Just a few quick Updates.

o/

This'll probably just be the only post for this week. Mom's flying in for a long weekend visit on Thursday. As such there's not too much to report painting wise as I was in house cleaning mode (well sorta, procrastination means the next few nights will be a bit of a frenzy). I did finish two more Plague marines for The Purge though.

This is the majority of of the first Squad. I plan on running four squads of seven. True that's not to resilient (ironically) as casualties stack up quickly, but its 'fluffy'. Most of the Blood Eagles are now gone, however after a few attempts, my Chaos lord didn't sell, so he'll make the occasional cameo appearance I guess.

Still haven't settled on a name for the Renegade IG (who pulled out a tie Saturday night despite some decked out thunder wolf cavalry & SW lord charging down their throats). The latest idea is '728th Legion' but still not settled on that. The fact that I specialize in indecisiveness doesn't help either.

...and while I've been on quite a bit of a chaos kick here of late, I haven't forgotten my beloved Orks! I'll leave a hint on their upcoming plans. See today is the 25th of October, which means that today (supposedly) Forgeworld is shipping out DLWDG's newest addition, Da' Grot Spee!!!!

The 728th Sabbat...umm...somethings...

o/

So, as readers of this blog, you will be aware that I have a renegade IG army. Its generally fielded with the IG codex, or sometimes (like this coming Saturday) the Forgeworld Vraks militia list via the updated PDF. Like many of the units that have come and gone, the name of my little band of evil IG has also had several names in rotation with the '728th Sabbat Irregulars' being the current one.

Originally they were Nurgle's Regiments of Rust, then the Sons of Sek (blame Dan Abnett for that one) Then I decided that I hated the name Sek 'He who's voice drowns out all others...' (its in Traitor General, just go read it). I've also toyed with Henry Zou's creation, 'The Ironclad'. Then in one of my back & forth pregame narrative conversations/commentaries vs. my friend Joel I needed a new name, saw a '728' decal on a lasgun on the back of my old hellhound, and pulled '728th Sabbat Irregulars' out of thin air. That's it. No fluff, No background. Just a random idea that stuck. A few times I've been pressed as to where the name came from, to which I've responded 'I'll bet that if YOU were a follower of Nurgle, you'd be 'irregular' too...'

No one has ever asked any further.

BUT, while I like the '728th Sabbat' part, the 'Irregulars' not so much.

Since the inclusion of all of my lascannon teams, it's started to give me the feel of a field artillery unit. Of course that doesn't work either as lascannons are direct fire, anti-tank guns (quad-mounted heavy stubbers hardly qualify as artillery either). So with lots of static guns, how bout the:

728th Sabbat Siege company
728th Sabbat anti-tank detachment
728th Sabbat tank hunters
728th Sabbat Fire support battery
????

Of course to through that all off course, there are a pair of Hellhounds (swapping one to the infamous 'Septic Tank' [Bane Wolf] when running as standard IG), a Sentinel & a House Cawdor 'worker's rabble' to throw those ideas a curve.

So...I dunno. For now they're the Irregulars I guess. Of course to have the forces of Chaos suffer from an identiy crises is kind of amusing considering that they're all traitors to begin with.

DON'T SHOOT DAT YOO FOOLZ!!!!

o/

Running a little late this week due to a game of BFG last night. We fielded carbon copy fleets from our last game of Orks vs. Imperials, and while the net result was the same (Orks were crushed) the route from point A to point B was quite different this time around. True, in both games the Orks epically failed, however we had a hellova good time failing this time around. Lemme explain starting with the BFG version of L.A.'s rush hour traffic:

As you can see, Orks are no better at merging in heavy traffic than the average American driver is.

Now it looks like in this photo 'Dat da boyz 'az dem rights where we wants dem.' That said, my DethDeala Klass battleship Da Orktown (the big reddish monster in the middle) and Da Orkinawa (the silver Terror ship) were crippled at this point. THAT and the Gothic class cruiser named Avenger had just been reduced to a blazing hulk. Now, in such close proximity, no one in their right mind would shoot at a blazing hulk in hopes of getting a warp core breach at such close range, right?

However Orks are never in 'da right mind' (or are they?).

The Ork escort just to the left of Da Ortown jumped n the opportunity, and actually got that warp core breach (1 lance hit for each starting hit point [8 in this case] inflicted on everything within 3D6cm) The ensuing conflagration caused a chain reaction resulting in a warp core breach on Da Orktown (12 lance shots), and Plasma core breaches on Da Orkinawa & Kill kroozer Da Bizmork (plasma core breaches are the same as a warp core breach, you just halve the ship's starting hit points which equaled 5 each in this case).

As you can see, everything that I had in range died, spectacularly! One of the escaping Dominators was crippled, the other beat up but uncrippled and the last Gothic also was crippled.

After a few moments of 'oohs & aahs' by the krews of Da Ork Royul & Ork-N-Saw, they charged into da breach with wild abandon! And in the three remaining turns Da Ork Royul also suffered a plasma core breach, however Da Ork-N-Saw escaped the engagement relatively unscathed. Proving beyond a doubt that indeed, 'Bloo iz a lucky color!'

On the painting front, I made a bit of progress on the rhino. Not too much, just the doors & combi-bolter & hatch.

This tank is taking far longer than I had anticipated, but it's looking good so far i think.

What? ANOTHER green army you say?

Now I'll just sit back and wait for the inevitable comment from Screech (for those who don't remember, Screech is the keeper of all of the gray armies that are frequently shooting at my green ones). Anyways...

o/

So in keeping with the Chaos marine theme this week, I moved the rhino to the side (typical, although I plan to work on it more this Sunday), and instead started painting some plague marines. As said previously (I think) I'm painting them as 'The Purge'. Given that most of their bodies are just black, they don't take too long to paint up. Here's my first three:

The green is all drybrushing (a common theme with me). The base coat (excluding the black primer) is a heavy drybrush of Knarloc green, then Gretchin green, and then a light drybrush of rotting flesh. The detail work, drown the mini in Ogryn flesh & let dry. When dry there's a light drybrush over all with bleached bone, and then its just matte varnish & ard' coat on the drippy parts (its Nurgle, don't ask). Barring the time required for the ink to dry (in which I start painting on the next mini in line) it takes me about an hour to paint a single marine. So is easy to crank them out going just one per night.

Speaking of green guys (and before I forget), here are the finished pics of Capt. Kurtz of the Dark Hands' 3rd. Company.

(not too much different from the last pic as it was pretty close to done then)

Mainly all I had left to do was cut the decals around the shoulder icons. The #3 that comes on the SM tac sq. sheet is too small (unless its inside the tactical arrow), whereas the one on the SM vehicle sheet was too big. So in digging through the decal pile I found one that was just right on one of the little decal sheets labeled 'Dark Angels' which probably dates back to 2nd. ed. (it took forever to soak enough to remove it from the paper). Then I had to cut it around the name banner, luckily the sheet had two #3's on it, good thing too as I messed up the bottom portion the first time around,to which Screech can attest as he was on the speaker phone when the profanity started in earnest!

But that's about all for this week. I've added a few chaos icons onto a 3rd hand Predator that I got from Murl which will be going to The Purge. It was intended for the Aurora scout company. However they're so far from a viable allied contingent, much less an army that chaos stole it. However as a nod to the Aurora, I will probably give it demonic possession, so it still shoots @ BS3 (betcha you were wondering how I was connecting the Aurora to demonic possession weren't ya?).

My 1st try at Dave Taylor's Chaos Stars

o/

Well I finished my Dark Hands captain (and I went with the name of 'Kurtz' as it fit nicely on the shoulder pad banner). Still need to take pics though, I could've just posted that, but I don't know if I've ever made two consecutive posts on the same subject, but figured now was not the time to start. I'm good at inconsistency.

ANYWAYS...

I was working on my Blood Eagles CSM war band rhino today. That's kinda ironic as most of the Blood Eagles ore on ebay at the moment. I recently given almost 1k points worth of plague marines from Murl, so my CSM army is being reorganized. I figure that Fabius' experiments took their toll, and the majority of the war band devolved into gibbering monsters, and he moved on. My chaos sorcerer Ivan the Cannon has gathered what survivors he could (a dreadnought, Greater Demon of Malal & a havoc sq. w/rhino), and have formed an alliance with 'The Purge' Nurgle war band. The Malal demon arriving at the expense of Nurgle's champions will also be nice & fluffy. I still may get some spawn at some point to represent some of the slavering idiots who devolved from Fabius' 'enhancements' after they parted ways.

The rhino is still a work in progress, but the front is for the most part done. However the top was a large expanse of nothing, and I didn't want to just glue on lots of bits to fill the space. I sometime see so many spikes on top of a rhino that the top hatch essentially loses all functionality. To I pulled up Dave Taylor's tutorial and came up with this:

Its intentionally offset, Chaos & properly centered iconography just doesn't seem proper. It wasn't as hard as thought it would be, but it was harder than he makes it look. It's probably all a matter of practice. That said, this is the first time I've ever tried to freehand something bigger than a shoulder pad chapter icon (and its also the first time I've ever liked anything I painted freehand). I will need more rhinos for the purge, so I may try this some more in the future.

Here's a better look of the front plate:

You can see the plain roof in this.

This isn't so much a Slaaneshi rhino, rather I liked the large 'eagle's' claws on the doors (which will be painted red). I added a dirge caster for something different. You can't actually give it a dirge caster, however if I ever feel the need to scream obscenities in a game, I can blame this tank. Not that that would ever happen...

Dark Hands

o/

Well, my Dark Hands army has certainly been around the block. Once numbering in the 3000 point range, they hit the auction block and were cut in half. The remainder (the painted part basically) were kept as no one wanted them. they're an official, GW created chapter (though I have altered they're colors a good bit as can be seen here vs. their official colors here), but I guess that if you don't pick one of the chapters that EVERYBODY else plays, it devalues the models. Nice paint & Forgeworld additions to no avail. So a few squads of AoBR tac. marines later (to fill in the then gaping hole in their Force Org.), the Dark Hands are once again a viable army.

One thing they've never really had though was fluff. I used to have officers & sergeants with Roman names, going for that kind of theme. Then I made a long and detailed description of the ceremonies for anointing the chapter master. Where he was issued the same wargear as is given to a newly minted marine, so that he may never lose sight of his humble origin. I often refer to this as the 'Uriel Ventris syndrome'. It threw a few opponents for a loop on the table, and then usually he would die. Again, all to no avail.

So here's my latest bit. The Dark Hands are all but unknown in the wider universe. Why is this? I was hoping for a bit of a sinister reason. Despite many chapters being the defenders of humanity, they are often (and rightly so) feared as mindless, blood crazed murderers such as the Flesh Tearers, or unstoppable berzerkers as in the Space Wolves. So what would place the Dark Hands in this category, while remaining virtually unknown? I can answer that with but a word:

Survivors.

Wanton murder, and crazed destruction results in scattered (and invariably emotionally scarred) survivors. It lacks a meticulous methodology that leaves no one alive. So I came up with the following. Sure they leave a calling card, so to speak, however to prepare for resettlement Imperial authorities often will enact a scorched earth method of cleansing the ruins without a thorough inspection, obliterating any evidence. These cleansings are usually instigated by the Inquisition with whom my Dark Hands frequently operate (usually Hereticus, though occasionally Malleus).

(Note: The author 'Snipes' is one of my inquisitorial henchmen.)

++++++++++INTERNAL COMMUNIQUE++++++++

Milord,

In the event that sleep fails you on your journey to the conclave, I’ve attached a Munitorum request for Inquisitorial intervention, it should be most helpful.

Below I’ve pulled an entertaining extract from said request. It seems as though the Astartes have fulfilled your request for assistance, and they were quite thorough in the undertaking. Indeed they’re methodology certainly has spooked the Mordian high command. I’ve already taken the liberty of informing the Munitorum that the Ordo Hereticus will be taking over this matter, and to reassign their regiments elsewhere.

Safe travels,
Snipes

Munitorum official Request No.: #456006850.25.6
Addendum C, Subsection 2, pg. 17 (Partial Extract)

…hot dropped on the capital city to no resistance. On securing our drop zones we found a scene of utmost destruction. To say a battle was fought here would be folly, this was a massacre. Few buildings are still standing, and bodies are everywhere. We moved on the Governor’s palace to see if he still lived, so we might effect his rescue. A few scattered and frightened domestic animals, livestock and native fauna were encountered, but not a single human soul. The Governor’s palace was little more than a shell, his court a scene of utter carnage, bodies everywhere, none identifiable. Blood and gore covered all surfaces save one, the seat back of the Governor’s throne had been meticulously cleaned, and upon it we found the following inscription:

There are those who stand radiant, within the Emperor’s holy light. Angels held high, the pinnacles of humanity, names such as the Ultramarines, Imperial fists and so many more. When the Emperor’s light is usurped from the faithful souls of humanity, it is these angels who come, for they are His angels of salvation.

Then there are those who stand outside of His holy light. They stand in His shadow. When humanity fails our almighty Emperor, when it willingly turns from His light, the Emperor of mankind turns to these angels. These are not angels of salvation. No, these are His angels of destruction.

You chose the darkness.

You chose us.

We are the Dark Hands of the Emperor.

We are the reason you should never have turned from His light.

Our Logis engines can find no record of any Astartes named ‘The Dark Hands of the Emperor’ and I fear this may be the work of a heretofore-unknown traitor marine warband. I am forwarding a request to high command for Inquisitorial assistance. I suggest we put all nearby worlds on alert and…

-Extract ends-

Anyways, here's the cause of this whole train of thought, my 3rd Co. captain that I was working on last night.

I've not settled on a name for him yet but given my army's theme I was thinking of Captain Kurtz.

A few square basers...

o/

Well, in gearing up to give 5th ed WHFB a try, I decided to paint some of the Orcs that I couldn't sell on ebay. I do have a cool looking Gamesday Orc warboss (which I painted a long time ago and was also was unable to sell) that I want to use, however no self respecting Orc Warboss leads an almost fully painted Goblin army with out any painted Orcs at his side! Currently though I have just four painted boys, a rather paltry sum.

Warboss 'Spork' (cuz eez' not as sharp as da uvver bosses) and his command group.

Being the only Orc regiment in the army, they've declared themselves to be 'Big uns'. Big un's can have magic standard which explains the 'kaptured' Khorne standard (which appropriately enough will represent the Banner of Butchery). The standard bearer is an AoBR ork, with an Arrer boy head (I think) and a Bloodletter standard. The two unpainted Orcs in back are the online only Orc raiders (the regiment is named the 'Orcland Raiders'). The one on the left with the halberd will be the unit champion, that the one with the pig will be the musician as nothing gets an Orc's attention like a squealing pig...

FOOD! I meant that they'd be thinking of food! Don't even go there!


The rest of the unit is made of these kind of boys. These are basically the WHFB version of the AoBR Orks. However they were cheap to buy, and rank up easier than the multi-part models. I've added a few glyphs to some of their shields just for variety. Currently, with the Warboss I have 16 Orcs. To get the full three ranks after lining up 5-across, I'll need to get another box of four.

That's it from the weekend, not much, though it was a nice change of pace after painting all of those weapons teams.