More painting miscellany

 With some abominable weather around home this weekend, painting was rather the order of the day so that's what I've been up to! Let's go through the workbench in scale order, ascending. 

The Stupid

I added a box of Cerastus Knights to my House Hyboras household to support our 6mm Stupid Apocalypse. I like the idea of having a pair of identical Knight Banners, each containing a Lancer, Acheron and Castigator. 

Acherons on the left, Castigators on the right

 

I suspect we'll get a few games of this in over the Christmas break if we don't get there beforehand. I do need to do some transfers but that's a quiet afternoon in when I can work out some coats of arms for each of the knights. Need to do a bit of thinking on that one.

Grenadiers

 15mm is great fun. It's so easy to paint and finishes up really nicely.

Fog throwers!

 

I'm not really moving forward on the *actual* army - just doing support units at the moment. I suspect I'll wind up doing the Grenadiers in one very long production line including HMGs, 81mm mortars and six Panzerschrecks. Before then, PaK40s and RSOs to do and then a bit of a pondering on how to fit what I've done for this army with the work I did on my old 653 Schwere Panzerjager as the dunkelgelb REALLY doesn't match and I don't think I want to repaint that as well.

DracAm

Making a bit of progress on this now. I've had all these primed for a while and playing the excellent game of DracAm with Pooch and Tank last week have given me some impetus to work on these.

Metal Gamin and Miner with dynamite

The Metal Gamin was one of the few models in the early Malifaux 3e plastics that I didn't hate. It's just cute and will be a low-level summon if I decide to summon anything in a campaign. The Miner is the third of three and got done because I discovered that dynamite is an option in DracAm and I love having dynamite in Wild West games. It never goes well for me which is why I keep doing it. 

Next Time

Club day! Looking forward to a game of something and definitely a batrep to follow whatever that game might be! I'm also working on some 15mm PaK40s and a couple of the characters for my Ghosties that seemed like it might be fun to paint. I've also started ticking through the remaining Malifaux models although I have a bunch of steampunk spiders around that I could repaint for DracAm as well if I can work out what to use them as!

Pooch's October update

Another month gone. And what do I have to show for it?

1. Paint a Kings of War Army- DONE

2. Create a table of terrain to support a game- In progress!

Ok, I am REALLY sucking at making progress with this one.

3. Complete the 6mm Apocalypse Challenge- In progress!

So McZ was feeling jealous about my collection of Warhound Titans, and wanted one of his own. Which obviously meant that we should split a box of two right?

And so, this month's painting is my third Warhound titan, this time with turbolasers!

With some Blood Angels Attack Bikes too!

The whole hunting pack

And I'm back to having no clue what I will do for next month...

4. Run a narrative campaign for the group- DONE

I have been struggling to get to the club this year, and even when I do, struggling to get the other nerds together to do some narrative fun. Given that failure, I decided to run a narrative game of Dracula's America at my place on Halloween!

I had an original scenario written (I'll save it for later), but due to a lack of nerds, I put the finishing touches on another scenario I had been working on.

The Wild West has begun to trouble Dracula, it remains a bleeding sore, a thorn in his side. One which threatens to cause him no end of trouble. With that in mind, he has dispatched some of his scions and the United States Army to bring law to the lawless.

Whisper Creek was one such lawless town. A town that had arisen around the so called Seer had grown into a place of trade, a safe harbour for those who would wish harm against Dracula. And so, the army came, and would take this Seer to meet with Dracula, and she would then meet her fate....

The scenario was that there were soldiers with the Seer in the hotel, and soldiers (and a Vampire!) coming to get them from the train. All the while, a posse of Congregation and Plains Indians were trying to capture the Seer for themselves, and escort her away.

It could only be described as a bloodbath, the army fought hard to hold onto their hostage, only for the Werewolf to tear through them while they were also holding off the Congregation. The army troops coming from the train were delayed enough to be no help to those in the hotel, especially once the Vampire had been gunned down by six shooters. In all, the Seer was freed by the Plains Indians!

The town of Whisper Creek

Such a cool model....

And that's all the photos I took. There was too much going on in the game!

The game played out really well, some minor things that I would change, but it reminded me that I do like Dracula's America, and I would like to play the bigger multi player scenario that I had written.

5. Add a new detachment to one of my 40k armies- DONE

6. Buy a starter box and paint all of it- In progress

Not yet done however, darnit!

7. Paint a Space Marine Heroes Series- DONE

8. Update a 15mm Napoleonic army for Battaile Empire- In progress!

ACTUAL PROGRESS ON THIS!

Some of the other nerds played a game of Battaile Empire recently, and really enjoyed it. It turned out to be the push which I actually needed to make a start on the clump of 15mm Napoleonics I had lying around, and I set myself the goal of finishing a unit of Cavalry each week of October. 

I actually ended up doing more than that, with five regiments of Cavalry complete! 

Hussars!

Three units of Lancers and a Commander

Grenadier a Cheval! 

Next month? I have one more regiment of cavalry, some infantry command stands and then touch ups to go. 

9. Paint a stand alone force- DONE

10. Update and improve a table of terrain- DONE

11. Paint a Flames of War Army- In progress

Two bits of progress on this one. First, I took the army to Flamescon in Auckland. How did it do? Not great. Part of it was me not playing it well, part of it was me rolling bad dice and part of it was my opponents having really good counters to my list. 

Bombing run!

Paras doing what paras do best. Assault!

And Shermans doing what they should be better at. Hiding! 

Remember December is in December, and we have decided to play 60 points of Mid War. Since it's the year of the 82nd, only makes sense that I would play the Mid War variant too! To get them ready, I needed to finish up some more units namely:

Three Zvezda Lees and an Armoured Recon Platoon

There is a Para 37mm platoon to go to, but I need the guns to arrive from Battlefront...

12. Finish what I should have finished last year- DONE

Ok... so seven done, five in progress. On track (ish).....

Pooch

Morty is watching for completed goals next month....

Catching up on the arms race...

 And.....BOO!

And BOO!

 

This is the second base of ghosties for my Kings of War Nightstalkers army. These are GW Spirit Hosts and they'll be Spectres in KoW. I really enjoyed painting these - it's a slowish job but the finish is really nice. I decided that I would deviate from the recommended paint scheme and use a bit of Nighthaunt Gloom around the heads and shoulders to tie them closer to Reapers. Most pleased!

 Mistakes were made

I put the blame squarely on blogger Pooch for this one. He got a Warhound for The Stupid and when the opportunity came up for me to pick one up, I totally did. And so, I give you a Warhound titan of the Legio Vulpa:

Ululatus Os - The Howling Maw

Surprising no one, these models are as good as the knights. The little details, the trim and some lovely poseability. I really enjoyed painting it too. I'm not sure it comes up in the photo, but I did some research into other people's titans and there was a great model with a really textured surface. I derped around with some old kitchen sponge and created a really cool pattern on the big flat plates. The trim drove me to distraction more than a little but I love the finished product.  

And with wrecked Hawkshroud Armiger

Thanks to friend Canny, an amazing painter (check out his Insta!) and whiz with the 3d printing, whose excellent work you can see here and here, for the claw. I went for a hunt through Thingiverse for an Ursus Power Claw and came up with that beastie. I sent it to him for a print and he came back to tell me it was a touch large for the print bed. Seemingly it's for a 28mm Knight or maybe even a Titan! Anyway, some clever rescaling later, including the socket for the joint, and lo! I have a claw (pronounced clerw, of course!)

Next Time

Good question. I''m hoping to power through the second set of Reapers for my Kings of War Night Stalkers (so that I can have a legal army and maybe throw it on the board for the lols) and then I can reward myself with the amazing Knight of Shrouds. Otherwise, it's club day next week so I'm sure I'll book in a game of something, fail to take enough photos and generally blather my way through a batrep of some sort! 

Test Paints come good!

Well colour me a happy painter! My test paints came up SUPER well when I finished them off. 

First off, some Questoris Knights, all armed with close combat weapons. Because if they're going to be knights devoted to Khorne, there's no way they're not going to be getting stuck in up close. I still need to do their transfers but I just haven't got to those yet. I need to do a bit more planning on how to create a slightly different pattern of markings on each one.

Questoris Knights of House Hyboras

All the Knights of House Hyboras

Secondly, the first base of ghosties! They took most of a day's painting to get through but once I'd got the order of colours sorted out it really was an exercise in just taking it one step at a time. McBeth suggested I put a final coat of white on them and I think I shall. I have no idea how anyone could use these on individual bases, especially without some serious weighting on the bases! I still need to base this unit - they're going to be getting staggeringly plain basing methinks.

Ghosties!

The second base of ghosties has been primed and should be a bit more straight forward as they're just spectres rather than the big scary Reapers. And then a second base of Reapers and some characters. I've got some plans for the next set of painting projects for this army which I'm quite looking forward to. 

Next Time

More ghosties I suspect and some pics of whatever we wind up playing on club day. If I'm actually organised, I'll try and manage a coherent battle report for a change! 

Test paints

 It's been a slow week at the painting desk. I've spent a lot of time pottering doing prep work on things, tidying the wreckage that is my desk and thinking about what I might do with my bits box and the bag o' sprues. The fact that most of my current projects are Battlefront or GW has meant the leftover sprues are getting a bit out of control. 

But I did knock off a couple of things this week as I'm trying to close out one project and get started on the next one.

I finished up the first of my three Questoris knights for the 6mm Stupid. This one took WAY longer than the Cerastus and I'm looking at the other two and not super excited about doing them. I'll get there by next weekend. Hopefully.

 

 

The transfers to mark these up as House Hyboras have arrived so when they're all finished, I'm going to have an epic session putting transfers on them and calling them done! 

 

I also did a test paint of my first Nighthaunt, otherwise known as the ghosties.

 

The paint scheme is a munging of several GW ones and some tinkering based on which paints I have at home. I really do love how the Nighthaunt Gloom and Ryza Rust technical paints work though - the easy blend on the ghosty tail bits looks really good given that it's just a base coat, wash, technical paint and then drybrush to finish. I'm sure I could paint it more deliberately than drybrushing but I really like the finish. The technical paints are a bit of a revelation and it really does make me wonder about trying out Contrast Paints too.

 Painting these guys is a slow process but I'll focus on batch painting the other six for this base over the next couple of weeks and see if I can finish the whole base up.

Next Time

Good question. We're on a longer break between gaming club days because of the fall of weekends, so I don't know. I'm definitely going to clear the last two Questoris and I might even have a crack at one of the characters I've got for the Nighthaunts as a challenge piece. The Knight of Shrouds is tempting me. 

A somewhat predictable workbench post

 Bit of a light blog this week. Rather than get a bunch of the things finished that I was thinking about doing, some things arrived in the post so I built those instead...

These are for an event later in the year where I'll be running my FallschirmStuGs with some Panzergrenadier support and Puma recce. I fear that this might be the start of the Puma company I've often thought about but never *actually* done. Both sets are lovely kits. I've done the 251/Ds without gluing the tops on since that'll make it easier to paint the interior and the passengers before gluing it up to paint the exterior. The Pumas are amazing and the kit comes with enough parts to make the 2cm turrets and the 234 with the short AND long 75mm. The only gripe (and this applies to both) is that MG34 on a mount is SO fragile.

I have moved a couple of projects along as well. I've sorted out a consistent orange for the carapaces of my House Hyboras knights for 6mm Apocalypse so these guys got their red base coats and orange top coats done this week: 

I'm really looking forward to getting them on the park with my Cerastus Lancers. I'm also REALLY tempted by a box of the new Cerastus Castigators and Acherons just because the idea of knights with close combat weapons really fits into my 6mm vibe SO MUCH! 

I've also instituted my backup plan for club weekend next weekend. I just don't have the mojo for some Grey Knights right now so I'm painting up the new Inquisitor and will have her lead a couple of Deathwatch Kill Teams into combat for the day. This may or may not go well. But here is Kyria Draxos, largely block painted: 

I need to do a lot of work on the armour as I'm really not happy with how well the primer and base coat covered it - I use a blue ink over my black armour. Partly it shades it a touch but also it shows up where my base coat isn't clean enough. 

Next time

Well, a finished Kyria Draxos and maybe some impressions of a few small scale games of 9e. I'm also planning to power through those Pumas and 251s as well. The event isn't till October but it always pays to be ready in advance! 

Workbench again!

I went on holiday and I have to be honest, sitting in the hot tub while it's snowing was weirdly more appealing that sitting inside and hobbying. Even though I took a whole swag of stuff with me I did almost none of it. So I've been doing more assembly and preparing things over the last week including working through the initial prep of some more 15mm greatcoated Germans as the first shipment of 3 has arrived from Battlefront.

Apocalypse
It turns out that 2 knights isn't really a legal detachment in Apocalypse so I bought some more knights. Mistakes were made.

The Questoris Knights look quite different and are distinctly shorter than the Cerastus Knights. But I really like them and they'll look cool towering over all my Khornate infantry.

40K Grey Knights
Blogger Scotty hooked me up with this Strike Squad a while back and I've been getting around to it's assembly for ages. Boy oh boy did I enjoy this! They're crazy dynamic, well posed and brilliantly varied. I'm SORELY tempted to do more.

I've got a Rhino lying about someplace as well which think I'll use for these guys too. We've been talking about some 500 point 40K to get started with 9e and that should be a good motivation.

Next Time
Good question. Some WIP photos I think of some other bits and bobs I'm working on. I'm definitely in a make mode rather than a paint mode at the moment. I might even manage an actual sensible game report from next week's club day if I remember to take enough photos! 

Pooch's June update!

 Wait, is this actually me almost getting back to the schedule that I aimed for at the start of the year?

Don't count on it, it could just be a fluke.....

1. Paint a Kings of War Army- FINISHED
I posted this earlier in the week!

2. Create a table of terrain to support a game- In progress!
I've made a start with this one. I got a bunch of the buildings for Adeptus Titanicus on the cheap from our local trade website, so have more than enough for an Apocalypse sized table of terrain. I found some 3d print files for some Manufactorum-like buildings too, so they will be added to the mix too!

This is all of the ones I have finished so far....

To give a sense of scale with a Leman Russ

Stormtroopers hold the building!

I've got a bunch more of the buildings left to make, so I am going to have to think of some funky ways to assemble them so I have lots of variety. I also have some other ideas for more cool pieces to add some things to the table that aren't just "oh look a building", so watch this space too.

3. Complete the 6mm Apocalypse Challenge- In progress!
So over the past two months I made a bunch of progress with my 6mm Imperial Guard:

Tanks, infantry, deathstrike missiles, all of the fun things!

And you know how that local trading group got me a good deal on some Titanicus terrain? Well it also got me a good deal on some knights, which I added two 3d printed Armigers to....

House Mortimer. Because purple and yellow is ideal.

GW made some AWESOME decals for these.

And they also had a VERY good deal on two Warhound Scout Titans....

I painted them up as the loyalist Legio Astorum, the Warprunners. I had a blast making the diorama bases too, one has a stormtrooper squad assaulting a Chaos held bunker, the other has the warhound striding over the wrecked Valkyrie

Two warhounds, Ignis Canis and Canis Astra

Another view

Scale shot of the different walkers. Sentinel, Armiger, Questoris, Warhound

And just to give a sense of scale for the terrain too, two story buildings hide Warhounds!

Ok, so this one has gotten slightly out of hand.

Next month will be a couple of super heavies I think to round out a detachment with the Baneblade.

4. Run a narrative campaign for the group

Still planning, the club has restarted so now it is just a case of finding a good weekend.

5. Add a new detachment to one of my 40k armies FINISHED- but ongoing

So, this is technically finished, but in reality, it isn't. In May I finished up a Techmarine (finecast one from the thunderfire cannon, with some servo-harness weapon swaps), which means that I have completed a Vanguard Detachment!

But not only that, in June I have also finished up a transport for some Scouts, the Landspeeder Storm. This model and I.... didn't really get along. flat panels and the storm lords colour scheme can be quite demotivating, so the net result was that I actually finished the first set of Scout passengers in April, but it took me a good two months to get the speeder itself done!

Built as per the kit, except for giving the Scouts helmets, because if you are wearing advanced combat armour, you are going to wear an Emperor damn helmet. Heads came from Anvil Industries.

I have a strong love hate relationship with this model.

So. Much. Hate.

But so much love for the finished version!

This is the full collection of Storm Lords painted this year!

Next month should be the scouts to ride in the speeder!

6. Buy a starter box and paint all of it

I've got a plan for this now- expect to see some progress soon!

7. Paint a Space Marine Heroes Series- FINISHED!

The day after I posted the April blog, I got a parcel containing the final Death Guard Hero!

And so, all six are now finished!

All six "Heroes"

The now finished Champion!

8. Update a 15mm Napoleonic army for Blackpowder

I got these out of the box! But still haven't done more with this yet.

9. Paint a stand alone force- DONE

10. Update and improve a table of terrain- DONE

11. Paint a Flames of War Army (In progress)

No progress on these in May, but I finished up two units in June.

First up is a Parachute Anti-Tank Platoon of 4 57mm guns

And a flight of P-47 Thunderbolts! Silver rattle can did most of the heavy lifting on these. Sadly, my box didn't come with decals, but I managed to make do with what I had in my decal spares box!

All up that's now 68 points done, and I need to order some more models....

12. Finish what I should have finished last year- DONE

And that's it, on to June!

Pooch

Morty is pleased that the schedule has resumed. Do not disappoint him again....