Diorama pics: more inspiration from dad!

This type of post went over pretty well last time, so why not a follow up? Just before Christmas when we had my folks around before our trip out west to visit the wife's family - my dad asked me about some bits to build a sailor.  He had built a small sailing boat model (not sure about those details, whether it was a kit, kit-bash or scratch-build) and needed someone to crew it.  Here's what he came up with.

Sailing to Victory!

He pilfered my empire bits tray for the pieces he needed (though somehow forgot a left arm) and so a few weeks ago while we were visiting them for dinner, I brought him along an arm to finish it up.  Just yesterday he sent me a bunch of photos and his diorama really looks great! A few more to follow.

looks like he used some modeling putty to make a vest and possibly the shorts cuffs

here he was showing off the little wristwatch he painted on

now it just needs a plaque to have the diorama name displayed

Well done dadder! I find this kind of thing really inspiring because it's not like he spends more than 10-20 minutes whenever he can spare the time, but still manages to knock out pieces like this by using the time wisely.  I often think I need to be more accountable for what I have accomplished in the hobby time I spend and this is a stark reminder I can improve!

converted Redemptionist gang

Here are some conversions I whipped up from the dark vengeance cultist miniatures. As soon as I saw these awesome models I knew some would be great necromunda figures. I'm trying to make sure I don't duplicate any figures as necromunda really needs characterful models to ensure they are distinguishable from each other.  I plan to leave the chaos symbols on these guys, they will just be a corrupted redemptionist gang. I am currently trying to decide what paint scheme to follow.  A dark/flame look is what I'm going for.  Something similar to a model I painted for Dave at minipainting4free.  16 models should be plenty for a necromunda gang.

two deacons with flamers, plus a priest with hand flamer & sword

These are the most important gang members.  I converted the guy with the hooded gas mask to be carrying a flamer (instead of chopping his hands, I just cut off the flamer nozzle and canister and converted his autogun) to be a second Deacon.  My priest I just armed with a converted hand flamer (from the rest of the flamer bits that were left from doing the servo-arm backpack conversion for my ravenwing techmarine) and the final one is unconverted with a different model of flamer.

my zealots, you can only use two but I wanted all three options

The zealots were all really fun to make.  The middle guy took quite a bit of conversion but the two on the ends were pretty simple conversions.  A simple weapon swap gave me a zealot with two flails, and a hand flamer turned the axe wielding cultist into a zealot with exterminator on double handed weapon.  The guy in the middle started out with an autogun, but I trimmed it off his left arm, and replaced the right hand with a hand from some empire figures.  I simply trimmed two chainsword blades and glued them together to make a ridiculously large evisterator with another hand flamer as exterminator.

crusaders with basic weapons (a couple with CC weapons too)

I converted a few of these guys. Far left was a simple shotgun replacement. For the model in the middle I took the shotgun from the priest and replaced the autopistol.    Back right I converted quite extensively; first a head swap with another cultist to make them both different, then added a maul and an autogun.  Last guy is just a simple head swap.

devotees (or crusaders) with CC weapons

The model on the left had the head swap applied, and switched which hands held which weapons.  He got a sword/blade as well - right at that size where it could be a knife or a sword which is always handy for necromunda.  Guy in the middle is a simple head swap (he has far right's head, while far right has a head from a swap above.  The two guys in the back are unconverted.

Ravenwing Week - last day

Call it 5 or 7, this will be the last post about the ravenwing until I either start painting or sort out the bases/display base.  I plan to use the laser cutter like I did for my goblin team, but with a basic plywood sheet.  The bikes bases will be a very simple dirt mix.  Just a couple final pics because I hope you find them interesting.

black knight grenade launcher

I've just used some scout bike grenade launchers bits for my ravenwing black knights.  I do like the new grenade launcher bits but I probably won't be dropping $60 on 3 bikes plus bits.  I'll need to score one more set of these bits to fix up a couple more bikes.

stripping station

Here is my stripping station.  It's an old brita water filter tub, which I filled with simple green.  The aquarium pump I will leave running for several hours at a time when I am sitting in the hobby room.  Keeping the simple green circulating helps with stripping the figures I find.  Still takes a few rounds of scrubbing with a toothbrush, especially depending on what paint was used.

Ravenwing Week - day 4.. I mean uh.. 6?

Sorry for the delay, got caught up and didn't have any photos of the standard bikers.  I still need to get three sergeants done as well as a couple more basic marines on bikes to bulk up the flamer squad.  I did rip off the basic front flaring from the attack bikes I picked up and replaced them with the feathered ravenwing flarings. I've got a bunch more bikes sitting in simple green to strip the old paint off them.

I'm just going to show off some of the dark vengeance bikers I plan to keep using as standard ravenwing assault squads.  A friend convinced me with a bunch of plasma on the black knights which includes twin-linked (thereby decreasing their chances off taking "gets hot" wounds from 16.7% to 2.8%) that I should include some more melta in the list to have a better chance to deal with vehicles.  So I have 2 squads with 2 meltaguns and 1 squad with 2 flamers.  I have converted a few of the plasmagun wielding bikers to flamers/meltaguns and mixed it up a bit converting a bolt pistol biker to meltagun and plasmagun biker to bolt pistol to mix up the poses a bit.

squad with meltas

Am not sure how I plan to show sergeants for my standard bikers.  All the robed bodies will be my black knights/command squad members, so am debating a simple red stripe on the helmet or even a full red helmet to distinguish the sergeant.  This differs from the usual dark angels paint scheme but I don't think I mind that much, it will be nice to have some differences from everyone elses ravenwing.  I am keeping the sergeants arms pretty basic, though they will all have melta bombs (even though they have hit & run, they could still fail their initiative check if I don't have the ravenwing banner) so this should ensure they can do damage to things like dreadnoughts and not (frequently) get stuck in combat.

squad with flamers

I saw some nicely painted ravenwing the other day - am not a fan of the green bike body for standard bikers, but I did like that he used green for the feathered flarings and such.  Am debating doing something similar with red to make my ravenwing look a bit different. Thoughts?

Ravenwing Week - day 3

For today I am going to post a few black knight conversions.  With the new dark vengeance box having a sweet set of ravenwing bikers, there was no way I was going to pay $60 for 3 black knights.  I knew this before I even knew the price!!  Through trading and some purchasing off bartertown ($11 a set of 3!) I have 6 sets of DV ravenwing.  Some will be actual standard bike squads but most of the sergeants will be converted into black knights - simply by chopping the barrel off their bolters and cutting out a rectangular piece from the bottom of a bunch of plasma pistols and gluing them on top.  These are the first three I've converted.

banner guy, will leave hole open for a banner or a corvus hammer

First one I was debating between making him a command squad standard bearer or using my cheapo corvus hammer conversion from the ravenwing feathered banners.  I've been reliably told that using that as a corvus hammer looked like crap so I am going to revert to him being the banner.  I haven't glue the weapon so I will just make a few banner poles.  I am debating how to do the banner, currently I'm thinking of printing something out on sticker paper (and also debating having a plain white space to write what banner it is) - thoughts?

using the dark vengeance captain helmet

Second one I started to convert a basic "captain on bike" for which I used the captains helmet from the DV figure.  Unfortunately dark angels can't take a standard captain on a bike, so I proceeded to convert his bikes weapons to plasma talons as well so he can at least be a ravenwing captain/huntsmaster.  Using the helmet worked really well, and I just used a robed body from the ravenwing sprue mounted on a DV sergeant bike with robed legs.  Will need some green stuff to fill in gaps, but he looks really good IMO.

dark vengeance sergeant converted to black knight

Third one will just be a standard black knight, whatever I end up finding to use as corvus hammers will probably just get glued onto the bikes siding somewhere with some simple straps made of plasticard or
something.  I don't want every black knight to be wielding the corvus hammer, might make it awkward to get into tight spaces.

Does anyone have any suggestions for suitable "pick" like weapons to use as the corvus hammers?  Only requirement is that they be plastic.

Ravenwing Week - day 2

Here's a character model I decided to build just because I wanted one.  I especially don't see any issue since a techmarine doesn't take up an HQ slot, you are allowed to purchase for for every HQ you purchase (barring command squads) so he's easy to include as long as points are available. He also has access to special issue wargear which is very interesting. There's also no option for artificer armour in special issue wargear so barring 3 special characters he is the only other 2+ save and is the only one who can be customized.  He does only have 1 wound, but considering he's on a bike (in my army at least) that's T5/2+, he could be better equiped to withstand being rapid fired to death.

To build him, I took a torso from the standard rhino vehicle sprue, and used standard biker legs, along with the techmarine helmet from the ravenwing sprue and a couple shoulder pads with mechanicum icons.  This was all pretty standard and still has me contemplating adding some more "techno-bling" to his armour - maybe with some thin plastic card.  Opinions?  His armour does look pretty basic.

view from left, some decent mechanicum icons, but armour is very flat

The cool/fun part of modeling this guy was converting a servo-arm backpack out of plastic bits.  Thankfully I had remembered to bookmark an excellent tutorial posted by Mike (devised by a second Mike) over at Constantly Risking Obscurity. It involved using a backpack, 2 flamers and 2 combat knives which would result in one servo-arm backpack and a couple hand flamers. As I started to work my way through the tutorial, I found a melta bomb and thought it would make a good replacement for the fuel canister from a flamer.  So then I figured I could avoid chopping up a second flamer if I could find something else to replace the second "arm" portion. So I plucked the landspeeder antenna bit from a ravenwing sprue and voila - servo arm complete and only one flamer chopped up.  It's also nice that the two arm pieces look different.

plastic servo-arm goodness

Finally, as I was assembling all the pieces into the final model, I was debating what to put in his hand, I didn't want to arm him with anything that cost points so if need be he can be as basic as possible.  A bolt pistol wasn't filling me with excitement though.  While reading through the new FAQ, I spotted that he technically was also armed with a boltgun, so upon review of the wargear list I saw I could replace that for free with a chainsword.  Chainsword it is!!

view from right side

If anyone is planning to run a techmarine on bike in their Dark Angels list, please share what your thoughts are.  Do you plan to use him as a roving repairman? Just a 2+ save ablative wound for a ravenwing command squad?

Ravenwing Week - day 1

Just for fun I've decided to put up a bunch of posts about my modeling of my ravenwing army this week. Since posting helps keep me motivated and there are a number of items I would love some comments/feedback on, I thought why the hell not.

So first up is my Librarian on Bike.  Dark Angel librarians have already been earmarked as a great HQ choice in the new codex; they have the standard 2A/2W (+ force weapon/psychic hood obviously), but are only 65 points base compared to 100 points for vanilla marines and an additional mastery level is only 35 points compared to 50.  This is quite a lot for very little points.

right side, I really like the book mounted on the front

Basically I chopped up the Dv librarian figure to just use the torso & sword arm.  I cut off his "casting" arm and replaced it with a bike/handlebar arm.  I glued him onto a bike with a set of robed legs, and then I mounted the big book from the ravenwing sprue on the front of the bike, and used some rope bits I cut off some decorative pieces from the same sprue to complete the "securing" of the book to the bike.  I really like how this looks.  I also glued on an auspex since of anyone who I want to give up their shooting attack to use the auspex, it's him.

The best "value" that was immediately touted around the internet is taking the divination disciplines primaris power: prescience.  Most people are looking at this as a way to add twin linked to giant IG squads through allies, and I can definitely see that benefit, but for my ravenwing army, pretty much every weapon - except for a few special weapons in standard bike squads and the multi-meltas on attack bikes - already has twin linked so I don't see that as being very strong in this list.  I have absolutely zero experience with the new psychic system though, so am looking for a bit of help.

left side, shows the force sword arm from the DV fig

I have been considering adding the mastery level (with bike a total of 120 points) giving me 2 chances to score the telepathy power "invisibility".  Combined with the Jink skill on a large block of ravenwing black knights, they would get a 2+ cover save without even requiring a turbo-boost! The telepathy primaris power "psychic shriek" is pretty decent and I would definitely take it over "mental fortitude" or "terrify".

Does anyone have any suggestions for better powers to combine with a large squad of black knights?  Especially something to add some protection?  Or, say I do manage to score "invisibility" with my first
power roll, is there a different discipline you would suggest I am to get the second power from?

creating the Insane Goblin Posse

Here is my post describing everything that went into creating this blood bowl team.  Hope you enjoy and are inspired.  Try making a display base or put extra effort into the fluff of your team and translate that to the models & paint job and you will feel great about your accomplishment.

INSPIRATION
The initial inspiration for doing a goblin team came from (misreading) the Blingtoof 2012 rules pack, which included a free goblin shaman.  Originally I thought that you got one every game and was unwilling to give my opponent such a large advantage.  Finding out on the day of the tournament that it was once during the tournament definitely kinda sucked since I thought I read the rules pack very closely - but oh well!

Now I wanted to win a set of silver winners dice to go along with my gold winners dice from being Best Fouler last year (especially since it was my suggestion to make the winners dice different colours for each year).  So I figured the only way to guarantee that when playing goblins was to go for Best Team (aka Best Appearance) and since there are a number of very skilled painters in the Canadian tournament scene I had to pull out all the stops to pull this off!

Then my inspiration for the ICP/juggalo theme came because the Zlurpcast hosts had committed to attending, and I knew they would appreciate the theme and might bag me a couple easy votes for Best Team.  Unfortunately due to reasons beyond their control they found out very late they were unable to attend.  Damn you Goodyear!!

I had already won the Neomics goblin team at last years inaugural Blingtoof so I purchased some goblins from Gaspez Arts to supplement these models.  Whenever I plan a team I always aim to have every model I could ever want to play with sorted.  I felt ok leaving a few of the 16 goblins for later as well as a model for Ripper since I didn't plan to bring him to Blingtoof (I did cut base holes for them though).

I will mention right now I am really unimpressed with the Gaspez goblins.  The detail is pretty weak and the molds/pieces are too fidgety and too many.  Also several models had defects.  Its been explained to me that it's due to the drum size for their molds but honestly I would never recommend these goblins to anyone - they are just too annoying to put together and it took a lot of painting on details to make them look as good as the pics on their website.  Although I do have to say their customer service was quite good.  Sent some free models with a large purchase and when some pieces broke they replaced them quickly without hesistation.


PLANNING
I knew I need to have an awesome display base to help win this trophy and as I researched ICP, it became clear that a concert with a "dark carnival" slant would be very appropriate.  Especially as the goblin secret weapons (including pogoer) fit very very well into the dark carnival theme of ICP's albums.  I did lots of research and built up a set of names and numbers for the goblins models I was planning to use.  I've detailed out this below, but first I wanted to speak about the display itself.

I was thinking about what I could use as the display base - how to texture it, and while browsing around a FLGS (meeplemart.com) I found some zuzzy mats which were quite small (about 11"x14") and pretty cheap so I picked one up to play around with.  The owner mentioned how difficult it would be to cut the latex properly - suggesting folding it from behind and using a pair of scissors.  I am really confident that my method was better.  There happens to be a kind of artist commune near my house that has lots of specialized tools like mills, etc. and some of my friends had done some laser cutting there.  So I started asking questions about using it on latex which I was assured works quite well so I signed up for the laser cutting course and duly planned out where all the models were to stand.  I also built a stage out of bamboo sticks which turned out to be infinitely more difficult to laser cut properly than the latex.

L-R: Guts on the Ceiling, Jake Jeckel, Night of the Axe

* The chainsaws (looneys) seemed to fit perfect with the "Carnival of Carnage", the first album.  I eventually selected two song names from that album to be the names of the looneys.  Night of the Axe worked well for Gaspez' axe murderer looking looney, while "Guts on the Ceiling" made sense for the Neomics looney whose chainsaw is pointing straight up.  For their #'s I used the album and the song number.  (ie. 1-9 and 1-7 respectively).  I put them with Jake Jeckel figuring they are looneys and could be juggling their chainsaws while he juggles bombs.

Ringmaster

* Gaspez' "il Mago" miniature was perfect to represent "Ringmaster" - the second album.  He simply got the #2.  I ended up creating a small podium for him to stand on near the middle of the stage.  It would have been nice to create an actual stand for him to be behind but with how short goblins are it just would've looked silly. I used some black felt cloth to cover the foamcore.

Riddlebox

* The Neomics "spring shoes" pogoer seemed a perfect "Riddlebox" (the third album) character - especially bouncing out of a jack in the box.  Eventually when I realized that Riddlebox is also a song on the album, I selected the name "Three Rings" for the Gaspez "stilts" pogoer and gave them the #'s 3-2 and 3-8 respectively.  "Riddlebox" is the "ticket taker" standing near the entrance, and "Three Rings" is fighting "Bizaar" (see below).

Great Milenko conversion

Milenko in Fortune Teller booth

* For the fourth album - "The Great Milenko" I purchased the snake charmer Gaspez goblin and used his head to replace the head of the "Superman" neomics goblin.  I then glued a small bird that I was fortunate to get from a friend @mrkevinstewart which I think is from some privateer press miniature.  Finally I just used a piece of wire as his wand.  Also the model had a defect where his left ear was missing, I used the "V" base letter and liquid green stuff to replace it, which worked surprisingly well.  I would like to try and add additional freehand to his turban when I get the time.  I also thought he would be cool as the "cashier" to get into the concert/carnival and at the same time kinda look like those old automated fortune tellers, so I built a little booth on the display to put him behind out of popsicle sticks, with a bit of the same felt cloth over the top. He simply got the #4.

Jack Jeckel

* Bombardiers were perfectly suited for the fifth album "The Amazing Jeckel Brothers" (Jack Jeckel/Jake Jeckel - two variant editions, just album art AFAIK) the brothers are juggling balls of fire, with one (evil - Jack) attempting to make the balls drop and another (good - Jake) attempting to keep juggling.  The Gaspez bombardier is a juggler and I selected him to be Jake - he was placed with the two looneys (see photo above), which meant the Neomics bombardier will be Jack (and I painted his molotov cocktails as Faygo bottles). Since these were two variant "editions" I selected the numbers 5e1 and 5e2 - imagining the numbers spoken phonetically.

* The sixth album had two discs, so I definitely was using two goblins for it.  The discs were called Shangri-La (disc 1) and Hells Pit (disc 2)  They didn't really seem to fit the fanatics at all, so instead I selected two normal goblins whose pose seemed suitable.  For Shangri-La I selected the Neomics goblin who seems to be pretending to be an airplane and figured he could be about to stage-dive into the mosh pit.  For Hells Pit I selected the Neomics goblin who was ducking - figuring he could be right underneath Shangri-La on the display board but also someone condemned to hell would probably curl up into a ball.  Similarly to the bombardiers I numbered them 6d1 and 6d2, again imagining the numbers spoken phonetically.

* After the 6th album, that was the end of the dark carnival cards theme.  Doing other research I found out the number 17 was important to ICP as that was the number of albums they sold off their first run.  So since the numbering of the albums was quite messed up by the multiple editions and discs, I decided then that I would number the trolls 7 and 10.  Originally I was thinking to paint the numbers on their backs in letters, but to spell "TEN" wrong (TEEN) so that when viewed from behind the stage it would say seventeen.  Unfortunately one of the trolls isn't wearing a jacket so it didn't seem to make sense - although I may revisit it and just use their pants.

* Before the 6th dark carnival album, ICP put out a couple albums that weren't really a part of the dark carnival theme called Bizaar and Bizzar.  I thought that the names were very suitable for the fanatics so I decided to use them as their names but just gave them the #'s 8 & 9 since they didn't fit into the previous numbering scheme and having other albums #'d six-something would be confusing.  I decided to build a "striker" (aka the test your strength game) for the Neomics goblin (who I use as Fungus).

Three Rings vs. Bizaar

Meanwhile for Bizaar (the rostered fanatic) I was using the Gaspez tightrope walker, and I had this idea to give the stick he was holding some weights on the end and he would look a bit like the old american gladiators joust game.  My friend Eric gave me the idea to mount him and "Three Rings" on some stools, which worked out very well.

no caption required

* Originally I was planning to have a single goblin named "Bang Pow Boom" and #'d 11 for that album - however further research showed it had several album covers (one blue, one green and one red) as well as an "Extreme" edition.  For now I have 3 goblins, one named "Bang" in red (#11R), one named "Pow" in green (#11G) and one named "Boom" in blue (#11B) - as I fill in the other 8 goblins I need for the mosh pit I am definitely considering doing a "Bang Pow Boom" goblin in the colours of the extreme edition.

* The 12th album is called "Mighty Death Pop" and I thought about splitting it up as well - however the album just has one cover so instead I purchased the Snid Vicious goblin with giant spiked boots and used him as #12.  His pose is very brutal so I placed him near Hells Pit in the mosh pit so there's a couple reasons for that poor guy to be cowering in fear.

Mike E, DJ Chops, cheerleader

To add to this, I have a few sideline figures.  The Gaspez "boss" is my leader reroll and is named "Mike E" after their producer, the Gaspez "apothecary" is obviously my apothecary and is named "DJ Chops".  I also used a goblin cheerleader as my FAME marker and put her near the DJ as a "groupie".

I used the Gaspez squigs as my bribes - the thinking being they eat the ref and a new one has to come on the field.  I put them beneath the apothecary/DJ desk (which I made by using some shelf liner on a piece of foamcore) on the stage and used leftover bits from the Gaspez snake charmer as the body parts they are snacking on.

reroll, wizard  & generic counters

The Gaspez cannon/fusilier act as reroll counters (as do usually the Faygo barrels - though I purposely left them blank on the base in case they need to be used for something else) while the Gaspez goblin with a "rocket hat??" is my wizard (goblin shaman) token.

before

The two Gaspez goblins on unicycles became my Turn and Score counters - I envisioned them riding along a track to mark the turn/score.  So for that reason I contacted my friend Axtlinge about helping me to create a custom dugout that I would attach to the display base and I built some magnetized ramps to allow them to ride off the stage onto the dugout.  That's why I had Axtlinge rotate the stage texture so when they are positioned riding along the dugout tracks it makes sense.  Also why I painted the description (ie. turn/score) on the side that faces the field to help identify them.

after

unbelievably awesome dugout

Axtlinge did an incredible job with the dugout - it really adds a ton of character to the team and I can't thank him enough.  He was full of suggestions and advice and I really am not sure if I would have done anywhere near as good a job without his help.  The dugout itself uses the texture from photos of the latex zuzzy mat and the bamboo sticks stage to very closely mimic the actual display itself.  Axt had tons of great ideas about the actual design but also took my direction extremely well meaning that I always felt in control of the outcome.  I especially liked that he took my doodles that I copied from the impact weather dice and coloured them and used them as the weather marker - brilliant!  His placement of the scatter template within the stripes of the KO tent was pure genius!

Finally I got Carl who deals with the laser cutter at Site3 to cut out a "hatchet man" logo in acrylic to be my weather marker.  This ensured I had something very fitting to go on the stage and really help bring the theme together.  I also want to thank Carl & Hillary at Site3 who helped me with the laser cutter.


Feel free to hit me up with questions in the comments.  Instead of posting the WIP pics in this post, I am planning to upload them to a google+ post and just share that link (to preempt any requests for WIP pics :p ;) )

Scenery pics/video: inspiration from dad!

Spent the weekend of Family Day (holiday Monday for us here in Ontario) up at my parents cottage with my folks and some friends.  These pictures and video are from a visit last year but being there reminded me to post them up.  My dad is the one who got me into modeling/painting - he always collected toy soldiers, model ships, etc. and when I was getting into D&D he found a Games Workshop and probably thought it was a good way to keep an eye on what I was up to and be able to teach me a bit as well (I always used to go with him to his hobby shows when I was younger) - the rest, as they say - is history.

entire bell tower shot

My dad built this bell tower for his train set out of old business cards, using inspiration from GW's "How to make Wargames Scenery" book that he picked up years ago - he was always really impressed by the level of detail in GW models and terrain.  The bell really works (though it's not wired up yet), as does lights in the lamppost and hanging above the door, even the water fountain "works" - it uses a specially shaped piece of clear plastic that gives the impression of water pouring down when it spins around.  I thought the video had a better view of the "water" but it is a little difficult to see - still posted it so feel free to watch.

Just goes to show you that with a bit of effort you really don't need much to make a great looking piece of scenery. When I look at this piece - the few store bought bits (lamp, fountain) really tie it together and you would never guess it was anything but an entirely store bought piece of terrain. Every time I look at these pics, I want to build some scenery for my own gaming.  It's a little tough right now with minimal work space but definitely something I'm looking forward to getting to one of these days, hopefully sooner rather than later.

close up of the water fountain

Crimson Fists: Devastators... blasting it old school

I've had these old 2nd edition devastator bodies sitting around ever since my brother gave me his old stuff.  I figured nobody would really be interested so I never bothered to try and trade them for something else.  One day when wondering what to do with the scout heavy bolters I had sitting around - I got inspired and figured a full heavy bolter armed devastator squad would be fluffy for my Crimson Fist army - as well as use up these bits in a way that will at the least give me a unique model that likely nobody else will have.  I love the reinforced leg armour - I'm sure Forge World will get around to it when they realize it's another product people will spend a ton of money on bits because it reminds them of "the good old days".

This is the dilemma I have left, should I use these weapon mount/tripod components or not?  I'm leaning towards not as it makes them look like they just run around blasting away like crazy, but I would love to hear your opinion.  Here's a pic with the same two models with the mounts blu-tacked on.  Which do you prefer and why?  I could also mount them in a "retracted" position (ie. pointing the same direction as the barrel) or a combination of the two, but it's either all tripods or no tripods.  I'm planning to prime these guys tomorrow so please comment and quick!

Space Sharks: Terminators

This is something I hadn't planned on getting yet, but ended up picking up from someone mostly complete.  The trade started about something completely different, but I ended up picking up these guys and a terminator chaplain.  A squad of magnetized termies!  Having a bit of fun here with crazy weapon combinations.  I knew immediately they should be my Space Sharks terminators with Badab camo scheme and shark's tooth trophies, since I only planned to have 2 veteran squads, one in power armour and one in terminator armour.  It made sense for them to be magnetized as much of the rest of the army is.  I have 3 of the Chapterhouse Studios combi-weapon magnetic kits for the other 5 power armour veterans I have to build.

There's practically every weapon option, so many I need a bunch of blank terminator pads.  I've gone through and painted a different colour for each models arms.  Before I prime them I will use some masking liquid to cover them up.  I've found it very handy for that type of thing.  Unfortunately these guys are pretty low priority on the painting list, and will definitely have to wait until I've built the other 5 hammerheads/sternguard to paint.

Crimson Fists: LRR!

Here's the model that got me started into modeling proper again.  It was pretty beat up when I first got it, and hadn't been put together too well to boot!  My Crimson Fists are kinda the "junk pile" of my marine chapters, so this Land Raider is definitely for them.  I used filler all around the top left and right edges and filed the results to fix a huge gap.  I pulled out the heavy bolter and added the assault cannons and also replaced the busted up lascannons with the flamestorm cannons - should I add some kind of plate to the side of the weapon or not?

In the little inset box you can see the multi-melta cupola I scratch built.  The weapon itself if an old RT era piece and I just pinned that to the targeter through the arm on the cupola itself.  I left the cupola closed and added a set of handles for the weapon.  I'm planning to skip the magnets for my CF vehicles but just keep the various cupola  bits seperate and pop them in and out.  I'm also hoping (fingers crossed) to borrow an airbrush to basecoat a bunch of CF stuff at once.

Raptors: Deathwatch Marine

I built this guy somewhere in Nov/Dec last year.  I had ordered a pack of the fw raven guard upgrade pack even though it was not built for Raptors as I knew I could use the beakies w laurels for my Space Sharks and the old style backpacks for my (planned  ;-) ) Iron Knights.  Since my Shrike has the RG symbol on him too I figure they won't be too out of place and I can just say it's his own personal heraldry.  He does have a little mini shield on the RG shoulderpad with the same symbol as the decal I used on Shrike, which I think I will do in the camo colours and should help tie them together (to top it all the fw bolter has the same symbol.. =O )

As with all my Deathwatch marines he has a banner that attaches with a simple pin.  This guy will actually be very helpful replacing tactical squad sergeants, or beefing up sternguard squads.  To follow suit with the Raptors stuff I already have, I will be painting him using mostly washes.  Since he will be mostly black I will probably start out priming him grey.  My jump pack equipped chaplain I picked up recently will be painted in the same manner.  His chapter shoulderpad is actually going to be yellow with black detail, as all my first company units will get the non-camo Raptors scheme.

Pit Slaves 99% complete!

I've practically finished up my necromunda pit slave gang.  Gave them a light dip and left to dry.  Then I did the bases by gluing some techy bits down, painting them and adding a mixture of various sand/rock flock - the rest of the base was painting black. A spray of dullcote followed by a few touch ups to cover up some dipping accidents (some blood on a few arms and the barrels of guns) leaves just a thin layer of mud to finish up the base.  I left the mud until last because I'd like it to keep a bit of a gloss (impossible with dullcote)

I can't wait to get a game in with these guys.  I'm currently sealing my recently reacquired escher gang, so I hope to get some nice pictures from the next couple battles using completely painting gangs. I'm planning on using Anthony Cases updated rules.  I'm already collecting bits to make some more arms.  Since I've actually glued armour bits onto all of the plastic models, I'll probably use something like skill rings to represent actual armour plates in game terms.

 For the amount of effort I put into these minis, they look great.  Dip + Dullcote = Win.  I got excited, built all the models, painted on a base coat, dipped and then some basing and touch ups.  I'm really happy with the "piece of crap" tone they have, obviously being cobbled together from spare junk.

Finally - I will also have no problem playing these guys as servitors in my Space Marine armies.  I've tried to make the bases very busy so they will kinda blend in with whichever marines I'm using.  Also why I've kept the rims black.  They should be right at home with my marines - guess I should get that thunderfire cannon built!