Just a quick holiday question...

 

Does everybody have their ornaments up yet?

Asking for a friend...

The Exalt Champion of...tedium.

The Black Legion's Children of Torment subfaction's exalted champion. 

Ya know, I wish GW would put some more detail on the Chaos marines said no one ever! Seriously, WTF?!? These guys are a nightmare of detailing (Chaos Marines aren't supposed to be the stuff of those kinds of nightmares...). 

The Thousand Sons...yeah, I'm notta fan. 

He does also have a power sword not that it is easily visible. 

I'm using the 'Legends' rules for my Exalted Champion as the *only* weapons fit for an Exalted Champion is a bolt pistol, power axe and combi-melta with no variations whatsoever. Very chaosy, every traitor exalted champion having the exact same stuff. Hell even Primaris Lieutenants who are known for their lack of options have more variety than that!

His armor has 2 shades of pink as well as lavender, each color representing a separate squad sworn to him. Whether or not I'll be able to stand painting three squads of these guys remains to be seen...

Even then this guy technically has an illegal weapons fit, as he has a mere bolter rather than a combi-bolter not that any future opponent will likely mind as it means less shots coming their way. 

Lining up to kick that helmet like its a football! 

Downsizing 'da Groop

 lol, I'm sure that just by that title alone Neverness has a knot in the pit of his stomach, and perhaps rightly so.

It isn't news to anybody that I don't play near as often as I once did, which has only been exacerbated by the ongoing pandemic. Thus my pile o' shame is both considerable and taking up a lot of space. Granted I still have some extra of that following the passing of My Beloved Wolfy, but that said I could probably do something better with it were some of it not filled with a literal pile of plastic that I have little want to paint. As such, force reductions are well under way:

First up, the Spess Mahreenz. As y'all may recall, having just sold off all of my non-primaris Spess Mahreenz, Kushial blindsided me with the gift of a veritable horde of them! From that collection both the Astral Claws were reborn, and my Incandescent Coyotes came into being. However with the Coyotes clocking in at about 500 points, and the Astral Claws at about the same, I was still left with a Landraider and 30-odd marines. Not wanting to sell what was gifted to me, I passed those minis on to Neverness. 

My Silver Drakes clock in at about 1000 points, with maybe 1/10 of that painted. No plans to add to or reduce their numbers at this point in time. They're not too high on the list to get painted either...

Next up: Chaos. I mentioned just a few posts back that I sold the majority of  my chaos marines off, reducing them to a mere kill team. 

Then there's My Beloved Wolfy's Fem Fa'Tau. By far my largest army (at the start of this paragraph anyways...), clocking in at a little over 1500 points of almost entirely unpainted minis (the original, paltry collection of painted Fem Fa'Tau minis Wolfy herself fielded are all in my display case). I didn't see meself doing much with these, and burned out after just a few painted up in a new scheme. Still, being hers, I didn't want to sell em, so what to do? Well, my buddy Hoss has flirted with Tau and 40k for years, but the astronomical cost of entry into the game has always kept him from making the jump. He was also one of My Wolfy's favorite folks. As such I have approx. 1K of Tau set aside to suck him into the financial hell that is 40k. The remainder are staying with me to all wear the Fem F'aTau's new colors...someday. 

The Exodites...barely clock in at 500 points, They're good as is. 

And lastly there's Da Long Wayz Dezert Groop itself. Recently they achieved something like 90+% painted status when 30 or so unpainted minis were sold to another local gamer. Riddled with sentimental favorites, they're all but impossible to sell off in their entirety. They are still fieldable as an army (albeit a small one) as their troops compliment has been reduced to a mere 10-strong slugga boy mob. 

Storage and transport of these little guys will be much easier as well!

That said, just days prior to the above mentioned sale, I purchased 48 new orks (pictured above)...in 15mm scale. Sure they may not be as detailed, nor have as much variety of models, but at the same time a *NEW* 500pt army cost me $50, of which a goodly portion of that was shipping from the UK. 

So...that's the current state of things around here. More minis are likely to go, just not sure what at this point. 

He's blue steel & sex appeal!

Yeah, sorry Smurf fanbois, this post isn't for you. To the devotees of Slaanesh however, read on...

Sure, he'd prefer to kill the minions of the corpse god as much as any other traitor marine, but going by his tabard of recently flensed Ork's hide along with Ork skulls on his base, clearly any opponent will do. 

To be honest, I actually just sold off the bulk (meagre as it was) of my Children of Torment chaos marines just the other day. The hideous amount of detail on every sculpted surface makes the notion of painting them in bulk something of a nightmare in my opinion. 

From this angle, you can barely see the pink armor. 

But there it is. Curiously it all goes nicely together. 

Already having two painted chaos marines (that Helbrute is now gone btw), I painted this one up this week (and just when you though I'd given up on painting 40k minis...). That leaves me with my aspiring champion, cultist champion and flamer gunner left to go. They, along with my already painted cultists are enough to make a nice looking Kill Team. I could squeeze another cultist in there actually, but folks want too much for em on eBay, and hell they're only 4 points so the absence of one isn't really worrisome. 

Here you can see them as they're being blinded by the glory of Slaanesh!

Originally I was painting each marine with their armor trimmed in a different metallic color, because Chaos. Conveniently, having three of them, it'll now be easy to differentiate which kill team specialist is which. 

It'll do till I get him something better. 

Next up though I think I'm going to work on some cavern tiles as I have 6 of the primed and ready to go. Also my father-in-law got Frankie's lightsaber working...without really doing anything, but the kid is thrilled so it's all good. Speaking of, Ultrasabers finally contacted me today after 19 days of silence, by basically repeating their last email which I had already answered but they apparently failed to actually read. 

As such, I pretty much told them to go to hell. Schmucks.

Another Child of Torment enters the fray

o/

Just a quick post this morning. It was kindova lousy weekend, but I did manage at least to finish the WIP Children of Torment Chaos marine. This brings me up to a whopping TWO finished plus the Helbrute which I bought pre-painted. 

Its hard to tell here, but the black bit on his base is a
mostly-buried loyalist space marine helmet. 

Amusingly, next to the pink sand on the base, the
pink armor pretty much qualifies as camouflage!

Wasn't quite what to do with this pauldron...but this works I guess.

Oh well, progress is progress, no matter how meagre it is I suppose. Additionally I started base coating my 2nd Silver Drakes sergeant. I think I'll try and finish him up before tackling the Coyotes' Razorback.

Distractions aplenty...

o/

In amidst the work on the last three Incandescent Coyotes I was distracted many a time which slowed progress considerably. Be it waiting for an ink, or the contrast paint, or a weathering wash to dry, or simply 'I don't fucking want to today' my hobby area is as littered with distraction as much as my mind is prone to looking for it. As such, here are a few of the other things I was dabbling with during that little project.

First up, my Razorback: 

A few scars still remain from the removal of the original iconography.

Okay so yeah, I've already posted about this previously. Now however it has been cleansed of its Black Templar heritage and is now ready for priming. I took these pics prior to that as primed white models photograph so well...

Originally it was to have a twin-heavy bolter, but I grabbed the wrong drill bit (apparently) and broke/wrecked one of the gun barrels when drilling it out. So a twin-lascannon it is! I guess this will function as a tank destroyer as much as it will an AFV.

Next up, the scout snipers:

Yes, it seems that the Incandescent Coyotes will be cursed with this unit...

More commonly known as the Bane of MY existence due not to the damage they've ever inflicted on my armies, but rather the almost complete lack of damage they've inflicted on other forces whilst in my armies. Seriously, Ever since the debacle of my old Aurora Chapter 10th company army, scout snipers just seem to materialize around here and my dumbass keeps working on them for some stupid reason. They still need to have battlefield debris added to the non-sculpted bases before they get primed. Bleh.

...and then there are the Silver Drakes:

Raptors we are not.

I ordered an easy-build Intercessor 3-pack and got 'em built and primed to hide the Smurfy shade of their bare plastic. Originally I was going to just fill out my lone Intercessor squad, but instead i think i'll just split that instead into two 5-man squads. Telling one squad from the other was going to be an issue as I've dispensed with the squad number decals (being both annoying to apply and practically illegible once the minis are done), and instead have opted for their bolt rifles having scopes in one squad, and none in the other. Easy peasy.

Of course technically those scopes change them into stalker bolt rifles. So were these to actually make it into a game, then I might even consider using them as such since my Drakes lack any heavy weaponry. Currently however, they're all just plain ol' bolt rifles to me.

Finally, let's not forget the Children of Torment:

Obviously still a work-in-progress...

Jesus, never has an army been so aptly named! These fuckers have so much frickin' detail on them that they're a nightmare to work on!! 'Chaos' by definition does not equal conformity, so this guy's trim is in leadbelcher rather than gold. Hell, I have several metallic colors, so this army will one day be painted in a rainbow of colors (assuming I don't rage-quit the project).

So there you have it, my version of short attention span theater. The razorback has since been primed a snowy white and it...or one rather (maybe?) one of the above will get worked on next. Who knows, could be something else entirely.

The Children of Torment

o/

In and amongst the experimentations on my Hounds of Demos, principally whilst waiting for the various layers of wash and/ or the contrast paint itself to dry, I was adding in some base coats and blocking out the colors on a squad of *my* new Chaos Space Marine force: The Children of Torment.

They quietly amassed in number yet were pushed aside while I finished up my Silver Drakes. They along with my preexisting squad of cultists clock in at approximately 500 points. That's probably the limit of my attention span for a new army and in all likelihood well beyond my want to actually paint all of it! However this small force isn't actually for me, but rather My Beloved Wolfy.

My 1st WIP squad of Chaos marines. Unfortunately...the aspiring champion (turned-exalted champion) in back has taken a feline induced tumble off of my desk and the chain axe broke. Looks like there was a casting flaw so that break was inevitable. However I didn't have any chaos CCWs, so he has been rearmed with a captured loyalist chainsword. Bleh

Now it is true that her Fem Fa'Tau have been hidden away in storage for what seems like years now, and she has shown no want to play 40k (or anything else here recently) either. However when I tired of my old Chaos Space Marine army and sold it off (seriously, their color scheme was a nightmare), she was quite upset that I had sold her army without even asking her permission to do so! 

But-wait, WHAT?!? 

The first army she ever used in learning to play 40k were my chaos marines. Well, when things became serious in our relationship, the old adage of 'what's hers is hers and what's mine is hers' was instituted without my knowledge...apparently. So the Fem Fa'Tau aside, she's (quote) always had a soft spot for chaos which was my first army (end quote).

'What was that? Another request for Delightful Agonies?'

In general, I've never been a fan of the noise marine minis or rules, that said I LOVE this guy! As such, he's slated to serve as this army's sorcerer. His powers will instead be sonically projected (with amps!) rather than via the usually chanted incantations of his more traditional peers...

We had talked of buying the Shadowspear boxed set and splitting it, but at the time of its release funds were not available and real life had us busy with 'it' instead. Still, I kept her love of Chaos in the back of my mind and a little ways back started amassing this little army for her use. Hey! I can use it too!

(uh...right? My love? Baby...?) 

This pic is straight out of the eBay auction.

My first purchase was actually a $34 Helbrute purchased on eBay pre-painted and only in need of basing. A few minor assembly issues aside (only really noticeable if you're looking for em), it was painted on par with, if not surpassing my own painting skills. So well done to whomever actually painted this beast!

I miss my buddy Neverness so much I felt compelled to put Space puppies debris on the Helbrute's base...

This crumpled plow is my first use of the rust weathering wash. However given all of the red that had been dry brushed on their beforehand I don't think it really added anything to it. 

I did swap out the multi-melta (a mediocre weapon) for a missile launcher (also a mediocre weapon, albeit one with twice the range). For it's secondary weapon I have it equipped with a heavy flamer which fires (literally, lol) out of the maw in the palm of it's fist. 

To date, aside from complimenting my painting of that lone chaos marine and the basing of the Helbrute, she has yet to show any real interest in  this army. That said, she's well aware that they are 'hers' and thus they'll all likely get painted (someday) as selling 'em is certainly out of the question!