Nugle contingent done... for now

My plaguebearer command is now done so I have 25 plaguebearers (incl. command) plus a herald battle standard bearer. In addition I have the GUO. I have in my possession a metric crap ton of nurglings but I haven't started on them yet.Now on to the herald of tzeentch and the pink horrors!

This Saurus Regiment Brought to You By the PlayStation Network Outage

When the PSN went down, I decided to spend a few days curled into the fetal position by the television, making M-16 noises and earning killstreaks in my mind. Eventually my unfinished Lizards lured me back to the painting table and sanity, so that I could know what one box of 16 hand weapon Saurus warriors looks like with a full command group of champion, musician, and standard bearer.

Aztec is bling.

The lizard base coat is hawk turquoise with ice blue highlights; the scales on their backs are regal blue with hawk turquoise highlights. Reds are mechrite red with fiery orange, and yellows are iyanden darksun with sunrise yellow. The shining gold/burnished gold on the weapons and shields marks the return of metallic paints, colors I moved away from as I painted my Orks, and had completely set aside as garish when painting the Eldar.

Of all the models, I'm least happy with the champion. Despite his pauldrons and unique mace, he doesn't look champ-y enough compared to the rank-and-file. (Just try to find him in the picture to the left.) I should have given him the more ornate shield, but I don't think it would have made a difference. I like how the standard bearer turned out, tho. Lizard banners are very well done conceptually, and if you paint it semi-competently it looks great.

Artsy night-time shot, or lazy photographer with flash?

The next unit I have to assemble and paint will be similar, but armed with spears - the hammer to the hand-weapon unit anvil. Eventually both regiments will be 20-strong, but two units of 16 will have to be enough to anchor my line for now. I'll probably actually field 15 per regiment, in three ranks of five lizards each.

Custom Fiends

I 'borrowed' an idea for making custom fiends of slaanesh from a pic I saw online a few months ago. Basically you take a forest goblin spider and combine it with a daemonette. I'm a little unsure of how much I like my effort. Yesterday I thought they really sucked, today they have grown on me a little. They definitely aren't as nice as the ones I'm basing these off of but this was a pretty quick conversion and far cheaper than the actual GW models.

Nurgle Battle Standard Bearer

I now have a copy of the Warhammer Fantasy Battle rules as well as the Chaos Daemons army book. Looking at my models I realized that I'll need a battle standard bearer so this weekend I chose to convert my Herald of Nurgle to a Herald of Nurgle with a battle standard. It was pretty easy. I drilled a hole in the top of the skull on the staff. Then I took a beastmen standard and made it... Nurgly. Finally I put the two together.

I like the results. Khorne is jealous of the skulls this guy has. Slaanesh gets STDs just looking at him. An Tzeentch... well the Changer of Ways is now the Changer of his Drawers.

Next step, finish up my Fiends of Slaanesh and add a command to my Plaguebearers.

Something new...

Here's the first model in my Lizardmen army, a Skink Priest that both Ms. D'Ork and Splinter Fleet independently christened "Skank."

Haha, I get it. Because I'm a skink. Bravo.

The internet machine assures me that this is the hero model of choice for small (< 2,000 point) Lizard armies.

Usually I start a new army with the rank-and-file and then work my way up to characters once I have a good handle on the color scheme and techniques. But Core units (skinks and saurus) were still in the mail when I got antsy, so I traveled to GW and bought this guy. What I learned in painting him is that drybrushing isn't enough to give depth to models, even when the model is textured and detailed enough, with raised surfaces to pick up the drybrush highlights. Drybrushing made Skank's skin look formless.  Like a shapeless blue blob holding a stick. Once I saw the problem I was able to properly highlight it, and I'm happy with how he turned out.

No one thing made me jump to Fantasy - it may have started with Splinter Fleet's new dual-use daemons opening the door just enough to get me thinking. Then, an event at the local GW reminded me that 40K is a game of two things: Space Marines and tanks.  My Imperial Guard ally and both of my Space Marine opponents were completely motorized, and so was I, except for my jetbikes. Pop the tank, shoot the marines, pop the next tank, etc. I was overcome by a desire to be rid of both these things at once, and Fantasy does that in a stroke.

I've also been interested in pre-Columbian Mesoamerican (such as Maya) art and culture for some time, so Lizardmen were a natural choice. I toyed with the idea of an Maya-themed Space Marine chapter (strange that GW hasn't fit a chapter into that cultural slot already) before deciding that I just didn't have another 50+ marines in me anymore.

So, here we go. I have the rulebook and the Lizard army book already. Saurus are next.

Here Comes the Cavalry.

Here's the completed Wind Rider squadron, including 4 Guardian Jetbikes with Twin-linked Catapults, 2 Guardian Jetbikes with Shuriken Cannon, and a Warlock with Singing Spear (and Embolden).

After whining that the Warlock on bike would be so hard to model, it was actually pretty straightforward.   I started with this model and then cut it off at the waist, cut off his right arm, and cut his left arm at the shoulder.  I replaced his legs and right arm with the Jetbike Guardian versions, and repositioned his left arm so that the spear pointed forward.

The lower robes were not a problem at all, as I cut all that off anyway. The most difficult part was the right arm. The Guardian arm was too flimsy - without a robed arm the model looks asymmetrical. So I had to make a sleeve out of greenstuff. I think I did a fair job, but nothing that would pass close inspection. He won't win any awards, but he's WYSIWYG, which is important when you tell your opponent that you're putting a Strength 9 shot up the exhaust pipes of his Leman Russ.

Tactically, I worry that this squadron is too large to hide in cover, and even Turbo-boost and Embolden (which allows the unit to re-roll failed morale tests) may not be enough to keep them around. But I can break them down into two smaller squadrons if I need to. They're a finesse unit, and I'm sure they'll end up getting wiped out a few times before I figure out how to use them.

Next up: more Fire Dragons.

I Swear to God, I Paint Stuff

It’s been too long since I painted a model and offered proof, so here are the beginnings of a jetbike squadron.

The Shuriken Cannon is an extra from a Wave Serpent sprue. The only cut I had to make was shaving the ammo belt down on one side so that it would fit under the engine cowling and connect the midpoint of the gun to the bike while still fitting in straight.

I think they’ve turned out well, especially the camouflage on the cowling. The rest of the army has an implied camo scheme, but these are the first models that use an explicit pattern.

Soon I’ll add two more Guardian bikes, including another cannon-bike, and then a Warlock with a Singing Spear. The Warlock will be a project - I hope to find plastic WFB elves with robes that will work. 40K Warlocks are all metal, and I don’t want to cut one in half, fit it to the seated legs of a plastic jetbike Guardian, then balance the whole thing on a bike. Ugg.

In less lucid moments I imagine having two squadrons like this, but one will do for now while I figure out how the hell to use them.

New members of the daemon family

Here is a herald of Nurgle and some plaguebearers. The herald is a beastmen shaman with an old skeleton head and 1/2 of a great unclean one horn coming out of his head. The plaguebearers turned out ok. I mixed green and some orange to liven the unit up a little. I still have 4 more to go before getting the 3 units of 7 I'd like to have before moving on. I won't actually use the herald as I have 2 greater daemons taking up my HQ slots.

I have a Keeper of Secrets done as well. The photo doesn't do the model justice - it looks better in person. There's also a spot on his sword hand that I cleaned up. I did a poor job of removing the metal on that part of the model that has since been fixed. Joining the Keeper of Secrets will be a bunch of fiends when I can get the conversions done.

Essential Modeling Supplies - Disposable Diaper Changing Pad

What's the best bang for your buck in modeling supplies? A pack of disposable diaper changing pads. For just a couple of bucks you can get a marvel of a product. Super absorbent on one side, totally waterproof on the other. Put one of these down on any table and feel confident that the table is safe from paint, water, glue... or even baby poop. If you use the last one in your modeling efforts I don't want to know about it.

I use these to model in our kitchen on our granite counter top or our kitchen table. Also up in our office on our desk. Several years after discovering this trick still no problems despite spilling all sorts of stuff from paint to bourbon.

As a bonus, they usually have some cutesy pictures like fish or teddy bears you can deface with eye patches and horns if you are taking a break.

Happy New Year from the Great Devourer

It's been a busy week off. 2 Warriors, 1 Tyranid Prime, 3 Zoanthropes, and 16 Devil Gaunts... done!