Time to restart the painting queue...

PAINT! 

I finally have paint!

One of these is not like the others...

...and as you'll no doubt surmise by the unopened bottles, I haven't actually used any of it yet. During the first week of July, Hasslefree Miniatures had a 20% off sale on all items. They carry the Coat D'arms brand of paints, which is the company GW used back when I first got into 40k. As such they carry many of my old favorite colors that GW no longer does. 

Better yet, the have bigger bottles than GW, and lower prices as well (even before the discount). So, despite the larger bottles, the unfavorable exchange rate between the US dollar vs. the British pound, and shipping direct from England, these were approximately 40% cheaper than the GW paints I could have bought at the FLGS. Hasslefree was out of black paint however, hence the locally purchased Vallejo bottle. Additionally, I bought a can of primer so that I can finally finish the turret of my Vanquisher. 

However, I've instead been too busy gluing space marine bitz to my fingers rather than each other (as intended) to restart the paint queue just yet...

Struggling on...

o/

Yes I survived the weekend, but only just. I still ache all over and feel drained (both mentally and physically). Working in that ungodly heat just sucks the life right out of ya! Especially for one such as I, who is no longer acclimatized to the heat. 

But no one really cares about that right? Right.

The weekend before I left for my brief stay in hell, I bought a partial box of tac marines from Micheal (of the amazingly painted Dark Angels fame). Combining them with spares I already had, and a few bitz ordered via ebay to fill in the missing pieces, I ended up with what is essentially a 10 man dev squad for a mere $23. Nice.

Time was short but I was able to assemble a few before leaving:

Pay no attention to the Halfling & Minion loitering in the background...

The two on the left will go to my 30k Blackshields. Still not entirely sold on using the scout arms and heavy bolter on a regular marine, but it fits well with their pariah wargear theme. The other three, along with a previously assembled ML gunner will form the base of Rainbow Warriors dev squad. They'll only have 3 missile launchers, but like the Blackshields, my Rainbows also suffer from having drastically limited resources.

Hopefully I'll have the rest assembled before this week's end. 

Its not the heat, its the humidity...

Those words, so often spoken are of comfort to NO ONE!!!

Yup, I'm in Florida...how'd ya guess?

As you read this, I'm currently fleeing the seventh circle of hell Florida in a Ryder rent-a-truck via I-75. My mom sold her house in Florida, and bought a new one in Knoxville TN. Thus, I flew down to help transfer her stuff from a non-climate controlled storage unit (wtf Mom?), to then put it all into the back of the no doubt even hotter Ryder truck this past weekend. 

Even being former Floridian myself I have to ask:  Why the fuck does everyone decide to move in the summer time??? I mean seriously, what the hell?!?

Actually I'm posting this in advance of my departure, so there's a chance that rather than fleeing in the aforementioned truck, I instead succumbed to the heat, and am instead lying as a sun-scorched and desiccated corpse in a storage unit complex somewhere in central Florida. 

If I post something thursday, you'll know I survived... 

30k/40k Rapier Laser Destroyer Conversion

o/

So, I've been working to make my 30k armies cross-compatible with 40k as the latter is played much more frequently here locally. So much so that I've been pondering phasing out the 30k part altogether...

MOAR DAKKA! Isn't needed in this case...

Thus my 30k Imperialis Auxilia Rapier battery needed a refit. Admittedly it looked really cool with its quad-multi-laser, but it didn't really bring anything to the table (so to speak) given that my Auxilia is already festooned with heavy stubbers! True, it could take out a rhino in one volley (theoretically), however Rhinos aren't a problem, Landraiders and other heavily armored tanks are! As such, it has never been used.

So, I decided to refit it with a laser destroyer array, or rather the equivalent thereof which is available in both 30k and 40k unlike its previous weapons fit. I decided on using the Mechanicum's eradicator-beamer as it looks cool, is fairly inexpensive on ebay, and after getting some measurements of said bit from Bob (who has a dunecrawler from which this bit comes), decided it was also just the right size for my Puppetswar weapons mount. So a bit o' glue, a pinch of profanity  as well as a spare radar dish and wallah, its built!

No doubt this gun will move this little guy way up on the target priority list!

Yeah I like that. Now all it needs is a bit of paint. Given the recessed areas and being mostly mechanical gubbinz, I'm thinking that this will be a fairly quick, mostly drybrushing project.

Skaven Rising...

o/

My Skaven haven't made an appearance on the blog since February of 2016, and outside of Mordheim (the game which spawned my little army) they've never seen battle on the table top. Well, this past Saturday that all changed when they made their Olde Hammer battlefield debut! That's right, none of that AoS crap! Instead we went old school with Warhammer Fantasy Battle's 8th edition. 

Bob was amused by the Skaven's request to 'say cheese!'.

As far as I can tell (by scrolling thru the archives of this blog), the last time I played a game of WHFB was in May of 2013 pitting my (now defunct) Stirlander army vs. Bob's Nordlanders. So...needless to say my grasp of the rules was a bit...rusty. This was only magnified by fielding an army I've never used before. Luckily Bob is pretty well up to speed after his recent bout vs. Neverness.

Waaaay too clean, no wonder my Stirlanders and now Skaven see them as enemies...

Recently, My Beloved Wolfy had expressed interest in giving WHFB a try to Bob who was all too happy to oblige in teaching her the game. However she didn't want to go in totally blind and asked if I would team up for her first game. Well of course I would!

My army is relatively small by Skaven standards containing a mere 80ish models and clocking in at 1,000 points. A lord, 3 heroes, 2 regiments of clanrats, 1 of slaves, and lastly 2 poison wind mortar weapon teams. 

The slaves have already been slaughtered by this point.

As for thoughts on their initial run, the mortars were great halving 2 of Bob's regiments and giving severe respiratory distress to the remaining survivors (I'm confident they all died shortly after the battle's end). As is typical of any war machine, one blew up taking 4 rats out of a nearby regiment, but the Skaven care little for casualties.

Wounds from a well placed poison wind  mortar round.
Neverness, this is how you are supposed to roll dice!

My Lord's regiment freight-trained thru a regiment and its detachment cowering to the rear before finally ending up well out of position at game's end. My other, characterless clanrat regiment was predictably mediocre and fled following their charge, being run down in exchange for only a few casualties. 

The slaves are kinda worthless as anything other than a distraction, though amusingly they inflicted more casualties as the fled than they did in combat! Our warped lightning spewing wizard did well, whereas the engineer equipped with the warpmusket was more or less useless. He'll serve as a wizard next go round instead as a free roaming riflerat.

Everyone's positions at game's end.

Whilst we did lose, it was a fun time and Wolfy found the game intriguing. Future purchases for the army aren't planned for at this point but...I do have about 60 or so rats that still need assembly. So that ought to keep me entertained till I can restock some paints from the FLGS (during regular store hours) and return to my Vanquisher.

40k King Tiger Vanquisher WIP 3

o/

Still chugging along... 

Note how much better the tank looks when the gun-to-turret sizes are better proportioned as compared to GW's actual Leman Russ offerings.

The main body is 'done' essentially, barring the tools, tow chains, etc.. Those are primed black and just need some dry brushing to add detail/dirty up before popping them into their allotted slots in the hull.

Hmm, those exhausts are a bit too clean...

The tank looks much more complete now that the turret is assembled and attached! The fit is snug but does fully rotate. I trimmed down a Grymn Sergeant who is speaking into a comm-link to serve as the tank commander. 

Cutting him in half at the waist (gulp!), I removed his hand and rifle then shaved down his right arm for a still snug fit. I found a spare button (from who knows what article of clothing) that fit perfectly into the underside indent of the turret/hatch bottom to affix his now severed body to for good measure.

Jeez! Even these little guys have to squeeze to get in!!

The Mechanicum Onager Neutron Laser-turned-Vanquisher cannon fit almost perfectly, only needing the barrel's end point trimmed off  where it meets the mantlet for aesthetic reasons. I did add a co-axial heavy stubber but as expected it popped off at the lightest touch, and I'm loath to drill into the turret at the seam to secure it better. Thus I'll just leave it off. 

Double tap the cannon? Yes please!!!

In 40k now, the Vanquisher can fire twice if the tank is stationary or moving at half speed, and better yet doesn't suffer the -1 to hit (which EVERY fucking tank ought to have!). Though curiously, not the hull mounted heavy stubber. I'll still pay the points for the nonexistent heavy bolter to keep my list 'battle-forged', but that's of little concern as the tank is essentially the same point cost as it's 7th-ed incarnation was. 

Now I just need to get some more desert tan spray to re-prime the turret and hopefully get this project moving towards its conclusion.

Salamanders Primaris Intercessor Sergeant

o/

Yup, my XVIIIth legion 30k army just got it's first primaris marine! So...like the Blackshields, my Salamanders will be pulling double duty as well. Hell, also like the Blackshields, they're more likely to see action in a game of 40k than they are in 30k anyways...

This mini needed a few changes before painting though. I got my primaris marines 2nd hand off of ebay, and this one in particular had a terrible pose. He looked like he'd been shot in the back and was taking his last few stumbling steps before falling dead. So I swapped out his right arm as well as his helm for that of a 30k Mk IV marine, which is almost identical aside from being adorned with what my Beloved Wolfy calls 'the toilet brush on top'! The pose is still a bit awkward, but it works.

That however was the easy part, whereas painting this was a bit of struggle. Apparently you can only re-thin GW's paints just so many times till the paint says: fuck you pal, I'm done! Such was the case with my Chaos Black, Bleached Bone and Ironbreaker paints (not like they're essential). I managed to slog thru it though only to find that I was down to the last dregs of my Army Painter Strong tone wash as well. 

Overall I'm happy with this guy and will next paint a Rainbow Warrior Primaris Sgt. once I restock my paints. The other five primarises (Primarisi? whatever) will just remain primed and switching their allegiances on a per game basis until I can bolster their numbers up to ten and officially split the squad in two.