72nd Shadow Highland Rifles

So have finially got around to starting doing the Guard block for Y Geiriadur. These units are from the 72nd Shadow Highland Rifles, the above squad is the first one I've started to paint, a world that had fallen through the cracks in the Administratum and hadne't had any contact from The Imperium for over 1800 years when from out of The Black a small trader found a badly damaged Marine warship, sending out a hail they got a tug to bring the ship in system, and started trying to hail the Marine vessel to let them know they where going to tow them back in system. The Marines themselves where rather unforthcoming on where they had come from, asking first what the year was and would only refer to themselves as Y Geiriadur. Y Geiriadur took it upon themselves to train the local army units to a higher standard and improved their weapons as well. Currently Shadow has sent a probe ship out into The Black trying to regain contact with the wider Imperium.

Y Geiriadur

So while waiting for payday already, really hate 5 week months, I've decided to start the PDF part of this army,as this is the only block on actually being able to throw them down on the table and use them. My goal is to get at least one squad done a week, and with 4 weeks to payday I can then pick up the Forge World DA shoulder pads for the Deathwing Knights and get that unit finished. So far this army has the dodgy Pred that I almost got ripped off on, a metal Furioso Dreadnought, my home made Master and Cypher, 1 squad of Terminators, 4 squads of PDF to paint, 3 Obliterators that need finshing, 2 Mutilators that need finishing, one squad of Autocannon Havocs (if more heavy weapons are needed I can flip them from the Lions Blades), 2 squads of Marines and 2 squads of bikes, there is also the Nephilim/Helldrake flip that I've done as well and possibly the Land Raider to flip over if needed and all in all I've got a fairly cool army here. There are also 35ish marines unasigned in a draw in my hall that I need to do something with and I'm thinking of going back to the Knights of Blood with them or maybe going back and swopping how ever many of the robed assault marines I've got with those and re booting my Daemon Hunting force possibly giving me the chance to filed the terminators a bit more often...

Long term with this army I'm planning/sitting with everything crossed/sending brides to GW hoping that a future DA Supplement is a Fallen Army one and will hopefully be able to finese this army so it can be used by that Codex as well as keeping the Chaos option as well.

The Guard I'm painting will longer term bolt onto a full scale Imperial Guard Army, and will be painted as Browncoats, only difference will be red flak armour plates instead of a red shirt. This project is going to be a long way off though as I have the Eldar to start before I get to that. I may just sell the old metal Necrons to pay for this as 2 armies for The Lions Blades, one Codex Army, one Fallen Army and one Corsair Army are a bit OTT with the Fallen Sisters project (come on GW work out the problem you where having with the plastics!) and the Chaos Android Army project as well I really need to think about down sizing a bit...

Retrospective Of My Eldar, with BOOBS!

So I dug out my Eldar last night as I'd promised a guy on Facebook I'd send him one of my Death Jesters, as I have 5 of the old metal ones and I took the chance to snap some better photos of them. This one will be the Farseer, I'd asked on the Facebook Eldar group I'm in on which wiould be the better weapon option for him and was told the spear would be better, so yet another mini project begins.

Next we have my Corsair Bladesworn accross the top, made from the Wytches you get in the Venom kit, below them is the Farseer and the Princess Sirocco, this model is the Black Scorpion Miniatures Jack a Roe Jones although I've just gone back to their web site for the first time in a long time and seen their new Pirate Lady on the front page and I might just swop her for that one. On the bottom row the first model is the old Ghost Warrior which I'm using as the Grinx Fimilliar for my Void Dreamer whos next along, this line apart from the Ghost Warrior are also from Black Scorpion Minatures ( go and have a look there's some good stuff there, especially if Blood Bowl is getting rereleased this year), and they are Pirate Girl 3 selection and they have boobs.

And lastly is my Harlequins section, top row is the Chorus with my favourite the old High Warlock, 2nd row is the Mimes and the 3rd row is my illeagel squad of Death Jesters and an Avatar, as I said one of these is going to a guy off Facebook to finish of an old school squad of Harlequins he's got for his Eldar army.

90% Completed Project; Deathwing Knights

So carring on from yesterdays single picture posting, I went home and put some effort into getting this squad finished so I could post it up today. Above is the first 3 of 5 finished and the shields, maces and arms with a Karak Stone base coat

Next up I unbagged 4 of 5 and base coated hime black nad added the screaming skull coat to the shields, maces and arms.

Then I unbagged 5 of 5 and gave the shileds and arms a wash with nuln oil and picked out the Angels with green apart from the Knights Masters shield which had a white roded angel. The maces have had the hand and grip dr drushed the same as the arms and the black has been finished.

4 and 5 of 5 with the a Karak Stone heavy dry brush and 1,2 and 3 of 5 with their shields.

Boltgun metal bry brushing done on the maces and screaming skull dry brush done on 4 and 5. I'd also gone over any screaming skull over spill with black and dry brushed that at the same time with the boltgun metal.

And here's it is assembled to about 90% along side my scratch built Belial and my Land Raider Crusader. Just need the Flail of the Unforgiven and some fancy shoulder pads for them.

Deathwing Knight

Only got a small amount of stuff done this week as you can see. I've got the 5 bases painted for this unit and enough arms to get one little Chuck into the rough stage. I've currently got the other 4 shields base coated and am going to pick up some more blu tac so I can get the other arms and the other 2 dreads painted later on today and tomorrow. Should get some more photos up of this unit tomorrow and fingers crossed will get them in a game next week, even if it means I'm only putting Belail, this unit of 5, 10 Terminators, 3 Bikes and a Land Raider on the table top and that comes in at 1225 points.

The Evolution of The Dreadnought

In 40k we all know dreadnoughts, if it wasn't for them War Machine wouldn't be the game it is, and with a game that has nearly 30 years of history there have been several versions of this venerable war machine. My own taste is to Imperial machines, and as you can see I've got a few. The only ones I can point to and say it is missing from my collection are the the old metal chaos chuck that had a skull and a wasp sting, the 4 weapon chaos dreadnought from Mission Dreadnought for Space Crusade, the new Hellbrute and the plastic Furioso pattern. Dreads started out as an upgrade unit for Guard, back when they had Predators and Land Raiders as well, and Marines. The orginal Dread had 3 versions , Chuck, Eddy and Fred, each had one build from the standard bits and GW made 2 sets of legs, one short, one long and 2 body styles, one with narrow shoulders and one with wide shoulders. I'm not to sure how long this style lasted, but my oldest Codex, Angels of Death, shows the next Dreads along as standard and these are the style that most of you will know as a Dread, I've got 2 of these types, one metal Furioso and one standard that I'm using as a Mortis Pattern. Next to them is the orginal Venerable Dreadnought, if you kept the old DA codex you can see a picture of it in there. The top row shows the evolution of the metal dread and the bottom row shows the evolution of the plastic dreads. The first plastic I know of came out in the MB/GW cross over game Space Crusade and the Dreadnought found it's place in the Chaos Android section of the enemy side of the game, this style, to my mind, owes something to Ed 209 from Robocop. In the supplement this style got an upgrade an upper weapon deck was added to it so it could field 4 guns, this is one of the types I don't have. Next up is the plastic standard Dreadnought which is what is with us now, along side this should sit the Ironclad Dreadnought, but I forgot to get it out of the box for this family photo so have added one from an older post. Next to that are the 3 plastic Blackreach Dreadnought. This was the first dread squeezed into a big box, it sits a little smaller than a standard dread and only had one build but it's still the most common dread on ebay and you can do a fair bit with it if you put your mind to it as I've made a counts as Bjorn The Fell Handed out of one and a wrecked dread out of another. Next up is the plastic Venerable dread, not as tall and not as decorated as the metal version but you do get lots of bits in the box. And lastly is the Forge World Contemptor. The only thing more modern is the Hell Brute from the Dark Vengence box set but I not a fan of that model and the Chaos Decimator, but I'm torn on wither or not to have the Chaos Decimator on this list as it is classed as a Daemon Engine not a Dreadnought.

First Weekend Off In Over A Month

So I finially got a ,nearly a full, Friday, Saturday and Sunday off together for the first time since May and I took advantage of it. Over the course of that week I'd recieved a few items off ebay, notable 3 Chucks and the components for my new Company Commander and the Deathwing Knight Shields and Maces and so no friday I stripped the paint off the old metal dreads and on Saturday I got to playing around with the chassis and having a look at these old fellas and how best to make them up into my Deathwing Knight Squad and trying to work out which shoulder pads to go with, still torn between the Forge World DA pads or the Cataphractii style. As it turned out I've altered the minis a little I've pulled the long legs off the model they where on and added them to a wide bodied version that I had as I'm making this my Knight Master, I'm luck in that the of the other 4 only one has the wide body so it won't stick out to much. i pretty much left that project for now as I wanted to get onto the new Company Commander for the The Lions Blades.

So I was between pressing issues at work and having a browse on ebay when I came across a seller selling loads of component bits, I trawled all the way through his listing and bought all the bits to make my Commander, MK4 Destroyer Bolt Pistol are and Body, MK2 Comms officer head, MK3 Pwoer Pack and a Bionic arm, one shoulder pad came from the bits box the other came from the DA Veterans box. The plasma Pstol has also been dragged up from the bits box but I might now change this one for the Forge World Plasma Pistol I do already have on another model, just ot give a better impression of the aged nature of the equpiment. First photo is just base coated Abbadon Black

Next photo is with a 2nd coat of black and the Screaming Skull added to the model

And lastly I've the finished model with a double bladed sword next to one of the conversions for the Obliterators for the Y Geiriadur. this model has had teh Lascannon from one of the old Chucks green stuffed to his shoulder, the oter 2 have 2 old plastyic shoulder mounted Guard Las cannons on their shoulders