Deathshroud Terminators! I LIVE!!

The Death Guard have shambled back onto my painting desk with a trio of Deathshroud Terminators.

I'm not dead nor have I forgotten about this blog. Over the last month things have just been a little hectic with travel, some sickness, and general craziness in life. I managed to get more gaming in of late than painting, and what I've been nattering away on hasn't been stuff that'd make a super compelling blog post... unless there is a big clamor to see Reaver Titan weapon arms and I've missed it.

Over the course of the last few weeks, I've tackled an elite unit for my Death Guard army - the Deathshroud Bodyguard. These guys will add some really nice punch to the melee element of my army, as well as increase the survivability of my HQs. And they are fun, corpulent balls of crazy!

These guys will pair well with my Lord of Contagion, Enoch Globulus. 

These are great sculpts with lots of options in the kit.

I'm sure the decision of doing golden scythes isn't for everyone - but
I thought they added a feeling of age to the models.

Love the tentacle on this guy - he's helping!

I've got a couple other projects in the queue lined up. I'll try and make a better effort at updating in the future! Promise!... crosses fingers furiously...

Cheers!

Mixed Bag 15: Paper and Iron

Progress on my own projects has seemed laborious the last few weeks, so I haven't had too much to post it seems. I have been doing some painting and crafting, though - just feels like I'm doing odds and ends lately. Much of my time has been taken up with making paper miniatures for my Dungeons and Dragons group. I kinda fell down the rabbit hole making these.

My group is playing as a pious, yet eclectic, group of Witch Hunters on the prowl smiting Evil!

This was all in service of creating a set of floor plans to allow them to explore the ruins of a three level keep. Like I said, I fell down a rabbit hole - but it was a ton of fun. 

Exploring the first level.

Heading up to level two!

Skeleton Attack!

It all culminated in a boss-fight with a terrible Wraith!

I also created a series of quick print packs that are up for sale on DriveThruRPG.com. Each pack is designed to give you a mini-army. Print as many or as few as you could ever need! There is an Undead Attack! Pack!!, an Orc Attack! Pack!! and one for a horde of gobbos in the Goblin Attack!Pack!!

In the world of three dimensional miniatures, I painted up some stuff for my buddy Chris as a trade. He generously gave me some more Halflings from the Westfalia line he had laying about for some quick paint jobs on a pair of Armiger Helverns and a Rhino for his Iron Warriors.

I painted these up in House Krast livery to match his other units.

The Minotaur insignia are for the Great Battalion that Chris' force belongs to.

I ended up doing the insignia on the top hatch freehand after
screwing up the decal several times.

All in all, a weird mix the last few weeks. 

Cheers!

They Call Me The Seeker

"They call me The Seeker
I've been searching low and high
I won't get to get what I'm after
Till the day I die"

                                  -The Who

Despite some radio silence on my blog, I have been chugging away on some more 30k Imperial Fists and nibbling away on a unit of High Elf Dragon Princes that should be done sometime after Ragnarok. Man, those models are a LOT of work.

With their special boltgun rounds and precision attacks, I felt like the Seeker units in my army should use MKIV armor instead of MKIII

I've been trying to expand the Fast Attack choices in my Heresy army, and I'm not super drawn to jetbikes so I opted for some Seekers. Tasked with head-hunting vital enemy characters or crewed machines, Seeker Squads are equipped with multi-choice boltgun rounds to get the job done. I'm aiming to have two five-man squads in the force, so here is the first one done. I went for a bit of reverse color scheme to add more black so they feel more stealthy. Or as stealthy as a 7' tall giant wearing yellow armor bits can be.

Next up is a lascannon equipped Tarantula sentry gun. Why this counts as a Fast Attack when it can't move at all is beyond me, but here we are. I got this model from Kromlech and it was a fun little model to crank out. I look forward to making "zzzzap!" noises soon.

This was a nice little alternative model. Easy to build and paint and super
obvious what it is.

Cheers!

Rhinos Ready to Rumble - Step-by-Step

My armored spear head for my Imperial Fists grows!

I've added some much needed armor and mobility to my Imperial Fists army in the form of a pair of Rhino APCs and I thought I'd share a quick step-by-step of the whole process. The building of the kits is totally standard, and everything went together quickly. After that, I primed the hulls white for two reasons: first, a good priming coat is always a good thing and two, the white would form the basis for the tactical insignias on the top doors of the transport.

After the primer was dry, I took some painters tape and masked out the arrows. I laid the tape out on a piece of glass before I cut it to shape. Then I transferred the mask from the glass to the actual tank.

The tanks were then sprayed with Testor Model Master's Afrika Mustard. Once that dried, I applied several coats of GW Yriel Yellow with an airbrush. Once all that was dry, the tape was removed and the white tactical arrows were revealed. The arrows weren't perfect, but any over-sprays could be easily cleaned up with some Vallejo White.

I then did some panel-lining with GW Agrax Earthshade to create some definition between armor plates and add some initial weathering. Some black panels were added and then some chipping was added with a sponge and Vallejo Dark Flesh. Some chipping on the tactical arrows were added with Yriel Yellow. This helped age the model and hide any bleed-through or mistakes from the initial masking.

Next was finishing up some details like painting the smoke stacks, view ports and tracks. Weathering was added to the bottom of the tank with a heavy drybrush of Vallejo Beasty Brown. Decals from the Forge World sheet for Imperial Fists were then added.

I added some final weathering with streaks of GW Reikland Flesh Shade and a few chips on the black  areas with P3 Coal Black. And they were done!

Cheers!

The Halfmen of Westfalia!

"For the Shire!.. err... wait! For the Moot!... eh.. that's not right... For Snacks and Comfies! That's better."

Geez, it looks like four years ago I backed a small Kickstarter for some 28mm Halfling miniatures from Westfalia Miniatures. When I got my tiny pledge (literally - I only ordered a unit or two) I was a bit crestfallen because I hadn't realized they would be resin casts instead of metal. I put them on the back burner of my project list and when I discovered a friend had also backed the KS, I "gifted" mine to him in a clever ploy to get them the hell off my desk. But he realized that he'd never get around to them in his queue and the scallywag turned around and gave me mine back along with his! Dastardly.

Well, I guess I finally got a wild hair up my ass to paint them so I've put together a small army of them. I plan on using them for Dragon Rampant or as proxies in Warhammer Age of Sigmar. The sculpts were very obviously inspired by the old Warhammer Imperial Halflings of the Moot, so I like to imagine a little piece of the Old World spun off during the apocalypse and now the chubby little fellas are furiously defending themselves in a new nightmare reality.

The General, Philip "The Black" Wooltoes.
"Dost Thou Wish to Live Deliciously?!" is his battle-cry.

Cassandra Gentlebosom, seer and diviner, adds some
magical punch to the army.

The Knights of The Third Order of Breakfast  are the greatest of all time.

The Shirewardens patrol the edges of the Halfling lands, ready to battle intruders at a moment's notice!

The flashing blades of the swordmen of the Jack Rabbit Company are deadly to both foes and dinner parties.

The stalwart halberdiers of the Brotherhood of the Last Leg will fight until the end of any battle. Or until supper. Whichever comes first.

Robert the Hood and his Rapacious Rapscallions stand ready to waylay any un-guarded baggage trains they find. 

Professor of Gunology, Schmendrake Thistlebottom, guides the army's
artillery train.

A Heckblaster Volleygun is ready to send any marauding chaos worshippers straight
to the Hot Place!

In order to finish these guys as an Age of Sigmar Army, I've got to paint up an Endless Spell for them and they'll be around 1000 points. Everything in here is a proxy for Freeguild units ( Freeguild General, Battlemage, Gunmaster, 2 units of Guard, Archers, Helblaster Volleygun, Knights of Order, and Outriders), so it'll all port over easily. This has been a fun little army (EH?! GET IT?!?!?!) to knock out, and I'm pretty pleased with them. I'm sure they will get murdered in games, but that's kinda the point I guess. 

Cheers!

Armored Might!

"2019 is the year I get serious about adding some armor." I sent that text to a buddy that I play the Horus Heresy against a while back and now it seems like I'm trying to make good on that promise. This week, I built and painted a Sicaran Battle Tank to add to my Imperial Fists. I've always liked the look of the Sicaran - it hits a lot of the design beats of the Land Raider, while maintaining a sleek, predatory look all its own. And it'll add a ton of firepower to the army.

A Tactical Squad Sergeant gives some idea of the scale of the Sicaran.

The kit was a pretty easy build. The only real issues I had was some of the resin where the massive feed gates on the tracks were cut off left two areas that weren't totally cured. I simply cut some plasticard and covered over these areas - easy peasy. Otherwise, the rest of the kit was a dream. Very little warping to correct, and reasonably tight fits otherwise. 

I tried to keep the tank pretty simple - its very easy to go nuts with weathering and chipping. I wanted to still have a nice bright yellow visible at the end.

After initial assembly - leaving the turret as a separate piece until the end - I undercoated the whole thing with Model Master's Afrika Mustard spray. Then I did a few coats of thinned down GW Yriel Yellow sprayed through an airbrush.

The longest part of the paint job was having to put several thin layers of black over the areas I wanted to cover. I usually don't mind 2 thin coats, but to get a really solid black over yellow it took at least 4 to 5 coats. Which was tedious as hell.

I really can't wait to get this thing on the battlefield. 

Next on deck is a pair of Rhino APCs to give me some mobility. I'll be approaching them the same way and can't wait to have a real armored element available for my army.

Cheers!

Big and Tall and Short and Plump

I missed updating last week, but this week has seen some good progress on my painting desk. I've got a bunch of diverse stuff I'm chewing my way through - Adeptus Titanicus stuff, a copy of Blackstone Fortress, a fantasy Halfling army, more High Elves and some other odds and ends that need doing. First on deck is a second Warlord Titan for my War Griffons Legion.

The complete force.

The second Warlord amps up the total game size I can play, and brings some much needed diversity to the weapons systems I can deploy. I've still got a second plasma cannon arm to paint, but I will probably do that in colors for my Legio Mortis force so they have some more options.

Clamor Aquilae - The Eagle's Cry - brings its massive firepower to the battlefield.

View of the plasma cannon and carapace lasers.

The other arm has a mighty power fist, ready to crush the foes of the Emperor.

If you follow me on Twitter (@Cwalton73), you've probably been watching me chip away at a bunch of Halfling models from Westfalia Miniatures for last week or two. These sculpts are just full of tons of character - which helps because the amount of air bubbles, mould shift and tear out on these resin casts is atrocious. Nevertheless, I'm hell-bent on getting a little army of them done. I figure I can use them as Freeguild (once known as The Empire) in Warhammer: Age of Sigmar or just stat them out for Lion/Dragon Rampant. I still needed to purchase a few figures to complete the army, but according to their site Westfalia can take up to sixty days to complete an order. So, who knows when I'll be seeing those models? In the meantime, here's an army shot of where I'm at so far. 

For the Shire! Or the Moot! Or what-ever!

With the titan done and the Halflings a bit stalled, I'm probably going to focus on knocking out the Blackstone Fortess box set this week. 

Cheers!