15mm 40k

o/

We all know that nowadays I have a love/hate relationship with 40k. However 8th ed is an easy system to learn and readily available to most everyone. For awhile now I’ve wanted to try a 40k/kill team hybrid in 15mm (indeed, I’ve pondered this idea previously). 

Huzzah! These are FINALLY available!!

To start out (on the cheap) it’ll likely be Marines vs. Nids. On the Nids side I just need to pick up a single gargoyle to use as a flying Hive Tyrant, I have a genestealer which will fill in as a Carnifex, and I have 18 old Termagants which will work as Tyranid warriors. 

(no idea why the above paragraph won't justify like the rest...)

Primaris LTs.

For the marines I preordered a 32 man platoon of Khurasan's new earth doom reserves minis which I'll use as primaris marines in terms of stats. I want to ditch 40k's backstory/aesthetic/universe entirely and we can easily make up our own instead. I'm just calling them primaris here for familiarity's sake. 

Basically will just be using 40k rules with KT's initiative and the you go-I go, on a per unit/character basis in lieu of an individual model as per the KT rules (essentially), rather than the 40k one side annihilates the other turn method.  We can also leave out with bits we don't like (CPs and CP farming, the endless, mostly situational stratagems that slow game play to a crawl, oh and those fucking maelstrom cards that turn strategy into the luck of the draw would be my top picks for omission!). 

Okay wait-I'm getting ahead of myself. We're just trying to go super basic at the outset, to see if this is viable and/or if anyone is really interested (so far my buddies Scott and Hoss are). I have PDFs of all of the codexes and will pare them down to just what is needed. Am wanting to see if this works w/o having to write a whole new game. 

Intercessors Colonial Marines.

As for miniatures…if you really wanted the 40k aesthetic, Vanguard minis makes 15mm Orks, Marines and IG, Onslaught minis makes 15mm IG, SoBs, Chaos, Squats, Dark Eldar, and a sorta Kroot faction. The Ion Age has these space...umm...frogs? that ought to work well as Tau...maybe, as well as Space marines (male and female) of their own. And of course Zombiesmith makes HORDES of 15mm Quar which are easy analogs for the Imperial Guard (as aliens), or rather they did and will soon do so again. Currently they are retooling/resculpting the entire line. 

The above is just a small sampling though as there are TONS of 15mm mini gaming manufacturers/retailers out there!

Regardless, this endeavor will be MUCH CHEAPER than actual 40k though as the platoon I ordered clocked in @ $34, which is the price of just ONE fucking character model for 40k these days! Seriously, WTF?

A Rhino Hippo with a turret slapped on top at the
expense of 2 troops carried, kinda like real life AFVs

Conveniently, 40k points are structured so that you have to buy the weapons for the basic tank hull/trooper allowing you to essentially build the tanks and infantry with whatever you want, and ignoring the 40k aesthetic altogether. 

As you can see, my 'datasheets' just a few examples, with all of the rules*, points, and stats coming from the Space Marine codex. 

*Okay, I made up the Amphibious rule because tanks plowing thru water like its not even there is dumb. I also shortened the walking speed because these guys are little!

Its all about the bases...

o/

I hope all of you Americans out there are all still fat and happy (and not terribly bloated) after eating all of that food on Turkey day. I know I am!

The base itself is an excellent value, and that's not including the three freebee smaller bases. These-with shipping from Greece, clocked in at a mere $13.44!
Highly recommended!!

All is pretty quiet on the non-battletech front here of late. I did however order a new flyer base off of ebay that's both textured, as well as having a deep cut out for the flight stand to fit in. I've always thought that just having the flight stand glued to a flat base might be an easy break point, so this will hopefully alleviate that concern whenever it is that I get around to building my Dakka Jet kit. 

Don't hold your breath though, I bought it when it first came out back in...2012? And uh...yeah, its still in the box and on the sprue. 

Why are we in this bloody expensive hobby again?

o/

I finally made it to the FLGS for what seems like my annual paint restock this past Saturday, my first visit there in months! Indeed, the stores owners asked if I didn't like 'em anymore. Sad face, real life sucks. Anyways...

Neverness suggested I do a blog review of the White Dwarf, but honestly I wouldn't even know where to begin on such a thing

Paint wise I bought, some more agrax earthshade as my washes were down to a mix of the last dregs of all I'd had left. Testors' flat black spray (depleted that morning) and matte varnish (almost gone as well), Leadbelcher (which was down to sludge), 2 shades of grey for all of my new Battletech terrain, and lastly the orange contrast paint to try out on my cultist/renegade IG horde. I looked at the hideously overpriced GW contrast undercoats, but opted not to get one, instead hoping one of my half dozen primer colors will instead suffice...will see I guess. 

Orange, the prefect color for these 'liberated' penal troopers, but a nightmare to paint. Hopefully the contrast paint will help with that...

I also bought a pack of grass tufts to try out (hard to believe I've been in the hobby this long and have gotten any of these), a pack of green stuff (my mortal enemy) to fix a pair of my mother-in-law's Christmas earrings (don't ask), and lastly my first White Dwarf purchase in many, many years to get the new Inquisition rules (my favorite non-Ork faction). 

Not too impressive of a haul, but when I got to the register and Tennessee added it's 9% sales tax in, that all clocked in at $75.75! The sticker shock left me wondering 'why do I do this again?' Guess it's no wonder that I only restock my paints on an annual basis. 

Sheesh! Felt like I ought to sell an army or something to balance this all out, but then I remembered that the Orks were the only army I had left (and I doubt any of my multitude of kills teams would net that much). So, I counted this as my annual Christmas present to me and likely won't be back to the FLGS to shop again till next year. 

Da NOO Masta Cheef!!

o/

Da' old Masta Cheef, back in da day...

Back when I semi-rage quit playing the Orks upon the release of the wretched 7th ed Ork codex, I sold the lion's share of my army, along with my Warboss 'Da Masta Cheef'. I felt he ought to be leading hiz boyz whereva dey wuz  fightin'. 

My Beloved Wolfy and Neverness both were aghast upon hearing that and over time I did in the end have a bit of seller's remorse about selling Da Cheef. I'll admit it now that...every now and again, when bored and with time to kill, I'd peruse the ebay offerings for used warbosses in hopes of findin' Da Cheef. 

'Acting' Warboss Krump & Pittance, in all of their mediocre glory.

Countless auctions of this one, same mini, in everything from on the sprue to primed to 'pro painted' (sometimes yes, and so very, very often laughably no). But never once did I see my old Warboss. In his absence, Krump & Pittance stepped up to assume the role for the few 40k games played since then. He has performed with mediocrity which is all that can be expected of a glorified nob. 

Wouldn't it be nice if GW got over the fucking endless Primaris offerings and released a new (not 10+ year old) foot slogging Ork Warboss? Yeah, no. Apparently not.

Well...is there anything else out there? 

Yes, quite a lot actually, or as Bob so eloquently put it: 'When other companies GW better than GW itself can actually do.' After searching through all of the 3rd party offerings, I found a new warboss from Hardcore Miniatures, one of the MANY non-GW companies filling that obvious void!

Thus, I present to you: Da NOO Masta Cheef! Armed wiv Da Dead Shiny Shoota relic (orks & relics? wtf?) and a power klaw bit from a mega nob! 

Next to a shoota boy to show the scale.

The requisite skulls and beakie helmets on the base.

The little engine exhausts on the bionik arm were a nice touch.

Hopefully I'll get him painted before he sees the table top, and with no 40k games on the horizon there's a halfway decent chance of that actually happening.

Star Wars Legion AT-RT

o/

Whilst slogging through the nightmare of October, I decided on a little bit of 'retail therapy' in hopes of taking my mind off of reality for a bit. I couldn't make it to the FLGS, and I was assuming (quite correctly) that at that point in time we were flat broke. Thus I went to my usual haunt of ebay to see what sort of bargain I could scrounge up.  In doing so I found this AT-RT.

This was my first Star Wars Legion purchase, as I only know of a handful of folks playing it locally and my contact with them ranges from next-to-never, to avoid at all costs. It looked like someone was selling off their personal collection, and this was the lone unpainted mini (and as it turns out, also missing a few parts but I'll get to that in a bit). Anyways, I bought it for a mere $6.14 including shipping, and then had a new toy/game to research when time permitted, which added to the bang for my buck considerably!

The AT-RT is an obsolete though still formidable walker dating back to the Galactic Republic and Clone Wars. As such, by the time the Rebellion rolled around, all surviving examples were rebuilds from either battlefield salvage or junk heaps. Meaning that if anything, the few missing parts (2 pistons, 1 per leg) were if anything totally in character for this model.

It would have been MUCH easier to paint were it disassembled (or at the least the pilot removable), but such are the penalties of dirt-cheap, 2nd hand ebay minis. Most of the body is a lovely shade of rusty metal, with only the blast shield having any sort of camouflage (a not uncommon feature of surviving AT-RTs, though I'd imagine that it would be of questionable value given the small surface area of the armor plating). 

My initial attempts at said camouflage were disastrous, and my urban camo looked more like a badly rendered white/black/grey zebra striping. The 2nd layer of camo (in hindsight) ought to have used some paints with a bit more contrast. Sadly, it's been so long since my last paint restock, I'm more or less in an involuntary limited palette mode most of the time. It looks alright though I guess. 

Luckily for me, conformity, especially amongst the more rag-tag and motley units of the Rebel Alliance isn't much of a concern, and any future vehicle purchases can simply be painted differently without a second thought. In all honesty, I was thinking this as more of a 'Scum and Villainy' unit (ala the X-Wing game) rather than proper rebels.

To date I only have the Generic Rebel leader specialist (another dirt cheap ebay buy) to paint to complete my Legion 'collection' lol. Not sure if I'll really pursue Legion as a game to be played though, or rather just something different to occasionally paint. 

Dreadtober 2019 Part 4: The baby squiggoth is DONE!!!

...and just in the nick of time! Truth be told I didn't think I'd have the time, but in the end I did what any responsible 40-something would do, I put aside adulting for a few hours and instead said:  fuck it, I want to paint my miniatures!

And promptly did so.

lol, anyways...I'm really happy with how it turned out. Technically, this still needs another coat of matte varnish followed by 'ard coat over the eyes, tongue and entrails that are hanging out of the trunk. However its raining and with 100% humidity outside, and I don't want to risk the varnish fogging, so that part can wait till this front passes thru in a couple of days. 

Anyways, here are the completed pics:

Whatever that huge skull belonged to has been dead long enough
for the local flora to grow through it, and die as well.

Just a close up of some of the requisite human skulls.

An overhead shot of the entire model, base and all.

Thanks again to Mordian7th for organizing another successful Dreadtober!

Dreadtober pt. 3: The clock's a'ticking...

PROGRESS!!! 

Yeah its been an awful month. However Saturday I was finally able to get some hobbying in and tried to make up some lost time on my baby squiggoth. That way, when the weekly round up posts you won't be seeing my prior post (again) for the what....3rd? or is it 4th time?

Anyways, I'll just show my latest WIP pics and then get back to it as I have less than a week to finish this project all up!

All inked, now for the dry brushing!

Have opted for those being entrails, lots of
blood for the blood god paint to come on that trunk!

This wouldn't fit on a killa Kan's 60mm base, so I stole the
ginormous one that came with the Venom Crawler. 

The literal chaos of my creative process...