More of ‘dem Blue 40k Templars…Part 1

Quite a while ago I did some posts focusing on my first major 40k army, the Cerulean Templars. When I say major, it’s because it was the first army that I really took my time constructing. I recently on the warhammer.uk.org forum and someone there had posted that they wanted to do a 40k army and like the GW Black Templar theme, but hated the color scheme. So it reminded me that I never finished the bit of nostalgia that I had previously started.

In a previous post I had shown the first couple of units and my land crusader and rhinos. This next group of miniatures are the old OOP Terminators.

As I started painting them, I got to thinking about fluff for the army and ways of distinguishing them more. Sort of spinning off with some heraldry.

I could see Space Marines in their fancy colored armor running around with a sort of heraldic device painted on them. So I experimented a bit with my paint scheme.

My assault squad, almost looked out of place, but still had that Blue and White scheme carried through:

To be continued....

Truck Progress

Some head way on the other long term project.

The truck gets closer after doing and some re-doing of things. When you redo things, they do sometimes get better. In this case the firewall has become very clean looking compared to what it was.

It does have an engine, and it does run. Just don't have a gas tank just yet.

Roll up windows are real fiddly when working with 1950's hardware. Vent windows in the doors will be even more an issue since the top was chopped.

The old running boards were rusted out and beat up junk, so new ones needed to be bought or made. To buy them is a lot of money, to make them is a bit of work.

So, Brand new made running boards. A local metal fab shop did the 90 degree flanged bends. The radius 90 bend where the board bends upward to the cab of the truck though is by two men, with some clamps, a picnic table and a 3-inch diameter pipe, that's called "Redneck Bending". Of course the front edge of the board will need to be fitted to the front fender.

The Box is brand new steel, measurements from the old abused pile of junk from the 1950's. It was definitely used as a truck for some 25+ years. It has no floor just yet, but by spring that will be cured with a big sheet of aluminum diamond plate.

The rear tire is not wide enough, and the rear fenders are missing. Good thing there are still people making brand new rear fenders out of steel or fiberglass, your choice.

Unit #2 Complete WIP...the Whole Freakin' Unit

The whole theme of this second unit was beating on skeletons and also to be just as rowdy in appearance as the first unit was.

Here you see all of the big boys are up front. You think black orcs are big try ranking up 40k Nobs. I worked in some skeleton pieces into the custom made movement trays. The guy taking out the commission will take care of all of the basing and paint work.

I do like how the banner turned out and continued the theme of the army.

I decided to put a few tombstones on the tray also. I'll continue this in the next portion of the army that build for these VC thrashing orcs.

The Wack-A-Mole orc does look cool on the flank. I'm purposely turning the flank troops towards the sides. I've done a lot of units with the models all facing forward, but that thought all changed after I did my Khorne Demon army. I think doing this helps convey more drama and a more dynamic look.

A good side view. Again avoiding that uniformity. I love the chaos. Portray more of a wild nature.

The other side. Note the orc in the back rank has taken a spear to the chest. The little snot, clubbing the downed skeleton.

An upper view from the front with all of the chaos.

More of the mayhem.

Birds eye rear view pic.

I think I achieved what I set out to do. As I play more games of 8th I'm realizing that when I do my units they are going to need to be bigger.

I've already made some movement trays, but now have changed my mind on some unit sizes. So to counter this I've made some outside strips for the movement trays that I plan to cast and that will work with 2mm thick plasti-card or balsa. They'll be modular similar to GW's and Micro-Arts.

I do plan to use more snots in my army. They just add a sense of dark humor that I definitely want more of.

There you go that is VC Bashin' Orc Unit #2. Hope you enjoyed them. I do hope to get good painted pictures of these as some point from the guy who took out the commission.

WAB Roman Aux. Archers...Painted

Did up these auxiliaries recently further expanding my WAB Roman army. Decided that I needed a bit of shooting to go with a scorpion or two in the full blown army.

Also working on getting my auxliary cavalry models done. Just need to do up the shields.
These guys are the Warlord Games metal models which match their plastic Legionaires scale.


The metal arrows are a bit of a pain on the ones that just nocked the arrow. Takes lots of flex to get them even close to reasonably straight. Thought about bow strings, but just was not feeling it. Too fiddly...for an abused gaming army.

More of the VC killing Orcs....

I kind of like the conical helmets, but afterwhile they are repeatitative. Decided to change these up with a bits of mail. Same with the cleaver weapon, love it but can an only use is so much.

Better view of the mail mask and cleaver changes. The draping on the shield is something I definitely want to do more on my orcs when I get to them.

Better front view.

A couple more rank and filers, not very special by themselves.

Ah....look what I found, bashin' time.

More of the Unit #2 scenery and story. This using the wounded orc from the Empire box set.

I like this orc that is standing over his buddy. That is a VC spear sticking in the gut of the downed orc.

Decided to mount a trophy helmet on his shoulder. Changed the cleaver weapon again.

That's pretty close to all of Unit #2, now just need to wrap it up and assemble them on the movement tray.

A Bit of Acknowledgement

I have posted for years on Forums all over the place, and if you frequent some of the same forums you probably have seen my work. I do like to see cool projects. I bounce around a lot and like everything from 40k sci-fi stuff to fantasy to historicals. If it has little miniatures I generally like it, well except for elves and lizards. Yet if its done well I can appreciate even elves and lizards. I like good converting, sculpting, and paint whether its the so-called non-metallic metals (NMM) or real metallics or zenithal light sourcing (Only Miniature Painters could come up with such ridiculous terminology to make what we seem to do important in the "Art World"), or whatever. If its good, I appreciate it. And if you know me, you know I have opinions, and I'm not afraid to state those opinions. I've rubbed more than few people wrong, with honest opinion. And I'm rather thick skinned.

Fast forward a bit....I've been doing this blogging thing for a while now. Its interesting to do, and makes a person think. Initially when I started this, I really had no idea what I was doing, it was new to me, and I'm not all that net savy either. I really did not know what to say about some of the work, nor did I really now how I should present things. Usually with the forums everything is more or less haphazardly done. I've shown a lot of my projects, had a small following, wasn't really sure anyone was reading, ranted quite a bit on sports which I like and will continue to do on occassion (even though I'm just a fan hack), and other such things.

As I've gone the number of followers have gone up slowly, and I thank you that follow for that. Please express your opinions, good and bad on my work. And I have started to figure out what all the tabs are on my control panel so I started to observe some things. One of the cool things is from the stats which show what posts are popular, where the audience comes from, and where the traffic comes from. So I have been watching that a while now also, since about late spring and early summer, and want to acknowledge some blogs that have directed quite a bit of traffic to my blog. They are of course:

Bell of Lost Souls

Son of Taurus

The WAB Corner

Land O Misfit Toys

Little Green Monsters

From the Warp

Thanks guys, I very much appreciate it.

And to the followers, thank you. If there are things that you wish for me to show or explain or want to see done differently let me know, and I'll see if I can incorporate it in future posts. Lately both here on the forums I've had a great number of people ask me if I actually paint anymore as I show the build of an orc army. Well let me explain, I do still paint (as those of you on the blog have seen my Romans recently), but I paint only my armies and display pieces. When I build stuff for others, I do not paint it. I can build pretty fast, and really enjoy the building aspect. I can't paint all that fast. I've not painted anything on commission in years.

Anyways thanks again. And Merry Christmas.

My WAB Roman Aquilifer

The ultimate close-up. My romans are an army I painted rather quickly, not quite upto what I would normally hold as my standard for my Fantasy armies. But close.

There were some minor problems with the cast, that I didn't really bother fixing, one being the hand holding the standard. Warlord's plastics are very good, haven't painted many of their metal casts, but they appeart to be pretty rough in some cases.

The basing is HO scale R&R ballast on a Litko wooden base, with static grass.





The lion pelt was fun to paint. Kept the color scheme the same as my legionaires. Hopefully the addition of an army standard bearer to my army will help in some of my games.

Orc Craziness Ensues

More of the making of Unit #2. This is one of the unit fillers, mounted on a 50 square.

I did make the models removable so that the commissioner could paint them easier. You can see the back two are doing what orcs do, fight.


Had that neat skeleton bit in my box, thought it made for a neat conversion to continue the VCskeleton theme.

Nope we cannot get along.

Next up...back to the Romans.

Orc Fight...in progress

Next up to continue the in-fighting and skeleton theme, I decided to mix everything into one scene.

Next time I did this type of thing, I'll fix the feet on the one about to get body slammed. The white stuff on the slammee is just poster putty to hold the arm temporarily in place, some of the poses get a bit difficult to paint.

So often it is easier to not do final assembly, just partial assembly, then paint some components separately and assemble the entire piece after paint work is done.

For instance the head on the orc being slammed is also just tacked on with poster putty. Its a bit hard to get to if you don't do it that way. Nice poses are great, but if you can't paint them they are not so great. And you just make a mess of things.

Roman Standard Bearers..

I recently started painting a number of command figures to expand my Roman army. I needed to change up my unit sizes and have more units, which means more command models. I number of the models have the standards that you can paint a few things on.

So to sort of poke fun at myself, I decided to paint the banners up with the infamous Varus' Legion numbers that were wiped out in the German forests. I'm not a very good player, so what better general for someone like myself to select.


Most all of my models in the army are Warlord Games models with a few exceptions. I alsy added the army standard bearer shown below.

Even found a legionaire that I failed to paint in the first go round.

The only shields I had left were the veteran scutums, but I do like them and their beat up look.

I'll soon have new movement trays painted up, so eventually I'll get around to photographing the entire army.

Still have the archers and cavalry Auxilliaries to go yet.