Showing posts with label Troops. Show all posts

A small update today. But it's only foreshadowing what is to come. I present to you the re-built 1st Platon Command.

For a long time now 1st Platoon has done nothing more than just gathered dust on the shelf, since its loadout (Plasma + Lascannon) wasn't really the bread and butter of the new codex as much as it was of the old one. Also one of the squads got stripped down to the 32-A and 32-B Special Weapon Squads, so I swapped stuff around and they ended up with Missile Launchers instead of Lascannons. Which pretty much made for an even worse loadout.

But no more. Recently I have decided to re-structurize the Platoon entirely. While this particular Command Squad has been built at the same time as the 2nd Platoon one, it's been sitting there on the shelf, due to lack of use anywhere.

Now it changed. The Platoon was restructurised. Now the squads will be armed with just Lascannons, while the plasma guys have been moved, as you maybe noticed, to Emmet's Company Command Squad.


Of course that means I have to re-build the 3rd squad that I disbanded. It also means I have two Missile Launchers, so I'll be likely adding a third one to make a full heavy weapon squad. Just so that they do not go to waste, since it's hardly a useful unit (or one that I'd somehow like regardless)


You can see the base color-coding is now a permanent feature of the 1st Platoon as well!


And the poor JO that was used a lot in the last codex. He will now get a chance to get back into the thick of it!


That's it, but stay tuned for more. I will have you know, that everything playable (so excluding like 3 lone miniatures I have that don't fit anywhere) in the 42nd is now fully painted. Yep, that's it. I will have to paint up that squad I'm adding and I have aquired one more minor thing, but other than that 42nd is more-or-less fully finished (barring any future additions there might be!). Right now I'm also finishng up the last of Space Wolves. So soon there will be just Dark Eldar left to do and then probably Necrons. That of course doesn't mean I won't be adding to the Guard and SWs, I am actually about to do it (To IG what I mentioned, SW a minor thing as well, but for the sake of completness!). But now whenever I add something I can paint it straight away as there will be absolutely no backlog for those two armies! Yay me, I guess. Expect to see "a few" more updates very soon!

Read more!

Here comes the first part of promised Guard content! Starting off with a not-quite-nice gentleman.

Lieutenant-Comissar Agnus Espian is an attachment to the 2nd Platoon in times of need, when the guardsmen of the 32- need that little extra morale boost.

Of course there are more pictures.

Agnus is converted from my favourite Comissar model - the guy with the power fist. Unfortunately, since Infantry Squad Comissars cannot equip fists, I had to alter him a little bit.



I'm quite pleased with the result, it was a simple arm swap that required some metal polishing on the back, to remove the power generator he carried there.

A little closeup on his breastplate and belt:

And on the Imperial Infantryman's Uplifting Primer he is reading from.

Also, the Comissar only joins the 2nd when I intend to use them as a power weapon blob, so the sergeants needed some new equipment sent their way.

Yay for first power weapons in the Guard! They're magnetised of course, so I can swap them with chainswords they usually carry. I will most likely end up doing a 4th power weapon for the 324 squad, but those were made with a tournament deadline in mind and I only fielded 3 squads there.

From a gaming perspective this squad is actually quite damn powerful, even without Straken (with him it turns into quite a killing machine). On the tournament they managed to chop up a Grey Hunter squad with Njal (the bugger survived though, long enough for more Grey Hunters to pour into the combat), 10 Eldar Harlequins that assaulted them and a squad of 8 Khorne Berserkers. It sure was a lot of fun to roll those dice and chop up such killy things in close combat as IG!

And that's it for today,s tay tuned for more! Also you might have noticed a new panel on the right. More on this soon as well!

Read more!

I finally managed to sit down and pick up the brush. Yaay. Here are the first test models for the Dark Eldar.


Starting with a humble Kabalite.

As usual, more shots.

I like how he turned out, was fun to paint something purple for a change. I am not entirely sold on the colors of the base however. Mostly because I need to buy new Catachan Green, mine is just very very very old.

And a WIP Raider. Okay, I suck at edge highlighing since I haven't painted in a looong while. Hopefully it will get better. It looks good from a distance though so it's not that bad!

And that's it for now, back to the Raider!

Read more!

The moment I saw them I knew they had to be mine. Even though the Emperor resides firmly in my heart I broke. The first Xenos in my hands. But how many of us failed to resist those excellent models? Introducing... the Kabal of Last Hatred.


The Kabal has a pretty strong theme of necromancy going, although I am unsure how best to represent it. I would've done some conversions but.. the models are so exccelt without any modifications I find it hard to do. But the Kabal has a nice backstory I could expand on, while it also has my favourite paint style for the DE - purple! Some painting methods will be applied to reinforce the tone and I had a funny idea for the Beasts... Of course Wracks are perfect opportunity for those as well, but again, I love those models. Damnit.

Anyway, enough idle talk, the Kabalites!

Want more? There is more!

The Kabalites are armed with a Blater and a Splinter Cannon. Probably the best loadout they could have. I tried Dark Lance equipped ones in some battles and they failed miserably. Blaster and SC give them mobility which the DE are all about. Of course they should probably ride around in Raiders which unfortunately I did not have enough of at that point.

Anyway, the models are just models, you've probably seen hundreds of unpainted DE on the internet. Let's look at more interesting points, the bases for instance.



I got inspired by resin bases I found on the internet. I actually planned to fit this army on some, from MicroArt, but none really fit the army as I imagined it. I found bases elsewhere but then I though I need not pay so much, I can do it myself! With careful application of a compass (Seriously, that's an english name for that tool? Really?) I scratched into the surface of epoxide mass and made patterns and runes. I added some skulls (I bought 80 skulls for around 3 pounds, nothing like recieving a letter full of skulls!), some green stuff leaves, and soil, an idea I've taken from MASSIVE VOODOO. I love those bases, but making them is so time consuming..



And the Sybarite. I thought he deserved something more than just the fancy... back.. pole.. thing. So a small conversion. Alas, poor Yorick!

And another squad. I only have two for the moment. I should have three, but I really spent way too much money on those thus far...



You can see metal things in the back. More on those in future post!

Here is the other Subarite. Also slightly converted.

A sample squad of Wyches. Great models, awesome dynamism, horribly fragile weapons... The entire army is actually quite hard to transport, without suffering losses. Even before the battle! Especially the Raiders with various hanging parts...

Now a couple of more interesting closeups.

A skull. Those are made out of gypsum, by the way.

Plant! Making them is actually fun, I though it would be more tedious, but it's fast and easy. It's attaching them to the base that annoys me to no end, as they don't want to stick nicely sometimes...

I like the pose of that guy, although I think I took that picture (it was a while ago), to show the circular pattern on the tile...

So sample miniatures again.

And the Hekatrix. I swapped the Agonizers around a little so each has a different!

And since this post has been started long ago, but I never wrote the content, a lot changed since then, and this is the chart of the army as it is now. It grew quite huge, clocking at around 2500 points now. As I said, spent way more money on it in a short period of time, that I should have since now I have a lot to paint... Reminds me of when I was starting the Guard...

Anyway I hope you liked those. I will be showing more interesting parts from time to time, but the painted models are still a while off. I only have a few models left to paint for the Wolves and I thought I'll finish those first.

Read more!

Yes, finally the 303rd. They sat on the shelf comfortably for a while now, so it's about time to show my last veteran squad.


A word of warning. I have applied matt varnish to them, as I have done with all the Guard minis... Except this time it didn't want to be matt. After two coats, I gave up. Funnily enough, I varnished the metal Rune Priest with the same varnish and there was no gloss at all.

These are... slightly glossy. I was quite annoyed, but thankfuly it doesn't show that much.

They still look quite good I guess and I would be really happy with them if not that accident. Especially since they were the first Guardsmen I painted since quite a while... But enough me ranting, pictures!

Three standard poses. I really ran out of original ideas after two squads. Since they looked slightly bland with just rebreathers (and shotguns) as their main unique points, I decided to add a couple of litanies, 302nd style.

Run-by-shotgun-in-the-face, Mr. Sir I Have A Tactical Map For you and Charge'em! men.

And another three. Glasses with rebreathers look awesome. And I could use the standard sergeant head again and it isn't so obvious, thanks to the reabreather! Only in the middle I noticed the ammo case contains lasgun batteries and they've got shotguns. Oops. So I had to paint it differently.

Finally the sarge himself. A tough guy, with a little aristocratic look in him. He needs no pansy rebreather. Or a helm, for that matter.

So, what do you think? This is the last veteran squad I'll ever be making, so it's more-or-less the official end of the long-standing IHRH series. Wow, it took a while!

And a little something, that doesn't warrant it's own post. 302nd's new Chimera

Those new Chimeras are nice, but there's like, nowhere to put stowage on. I guess it's good, since I'm running low on the remnants of the old Accessory Sprues...



Read more!

First, a new Chimera I purchased recently. I have to say the new kit is great, so much easier to assemble! The refined look is quite good (aside from that Searchlight, I might change that), although it annoys me slightly that now my vehicles will differ quite a bit.



I do miss the accessory sprue, though only for the track guards - vehicles just look better with them. I still have a lot of stowage left and truth to be said, there isn't really a lot of room to stick them to the sides.

Click below to learn more! (I wonder if it's neccessary for me to keep writing that... I do that ever since someone posted a comment indicating he missed the Read More button, but maybe it's about time..)




Here is a Platoon Command Squad of the 1st Platoon undergoing reanimation and finally fitting it to the new codex! While the 1st Platoon itself will still remain mostly useless under the new rules (Plasma Guns? Missile Launchers? Yay for expensive and easy to kill squads!) I could sometimes break the 2nd Platoon into two in my army lists to use two units of fiery death.


The 303rd. Still WIP, but should be done soon. I want to finish them before the big tournament by the end of the month. A blurry shot that doesn't show much - for now!


Aaand more mystery unveiling. I think this should clearly indicate what kind of unit am I doing. But the details of the conversions remain shrouded... Unless you observe the picture carefuly..


And finally the painting chart for the Guard! It spoils the mystery quite well... But also shows what I call the 3rd Expansion Wave. (The 2nd was when I got the Valks and all kind of stuff to enhance onto the new codex, 1st way before that.) As you can see, that's a lot of vehicles. A lot. I wouldn't mind expanding infatry some, but the prospect of painting so many Guardsmen again... Not just yet, ugh. Maybe as a 4th Expansion, that I bet is inevitable in the future and is totally not hidden to right of the Excel sheet beyond sight.




Read more!

It seems this post got broken when I posted it the first time. This is a repost, with the missing content in place! Sorry, I have no idea what happened.


Almost there! This time, yet another Grey Hunter pack with their Wolf Guard. Just one more pack and I promise I'll post something more interesting!



The obligatory group shot:



This is the last pack I've painted. Quite possibly the best looking one, but see for yourself, by clicking below!



The first three with a lot of Wolf pelts. The guy on the right is using regular SM parts, gasp!



'nother three. There's a more helmets in this squad than the previous ones. In the middle a helm I didn't like at first, but it grew on me and sees more use now. On the right - hairy Mark of the Wulfen!



Finally, another beakie (I think I overused that helma bit!) carrying the melta gun and the squad leader, Harald!



And finally Maili Oddrsson, the Wolf Guard attached to the squad! I think this is my favourite. The Power Fist, taken from the Devastators kit, is simply awesome.



Aaaand that's it! Coming up soon is their Rhino, then I'll post something other than Grey Hunters, though there's only one small pack of them left!

In the other news, I took the 42nd Cadian to a yet another tournament on Saturday. It seems the Emperor smiled upon me, for I placed 3rd (out of 20-something) and got the "Best Painted Army" award as well! However, the 2100 pts format made me realise it's time to add some stuff to the Guard... I'll show you my plans soon! Now it's back to the painting, there's not a lot of Wolves left to do!



Read more!