Da Boys iz back in Town!

o/

My Tankbustas, so generously painted by Admiral Drax after I won a contest on his blog for his 500th post back in May, arrived back on my doorstep this past Friday. I think they look fantastic! The bases aren't flocked per my request so I can base them to match my army. Drax lamented the speed at which he painted them, but in that time span I've only painted 2 Orks myself, so he was moving way faster than I am on the green skin painting front!

Anyways...

...ere dey are!

Note: the spiral on the rokkit, I never would have even tried to do that something like that myself!

A brown, leather-like helmet...in all of the Orks I've ever painted, curiously that idea has never occurred to me.

Gray Knights SUCK! Just saying...

Again, another rokkit painted waaaaay better than I would have managed.

Neverness and I already have a old Ork codex (as I sold my copy of the new, heinous tome) vs. a new Ork codex game in the vague planning stages for an as yet unknown future date.

Also, have a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year everyone! This will be my final post for the rest of the year.

Khurasan Hovertank painting begins...

o/

Just a quick post tonight as I'm quite tired and I've only just started this project. This is a Sword class hovertank from Khurasan that I'll be using for my Buffet Assault Group army for Gruntz. The camo scheme, which is still in the base coating stage was inspired by a winter/urban camo scheme painted by Dwartist for one of Khurasan's other 15mm tanks (just scroll down a bit).

No paint aside from primer has been applied to the turret yet.

There will be a Buffet Assault Group decal on that rear panel!

From an aerial point of view, the camo does break up the silhouette nicely.

Looks good so far I think despite being as clean as it is, but have no fear-by the time I'm done it'll be dusty and filthy as a tank properly should be!

A Christmas present...one of last year's actually.

No, no regifting I can assure you, rather I finally built it (and my apologies Neverness, its not the grot-bot). Last year Kushial gave me a quartet of old, Japanese released Robotech/Battletech models in 1/72nd scale. They were most likely released in the 80's, but looked fairly well intact, even with original boxes for 2 of them.

Lacking instructions (which would have been in Japanese, but would also provide pictures to go by), I managed to get a Veritech in 'Battloid mode' together in short order. Confident, I tried a 2nd model, A Battletech Griffon, resulting in about two and a half hours of cursing and swearing at poor model design that was (laughably) intended to be multi-posable like an action figure. That was enough for one night and I decided to finish it the next...only to find the next day that a sprue was missing meaning there would be no fore-arms.

Well fuck.

Scrapping that model (with the remaining parts, mainly weapons) going into the bitz box, I gave the similarly designed Shadow Hawk a look and yup, the same parts were missing. More bitz for the box and I went onto see if the snap-fit veritech in 'Guardian Mode' would also be a bust. Nope, looks like it was all there, but...

...looks like an arm was warped (or rather bent, probably 20 years ago), and after 30+ minutes of yet more profanity, I regrettably gave up. That fucking arm will not bend back! Leaving me with the single built VT of the four models.

The problem with that model was the big hole in its back where a screw was to be inserted to attach it to it's suction cup display-thing. Japanese homes are notoriously small, and suction cupping a model to a window to save on shelf space sounds like a good idea, but to me, it looked just awful. Into the trash those parts went and I was left with a VT with a hole in it's back.

Luckily, the back assembly and back-mounted engines from the defunct Guardian mode VT were in good shape, and with some minor trimming, were easily modified to cover up the glaring hole. I think in Robotech, built like it is, it would qualify as a 'Super Veritech', but as a longtime CBT player, it looks to me like a Phoenix Hawk (which Robotech rightly sued-the-ever-loving-shit out-of-FASA for illegally stealing their design).

Being a snap-fit model, fit and finish is a little rough around the edges, but to be honest, I'm really happy with it. Its been sitting on my desk for a few weeks now, awaiting its turn with the paint brushes. I'm not sure which color scheme to use, but I'm leaning towards the Free Worlds League Militia. Primarily as purple is my favorite color, and I have an idea for some 'purpleflage'.

Where its been standing for the past few weeks.

Yes, still one little hole to fill, no idea what it was for...

One will be a base, but the others? I have no idea.

To go with that idea, Kushial also gave me some Battletech medallion-buckle-things that I've been wondering what to do with since my birthday this year. However one (likely the FWL) ought to make a good base for the Phoenix Hawk when its all finished. The rest? I have no idea...

All you can eat HERESY!!! Just $4.99 a plate at the Black Dragon!

I sh!t you not, there's a sign that says that above the mess haul entrance on board the Black Dragons' flagship!

My slight variation from the 'official' icon.

I've always like the Black Dragons Space Marine chapter. Rife with mutation, and rumored to even be encouraging it. Yet denying that heretical practice outwardly, but not enough to avoid being on the eternal shit list of several marine chapters (notably the Dark Angels who are all about concealing dark chapter secrets and my eternal favorites, the Marines Malevolent).  Additionally, the Inquisition, and Magos biologis aren't too fond of them either as it seems their gene tithes are always late, yet flawless when finally collected.

Curious that...

The Black Dragons are rumored to be a Salamanders' successor chapter and the only reason I can tell that that, might be is because their chapter emblem is a freaking lizard! Yes folks, in the Grim Dark this is what passes for genetic research! There is mention of a slightly darker skin tone among their more mutated members, but that's going on the assumption that also in the grim dark, everybody is genetically Caucasian to begin with except the Salamanders...

Anyways, all this rambling comes to you because I've painted my 1st Black Dragon marine:

I hate how zoomed in close photos add a million flaws...

This is my (as yet unnamed) captain of the chapter's 7th company. Any passing resemblance to the former Captain I killed Draigo of my ebayed off Storm Wardens' army is purely coincidental. Black armor is fairly easy to paint (I should know, once having had a HUGE Iron Hands army), and only a light drybrushing of Administratum Gray was applied to keep the armor from being too flat and featureless.  Indeed, by my usual 40k painting standards, this guy's armor is damned near pristine!

Grunts won't get checkers, but maybe vehicles will...

The 7th company's Codex Astartes color is orange, however not wanting my guys to look like Halloween Marines, I stole Codicer Ignatius' idea of putting the company color on the bolter. Additionally, there's a large roundel on this mini's shoulder pauldron and as the company captain, it seemed to be a good place to put some heraldry. In this case, a black and orange checker board with the company number over it. Lemme tell ya, for those who haven't tried, painting checkerboards sucks! The other shoulder got a dragon decal which was my 1st use of my Fallout Hobbies decals, and I couldn't be happier with them! Hell, it went on easier than most any GW decal that I've ever put on a SM pauldron!

Aside from his Mk II artificer this captain stands out as an oddity as here's armed simply, with just a bolter and sword. That's a pretty stark contrast to most Marine characters, and even sergeants who tend to be armed with the best the chapter has to offer! There is one caveat to that though, as a Salamanders' successor, each character gets a free 'master-crafted' upgrade to 1 weapon. So ya see that gold hilt on the sword? Yup, you guessed it: a Master-Crafted CCW!

Now all that's left to do is to decapitate Neverness' new daemon prince with that Master-Crafted sword...

Its a shame they can't invade Poland...

o/

Well, in case anybody missed it, last week Admiral Drax finished my Tankbustas! Not only do they look fantastic, but they ought to be shipping out to me today.

WAAAAAAAUGH!!!

Note: The bases weren't flocked per my request. This way I'll be able to base em to match my army.

That said...they're only (according to google maps) about 5 hours from Warsaw, which needs a little bit of a roughing up.

Ok boyz, fink uv it az a Kommando raid...

Not the whole city mind you, just Maxmini's offices. Ya see, the Green Alliance kickstarter has reached the 1 year behind schedule mark this month, and there's little relief in sight. I'd really like my Orc Shooterz, but...well its yet another Kickstarter, by a long established company, that can release new products from their regular product lines, but not follow thru with their KS promises. Yeah...I don't care what they have to offer, I'm not buying any of it till I get my Orks! The discontent pales in comparison to say...the Robotech Tactics' mythical Wave 2 but still, us backers aren't to happy.

Av yoo seen deez boyz? No? Yeah, me neether...

So it would be great if my Boyz could go in, rokkits blazin' and rescue my Ork Shooterz prior to shipping home.

Oh well, at least I'm getting some well-painted Orks, that were a bitch to paint I'm sure (which is why I didn't want to paint em myself). Indeed to Drax's quote on the subject:

'Hopefully I'll never need to paint one of these blasted sculpts ever again...'

lol, but anyways this really wasn't supposed to be a 'rant' post as Drax has done both a superb job and a huge favor for me by painting these boyz up! Though I will admit to being a bit jealous that my Tankbustas got to enjoy an extended trip to a country that I myself may never be able to afford to visit.

Captain Gunnbjorn is complete!

o/

He's all done, and I think he came out rather well. Take a look:

The colors in my inventory are a bit limited, especially with my browns and metal color options. Technically this is due to the fact that I haven't bought any new paints in a long, long time. However in this day and age, I can instead just go with a trendy term saying I opted for a 'limited palette.'

lol.

My intent was to give this to Rob for Christmas, but that idea was rebuffed with a flat 'no.' He replied by saying 'I'm buying you more Trolls so you can build an army and we can play sometime.'

Nope, not happening. Besides he already gave me the Hound's Tooth for Christmas.

So...on the shelf the good Cap'n will go.

...and with a new detail brush....

...painting progress has resumed!

I only got one detail brush (for now, there are more...but I can't have 'em till Christmas). However one was enough to get the painting going again. Indeed, I wanted to paint 8 different things at once, but opted for the good Cap'n., as he necessitated the purchase of said detail brush to begin with.

The ammo strapped to his gauntlet needs...something.

Whilst he's not yet done, he's certainly much further along than in my last post. Currently he's slathered with a wash and drying (meaning I'm done painting on him for the night). The next few days look to be rainy, so hopefully I'll be able to spare enough time to finish him up before Thursday's post.

:-)

The need for new brushes is strong with this one...

o/

Ya know, painting almost full platoon of 15mm infantry for Gruntz, as well as a few partial repaints for X-Wing and ya kinda forget what fine detail is. However whilst base-coating Captain Gunnbjorn, I've realized rather quickly that my detail brushes are all shot and in need of immediate replacement! Despite their small size, those minis aren't too terribly detailed and unlike the Cap'n, they don't really have any nooks and crannies that ya have to get paint into.

There! That brush there, trash it pal!!

The fact that a lot of my paints are getting down to the state of gloppy-sludge at the bottom of the pot isn't helping. Eventually paint reaches the point of no-return, where no amount of thinning will ever suffice. Unfortunately, getting to the FLGS during business hours has been next to impossible here lately, so I guess I'll have to see what the craft stores here in town have to offer.

Oh well, at least he's got some paint on him...

My Fallout Hobbies decals have arrived!

o/

This was a bit of a pet project of mine for awhile. Preferring to have more than just a unit logos adorning their hulls, I want my tanks and whatever other vehicles I get for The Buffet Assault Group to have 'nose art' as well. Having come up with more logos than I could possibly need (and in pairs incase I fuck one up whilst applying them...which wouldn't be hard with 15mm scaled decals), I filled in the remaining decal sheet space by creating logos for several other projects of mine.

Those being:

The Buffet Assault Group (Gruntz, as mentioned above)
The 15th Utaupian Regiment (Gruntz)
Da Long Wayz Dezert Groop (assuming they ever get another vehicle...)
The SLDF's 76th Royal Dragoons - 'The Spirit of 76' (for Classic Battletech)
My beloved Wolfy's Fem Fa'Tau (most of whom are still unpainted)
The Black Dragons Space Marine Chapter (Who did you think that old dread was for anyways?)
The Eleventy-First Devonshire Homeguard Regiment (for Bolt Action)

....aaaaaaaaand:  the 'TOP SECRET' part of the decal sheet on the right which is will be part of somebody's Christmas present.

Sorry about the glare, I was in a hurry and didn't take 'em out of the bags.

Ron at Fallout Hobbies said all looked good with my artwork, but apparently there was some issue in my placement of said artwork which was causing difficulty in their printing process. So they split it up into 2 sheets, and filled the dead space with extra logos at no extra charge!

Huzzah!!!

I've seen Fallout's decals already show up on Mordian 7th's and Dave Taylor's blogs among others, and as I'm sure you have already guessed, they're awesome! So go and give 'em a look for yourself!

Another squad complete!

o/

Not a whole lot to report on the hobby front as Wolfy and I just returned from a very enjoyable 4-day weekend visiting friends and family in Georgia and South Carolina. As it was a 'short' week leading up to that, about the only thing I accomplished aside from assembling Captain OBGYN was to finish off painting my third infantry squad for my Gruntz army.

Most 40k armies are ebayed off before this many minis are painted...

All that remains to be painted now is a mortar team, the Vending bot, my Commander-mech, and the two hover tanks. At this rate, I'm liable to have a fully painted army before I even play my first game!

Does that say Captain OBGYN?

lol, and as you would expect, much laughter ensued!

Wait what? WHAT did you call me?!?!?!

All I was trying to do was to show my beloved Wolfy my latest ebay impulse buy, but...it was late, her glasses were off and squinting at the screen, well....that's what she said that she saw. After the laughter from the two of us subsided, I corrected her to which she replied with: 

'Well, too bad, he's named Captain OBGYN now.'

The poor bastard hadn't even gotten here yet (though he's since arrived from R'Kansas). Like I said, this was an impulse buy from an Arkansas FLGS that's liquidating a lot of it's stock. New-in-the-blister with shipping clocked in at only $11.48, so for such a cool looking mini I figured 'sure, why not?'

For all of Warmahordes' faults (and to me there are many), it does have some kick-ass models (Convergence excluded). Actually, the Pyg Officer & Mortar Trollkin are what first caught my eye, but I don't think they're available yet and they would have been more expensive anyways.

The Bushwhackers these models accompany are pretty cool looking too.

Also, just to forestall the inevitable (assuming he's not already called me): No Rob, I don't want to play Warmahordes.

Both photos are Copyright of Privateer Press

The brutal process of Dreadnought recycling begins...

o/

In a reply to my last post, Knight of Infinite Resignation commented that several chemicals that can be used for stripping paint from minis, will often soften resin. I didn't think Simple Green would do that, but was alarmed enough to check and see. So, instead of doing my usual of ignoring simple greened minis for several weeks, months (or in at least one case, more than a year), a mere week later I pulled the model out and gave it a good toothbrush scrubbing to see what damage if any had been done.

Turns out, no damage aside from what was inflicted by me during this initial cleaning. There were always a few mis-casts in the legs that bothered me, so I opted to replace the legs entirely this go round with some new replacement bitz purchased via ebay. Not needing to scrub the legs and wanting to get to the underside without obstruction, I simply snapped the old ones off!

It was kinda painful to intentionally break a dreadnought in half...

After a good scrubbing, there was still quite a bit of crud left on the dread. So after popping off the incriminating Chaos bitz and snapping a few quick pics for this post, back into the simple green it went.

That chaos icon on the heavy bolter has been removed as well. Note the blue on the heavy bolter: that confirms this dread's service with the Silver Skulls, a forgotten bit of  history which I was only guessing at in my last post...

That old Imperator Titan head will remain in place because it just looks badass!

There will need to be some filing/scraping/sanding needed to get rid of the glue from the removed chaos chains.

The waist mount remnants will have to be cut off and sanded flat.

New legs and chest plates awaiting their new body...

This week looks to be a busy one, so odds are the dread will remain submerged for at least a week and a half...

The next 'chapter' in the life of an old dreadnought...

If I recall correctly, approximately 20 years ago Brad, one of my 40k buddies in Florida worked at a resin casting company. Working the graveyard shift and under the guise of 'training' he cast multiple copies of his SM dreadnought (the multi-melta version), and gave several of us in the gaming group a copy. Forgeworld, whilst in existence wasn't producing dreadnoughts of their own yet, meaning all dreadnoughts were made of pewter! Indeed, when I moved to Tennessee this feather-light dread took many people by complete surprise when they picked it up to give it a look. 

I had to dig almost all the way back to the beginning of this blog just to find some good pics of this beast!

Last time I spoke to Brad in person, about five years or so ago whilst visiting in Florida, I mentioned that I still had one of his resin dreads in regular use. He'd long since left mini gaming himself, and was pleasantly surprised to find that any of his old dreads even existed anymore. As such it seems that this dread is the sole survivor!

Like many of my older minis, this Dread has fought in several past armies including the: Iron Hands, Silver Skulls, Chaos Undivided (up to and probably including the Red Corsairs prior to FW getting ahold of them), and The Blood Eagles (CSM Warband of my own creation and in who's colors you see above) just to name a few. 

Back in the day of fire frenzying dreadnoughts, I changed it's weapons loadout from the then equipped twin-lascannon and missile launcher to the current twin-heavy bolter (a FW piece), and a dreadnought CCW with heavy flamer to minimize my own casualties. That said, I distinctly remember it killing three of my own chaos marines during it's battlefield-debut with these new weapons.

Damnit.

Anyways, skipping forward to the present, and this venerable model has begun the first stage of ritual cleansing in a bath of Simple Green. After a few weeks of that it'll be fully-stripped first of its paint, the old, skinny base as well as any incriminating CSM bits, before being refit for battle with loyalist marines once more. I'll be keeping the twin-heavy bolter, but given that dreads still suck in close combat, I'll be replacing the CCW arm with a missile launcher. This will relegate it to purely the role of fire support, but given that heavy firepower of any kind is generally lacking amongst the few survivors of my (now quite small) 40k armies these days, that'll be just fine I think.

And if it still sucks? Well...its a dread, so what did you expect from it anyways?

This week on ebay...

o/

Notta whole lot of movement on the hobby front aside from a lot of ebaying stuff off. The long awaited and much maligned (by me) 7th ed Ork codex and data cards sold quite well, as did my forgeworld 30k marines. However not everything is going out of the door, I made some purchases as well.

First up, I bought a pair of X-Wing proximity mines after I realized in our last game that I was using the incorrect tokens when Rob handed my an actual proximity mine token. The S&V 'Genius' astromech has suddenly become a favorite of mine and with these tokens, my opponents will no doubt be wary of any low PS Y-Wing I field from now on!

It seems I'm out of 60mm bases, so I'll have to order another via ebay.

2nd, is actually a purchase from a few weeks back, but it arrived this week from its journey from France. This doubles my Grymn army's armored might, in the form of a 2nd Stug Walker (counts as: an Armored Sentinel). Despite coming from overseas, this one was $6 cheaper than the 1st one bought from an ebay seller here in the US!

Before...

Third up and rounding out this post, I removed the former Captain I killed Draigo (the above pic) from ebay after a few weeks with no bids and only a few watchers. He'll once again hold the rank of captain, when he takes command of the shattered remnants of my remaining SM forces (including a survivor or two from his last command). I'm sure that statement will raise a few eyebrows, but I'll just leave it at that for the time being...

...after (and obviously still a work-in-progress)

;-)

Dazzling, isn't it?

o/

Just a quick post using my meager Photoshop skills (I work primarily in Illustrator). Pondering a color scheme for the YV-666, the first thought was the fading metallics that I use on our other S&V ships. Or, how about repainting it in a razzle dazzle paint scheme?

Ironically, with that backdrop, its does more to stand out than it does to conceal. Still, razzle dazzle only works at a distance anyways so...

Whatcha think?

Just as an aside: ever since the idea popped into my head, this song popped in there too, and hasn't gone away...which isn't a bad thing really. :-)

Enter the YV-666

It all started like this on the phone last week:

Hey, are you going to be there Saturday? (the FLGS)

Yeah, why?

Can I borrow that flying toolbox of yours? I just want to try it out for the hell of it.

You can have it.

That's not what I was asking for but okay...

Merry Christmas, its yours.

Makes ya wonder how such an odd design ever made it off of the drawing board...

lol, and with that ringing endorsement of the ship's capabilities...I'm now the proud owner of Murl's YV-666 (a.k.a.: the Flying Toolbox). List in hand, we crammed 4 players onto a standard 3' x3' space mat (myself and my beloved Wolfy on one side with Bob and Murl on the other, as well as Kushial who was acting as combat cameraman). With the exception of Bob, it was Scum and Villainy all around and battle was quickly joined. Here are a few highlight photos:

The enemy, Scum and the Empire.

The 'good guys' our pure Scum and Villainy!

...and just like that, the battle lines turned into a furball.

Guris, Guris everywhere! One is a 'butterfly ship' and the other, a 'moth'.

Fucking tailgaters...

Apparently hitting the broadside of a barn isn't so difficult after all, and the YV-666 goes boom. Nope, no escaping Z-95 from it either. :-(

My astro-mech's name? Its Wile E. Coyote: Genius! Or as Bob put it: 'That move has a whole lot of go F yourself written all over it' lol. That TIE lost 2 hull points to the Proximity mine!

Dear god, its almost 11:00 PM!

At that point we called it a draw as Murl was ready to crash (physically), and the rest of us were beat as well. As for the Toolbox, It'll take some playing around with to get used to, and it will definitely need a new coat of paint of some sort too!