It's no secret that I really enjoy adding in different-sized figures into a warband. A sneaky little fella rubbing shoulders with a big brute to contrast with the bulk of the 'normal-sized' crew. I wanted to repeat this with my Paul Muller cultists and settled on a pair of big brutes to add some real menace!
I've always liked the insidious and subtle encroachment of chaos. That corruption of the weak-willed & marginalised. It seems a lot more interesting than the big bombastic version of chaos that you see associated with chaos space marines.
And so I'm having another look at chaos cultists. Unlike my previous cult of weirdos and oddballs, this one is going to be comprised of Paul Muller sculpts. The bulk of the cult will be made up of his lovely mid-1990s 40k cultists, supplemented with a few other nice figures from other manufacturers where they fit aesthetically.
My first group of 5 figures are primarily drawn from the 40k set:
Back in December 'Winterfest' was launched on The Emporium of Rogue Dreams Facebook page. Build and paint an Eldar single model, unit or vehicle by 12th January. The Command Group category was my favourite category from the early 1990s Golden Demon awards. I loved seeing a tight group of four themed models, usually comprised of a selection of commanders, leaders, champions or musicians plus a standard bearer:
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| David Knowles Squat Command Group (Golden Demon 1991) |
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| Barry Lees' 1st place Ork Command Group (Golden Demon 1991) |
I decided I'd build and paint a Command Group for the unit category under the premise of 'What I might have entered into the Command Group category at Golden Demon 1994'*.
*Assuming that the Command Group category still existed in 1994!
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| My Eldar Command Group (theoretically entered at Golden Demon 1994) |
As I'm closing in on the end of the Confrontation project, I've decided to do some gap filling. This essentially means finishing off any WIP figures and making sure each gang is at least 10 models strong. After a bit of a stock-take, this meant that I needed to paint 3 more psykers, 3 more Helmawr, 2 more maniacs. Plus the Scavvy gang of course.
Step 1 was to get those psykers done. I had already converted one some time ago, but had conversions planned. So I got out the figures and the greenstuff and bashed them out.
It's funny how you can warm to a project over a few weeks isn't it? I really didn't enjoy painting the first Confrontation Elite gangers, but I'm closing off the project with a final pair, and they were a lot of fun to paint up. This time round it's a bit of an imposter-leader model, plus a champion with the coolest heavy weapon there is: PLASMA!
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| Elite gangers may not be upper-hivers, but they are definitely classy! |
Back in the early 2000s I planned a space slann army for 40k. The project never got off the ground as I moved towards smaller skirmish games, and most of the slann have long since been passed on. I did however keep the slann leader that I had planned to use - this was a conversion that was done for me by sculptor and Golden Demon winner Jeff Wilhelm. 20 years on, I have finally got round to painting up this long-neglected slann!
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| Originally intended for 28mm gaming, this slann will also see use in 54mm. |
Inquisitors come in all shapes and sizes. I've always been fond of those in the Eisenhorn mould - radical-leaning and a bit world weary. Those with a more subtle nature rather than being god-like warriors.
One of John Blanches concept sketches for a veteran Inquisitor from The Inquisitor Sketchbook really stands out to me:
Here is an imposing character in a commanding pose. He carries a cane almost as a mark of office. I love the echoes of Don Quixote and that slender bionic arm.
(One of the) glaring omissions in the 54mm Inquisitor range were abhumans. Where are the ratlings, beastmen and ogryns? OK, maybe ogryns might have been a bit unsubtle and overpowered, but I'd have loved to have seen a ratling. Rask Dogar is my attempt at filling that gap. He's not actually my first attempt at a ratling (more on that in a future post), but is the one I'm most pleased with.
My latest model is an attempt to use a suitably-sized miniature from the current Games Workshop range and adapt it for 54mm-scale gaming. Soemon is a gun for hire (another desperado character) who will get used as a nice bit of supporting firepower (and muscle!).
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| Look out behind you! |
Although every Rogue Trader's authority is set down in their Warrant of Trade and Letters of Marque, in truth every individual's approach to exploring and exploiting the galaxy on behalf of the Imperium is different. Some Rogue Traders control battlefleets and large personal armies to overwhelm and conquer. Others seek lost secrets with just a few hand-picked companions.
The leader of my first completed 54mm Inquisitor warband is Jutta Gyldentheld - a Rogue Trader firmly in the low-key camp!
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| Rogue Trader Gyldentheld & companions exit their shuttle in search of new opportunities. |
I think I have more bits of Slick Devlan than any other Inquisitor model. I think most people do. Slick benefits both from being one of the original releases and from having flexible components that can be used for a variety of characters - not just gunslingers, but also mutants, bounty hunters and even Inquisitors.
A few months ago I snapped up a partially converted Slick Devlan from eBay. The previous owner had resculpted Slick's hair and nose, filed down his padded flack armour and sculpted it into a carapace armour breastplate. They had added cloth bindings around Slick's lower legs and resculpted his loincloth. A lot of work had gone into the figure, and I decided that although I already have plenty of Slick parts, I could add to the conversion work and come up with a nice new character. I started referring to the character as Dick Slevlan mid-way through the process. I think that's going to stick!
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| Dick Slevlan and Mono-152 cautiously move through a junkyard. |
Inquisitor (published by Games Workshop in 2001) is a fiendishly complex table-top RPG, with figures that at 54mm scale do not fit with anything else in my collection. Not many people play it. Having enough terrain is a constant issue. Games Workshop's figures are long out of print, and there is a real dearth of suitably-sized and styled sci-fi miniatures from other manufacturers. There is absolutely no justification that warrants spending time to make and paint anything for Inquisitor. Except that maybe, just maybe, I want to because I fancy doing it.
In terms of my Inquisitor gaming history, I was totally enthused when the game was published and built and painted a hooded, powerfist wielding Inquisitor (I sadly no longer have him). Some time after that, I made a small group of 54mm Eldar (I still have them; chipped & missing bits). Then I left Inquisitor alone for at least 15 years, possibly as long as 20 years. But after chatting with buddies Asslessman and Antipixi, it seemed that we all had a bit of an Inquisitor itch to scratch. I'm not sure how far I'll get with this project - I'm currently working on about half a dozen figures. I might make and paint 1, or 3 or even more depending on how enthused I end up!
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| Mono-152 goes on a pre-progammed rampage |
A final pair of gangers to bring my Confrontation dogskin gang up to ten members strong. This means that I can field them as a Stargrave crew, and have just about enough members for a short Necromunda campaign.
When I originally put my squat pirates together, I knew that they would need something to ride around in. My initial thought was to buy a second-hand Action Force Roboskull and adapt it, but it turns out that vintage toys are collectible and expensive, so I would need to do something else. I ran with the flying skull theme though, and put together what I've been calling the Jetskull.
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| Squat pirates prep the Jetskull in the landing bay of their mothership. |
On Saturday just gone I attended the inaugural Lead & Steel event at The Outpost in Sheffield - a new and hopefully regular event on the Oldhammer calendar. I took part in a multiplayer game of Necromunda set in the badlands town of Far Corfe (more on that in the next post). The game required a small gang plus some vehicles. I decided I was going to use my squat pirates, but needed a few more vehicles to accompany the crew and their only existing vehicle, the Annihilator. First up - some powerboards!
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| What's that in the background? You'll have to wait until the next post. |
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| Caryatid by Stephen Tappin, published in White Dwarf #132 |
There have been many Citadel sculptors, but I really wish that Roy Eastland had stayed with Citadel longer than he did. He was responsible for the delightfully chunky non-Copplestone tech gangers, the flamboyant puffed sleeved space marine scouts and a handful of skeletons. And that was about it! The highlight of Roy's output for Citadel for me though is the small set of five Confrontation bounty hunters. They are brilliantly grizzled and hard-bitten characters, with eccentric hairstyles and exotic gear - 100% Confrontation in fact!
I painted up one of the five as The Doc a few weeks ago, whilst another of the set was painted a few years ago as The Wolf of House Ulanti. I decided to paint up the other three and get the set completed.
I'll start off by saying that in general I'm not that keen on pop culture mash-ups. I prefer my Star Wars, Superheroes, Dune and Thundercats neatly compartmentalised and separate. Every so often, something happens and my willpower drops. I end up painting a RT pilot as Buck Rogers. Or a space pirate and weretiger as an alternate universe He-Man and Battlecat.
For no particular reason, I recently dropped my guard and ended up doing something I hadn't really intended, and is firmly in mash-up territory.
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| Notorious bounty hunters MJ MkFlay and The Doc |
Note: This is a repost of a post from October 2017 that I posted on the Scale Creep blog.
Back in August 2017, Asslessman proposed that we indulge in a bit of nostalgia with a group project in homage to the most heroic of 1980s heroes: He Man. These figures were my contribution.
I'm certain I'm not the only hobbyist that has a stack of partly painted or assembled miniatures sitting on shelves or in boxes. My stalling point is generally post-conversion - I'll have an idea for a figure (and often a gaming need), but then plans change and I end up with a converted figure waiting to be painted. Sometimes they wait for a few weeks. Sometimes it's several years!
Today's figure was built sometime in late August or early September 2018. I had a spare head from an Imperial Guardsman I'd converted for my Dracula's America in Space crew, and Ukko from Foundry's 2000AD range that I'd picked up at Bring Out Your Lead 2018. The resulting pairing gave me a rather fun NPC (instantly referred to as The Dude):
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| I suspect the contents of the bottle are cheap, nasty and very strong! |
