The first 8 Chaos Cultists are complete!

Khorne would be pleased...that is his number right? Speaking of:

 Khorne cares not from whence the blood flows, only that it flows... 

They look kinda like an IG Penal unit that got the better of their captors...

Conveniently, the battlefield debut of these guys is happening this coming Saturday in a KT game I have set up with Matt. As such, they're no doubt doomed to die as all newly painted minis rightly are. This will nominally be a grudge match/turf battle as Matt is fielding his genestealer cultists...or rather I think he is. 

It seems he was intending to bring only genestealers. I mentioned that that would make for a completely 1-dimensional game of 'shoot them before they kill us in close combat'. Even a horde of the deranged followers of Chaos will ignore any given scenario in preference for mere survival when there's nothing but 'stealers coming for 'em!

Looks like they've turned tail and are running for
their lives...an all to possible scenario!

In hopes that he'll mix his force up a bit, I mentioned that I haven't faced genestealer cultists since a game of Necromunda played almost 20 years ago vs. Warfrog. I remember little from that game (and none of it good actually). 

All I recall was first, that I hadn't even ever heard of their being a legal list for Genestealer Cults in Necromunda. Followed shortly thereafter by the nightmare scenario of both Vansaar heavy stubbers jamming simultaneously, leaving their gunners to get torn to ribbons by Genestealers in close combat! In the aftermath of our game, so many of my gangers died (including both heavies, along with the loss of all of their gear) that I rage-quit the league we were in. 

Anyways coming back to the present, I'm hoping this weekend's game of Kill Team goes a bit better than that one did...

Batch Painting Chaos Cultists

Bleh.

Batch painting, in a word: Sucks. 

I'm really notta fan, and I don't think its all that fun. However, as is so often seen on the Mordian7th blog* its the best way to get a bunch of minis painted up fairly quickly. For example: Nine and a half months into 2018 I've fully painted, from start-to-finish the following:

January:
Cadre Fireblade

February:
Kushial's Leviathan Dreadnought
Rebel Ghar Commander
30k Black Shield

March:
(4) WHFB stone walls
An IG hillbilly

April:
Rainbow Warriors Predator

May:
Wreck-Age Technical
Ork Kommando

June:
Salamanders Primaris Sergeant
30k Blackshields Medusa
Ork Nob

July:
Awesome Battlemech

August:
Grymn Vanquisher battle tank

Over the course of 8 months, that's an average of 2.125 miniatures painted per month. Yay? 

That brings us to September:

Whilst nothing has been fully painted yet...in just three painting sessions spread over as many days, I have EIGHT minis about 3/4 painted. All that remains to be done is a light dry brushing of their clothing to soften the inking a bit, then dirty 'em up (again), pick out a few colors for pop (eye lenses, hoses, etc.), base 'em, and clear coat. I might add a decal or two if I'm feeling froggy, but don't count on it. 

That's entirely doable for this week or at the worst, this month. So, even though I'm not fond of batch painting I'm thinking that this may be the way to at least grind through some of the basic minis, and then I can lavish a bit of extra time on the squad leaders, heavy/special weapons' troopers. 

Or...knowing me, I can stop at this point and paint some other random mini cause that's what I usually tend to do. 

*Mordian's in a class of his own when it comes to batch painting!

Tau Muppet Auxiliaries

The peaceful Jaloof Confederation was located deep within the unexplored (by the Imperium) regions of the Eastern Fringe. They maintained cordial relations with their distant neighbors of the Tau Empire along with limited trade. Unfortunately the Jaloof were easy prey for the then strengthening Hive Fleet Gorgon, with only the smallest fraction of their population surviving the onslaught and destruction of their worlds. Escaping in a few small, ragged flotillas to Tau space. 

'...cry havoc and let slip the muppets of war!'

Indeed, some of the Tau Water caste have theorized that it was their Jaloof neighbors who had inadvertently lead the Hive fleet directly to the Tau, but they've not been held to blame and all accusations of such have been suppressed. Such are the ways of the Greater Good. Following the destruction of Gorgon, the scant few thousand Jaloof survivors left were resettled within the protective realm of the Tau Empire.

That's a lot of gear for those little legs to hold up...

Shattered psychologically and on the verge of extinction, the majority of the remaining Jaloof have found both their niche within the Empire, as well as a degree of mental solace in the production and distribution of wholesome, educational video-programming, with which they entertain the youth of the various Tau castes. A few somewhat unhinged individuals however, embittered by their losses have taken a different path and fight to defend the last dregs of their species, alongside the Tau's Fire caste warriors.

Looking down upon the remains of the infamous Hoominz ,
against whom their Tau allies have fought both with and against.

Possessed of a shockingly light build (enough to make an Eldar look rotund!), the Jaloof are a species ill suited for war. However their long legs aid them well in advancing (and retreating) quickly. As such, they're currently training with both Fire Warriors and Pathfinders, though they have yet to prove themselves in battle...

Enter the Dark Mechanicus...

o/

Whilst I've long been a fan of the Tech-Priest Dominus miniature*, I was not a fan of its price tag! Whomever it was a GW who thought that single, mono-pose miniatures are worth $30+ ought to be shipped over to China, and forced to package every last damned one of them by hand for the rest of their miserable life, but I digress...

I'm quite certain that this mini will be a beast to paint!.

Luckily though, I found one on ebay via one of my favorite bit sellers for less than a third of that price, and quickly snatched one up before they sold out of 'em! I wanted to do a conversion of this kit after coming across this amazing one done by WilhelMiniatures. Using that for inspiration, and perusing thru the various pages of parts in Blackdagger's store, I opted for a simple arm/hand swap which worked out quite nicely I think. 

The rear arm claws are from some sort of Plague-drone model.

Rather than use this for 40k, I'm thinking that it'll serve as an Auxilia Force Commander, leading a small allied contingent alongside my Blackshields with the cyber-augmented provenance. The chaos cultists always struck me as looking mildly cyber augmented anyways, and personally I think my Dominus fits right in with them aesthetically. 

Clearly its not a very high up on the totem pole Dominus, as its
schlepping around with a bunch of minimally-augmented menials...

*Image is a copyright of Games Workshop and used without permission.

Chaos conforms to no posting schedule!!

Which sounds like a valid excuse for no Monday post right? Right. Notta whole lot to report actually as we opted for a lazy weekend after three weeks solid of waaaay too fucking much going on! Seriously my Beloved Wolfy and I needed the break. 

The Cult of unpainted conformity, coming to a hellhole near you...

So we skipped the game shop, though as you can see, I did manage to assemble these guys for use in Kill Team and now Necromunda! But that's it I'm afraid. We're still settling in to our 'new normal' so hobbying will continue to be spotty for the foreseeable future. I may have a 2nd late post this week, not sure yet.

I'm calling this mini a Demiurg...

o/

Monday afternoon a thin little box with British postage arrived in the mail for me. The only package I'm expecting from across the pond is one coming from Warlord Games, containing 5 Ghar battlesuit sprues. This box however looked to be able to hold just one at best. Never looking at the return label, I cut thru the tape thinking: 'Great, they ran out before getting to my order, and I just spent $12.50 in shipping on a $1.50 sprue'.

The Regimental Standard does NOT approve of this message!

Thus, you can imagine my pleasant surprise when upon opening the box, I instead found the contents to a Kickstarter that I had completely forgotten about! My minis from Gydran Miniature's Pelegian Sapper Kickstarter had arrived! The KS was for a space rat which struck me initially as appealing. However on seeing the final model I didn't like it and messaged the creator to see if I could order something else instead? 

No problem! Order whatever you'd like from our store-was their reply. So after a brief perusal, I made my selections, paid the postage and promptly forgot all about it. 

That was 3 months ago...

Looks like something from
The Jetsons!

Gydran is a small outfit in Worchestershire, England who specialize primarily sci-fi dwarves (so anybody wanting some 30k Squat breachers, this is the place to go!). Anyways, I had selected the Pugwanian Mercenary B (the 'A' version has an open helmet with the pug's head visible inside), and a funky, retro-bot objective marker (indeed they do make some pretty cool robot minis).

'Wrex' marks the spot!
(yes, I named the objective marker)

The objective marker's casting is nearly flawless, and whilst the Pug-merc did have a few obvious mold lines, when set against the gold standard-it was still a better casting than many of the Forgeworld minis that I have gotten over the years. 

sans-tail

I opted not to use the curly Pug tail sticking out of the back of the space suit (how would that work anyways?), carved down the socket that said tail was to go into (yes, I literally cut off his butt hole...get over it), adding some Space Marine ammo packs and krak grenades instead. I made an antenna by using a barrel from a spare Tau burst cannon, lopped off the teeny tiny gun barrel, replacing it with a trimmed down plasma pistol tip, then added a spare jet/rocket pack made by Bombshell miniatures. Finally I glued it to the MDF base, and added a pair of human skulls just for shits and giggles. 

 All in all I'm quite pleased with it!

Now...what the hell do I do with it? Well, for 40k, the only thing I can come up with is to call it a Demiurg. I only have the one however, so I guess I could just blow a command point to field this as an understrength auxiliary support detachment. For rules, it could be a 'counts as' Vespid (like anyone has those minis anyways). The Vespid in general can barely stand up to a stiff breeze, so I doubt that just one would bother anybody much! Actually, that both sounds like a total waste of points...and something I'd totally do!

You're short! Fat! And a waste of points!

That said, Rogue Stars is really the only viable option. Whilst this mini won't fit in with either of my existing crews, I do have a pair of Tau Muppet Auxiliaries (yes really) coming soon. I suppose I could just make another, never-played RS crew for this to belong to.

Regardless I like the little guy, and that's all that matters!

*****

On a different note: Check out this AWESOME card my Beloved Wolfy got me for my birthday! Its mounted on the wall, just above my computer's monitor.

Skulls, always need more skulls...

As you can see, I only took the portion of Neverness' armies that was of any value...

Amidst the recent jolt to our daily lives, I did find time for a few online purchases. My in-laws got a gift card to amazon for my birthday, and the above was one of my purchases. Indeed it was one that was long overdue me thinks. I also bought a few non-hobby related books, but they're still in transit, coming via not-so-speedy pack mules it seems. I made a few other (non-amazon) hobby purchases as well, but will post about those as they arrive.