Space Marine and Machine Gun Wizard

First of all, I have been painting a lot of WFB Dwarfs since my last post, but my energy level hasn't really been at a point where I have been able to set up for a photo session. I hope I get around to do it soon.

I the meanwhile I guess I got a bit of painters block with the Dwarfs and I needed to try something new for a change, to kickstart my painting again.

So the other day I was looking around on Google Images for pics of old minis and I fell over a Rogue Trader Ultra Marines army. I really liked the look of this one guy in Artificer Armour and as I knew I had him in my leadpile I decided to give him a go. I know I usually paint Blood Angels, but having a blue guy kicking about can't hurt.

Space Marine in Artificer Armour.

I decided to keep it real simple, mostly just blue and metal (as the original model I saw) and I quite like the simplicity. Sometimes I like a lot of details and bling, other times the real basic paintjob just works best for me.

Also I bought this Machine Gun Wizard a little while ago and instead of letting him collect dust in the leadpile I decided to paint him right away.

Wand of Magic Missiles?

The Wizard really looks shiny on these pics. In the real world it is not so bad, but I have been thinking of trying to give him a layer of Dull Coat. If I ever get around to it I might post some new pics.

Hopefully coming up soon is the follow up on my Dwarf army.

Throwback Saturday

Things have admittedly been going really slow around here lately. I am not painting or gaming much anymore and most of my miniatures time goes with sorting my collection, selling off unwanted items and projects I never get around to finish.

Then this thing happened today. I was sorting out old files in the computer and I fell upon a folder of pictures of my old Blood Angels army. This army was mostly done in the time of 40K 2nd edition, but it didn't get any game time untill 4th.

The paintjob is deffinately not up to my current standard, but some of you guys might get a kick out of seing this anyway.

Complete Army.

Bikes.

Commanders.

Larger command section. 

Death Company.

Dreadnoughts.

Some of the Rogue Trader guys.

Medic on bike.

Scouts.

Tactical Squad 1.

Tactical Squad 2.

Vehicles.

Terminators.

Most of this army has been sold off long time ago, but I have kept some of the older models and have them lying around somewhere.

It would be funny to put a unit or two of these guys on the table once more.

Deredo Class Dreadnought

One more Dreadnought done. This time I laid some paint on the classic Deredo Class Attack Support Dreadnought. Armed with a powerfist and a missile launcher it is ready to take on both armour and infantry.

Once again I gave this Dreadnought a pretty basic paintjob, adding a few details here and there. I got inspired by a picture of a Dreadnought in the Compendium book and gave this one a Cat face with eyes, whiskers and fangs. It is hard to see in the pictures, since he is leaning forward, so the face is in the shadows a lot.

Deredo Class Dreadnought "Eddy" with Marines and a Contemptor.

Ork Raiders on the attack.

Massive Dreadnought resistance.

Next to go: Furibundus Class Dreadnought.

Contemptor, Deredo and Furibundus Class Dreadnoughts.

Contemptor Class Dreadnought

A bit back to the roots of my blog. Old school Rogue Trader madness. This time I once more expanded on my Blood Angels army. I decided to paint a Dreadnought with a lot of inspiration from the Blood Angels Dreadnought in the Rogue Trader book.

I did some, but not all, of the markings and of course the shark teeth. I think he looks really killer and fit in well with the rest of my army. Not the best paint job in the world, but well enough for gaming.

Contemptor Class Dreadnought "Chuck" with a bunch of Marines.

 

Battle For Dos Angeles

Back in the days, when I started my venture into alternative gaming and my gaming group and I played a lot of post apocalypse style games, we had quite a loose setting where almost everything could (and would) happen. I really think we had a lot of great games and an interesting storyline going on, but eventually things died and we moved onto other genres.

The main problem used to be the rules. Whatever we tried out there always seemed to be something not quite right. But still we had a lot of fun and I always thought it was a shame we never did more in the genre.

It all probably just comes down to finding some rules that basically works out and tweak it to our own gaming needs. So recently I have been reading up on the Nuclear Renaissance rules from Ramshackle Games again and we decided to give it another go.

For this games I set up a Phagon cloning station in the city of Dos Angeles. The cloning station has been working illegally for some time, but the local law enforcement, represented by Inquisitor Gar and his corrupt posse of Marines and Squats, was not satisfied with the amount of bribes and decides to show and example by destroying some cloning tanks in the outskirts of the city.

The Phagon cloning station at Dos Angeles

Inquisitor Gar arrives in a massive Iron Grumbler making a lot of noise and making sure everyone hears him make his entry.

An Ambull quickly pops out of the ground disturbed by the noise.

The alerted Phagons get some Ambull love too.

Ambulls everywhere.

Inquisitor Gar disembarks the Iron Grumbler and runs for cover on the left flank while the Iron Grumbler rams a cluster of smokestacks from the underground facilities.

An abominable Running Ripper chages towards the Iron Grumbler.

And a PSI Wolf try to fend of the Inquisitor.

The Piscean Warrior hide in a building.

Ram!

The Running Ripper was gunned down and as Dr. Brain runs to the aid of his beloved pet he gets run down by the Iron Grumbler.

Meanwhile the Piscean Warrior has been gunning down the Inquisitorial Medic and Inquisitor Gar himself, but the last Marine decides to still blow up some cloning tanks.

This Ambull was beaten to the ground by twin powerfists!

PSI Wolf enters the Iron Grumbler.

In the end only a few models was left on the table and only the Iron Grumbler was left on the Inquisitorial side. Trying to run ram another cloning tank but failing in the attempt. Unfortunately Inquitor Gar and his men had forgotten to close the hatch when they left the tank and a PSI Wolf jumped on the tank, into it and ate the driver.

In conclusion the game was quite fun and the rules worked out ok. We made a few mistakes along the way and I am sure things will be even better in future games of Nuclear Renaissance.

Shark Teeth Marines And Field Police

I have been in the process of painting a Blood Angels assault marine squad and now I finally have half a squad ready, which means they will be able to make it into a game (potentially).

I want my Space Marines to be psychos, so I painted shark mouths on the assault marines. I think it is a great way to make them look really agressive and it will make them stand out on the battle-field.

"OK boys, let's ravage this town!"

I also wanted to do some Field Police for some time, but in the end I decided to make just a single marine instead of a complete squad of them. So I found a model I really liked and painted him in the colours of the Field Police. 

This guy will either make it into a veteran squad at some point or solely be used for skirmish. For now he can try to arrest the Blood Angels.

"Throw down your weapons and surrender, you are under arrest!"

Merry Christmas 2014

Merry Christmas! 

So I managed to run the blog almost two years now and so far only one month of dead space. I think it is has been a pretty good run so far and this blog is one of the things that keep me going in the hobby.

For this years Christmas I managed to paint my Christmas Marines. I had them prepped last year, but didn't manage to get any paint on them, so it was pretty straight forward this year.

The models are a funny concept, drunk and stoned Marines (Yes, I painted the cigar as a huge joint). Even though the sculpts are not the best I enjoyed painting these. I do suspect that these were re-casts though, since after I stripped them they had lack of detail and multiple moldlines and other of the known signs of a re-cast, so maybe an original would look like better sculpted, I don't know.

Anyway, even if they are re-cast I decided to keep them for myself, I bought them on Ebay years ago and can't remember who the seller was and I am not planning to resell them.

So Merry Christmas and I hope to have an update or two more before 2015.

Rebuilding My Cacti Patch

Back in 2013, when I started this blog, one of the first things I posted was my Deathworld Cacti turtorial, but I was never 100% satisfied with how they turned out back then and for some time I have been working on upgrading and rebuilding the cacti patch.

The finished and rebuild cacti patch.

First of all I wasn't satisfied about how the CD bases looked too uniform on the table. At first it didn't bother me that much, but it was annoying me more and more as time went by, so I began searching for an alternative.

After some time I decided that I wanted some lasercut bases, it would not be the cheapest option, but probably the best option considering price and time spent on it all. There really is a lot of lasercut stuff to chose from on the internet, but in the end I found a cheap solution on Ebay and ended up with 80 terrain bases in a mix of different shapes and sizes.

Top view of the finished pieces.

Another thing I wanted was for the terrain to fit into the plastic boxes I use for storage of my terrain. I had bought them to fit the CD bases, but as it turned out they were a bit too small for that. 

So when I started the rebuilding I first chose some bases which would fit the box. I put an A4 paper in the box and drew the outlines of the bases and I numbered the bottom of the bases, so I will always be able to easily fit them back in the box for storage.

Some Marines defend themselves against an Ambull onslaught.

The ARBCO silo.

"So for a good bean soup you need beans, onions, potatos and... wait, did you hear something?"

Marines being monitored by Inquisitor Gar.

Backside (or front) of the ARBCO silo.

Detail of the top of the silo.

On top of the silo I used some diluted woodglue, to which I added some orange/brown paint, I poored it onto the silo and left it to dry. Which gave the result of the dried in pool of rusty/dirty water. I think the effect worked out quite good.

Below is some WIP of the process. I took off the cacti from the CD bases, some of the cacti had their spikes re-done and all needed slight update on paint and such stuff.

Chosing what cacti to put where.

Progress.

Bases painted and spikes added to the cacti.

I chose to do the cacti on their own and finish the bases before I stuck them on. They would need some work after attaching, but it would eliminate some of the problems about painting around the spikes and all.

Tile adhesive added to give structure.

First layer of paint.

Almost done, the silo needs paint and I added some grass to the bases.

The cacti patch is not the only terrain I have been working on lately and below is a few pictures of some of the other stuff I have finished.

A stone circle from some resin stones I bought once.

The finished Alien Vegetation From Drinking Straws.

Quite big plants.

Some easter eggs.

A spread of the combined terrain.

I'm rather pleased I must say.

As you can see these cacti and friends are not nearly enough to cover a whole table yet. But I do have a few other things which didn't make it to this photo-shoot.

I plan to make some more boxes of terrain and try to make them a bit themed. So I want to make one more box of cacti, this is the most important instant old school terrain feature and I think doubling the amount of cacti will look impressive on any table.

Besides that I have plans for a box of mushroom terrain, some boxes of sci-fi jungle terrain. more bunkers, silos, containers and generally i just hope to end up with a lot of different terrain and still try to keep it useful together in any mix or match.