The Knights will walk...

I have spent some time with my knights on paper these last few days.
I am currently building my first Knight, not sure yet who it will be as I haven't built the weapons yet, but I will start on the arms this afternoon if everything works out as I have planned.

I have not found a name for my Knightly Household yet, but I have decided that they are sworn to Adeptus Terra, so they are Imperium and not Mechanicus. I have decided on what symbol I want them to carry on their front, and are working on a few spare plates from my Hellhounds to try and find the right color combination to use on the Knights. I am trying to see if Caliban Green and Death Guard Green will work well together, as I think green would be a good color to paint the knights.
I use Caliban Green for my Chaos Space Marines as well, but there will not be any confusion there. If so, then nobody could paint any color because red wold be Khorne, blue would be Ultramarines and so on. But I am doing one thing different and that is the trim. On my Chaos Space Marines they have silver trimmings, while my Knights will have Retributor Gold. Mainly because it is a basic color that covers well, and I like the result it gives.

When it comes to names, I have named all my Knights after the legends of King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table

I have not given the different Knights their pilots yet, but I have the following Knights:
Lancelot (Knight Valiant)
Galahad (Knight Castellan)
Gawain (Knight Paladin)
Bedivere (Knight Errant)
Percival (Knight Crusader)
Lamorak (Knight Warden)
Geraint (Knight Warden)
Gaheris (not decided yet, but will be a Warden or Crusader)
Guinevere (not sure if it will be a Crusader or Warden)

Guinivere was the wife of King Arthur, and it is being piloted by the head of my household. Her name is Queen Brünnhilde. Brünnhilde has roots back in Scandinavian history to Snorre Sturlasson and his work Edda, but is probably more known today from Wagner. In Wagner operas Brünnhilde is a shield maiden and a Valkyrie (and in one of them she is the big lady that sings at the end of the Opera that has given us the saying "it's not over until the fat lady sings"). There has been a Queen in Austria I think that had this name, and in litterature he has been portrayed as an Icelandic Queen. So I think the name is suitably royal to fit my Queen.

I would love for Brünnhilde to have a special weapons setup on her knight to make her stand out from the others. I am nor sure if that is game legal though, so I will check with the Staff at Games Workshop what they believe before I built it. 

My other Knights will have the standard setup for the kind of knight they are, but I will try to do some variations on the weapons where alternatives are possible. Usually there are more Paladins and Errants in an army, but I happen to have several of the new knights and they build Wardens or Cruaders. 

I might make one of the Knights from the Renegade box in to a Knight Errant, and if so it will probably be Gaheris that is changed in to this.

My Knightly pilots have been given the titles of Baron, Lord or Lady as they should have a noble title to show they are of the noble birth needed to pilot such a "vehicle". The two leaders are given the title of Barons, while the rest are Lords or Ladies. Just because so many Knightly houses have a male overlord I decided that mine should have a female. Also I like the saying "it's not over until the fat lady sings" and in this case one might argue that a battle is not over until the Queen has stopped fighting.

Queen Brünnhilde: Described above

Baron Wilhelm Klink: Colonel Klink is the Camp Commandant in the comedy series Hogan's Heroes (from the late 60's and early 70's). He looks very much like an aristocrat especially when he wears his monocle to look closely at things or look intimidating so I just had to make him a Baron

Baron Kurt Von Strohm: von Strohm is the Colonel in the brilliant comedy series 'Allo 'Allo and the German commander of the area where the sitcom takes place. He is one of the main charachters in the series, and I think with a strong name like he has he deserves to be a Baron.

Lord Admiral Manfred von Schneider: Admiral von Schneider is a character in an old black and white comedy skit about an old woman that has a party for her birthday, but all the people she used to invite are probably dead of old age, so her Butler goes around the table and pretends to be them and toast her in their place. In Norway it is very popular and always shown on the evening before Christmas Eve). We do not know his first name, so I just added one that I found fitting. Admiral Von Schneider is portrayed as a very military man and always smack his heels together when toasting the birthday-girl. Since he is called Admiral in the skit, I made him a Lord Adminral.

Lord General Erich von Klinkerhoffen: He is the commanding officer of Colonel von Strohm in 'Allo 'Allo. von Strohm is in charge of a town, while von Klinkerhoffen has an entire area under his command. I had to take him as von Klinkerhoffen sound so commanding (especially when pronounced in a little over the top German accent) and every time I see the name I think of von Strohm's secretary shouting out his name as he enters the offices of the Colonel and seeing the Colonel and his adjudant desperately trying to hide what they are looking at as he enters (often a stolen French artifact that they want to sell after the war to secure their pension, but that the General want to find and send as a gift to Hitler).

Lady Helga Geerhart: Helga is the above mentioned secretary of Colonel Von Strohm in 'Allo 'Allo. She is quite a resourceful and strong female character in the series with a mind of her own. She is a corporal in the series, but shouts better than many drill sergeants in other movies. She also date the local head of the Gestapo to rat out his secrets to her boss, and is both pretty, smart, brave and tough all at the same time.

Lord Hubert Gruber: Gruber is a gay lieutenant in 'Allo 'Allo, and he is  under von Strohms command. He has a very good eye to René the Tavern keeper who is the main person in the series. Gruber is perhaps my favorite character in the entire show, where he talks about driving in his little tank and tries hopelessly to win the heart of a man who is making out with his waitresses every chance he gets. 

I knew I just had to use Lieutenant Gruber as a character somewhere in my 40K armies. 

Lord Hans Geering: He is also a German officer from 'Allo 'Allo (a captain this time) and he is the adjutant of  Colonel von Stohm. When playing a German officer you are sometimes needed to say "Heil Hitler" as this is the way German officers saluted each other during the war. The actor refused to say it, so Geering always says something like "Tlapp" and this adds a comic effect to the character.

Lord General Leopold von Flockenstuffen: This is yet another character from 'Allo 'Allo, although I do not remember his character. He appeared in 6 of the 85 episodes over the 9 seasons the show lasted. But the name alone earns him a place as one of my pilots.

My Armigers are piloted by sons of noblemen or noblemen that are of a little lower rank than my Ladies, Lords and Barons, I haven't given them any titles yet but instead just opted for calling them Sir.

Sir Otto Flick: Herr Flick is the local head of the Gestapo in 'Allo 'Allo, and he is said to be the Godson of the Leader of the Gestapo (Himmler, or Uncle Heinie as he says it) and  he is a real comedic character in the show with all his cunning plans to expose the resistance and all the other stuff he deals with.

Sir Engelbert von Smallhousen: He is the assistant of Herr Flick. He too is very funny in the series, but he is not a part pf the show for as many episodes as Herr Flick. Von Smallhousen sounds rather royal, so I might have to demote Lord Gruber or Lord Geering and give him their place. I'll think about it...

Sir Schultz (no first name yet): Sergeant Schultz is the guard at the POW camp in Hogan's Heroes. He is a big but quite kind and a little slow in the head sometimes. He is really funny in the show and Schultz is so German that I had to have someone with that name piloting something.

Then I had ran out of proper sounding German names from comedy shows that I could think of, but I still have at least one Armiger knight to name. So I turned to more dramatic TV, and to a crime show that has been going for ages, called Derrick. I grew up watching this on Norwegian television on Friday nights (that was the night they showed crime when we only had one TV channel in Norway). 

I am sure I will find more names from here if more Knights are added to my army. So I give you:

Sir Stephan Derrick: Derrick was the star of an old German TV crime that was recorded from 1974 and all through 1998. I was originally thinking of adding his assistant Harry Klein, but I din't find that German sounding enough. Derrick was a classy elderly gentleman using his mind more than fists or guns, and back when we only had one TV channel in Norway everybody watched this crime show on Friday nights.

Mostly Knights

This post is going to be mainly about the Imperial Knights, but we'll start with one more update on the Deathwatch.
I have now just the Interrogator-Chaplain to add to my 247 man strong army to make it complete. Then I need to build the Redemptor Dreadnought and the vehicles, but I will do that at a later time. Before I do I will need to get to work on my Armies on Parade entry.

I was going to work with painting Da Punisha yesterday night as my wife went to work for a night shift, but instead I started to work on an Imperial Knight. I built both the legs, and this afternoon I have built the hips and put the entire leg assembly together. I have not put on any armorplates, as I've been told the best way to paint a knight is to to the armor plates separate from the torso.
I've also built most of the main body on the torso. What is left now is the head, the arms and attaching the top armor and doing all the details on that.
I've started to think on what color scheme I would like to have on my Knightly household, but haven't landed on something yet. At the moment I am thinking of a brown and green combination to indicate that they come from a forest world, or maybe just two shades of green. I like Caliban Green a lot, so if I use two shades of green that will be one of them. Death Guard Green might be the other shade but I will have to do some tests to see how all the colors will work together.
If I go for green and brown, then a light brown might look good with Death Guard Green, but time will tell what I end up with.
The only palette I know so far, is that the window on the hatch to the cockpit will be in the same pale Lothern blue as I use on the globes for the ships of the Overlords.
Then the legs and arms will have to be metal, and to keep it a little muted it will have to be basically done with the Leadbecher and after washing everything with Nuln oil I can use some of the lighter metallics on certain areas. Also I think I will use either Stormhost Silver or Retributor armor on the edges of the metallic plates.
Another idea I have is to have hazard stripes on the middle of the top plate for some of the knights, and one the side of the top plate for some others, and for the Reaper chainswords and the Reaper chaincleavers for the Armiger Warglaives


Next week I will finish my first Knight, but I will also do a lot of painting on my Stompa and get the hatches glued on. Then it is a matter of painting the big areas like metal armor plates, the big gun, the chainsword and when that is done I can go in to the details.
I will also need to paint up my Grot tanks, vehicles and some Ork boyz. I know how to paint the boyz as I have some that I am very happy with. I plan to use some of them, but I need to have the right weapons and poses.

I will also need to build my Morkanaut, but I am quite sure that will go rather quick even though it is a big model.

In between all this I also hope to paint my Deathwatch, and prime all the models not yet primed.

Armies on Parade 2018

I would have loved to make a table both for the Fantasy (Age of Sigmar) and for the 40K tournament. I've had several ideas about what to do for a long time, but I have to start to see my own limitations. I am a slow painter, and I need to have the right amount of models and have them painted to a high standard  no matter what army I choose.
I have an idea for Kharadron Overlords for AoS/Fantasy, but they take a long time to paint. So I think I will go for a 40K entry this year, and go for an Ork scene. After all the Kharadons will still be there for next year, and who knows maybe next year I can start real early and with a purpose in mind.

Last year I had a two stories high board with a mine at the bottom level and a fortress wall on the top. This time I will keep to one level.
I'd love to build something that can serve as an Ork production facility where the Mek boyz build their weird creations. But I am not sure I can pull off the production area itself. What I can pull off is the area where they show off what they have built or where things are tested.
If I have space for it, I can add some huge doors of some sort to the wall of the diorama to give the impression of a production hall of some sort.

On a vantage point I will have my only built Stompa - Da Punisha - stand guard and drawing attention to the table. Then I'll add some of my own vehicles like the Grot tanks and the mobile rokkit launchers, and maybe if I have time and space a walker or two (either the modified Sentinel or the modified Landspeeder or both). What I choose also depends on who I find to be the pilots or drivers of the vehicles, as I would like them to look good as well. When it comes to the Landspeeder I might close off the driving compartment to give the build more armor, and that might also make the pilot part a bit easier to solve.

I will have some Grots in red robes, representing Techpriests. They will be Fantasy Night Goblins (or Moonclan Grots as they are called now) with arms from 40K Grots holding mechanical stuff. Everybody knows that Techpriests and Techmarines wears red, and the Grots know this too. I think this will be a thing that might get me some positive attention in a competition, and I would love to have them in my army at a later stage anyways.
If I find a way to do it, I will make one stand out as the leader. Then he can stand in front of the others, and sort of present a new creation to the Ork Mek in charge.
The Mek has arrived in his Morkanaut along with a few bodyguards.

If I have enough space on the board, I might even build a ramshackle watchtower and put some guards and maybe a cannon up in it to defend the camp.

I plan to use insulation foam (Byggskum as we say in Norwegian) to build the terrain, as this is a rather fun material to work with both when it comes to how it looks when it is dry and the ability to cut it in to shape where that is needed. I used a special outdoor insulation Styrofoam and plaster last year, and that was a real pain in the ass to work with so I will try and keep away from that. If the Insulation foam doesn't work I can use paper maché but I don't think that will be as solid as the Insulation foam.
And a bonus with the insulation foam is that it is really light weight and don't need a frame.
I don't know how it will work with paint, but I have  big lump of foam from last year that I can use to test with.

Imperial Knights, Orks and more Deathwatch

Lets start with an update on the Deathwatch. I am just missing one killteam of 10 Marines, and a few characters now, and then the entire army is assembled. It's far from finished, but it is assembled and that is a good start and also a first for me.

The last killteam is still on sprues, and I will start to work on them after work on Monday. Depending on how much else there is to do around the house, they will either be done Monday or Tuesday.
Then I have a Primaris Apothecary left to assemble.
I am missing one Chaplain, and he is ordered from Games Workshop so he will be built some time next week.
I would like one more Apothecary, but I'm not sure who that should be. I have the Primaris one and a Terminator, but would have liked one in regular armor as well. I am sure I can find a command squad box to take him from somewhere in my storage, but I also have two resin ones from Forgeworld that stands partially assembled in a box by my workspace. So maybe I will take one of those. I'll figure it out in the near future I guess.
The Terminator Apothechary was quite fiddly to build, as he had a shoulder guard already molded on his shoulder where the Deathwatch one should be. I spent a lot of time with my knife cutting away, but I had to mind some bits that needed to be there and because of this the new shoulder guard going on needed some modification too. Hopefully the flaws I see on him now will look less obvious after he's primed and painted. I might have to use a little Greenstuff on the new shoulderguard to make it look good.

About half my Deathwatch army (probably a little more) is primed and ready for painting, and the rest are waiting to be primed. So I have a lot of painting to do in the coming weeks and months.
In between the painting I will also build some of the flyers and vehicles for the army, but they are expensive, so I plan to add to these nice and slow in the future.

When everything is primed, I will go over the killteams and make sure that they all are legal according to the rules, and that they fit the fluff for Deathwatch. I know I will have to move some Marines around, as I've been told that the Space Wolves usually operate in pairs in killteams. Also I will try to spread the special weapons equally around in the army unless I have a killteam that I would like to give a special mission.

While working on painting my Deathwatch army, I will also work on painting my Orks. I am thinking of making an Ork layout for Armies on Parade (AoP) for 2018, so I will need to paint up a bunch of them.
I will describe the idea closer in a later blogpost, but I'd like to use some of the units I have modified myself like the Grot tanks I have built and primed and the walkers I'm planning on making in the near future. Also I plan to have Da Punisha, my Punisher inspired Stompa, as a centerpiece for the board. Maybe I should also add another Stompa, with modifications on the weapons and with a belly-gun. I think time will tell if that will happen or not. I know I will have such a Stompa for my Ork army in the future, but I am not sure if it will be on my AoP board or not.

Also there is a new Imperial codex out. This is for the Knights, and there are also some very nice new models that have been released for this codex. I have bought a few of the new Knights, and plan to have an army built in due time. The knights are really big models and will almost certainly be seen as centerpiece models when put on the table, so I will take my time and practice on some of the smaller and older knights and built the army a little over time. My idea is to find a colorscheme that will look great for several knights, so that I can have my own knightly house. I know there are so many people building the knights that are described in the codex or in official 40K canon, and a lot of these people will do this better than me. So if I come up with my own house then nobody will be able to compare mine to others directly. And most of the existing houses are white, red or blue, so those colors are not my ideal choices. White is really hard to paint, I have a lot of blue in my Marines and Grey Knights (don't ask) and red needs to be very layered and "shiny" in order to look good on the big areas on the knight armor.
The one thing I know about the knights so far is that I will have yellow and black hazard stripes on the canopy on all of them, so I will work that in to my color scheme.
The only knight that might not get this is the Freeblade built on the Canis Rex model. This I plan to paint black and call him the Black Knight.