes and mouths.

Painting: Further Chaos SM Construction

 After destroying my airbrush's spray nozzle by accidentally over tightening it. I decided to not be lazy and wait for the new one to arrive by post and just get started on the armies bases. I spent several hours today painting all 86 bases a Skorched Brown base.

I also did a test paintjob on a screamer and liked it so much I painted the other two right away. I started with a Grey basecoat, then used a Ultramarines Blue base, after that I did an Fleshcolor wash, then drybrushed with two successively lighter blues. The beaks are done with a bone color with a fleshcolor wash.

I also got excited about my plaguebearers and painted all 10 of them immediately. They started as a Skorched Brown base, with a Bien Green wash. Then successively lighter dry brushes of green. Then a final drybrush of palid white.

I did a bright gold highlight to my Khorne Lord and my daemon prince. While I don't plan on ever really using the daemon prince, I have him in case I score it as an upgrade for one of my models.

Panting: Chaos SM under construction

So I've been working on my Chaos SM models for the Adepticon team tourney as well as GT play. This means they need to be painted to earn high points in most painting rubrics, have a consistent theme and actually look good to boot.

I settled on a traditional black base with red and gold highlights for my Chaos army. I tend to like darker base colors and they provide a pleasant visual contrast if done properly. This army as earlier blog post photos reveal, is intended to pair with Chaos Daemons for the ultimate in punchy cheese.

Note those models are not "done", they are at about the 90% state. If they improve beyond this point it will largely depend on how much time I have left over after painting everything else up to the same standard.

Khorne lord
Basecoat - Grey

Base - Chaos Black / Khorne Red

Wash - Ogryn Flesh

Highlights - Wazdakka red / shining gold / the yellow color as pictured

Drybrush - Mechanicus Grey on black components. Wazdakka red on Red.

Red Spawn

Basecoat - Grey

Base - Skorched Brown

Wash - Ogryn Flesh

Highlights - Bone color on "claw" portions

Drybrush - Successive layers of red in the following order: Khorne Red / Mephiston Red/ Wazdakka red

Green Spawn

Basecoat - Grey

Base - Skorched Brown

Wash - Bien Green

Highlights - Bone color on "claw" portions, mephiston red for the eyes

Drybrush - Successive layers of green in the following order: Warboss green / Snot green / that ultra neon green GW sells.

So without further rambling, here they are!

BEER FOR THE BEER GOD!!!

So my friends and I from the NOVA crew signed up for the Adepticon team tourney. Our team this year, Beer for the Beer God will be running Chaos SM and Chaos Daemons.

Team Members
James - Myself! Your humble blog poster
Eric - SVDM GT winner and NOVA terrain painter!
Jon  - NOVA open Staffer, creative mind behind the NOVA open videos available on youtube.
Owen  - Nova open Staffer, starred as THE RAGE in the NOVA open video, and helped create vast quantities of terrain for the nova this past year

So as you can see, a rather star studded team! We decided on the CHAOS SM dex the day after the Adepticon team tourney last year ended, in which we ran orks (placed 20th!).

We are still attempting to "crack" the ChaosSM dex, though we've found things that are starting to work beyond the obvious MOER SPAWNZZZZZ. It's a tough nut to crack. Troops seem overcosted and under performing to some degree, but we'll figure it out!

That said, we've been working on some custom bases for our team. See the photos below (note its the same base just under two separate light sources to show differences)












These bases are from Secret Weapon Minatures. It started off as a Scorched Brown for the base, and Ushabti Bone for the skeletal bits. I then washed it with a black wash. After that I dry brushed everything with a little bit of Bestial Brown. Then proceeded for the skeletal bits only to do a light layer of Rotting Flesh, followed by a final drybrush of White Scar. The blood effect is done by mixing the secret weapon liquid effects and a little bit of Khorne Red, then placing a drop of the secret weapon red black in the center and mixing it slightly.

We are still working through the color theme for the army, more on that when its available and list ideas!