Snowpocalypse = Robopocalypse

Over the last week, Seattle saw some significant snowfall and the whole city pretty much shut-down. With work cancelled and the roads clogged, I was trapped in my home with nothing to do but build and paint models. I took it as an opportunity to knock out a commission and some units for my Death Guard army.

Units of House Epidemios stand ready to assist the followers of the Plague God.

On Twitter I'd seen someone combine an AdMech Dunewalker with an Armiger and I knew I wanted to do something similar, but I'd put off doing it for a while. But my copious free time finally let me get around to it.

I wanted to vary up the appearance of the Armiger, while still maintaining its
basic rules.

I had two Armigers, and liked the idea of double chainsaw arms.

I kept the motif of skull-covered shoulder pads on both Armigers that
I'd established on the Knight.

Once I finished up the first Armiger, I decided to convert another. Originally, I tried putting the Dune Walker's hull on Armiger legs; but it was way too AT-ST for me. Also, trying to attach a buzzsaw arm really spoiled the silhouette. In the end, I decided to convert the other Armiger hull and use that.

This one is a little more "stock" but still has enough to make it unique.

Finally, my friend Chris traded me some metal Norman infantry he had laying around for assembling and painting a Knight Castellan he owned. He wanted a Knight that had served with the Titan Legio Crucius for so long that they granted their heraldry. I finally had the time to build and knock this sucker out. It was a really interesting build, considering how much they did with mirroring frames. The whole thing was only 3 sprues.

This dude is a real beast. Its massive.

    

I made some custom Crusius decals to scatter
across the hull.

It feels good to get these machines off the painting the queue and onto the gaming table. Hopefully, I can do the second part soon!

Cheers!

Foul Blightspawn and Noble Elves!

Last week I posted a work in progress shot on a Foul Blightspawn for my Death Guard army and I managed to sort out a base for him up shortly thereafter. Here he is in all his feculent glory:

Feculus Spew is ready to spread death and decay.

                                 

The weather here in Seattle has turned pretty cold, so its not optimal priming/spraying weather. Instead, I turned to models I already had primed before the weather turned; so that means more High Elves. The army is getting pretty sizable now. I've only got to complete four cavalry models and I should have enough to play a reasonably sized game now. 

Finally finished up a command group for these spearmen. 

Then I cranked out five more Lothern Seaguard to bring that unit to a full twenty troops.

Then I added five more bowmen and a champion to bring that unit to fifteen guys. This photo is super weird. The angle
I took it at makes the bowmen appear to be shrinking. Its like if MC Escher painted Warhammer.

Finally, I did an additional five guys for the other bow unit as well as finishing a wizard who is pretty fuckin' metal.

With the cold weather, I've also spent a bunch of time assembling models. I've got some more Death Guard stuff on the way as well as a Knight Castellan. Oh, and more Imperial Fists. Of course. 

Cheers!

Loyalists, Traitors and Pointy Hats!

First on deck is the first five Assault Marines for my Horus Heresy army. These cats have been a lot of work - mostly due to the fact that I think I'm hitting burn-out for painting yellow infantry. That said, I'm super happy with them. I need to get cracking on the next five. This will bring me to about 4,000 points/200 power levels for my Imperial Fists.

These guys are a mix of MKIV and MKII armors, with shields and jump packs by Kromlech.

After these cats were done, I needed a break so I turned my attention to a single model for my Death Guard army - a Foul Blightspawn. The current Death Guard are just such a treat to paint up. I've still got to work on a base for him, but he should be finished up pretty soon.

This guy is literally dripping with detail.
And I loved every nub and bolt.

I'm pretty chuffed with the painted liquid in his tank. 

I've also been nattering away on more High Elves. I've still got paint up a command group for the spearmen, but the rest are finally based and ready to go. Pretty soon I'll have to turn my attention to some more cavalry for the force.

I'll end up adding at least ten more of these cats to the army.

These stalwart spearmen patiently await a trio of heroes to lead them.

So far, I've managed to paint up about fifty models or so since January. Not too shabby, but I think I can increase my velocity some. 

Cheers!

More Elves March to War

Lately, I've decided to start growing my High Elf army. I've played a handful of games of Warhammer Fantasy Battle and Kings of War with what I have now, and I'm re-learning a lesson that I'd forgotten: namely that most massed battle games aren't as much fun as smaller games. Its not that games I've played haven't been fun per se, its that feeling that they'd be so much more interesting with more units. To that end, I'm putting some more paint on some new units for my High Elves.

This weekend, I managed to get a 15 man unit of classic Spearmen painted up. I still need to finish four more guys, paint the unit's bases and wait for a Champion model to arrive from Ebay.

These old models paint up so quickly with assembly line techniques. And the nostalgia I get painting them keeps me well motivated, so this should skip along pretty fast. I'm going to graduate out the command models currently in my missile units to serve in melee formations, so I've been painting up some bowmen to replace them.

These two will replace the standard and musician snatched away
for melee units.

I also finished up a test model for my Imperial Fists Assault Squad. It uses two different kits and the shield and jump pack are resin models from Kromlech. After all the bits and extras, I probably should have just ordered the standard assault squad from Forge World for cheaper - but this feels more unique and more "mine". 

"For Dorn! For The Emperor! For Terra!!!"

I hope to get at least the first half of this squad finished in the coming week. This should be the last infantry unit for my Imperial Fists for a good, long while. I'm kinda excited to finish them and then dig into some tanks!

Cheers!

Day Late Due to Nerding

I usually try to update on a Sunday, but this weekend was a little full. But here we are! First up, I've got ten more Imperial Fists added to my Horus Heresy army.

"Yellow for the Yellow God! More Lemons for His Lemon Throne!"

This brings me to four ten-man tactical squads in the army. Along with a ten-man Breacher Squad and a ten-man Tactical Support unit. My next unit for the army will be an Assault Squad, giving me seven Troop selections, which doesn't seem too shabby to me.

In addition to painting this weekend, I also got in some gaming. I took my Kharadron Overlords out for another spin, this time against the crazily mobile and magical Stormcast Eternals. I knew the Stormcast were tough, but wow - I didn't realize just how hard hitting they were. 

We played a 1500 point Matched Play game.

The scenario would be won by whoever inflicted the most Wounds by the end of five turns.

I went for broke on Turn 1, sending my Frigate and its compliment of Arkanauts straight through a Realmgate and into
the teeth of the Stormcast. It. Did not go. Well.

Eventually, I did get stuck in with the rest of the army and the shear weight of my firepower carried the day!

I'm really enjoying playing the Kharadron Overlords. They offer a nice mix of shooting, mobility and squishiness that makes commanding them a bit of a challenge. This game saw me play much closer to "competent" as I remembered and used most of my army special abilities and utilized the shooting phase in a much more correct way. I'm looking forward to getting more games in.

I also got in some role-playing gaming - I've been running a mini-campaign with a Gamma World theme for my group. They've been trying to secure an Atomic Totem (Nuclear Missile) for their village and ended up having to transport it across a deadly highway populated by giant Kaiju. I created a little mini game where copilots had to try to "Drift" a la Pacific Rim. 

The biggest, dumbest Kaiju in existence - this blog's Author;
explains how to play this madness.

The Jaegers, "Delta Stryker American" and "Beam Head Blitz Wrecker", had to escort a hauler carrying
a nuclear missile down the highway while fighting an ever increasing array of kaiju.

It was a lot of crazy fun and the group successfully got their totem off the table, but just! The mini game was successful enough that I might develop it into something in my spare time, but that's probably just the dice and Mountain Dew talking. I dunno. 

Cheers!

Mixed Bag 14: Singles, WIPs and Gaming!

Trying to continue with the weekly update... I've done it twice now, so I'm totally gonna keep it up all year, right? Ha! We shall see. Most of my painting this week has been one-off figures and prep work, so not super exciting.

    

I finished up two single figs this week. First was a High Elf Dragon Prince. I needed a commander model for an upcoming game of Kings of War and this guy had been languishing on my painting desk for a while. I figured he'd make a good Elf King to game with. He also acts as a test scheme for a full unit of these guys - a project I should get cracking on.

Later in the week, I cranked out a quick Aethermic Navigator hero for my Kharadron Overlords. This was the last model I needed to bring me to a 2000 point army. I ended up having to mail order him directly from Games Workshop, as no local stores or Amazon dealers carried him in stock. So much for giving the FLGS the business if they can't get what I want. Ugh. In any case, I should take some nice beauty shots of the whole army at some point, because I think I'm done painting Sky Dorfs for a little while.

    

I also worked on a few more High Elf archers and, you guessed it - started ANOTHER Tactical Squad for the Horus Heresy. This is the last one for a long, long time; I swear!

Finally, I wrapped the week up with some gaming. I managed to get in a small game of Kings of War to kick the tires on the system. Its fine. I like the simplicity of the game and it goes quickly, but I think we really need play it with larger forces. At 1000pts, everything dies just a little too fast. Until I can expand my army for the game, I think its hard to judge the game's merits.

My High Elves stand ready to defend a small settlement.

A rampaging horde of Gobbos advance from the hinterlands to crush the Elves.

Later, we played a big game of Age of Sigmar. I got to use my Kharadron Overlords against an immaculately painted Beastmen force. We had to control bits of falling stars that randomly arrived on the table. I decimated the Beastmen in a hail of bullets, but ended up chasing my own tail so much that I got blitzed when it came to scenario points. It was a ton of fun though, with a lot of back-and-forth. 

Those minotaurs go down hard. Don't let anyone tell you different.

After killing the shit out of a Minotaur Lord, my commander fell to the fury of a very upset Bestigor herd. I guess that's why they are the best...igor.

A unit of Gors and a Beastman Chariot totally crushed a unit of Arkanauts. Unfortunately, one poor dumb bastard survived so I couldn't shoot at these units with the rest of my army.

Every time I play Age of Sigmar, I like it more. And I already liked it a lot. Its just a nice fun and intuitive game - even if it does use way too many die rolls. I've been on a bit of tear with it lately - a few weeks ago I got in a game against an amazingly painted Daughters of Khaine army. I managed to squeak out a victory with my Overlords on that one. 

I was very worried about the amount Witch Elves on the other side of the board, but some judicious application of hot lead saw many of them off to meet Khaine in the afterlife.

These girls are hot. No really. That's magma.

Morathi is a beast. Literally. Look at that tail. But like any rabid beast, a gun will solve that problem.

More gaming and less painting lately, I guess. It'll probably flip back to normal soon. 

Cheers!

Meet the Sky Fleet

Gunhaulers guard a mighty Frigate as they go to war!

With the advent of the New Year, I'm going to try and make a real effort to keep this blog updated each week. Sometimes that seems pointless since I share a lot of WIP shots via Facebook or Twitter (@cwalton73 on Twitter), but I think its a worthwhile exercise to collect what I've done each week here. Lately, I've been making headway in getting my Kharadron Overlords to 2000 points by adding another Gunhauler. 

Two of these will add some real firepower and help the survivability of my
Frigate.

I genuinely think these things take longer to build to than
to paint.

I still need one more model to bring the force to 2k - an Aethermic Navigator. Despite my best efforts, it seems I can only get this model directly from Games Workshop. So now begins the painful waiting for it to ship. Ugh! In the meantime, I will console myself by building more Heresy marines. 

Cheers!