Many Projects Coming...

I’ve had a number of people ask me what projects I have on my agenda this coming year, and I tell them that if things go as planned, which they never do, I will finish for sure my Roman Legions, have a playable 2500 points of Warriors of Chaos army, painted a 1000 points of Norman/El Cid/Crusades Knights for Adepticon, the beginnings of my next major and hopefully extravagant Fantasy army which will be the brutal Orcs, and starting my British Napoleonic’s/War of 1812 army.

The Roman Legions are basically done with the exception of the movement trays, which I’ll be finishing up shortly. I hope to have pictures of the entire assembled army within the next month. I don’t think I will get done with a display base for them when I go down to Adepticon, so I plan to use my 1000 pt Warriors of Chaos display as a fill-in, it is roughly using the same basing.

My Warriors of Chaos army, otherwise known as the Mutant Marauders, is approximately 1250 pts of completely finished models.

I started this army back in 2007, then the interim chaos rules came out separating beasts and demons from the book, then the new chaos book came out and I began to lose interest with them, then I got it back, then 8th edition fantasy came out and I lost interest in the game for a bit, but I like these guys and still love the models, so I decided to just keep going with the army. Not my normal style of doing things. I like to build everything first, then paint it all in one fell swoop. What makes it more complicated is that one of the colors I’m using for the army is a custom blend. I think in the next post, I’ll discuss my concept of how to I build armies whether fantasy or 40k or ancients.

The knights, something I have always wanted to do. I love reading about this period of history, I find it very intriguing and fascinating. Not much else to say about this army, other than it is meant to be for the Adepticon Team Warhammer Ancients Tournament. If it goes as planned, I will be teamed up with a bunch of Saxons under the command of the Mike “Old Coot” Butcher.

The orcs, much like my Khorne Demons, are meant to be my next extravagant, and hopefully the army will blow people away. With my Khorne Demons, my theme was obviously the evil depths of Chaos with blood pools throughout the basing and hands reaching up out of the depths of hell to drag victims down into the pits of despair.






I think it was interesting change from the whole lava based Khorne army scheme that you see done over and over. With my Orcs the theme is quite simple, brutality. And that brutality in particular will be directed at humans, namely the Empire and Bretonians. The orc project will be moving forward, now that I have figured out how to do my bases and movement trays. More on that to come, and I will probably do some posts on using themes to build your armies, something that seems to often be lacking in Warhammer 40k and Fantasy from the more casual army builders.

British Napoleonic is something I’ve also wanted to do over the past decade or so, so I decided to at least make an attempt at it. In this area I know of one other person that is interested in trying this and wants to do French, so I think will try this out, probably using Warlord Games’ Blackpowder Rules.

As for the other things on tap, there will be a few one-off display pieces, some more 40k conversions, and some commission work. I’ve basically caught up with my commission work, and have decided that this year; I will likely take on less commission work than I have in the past. I don’t always show pictures of the work I do, as once and awhile people request that I hold off doing so for a period of time for different reasons. I will be continuing with the VC Orc commission project, it’s been a lot fun, and is sort of an on-going project. This is not to say that someone may come along with a commission project that I simply can not refuse. For me, it has to be something that I want to do before I take it on.

40k Chaplain Biker Conversion

This is the last of the bikes that I have had forever it seems. I'm using up a bunch of bits that I had lying around.

Not a very inspired conversion.

And actually you can get this for very cheap on Ebay if you want it. I mainly just attempting to clear some stuff off my desk and make room for more important stuff.

Packers in the Playoffs begins today...

Win or lose the Packers have overcome so many injuries this season, its amazing that they made it this far.

And one last shot at Brat Favre. Traitor. Pervert.

War Boss on the new plastic Boar

I've been wanting to work with these new boars since I saw them come out. They are very dynamic in pose, much better than the old ones and much better than the current Warboss Kit.

This boss was built on commission for the same person who commissioned the two shamen and two VC Orc boy units.


I decided to us the black orc torso with the armored legs of the normal boar riders.

That means covering the joins of the legs to the blorc body. Covered that with armor plates and mail.

I decided to add a bunch of glyphs as you see on the model's helmet, elbow, sword, and shoulder.

To continue the whole battling of the undead them, I put a broken tombstone on the base. This I will use again with the Wolf Riders.

I do like how the armor plating looks on the boar's head. I'm definitely planning to do some more of that.

Also when you do not use the boar rider arms, you will need to add some fur on the ridge of the boar's back.

Orc Shaman Conversion #2 Finished on Budget.

Why paint up a metal GW model for an orc shamen, when you can have more fun building one out of plastic pieces and a typical rank and file plastic orc boy and your bits box.

Of course not everyone can do the green stuff work, so that does make it a bit harder, but as seen with the first and with this secound one it can be done and give you something very unique looking.


The staff as you can tell by the glyph was once an orc boy spear, I added an overlay of GS and did the wood grain sculpting. Topped it off with a bit from the beastmen or skaven, can't remember which.

As you can see I gave him a pouch full of bones and other trinkets.

I think the tatter of bottom of the robe could have been better, an I maybe should have removed a tooth or two, but I am happy with the conversion.

On the Road to Adepticon...

My journey to Adepticon is in full swing as the new year has started. I decided after last year that I would not be playing 40k and after seeing the goings on of the Fantasy realm that I would not play the Fantasy tourney.

The 40k decision was easy as I have not played 40k in a few years, though I have to say I'm being tempted to return the game, space marines are beckoning me.

The Fantasy tourney...I hate to say it, but their rules decisions for last year really soured me towards playing the tourney, the composition scoring was pitful in my opinion and having only one playable army ready to take to the tourney that was utterly killed by the composition scoring, I figured why bother. Also locally, in state, I think my Khorne Demon army is well liked, but there are a number of bloggers in that area that have talked smack about it the last time I went to Chicago and really I don't think appreciated my efforts. I'm pretty thick-skinned but some of the comments were uncalled for, ill-informed just quick glances based on their comments, and quite frankly ignorant in my opinion.

I know Marty aka Mr. Clean who runs Adepticon Fantasy. I like the guy, he runs good tourneys and fun events and attends the bigger tourneys here in Wisconsin. So I really don't know what the story was with last years tourney, and honestly I have not asked him. Marty is about fun wargaming, and that did not look like fun. I'm sure he will run a great event this time out, but 8th Edition is something I'm not comfortable with and not something that I have an army built to play. I am also currently annoyed with the rules changes. I played the local tourney here with my only playable army and got pretty well spanked by everything. That and I'm sick of painting Khorne Red, to make it playable for 8th, and the Warriors of Chaos is too far away from being in a playable form. So I will pass on Fantasy.

So 40k is out.

Fantasy is out.

So what to play. Why Warhammer Ancients 2.0. The game appeals to me. I'll be going there full force and playing WAB Singles and WAB Team, bringing with me the Romans and hopefully the Perry Knights for the Team effort. Its a smaller and olded turnout and played in a quieter setting. Geese I must be getting old. I'll be teamed up with my buddy Mike Butcher, our team is the "The Grumpy Old Coots".

More of ‘dem Blue 40k Templars…Part 2

As we left off in Part 1, I was transitioning my 40k Blue Templars into a more medieval like theme which led into a full blown move towards attempting to make my normal space marines follow theme. Prior to that, I was using crests that I had sculpted on with drapings and purity seal like devices. I remember spending all kinds of time on these models, most of which learning the techniques that I can now do quite easily and quickly.





Made their helmets look more like great helms and added bits of mail to them. I began pushing my paintwork to add really fine detail work like on these shoulder pads.





I didn’t exactly carry that theme into my only heavy weapons team. Also note back then there was no kneeling plastic space marine legs. I had to build those legs.

I did carry it somewhat into the old OOP scouts that I used for my neophyte templars.

As I finished up most of the troops, I decided to build a dreadnought, and veered off painting a bunch of little details into it. Again pushing the use of heraldic devices on it also.




Looking back at the army, it really only had one unifying theme about it and that was the paint scheme. I certainly made a lot of mistakes with it, but it was full of experiments and a wealth of character back when Games Workshop did not have all of these special plastic sprues for the various Space Marine Chapters.