Saturday, July 31, 2010

Marauding Hordes...Continues & Initial thoughts on 8th

In one of the more recent posts I had shown some work in progress of the painting of my marauders, and I will probably show some more of that later on today or tomorrow. But, I thought I would back up just a bit and show a few of converting shots prior to paint.



With my chaos warriors I'm really playing up the mutations throughout the army, using all kinds of kitbashing. The one thing I found long ago was that scale wise ungors and flaggellants are basically the same, so that lets you do things like the above.


This guy is one of my new favorites, and yes he will rank up with the others. Again another kit bash. The new gor bodies are very much adorned with more details than the older ones.


I'm also a big fan of axes, and the new bestigor axes are quite cool in my opinion. When you put the marauder heads on the gor bodies you do need to fill the gap with a little GS to make a neck. Fairly straight forward.


Not sure what I was thinking with the guy below, but he fits the bill of my mutants. Remember that armor tutorial I did, well here's another model using that.



This guy is my absolute favorite of this batch of conversions. He screams chaos and barbarism to me. Not really a mutant, just an ultra cool conversion, and he fills the barbaric bill so he made the cut.


Next up more the WIP on the paint work.

Played my first game of 8th edition, as part of team battle in which we were all attempting to learn the new rules, 1000 points per player, so it just happened to turn out to be Warriors of Chaos teamed with Warriors of Chaos against my Warriors of Chaos teamed with some all Khorne Demons of Chaos. We lost but it was kind of close and we definitely had some army build issues that worked with last edition but not so well this addition. Khorne Demons were killed to a man. One of the stars of my game was my Spawn that ran off a unit of Marauder Cav and was chasing down another at the end of the game. Ran a pair of chariots and they are almost always underestimated on how devastating they can be when charged as pair at one unit.
I liked somethings, somethings I didn't like. I don't like the new charging rules, I can tell you that. I really don't think there was really much wrong with it before, but the new charge distances are too far over the top in my opinion. I liked combat the way it was, now I almost think its too fast, but I can live with it.
I've never been a big fan of the magic phase of the game, I think they missed on correcting this phase. Not as bad as thought though on the magic, but its still too over powered in my opinion, and very annoying phase.
I do like the new frenzy rules. Do need to play a few more games to get the hang of the changes.

Monday, July 19, 2010

Expanding the Marauders for WHFB 8th Edition

I rarely take pictures of what is on my table, and right now its overloaded with around 35 marauders and a few other pieces. Well half of my drafting table....and one of my two tables.


A whole lot of pieces. The GW ones are all converted, with the exception of the OOP models. The non-GW ones however are pretty much stock, but fit what my army is shaping up to be. At this stage the skintones are at highlight #4 above the base coat. And I'll probably wash them a few times. And I just base coated some of the cloth in the beginning of my custom blend burnt orange.

Neat thing about doing chaos is the shear number of variations that you can do, mixing marauders, gors, ungors, flagellants, blood letters, chaos warriors, chaos knights, and kroot.


These guys up front are my new favorites, they are Tre Manor's sculpts from his company Red Box Games. They are a tad on the small side when compared to marauders and gors, but for me thats okay as they are as big as the converted flagellants and ungors that I'm using in the army. They are really fun miniatures to paint, the musculature practically paints its self. I have some of his Reaper Miniatures sculpts also mixed in with this group which look sort of like larger versions of his Red Box Games. As well as one from a bud out west Matt "aka Prophet Miniatures" Gubser one of his Reaper Miniatures.
Looking at and painting these barbarians from Tre and Matt open my eyes to doing some different things to GW's marauders as I still need to do a few more.

Oh you are probably wondering why are they sitting on the GW paint pots? Well that my friends is all those things are good for. Put a little poster putty on them and stick the mini down on top of it and you have a nice little miniature holder. The pots sure as hell are no good for storing paint in. The number of GW paints that I have, I can count on one hand, I mostly use Vallejo and Reaper Master Series for painting along with some Golden Fluid Acrylics (an artist acrylic).



Sunday, July 18, 2010

Batman WIP part 1...in the 40k Universe

Not much to show just yet. I'm a huge Batman fan. After doing Boba Fett and Predator, I got to thinking about some art work that I did a few years back of Batman as an inquisitor.



My plan is do this conversion and paint it up for a couple of paint competitions early next year. I thought about using a different head, but I wanted to keep this more space marine like.



I think the chest plate turned out cool. I need to do a little shaving on the pointy ears. I should also try to mimic the nose of the cowl that Batman wears.


Not sure yet on what I'll use on the utility belt. The cape will obviously be the hardest part of the conversion, plan to build it from scratch.

Saturday, July 17, 2010

The British are Coming...

Well my further expansion in war-gaming is in progress. I was painting up the last of my Roman Legionaires for my WAB 2.0 army and decided while doing that to paint a couple of 1800's British. Very much a work in progress, more or less to get a scheme down for the future army.



I have a few extra Victrix drummers so this will be one of the test models.




The next model is a Perry Miniatures rifleman, not really the proper paint scheme for the rifleman that I'm aware of, but its really just a test model.


Long ways to go with them both.


I haven't decided if I should use black or white primer yet. I'll be doing a couple more next time in white primer. The smaller scale does take a bit of practice to get use to doing and figuring out what works and does not work.


Normally when I army paint, I will use black primer, primarily because its a built in shadow and blackline. Sometimes that does not work. And I think these may be miniatures that I will want to use a lot more washes on than my normal painting of dark to light highlighting.

The plan for the army will be a mix of Victrix and Perry miniatures as they do in my opinion mix quite well, very similar in sculpts.

I'm currently painting about 35 marauders for my Mutant Maruader Warriors of Chaos army and the expansion for 8th edition. I'll probably shoot a few WIP pictures of the paint as I progress.


Next up a Batman siting in the 40k universe.

Friday, July 16, 2010

Khorne-aholic...I do like them

I do like Khorne and its unabashed barbarism.


This is another of those kit bashes that I do so much of.

I think it works fairly well for a really quick conversion. I have bunch of leftover Blood letter face plates, so I think this is pretty simple and good use for them.










Sunday, July 11, 2010

Predator Space Marine Progress

Yea I went to the movie this past weekend, really enjoyed Predators. To me a fun movie to sit back and watch.

Been working a bit on the Predator Space Marine. There are a few things that I would do differently after watching the movie, save that for the next one I think.




Its a fun miniature to build though. The next one will definitely not use a spear and I'll do something a bit different with the right hand.



Next up a few WIP shots of some things that I'm working on a bit of paint and a Batman Space Marine sighting.
















Saturday, July 10, 2010

Chaos Warrior to Chaos Space Marine Converting

Another piece that got lost in my bits box long ago that I decided to finish. The warriors are rather rigid and lacking in dynamic poses, but they do have a cool look about them.

I've done a number of these in the past as space wolves and the like, but have never really been that fond of them.
They are however unique looking and a rather easy conversion, even if you are not super skilled with sculpting.

The main thing is to know where to cut things and then be able to fill those gaps. As you progress then you be able to slightly more dynamic things with the arms by removing the elbow joint holes for the capes.

Monday, July 5, 2010

40k Khorne and Beastly Space Marines

I've had some possessed bits for quite awhile and have not really played with them all that much, but I think they are ultra cool looking pieces and with very little effort you can make some very nice looking miniatures.


This torso to me just screams Khorne, so I thought I would do a quick little piece, using some maruader bits for the arm and the hanging skulls.


The head is from the Chaos Warriors box set. Couple all of that with the old berzerkers bolt pistol minus the horrendous looking hand.

The next one is a piece left over from a long ago project that I have given up on, its been in my box for several years so I thought I would finish it up. Beastmen head do work with spacemarines, just cut off the pony tails.






I'll have a few more chaos spacemarines and loyalists coming up, but I'm entering paint mode here pretty soon on my own chaos warriors and also building some goblin wolf riders on commission.
....Next Up, probably WIP shots of the Batman Spacemarine progress, and to celebrate Predators, I'll probably have the Predator space marine finished up by the end of the week.