progress on my armies

I have been building a little bit of varied stuff lately. After building the Stompa and the two Super Heavy tanks I thought I should do some small stuff for a little while before I got back to the last Super Heavy tank (a Baneblade) and the other Stompa (with several modifications).
I also have a lot of Leman Russ tanks and some Hellhounds to assemble, and I will get around to those soon.

Right now, I have assembled some Ork units. I had two boxes of Lootas/Burnas laying around, so I decided to make one box of each.
I started with the Burnas, and they were a lot of hazzle to assemble, but they are nice looking minis so I would like one more box in the future.
The torsos were easy, just like regular Orks, but the problem came when adding the harnesses and the bulky weapons. I found the trick was to attach the weapon to the harness before gluing it on to the torso, but still you had to work while everything was wobbly to make sure you got the second arm right. When that was done the miniature could be allowed to dry for awhile before adding the head. It was limited space so it took some fiddling to get everything right.

The Lootas was a little bit easier to assemble, but getting the heads on were even tighter.
For the Burnas you got the choice to build a Mek with his own special burna to fight with the unit. There were no special weapon to use with the Lootas. I tried with a big shoota, but then I could not fit the Mek head, so in the end I ended up gluing the Mek pole on to the back of a Loota rig on one of the other torsos.
One problem with this set if you don't want to bring a Mek is that there are only four sets of weapons for each unit, so you need more than one box if you like all to wear the same equipment. For my next boxes of these that should be no problem, as I have extras of both options now. I am thinking of taking a regular Boyz box and make a Loota out of one of the Orks there to replace the one with the big shoota in this unit, as Boyz can field big guns too. I'll see what I end up doing as I eventually get more boxes sometime in the future.

The final addition to my Orks for now, are one box with three Killa Kans. I like these brute monsters, but they do take up a lot of physical space with their wide arms. I have one more box at home, but I'm thinking of trying to use these as the turrets for Grot tanks, with the chassis from the Kataphron Breachers/Destroyers as belts. I am not sure if this will work, but I would like to try and see. If not, I will build both units according to the instructions as I can always take more of them in both armies.
If the idea works, then I will take spare gun-barrels from the Leman Russ tanks to use as guns. It might not look very pretty, but it will certainly be "orky"... Eventually I'm sure I am going to convert one Leman Russ in to a Grot tank as well (I still have several Leman Russ tanks in storage), but that will be the Grot answer to a super heavy...

The Astra Militarum/Imperial Guard have gotten a command squad for the Artillery commmander - Major Belle Boyd.
Here I met sort of a snag as the rules in the Astra Militartum codex see the commander as a single figure, and specifies that a command squad is only four figures. This would not be a problem usually, as the commander will be the commander from the box. But in this case I want to use my existing figure as the Major who has a command squad atached to her, but the officer from the box will be her Lieutenant and I can't see how I can attach him to her and the unit if he's not a part of the command squad. I don't think I can use him as a single model, and anyway that would not be correct.
But I'm sure I'll find a way to solve this before it is time to use the unit in a game. For all I know, there could be a 9th edition before I get there...
The next thing to build here is a Chimera for my command squad to travel in, and I plan to add some extra bits like an antenna from the Super Heavy upgrade kit on this to show it off as a command vehicle. This is something I plan to do for all my command vehicles, but I might not use Baneblade antennas for all, as it will be a little expensive to buy the upgrade sprue just for the antennas.

I've also started to built a unit of Mark IV (Mk IV) Space Marines. So far I have glued the torsos together, and the Sergeant has also gotten his arms attached. I plan to work more on that unit tonight.
The fluff says that my chapter (The Gateekeepers) are from the second founding and they have been in the outer reaches of the galaxy ever since they were founded, so they have had to take extra care of their armour and service it. That explains why they still have units wearing the Mk IV suits.
Another reason for buying these sets is that I can use them if I ever want to play games of Warhammer 30K/Horus Heresy).
I also try to give as many individual marines as possible the Mk VI helmets (the beaky ones) as I think they are the coolest looking helmets ever. They might have Mk VII armour, but they have kept their helmets. The Mk VI and Mk VII are very interchangeable, so when a part in the Mk VI suits are damaged beyond repair, a Mk VII replacemet is issued.

A bit about names

After writing a little about the names of my Imperial Guard officers in my last blogpost, I thought I would take s little time to write about how I name my characters, why I do it and who gets named.

I generally give names to the leaders and characters in my armies. I also name miniatures that stand out in certain ways and sort of demands to be known.
In addition to naming, I like to make a little background on the miniatures to say just the basic things abut them.
A good example of what kind of background I make is the background for Sergeant Bastion. I read a background in one of the old editions (4th or 5th ed I think) of Warhammer 40.000 about Sergeant Luc Bastonne, a Cadian of Noble heritage that takes every loss of his men personal. Inspired by him I made Gunnery Sergeant "Luck" Bastion, a veteran sergeant leading a squad called Bastions Bastards. Sergeant Bastion have been promoted to higher ranks several times, but have refused to accept the promotions as he likes to be on the ground in the field with his men. Once a colonel took it so personal he reported Bastion for insubordination, but the Senior Commisar in the Regiment felt it was for the right reasons and let it pass. Bastion and his Bastards are made from a Cadian squad set, modified with bits from the Forgeworld Cadian Veteran set.

For my Sergeants I just like to use names that sounds good. One will be called Remagen, but I am not sure who he is yet.
For the commissioned officers I use names from the American Civil War. A lot of them were generals in real life, but I have to demote them in my army. I do not care if they fought for the North or South, but I will not use persons I find inappropriate like Quantrill, who was a guerrilla leader fighting for the southern cause. I don't use Lee or Grant either as they are too well known for that special period (they are probably the only two names Norwegians can name along with Abraham Lincoln when asked about the American Civil War). The General in charge of the Walpurgian 3rd Brigade is Pierre Gustave Toutant Beauregard

For my other armies I have chosen other areas to get names from. My Space Marines chapter, The Gatekeepers, have Roman names for the Chapter Master and Captains. Now that Lieutenants have been introduced, I will use Roman names for them as well. The Apothecaries  and probably the Librarians will be named after Greek philosophers. My chapter Master is called Otho Vitellius.


My Mechanicus army, the Cohort 9-1 Alpha from the Mechanicus fleet ship Gloria Inveneris is Magos Explorator de Orellana. His commander is the commander of the entire Mechanicus fleet, and his name is Arch Magos de Sousa (I will use the Belisarius Cawl figure for this one).
They are named for famous explorers, at least explorers that come up on Wikipedia when I search for Famous ones.

I also give names to my badguys, and my Chaos Space Marine army is called The Knights of Oblivion, and their commander is Arch-Commodore Falstaff. All the named characters in this army will be Shakespeare characters of some sort.

My Orks gets their names from famous people, and they get "orkyfided"   The warboss in charge if the army is Hazza Hoff (as in David Hasselhoff) and he has his pet squig Hoobie. The figure is Grukk Facerippa, a huge Ork.

My Inquisitor army is led by Lord Inquisitor Van Dorn, a name that just came to me and for this army I will just use names I like.

I have not found any names for my Genestealer army yet, but I need to try an find out how a Genestealer would be named. Also my Chaos Daemons are without names, as daemon names should not be spoken.

For Age of Sigmar, I have no names for my Chaos Warrior armies yet, but that will come.
Like in 40K the Daemons will get no names.

My Duardin (or Dwarf) army are led by Thorir Thorgrimsson. The characters in this army will all be Icelandic or old Norwegian sounding names. The choice of Thorir for the King is a tribute to the coach of the Norwegian female handballteam Thorir Hergeirsson who is a great leader and sort of short (not saying he is a dwarf though).

The Fyreslayers are sort of cousins of the Duardin, and I figure they should have old nordic sounding names too. Maybe Icelandig sounding for them too, but at least sort of viking names.

The Kharadron Overloards are also related somehow, but maybe a little more distant. I will see how many Icelandic sounding names I can think up, if I get enough they will get those kind of names too, if not I will see if I can find some other sort of cool idea to use on them.

My Sylvaneth army are named after Latin names for all kinds of trees. So far I have named the ancient Treelord who leads the army, and its name is Quercus and this is Latin for Oak.

My greenskins army in Age of Sigmar will all get sort of querky funny sounding names, and for my leader I use the Skarsnik figure with his big squig. In my army the Leader is called Turnip, and his squig is called Blabla.

I have yet to pick a way to name my Ogres, but hopefully I can find something fitting for this nice army of big miniatures.

Progress with several armies

I have done some more work on my Imperial Guard army. The Walpurgian 3rd Brigade have gotten their third Super heavy tank, and this time it is a Shadowsword. It is assembled, and along with the Hellhammer it is also primed and given the factory color of Mechanicus Standard Grey. The Walpurgian forces like the grey, but they will send it to their shops to add Abaddon Black and a detail color to be added to small areas. At the moment the idea is to use Caliban Green, but I will have to give it a try and see how it looks before a final decition is made.
I will also bring home my already assembled and painted Baneblade from storage, to give it the same color scheme, as it is mostly Mechanicus Standard Grey today.

I was quite active with the black spray on Sunday, and the Stompa and several Orks are also primed, alongside the female Commisar (not a GW model), my first Grundstok Gunhauler (smallest ship of the Kharadon Overlords) and a Techpriest Engineseer. They will all be painted up in the comming weeks, some sooner than others. I will add some spikes to the Stompa, and prime them with Imperial Primer along with the Grots that service it. I have an idea to make several Grot wehicles, so I might save some Grots to use on these.

I look forward to assembling more Kharadon ships in the future, as it was a fun build so far. All I need to decide now is the color scheme I want to use. I would like to have colors that are quite easy to get a good paint result with, but also that look good together. I have already decided that my Kharadons will have some blue in their colors, but I'm not sure yet if it will be a dominant color or just a supplement- or contrasting one. While painting I will also prime and paint the pilot and gunner and add them to the ship when the model is ready for that.

The Walpurgian 3rd Brigade have more reinforcements comming. I have finished a command Leman Russ Vanquisher tank, and have also assembled and kitbashed a female officer. She has the torso of the officer that comes extra in the Baneblade boxes, and I have swapped the male head-options for a female head from the Necromunda House Escher pack.
Major Belle Boyd of the Walpurgian 3rd Brigade, 2nd Armoured Regiment have been selected to be in charge of all artillery units in the Brigade. She answers to Colonel William Tecumseh Sherman, who is the Commanding Officer of the 2nd Armored Regiment.
Some might recognise the name of the CO, and yes that is right the name is taken from the American Civil War (1861-1865). Sherman was a Major General for the North, and went on after the war to become the Commanding General of the US Army when General Grant was elected president.
Belle Boyd was a spy for the South during the war, and was granted an honorary title as captian by General "Stonewall" Jackson (Who also is represented in my army as a Colonel and commander of the 1st Abhuman Regiment).
I plan to make up a short info file on each leader in my army (including sergeants), characters and regular troopers that is special for some reason or other.

I have bought the Necromunda boardgame and the rules for using them with 40K scenery. The game itself will be a gift for myself for Christmas, but I have bought and assembled one extra box of House Escher gangers, as I plan to make that my Necromunda gang (unless some really cool gang is released in the near future).
Some of the gangers were a little hard to get to stand on their bases, so I had to cram them up betweeen two bottles of paint until the glue dried. To the left of the paint bottle is Major Belle Boyd.

The Goliath gang that is included in the Necromunda boardgame will also be assembled and painted, but I don't think I will use them in games with other people or have too many of them.
I do love the scenery released for Necromunda and Mechanicus, and I have many plans for building up a big factory area with those scenery packs. Probably a prometheum refinery or something like that, so I can use a lot of pipes and gangways. But more on that in a future post.

The tanks keep rolling in...

Yesterday I finished the Hellhammer Super Heavy tank that will support the Walpurgian infantry when taking back the fallen cities of the Empire of Man from heretics, alien scum or even the ruinous powers.
The Hellhammer is part of the four tanks big Super Heavy Tank division, consisting of one Hellhammer, two Baneblades an one Shadowsword. In the future I might increase the numbers as I love the many different versions of the Super Hevy tanks. Right now they are all sold out from Games Worksop online, so it will be interesting to see if they will be replaced with new boxes or if they will be brought back. Games Workshop is about to release something they call "Chapter Approved" and in here they have new rules for Apocalypse games so they might plan to release new boxes for the Super Heavies.

Today I've finished the command Leman Russ tank from the Tech box, along with the first Tech-priest Engineseer of the army. I will need some more of those but they will need a little conversion as there are only two different models in the range."Luckily" I had an accident and broke off the Servo-skull on the backpack, so I will have to fin another one to use. I hardly ever use them on my minis, so I am sure I can scatter up a few if I get enough time to search. I think that will help a lot towards making them look like individuals.

I have started my Shadowsword build, and I have found that the tracks are especially tricky to build. This is because the front and back drive sprocket either mis-alligns, twists or just don't glue on straight. This happens even though you have a pin that goes in to the sprockets that can only be placed one special way. Luckily I have delt with parts like that before so I have found ways to get arund it, and on the Hellhammer it led to some cutting on the back of the tracks, while on the Shadowsword I glued the back sprocet on after I had glued the tracks to it.

In between doing this I have also started to work on the fluff for my army. I decided a long time ago that they are from the planet Walpurga, named after Saint Walpurga. The people there are called Walpurgians, so the army is the Walpurgian something. I will give the different units special names, and nicknames, and find my commanders for the army. High command are named after Generals from the American Civil War, but other officers and named characters get their names from all over.

Super Heavy mayhem...

I have finished building the first Stompa -  at least as much as I can assemble before priming. There are a few hatches and armor-panels that needs to be glued on after priming and some initial painting. Hopefully there will be nice weather for priming this weekend, so that I can get it done and start the paintjob.

I have been to my storage room and brought home two cardboard boxes full of models.
For the Orks I have brought home sets of all sizes. Tuesday I assembled a Painboy (no converting on him), and I also have a Big Mek with Shokk Attack Gun that I plan to build this weekend. There are two resin figures (don't remember what figures right now) that I will assemble in the near future.
Among the sets I have brought home are also two boxes of Burnas/Lootas, and right now I'm leaning towards assembling one box of each as I like both units and plan to have them both represented in my army. With these units there are several possibilities of converting and making the Orks look special, so I will take a little time building them and use parts from other sets I will also see if I have to paint them in stages or if I can assemble them fully and then prime and paint.
I will also built the five Nobs from the Stormclaw set, and the three Killa Kans that came in the same box. I have brought home one more box of Killa Kans, so I have six Kans that need to be assembled from scratch. I also have tree Kans that are partially painted and assembled from earlier that will be worked on along with these.
The Orks will also get some more heavy support, as the second Stompa is home. This one I plan to build with a heavy flamer instead of the sword, so I am looking into ways of building that. One idea is to use the flamer of an Imperial Knight (brought one of those home as well), but I have to see what is possible.  I would like to add a belly-gun on this Stompa, and I have a Baneblade cannon barrel for this purpose, I just need to think of a way to glue it to the Stompa so it doesn't fall off. This should be possible, as I can do almost what I want inside of it as long as I manage to glue it together in the end. To make it stand out a bit more from the first one, I also hope to include parts that will be left over from my first Gorkanaut/Morkanaut (need to decide what version to build first) and rokkitz and bombz from a flyer set that I plan to build as a Dakka jet. This will help to modify the shoota on the other arm of the Stompa so that too looks different from the first one.

Right now I am assembling a Super Heavy tank for my Imperial Guard (Astra Militarum) army. It came in a huge boxed set (and I do mean HUGE) called "Hammer of Cadia". This box is one of the largest I have seen from Games Workshop in size, and is about the same size as the Relicos Militarum scenery box (that I also have and look forward to building in the future).
The box includes one Super Heavy tank that can be assembled either as a Baneblade or a Hellhammer (I'm building the Hellhammer version). There are also three Leman Russ Battletanks and three Hellhounds in the box.

Right now I am trying to decide if I should have flamers or bolters in the side sponsons og the Hellhound. I am leaning towards flamers as I've read somewhere on a Wiki that the ideal configuration for city fighting is flamers, but I do like to use the bolters because of their look. 

I have two more boxes of Super Heavy Tanks, and one is going to be my second Baneblade, and the other will be a Shadowsword with it's fearsome Volcano cannon (range 120").
If I can motivate myself, I plan to build all three Super Heavy tanks in the near future.
I also have a "Leman Russ Tech-command" box that I brought home. This is a special box that came out at about the same time as the "Hammer of Cadia", containing a Leman Russ Battletank, a "command upgrade sprue" and a Tech priest Enginseer. I should probably build this quite soon, as all the new tanks will need someone to tend to their Machine Spirits.

All the Super Heavy tanks comes with one spare officer on foot, so for the Super Heavies I assemble now that means three officers. They wear the longcoat of the Cadians, and I plan to make one of them into a female officer. Not sure if I will use a head from the Daemonettes as I did with my other two female soldiers or if I should go for a Necrumunda House Escher head (if they are compatible).

Ork update

This weekend I have continued to work on my Stompa.
It took some time getting the glue to set on some of the larger parts, so I couldn't do as much as I had wanted, but I think I will get the rest done this afternoon if nothing very important comes up at short notice.
What remains is gluing on two poles to the shoulders and back of the Stompa, the big scull on the belly, and a lot of metal struts around the bottom part.
There will be five pieces that will not be glued on until after I have primed and done a little bit of detail painting.
Two armor panels in the back are partly covering up a driveshaft of some sort, and I would like to paint the pipes and the other parts that will be partly visible behind the panels before I glue them on.
Also there are three armored viewports on the belly of the Stompa where there are Grot heads visible behind them. I will paint those heads green after the entire Stompa is primed, and then glue the hatches on. The five parts will be primed with Imperial Primer, and then painted up along with the rest of the Stompa. When everything is painted up I will glue on the Grots that came with the Stompa on good locations where they can add to the narrative of the model.

I used some liquid greenstuff on the Stompa on Saturday to cover the cracks between the panels that were not supposed to be there, and I think that helped the overall look of the model. When it is primed it will hardly be visible that something has been done to it, and if something should be visible then it can be explained with sloppy or hasty work from the Orks and Grots...

While the Stompa is being worked on and dealt with, I have also started on some other Orks for the army. When I went through my inventory to get the Stompa, I found a boxed set called Sanctus Reach - Stormclaw. In contains the Ork boss Grukk Faceripper (I had built him already), five Nobs, a Runtherder with ten Grots and three Killa Kans
Facing them in combat is several Space Marines from the Space Wolves chapter. After inspecting the Space Wolf Marines, I have decided that it will be too much work to tun them in to Gatekeepers, so I will give them away or trade them to someone who collects this chapter, and concentrate on keeping my Space Marine army to consist of Ultramarines and Dark Angels blended quite seamlessly together.
I have also added some Horus Heresy 30K Space Marines in to my army, as this works well with the fluff saying that the Gatekeepers have been in the outer reaches of the galaxy for a long time, so they naturally have lots of older wargear that they take care of and still use. I will have a few units dressed in Mark IV power armor, and some old style terminators, along with the Marines that came in the Horus Heresy Betrayal at Calth boxed set (that I have two of ). The Idea with the Betrayal at Calth boxes is to paint one box up as Gatekeepers and the other as my Chaos Space Maines - Knights of Oblivion.

But for now I will paint Orks, and along with the Stromclaw box and the Stompa, I will try to paint up some of the Ork models that I have started to work on but not finished. That is a unit of three Killa Kans, a Mek gun (don't remember what version I made it as) with five Grot crew, and some of the old War Trukks that will serve as Warbuggies or small trucks in the army. Three of them are mobile rocket launcers for my Grot rokkits, and I will try and see if I can replace the Ork drivers with Grots to better serve my loose idea for Armies on Parade 2018.

Something huge is comming...

This afternoon I started on my biggest build in Warhammer 40K so far (not counting scenery).

A long time ago, while Apoclypse was still something people played, I bought several Ork Stompas(yes I did write several, I think I have 3), and I've finally brought one home from my storage to build and paint. I also bought several Super Heavy tanks for my Imperial Guard army to make sure the Orks had someone to fight, and just one has been built and painted so far. But the Super heavies are a future project, now back to the Stompa...

So far I have built the body, feet and head, and some poles and chimneys that will be attached when the arms are built and fitted to the torso.

I can truly say that this is one of the worst building instructions I have ever seen, and that says a lot when it comes to Games Workshop. They have never been that great making instructions (weird really as they are so good at making miniatures of all sizes), but in all fairness the instructions have become a lot better in the later years. With the Stompa you only get one drawing of what to attach, and some of the parts you only see from behind so you have to look through the sprues and choose the parts that looks right. All the parts have numbers on the sprues, but no numbers are included in the instructions.

I plan to build this Stompa following the instructions all the way. When I start the second one, I will start to do some modifications so that not two Stompas look alike. 

This Stompa have horns on the head, and because of that I have decided it needs to have the name of a bull. Since the Ork army is named after movie characters or actors, I felt it was right that the vehicles and walkers got the same attention. So this Stompa will be named Ferdi-naan after Ferdinand the bull. Now Ferdinand was a very kind and peaceful bull that just wanted to sit under a tree and smell the flowers, but that is part of the pun. Originally I was thinking of calling it Raging Grox after the boxing movie Raging Bull with Robert De Niro, but I will leave that for a Gorkanaut (or Morkanaut) at a later time using the horns from the second Stompa. Not sure what I will do with that head yet, but if I have the pieces I might add some rockets or something. 

I am adding a scull on the belly of the Stompa, as this is a possibility, and it's going to be painted white and rusty. Because of this, the Stompa Ferdi-naan has gotten a nickname, and that is of course Da Pun-isha after The Punisher, and it will be painted mostly in black with some metal and rust plates and maybe one or two different colored plates here and there to make it more orky.

What's going on

After Armies on Parade was over this weekend, I wanted to do something completely different for a little while. So I sat down and assembled 5 Tartaros Terminators (these can be used both in 30K and 40K games), 5 Ork Nobz and 3 Kurnoth Hunters. The Nobz actually came on 20 or 25 mm bases, and I've been told a long time ago that Nobz needs at least 32 mm, so I put them on that. My regular Boyz might get 25 mm bases, but the Nobz are a bit more powerful and needs to stand out a little more so they need bigger bases. I will come back to these units in more detail when I have primed and painted them up in the future.

I think I have presented this unit, or at least the females earlier in the blog before they were primed. This is my first attempt at making female guard soldiers, and based on this I am quite sure I will make a few more in the future. I have just replaced two heads with the most human looking heads from my Daemonettes of Slaanesh boxes and I will stick to that making more in the future. I will not have very many females, but I still think I need more than just two. This unit has a female sergeant (the one with purple hair) and a trooper with blonde hair. I have not done anything with the bodies, as the armor is quite bulky and comes as "one model fits all" from the producer. I have wanted some female guard models ever since I read the "Valor"-series written by Tanya Huff where the hero is a female Marine sergeant called Torin Kerr.

When I was looking for basing material for my AoP board I stumbled across a little box with miniatures. These are my only unit of veterans so far, but I will add more in the future. This is my way of giving Imperial Guard troopers some special weapons, as veterans can use almost everything as they pick up things on the battlefields.
Back in the days there was a character named Luc Bastonne. He came from a "fine" family on Cadia and could have been an officer if he wanted. Instead he joined as a private and has been promoted to a sergeant. He remember every trooper that has died under his command and have their named tattooed on his body. Ever since I read about him in the rules I have wanted him for my army. And even though he is no longer an official character, I will have him in my army. I changed his name and home planet to fit my army, so he is now Sergeant Bastion, and his squad is known as Bastions Bastards.

The final figure I have taken a picture of is a Sister of Battle figure that was released as a special figure. For some reason I can not get her to stay glued to the base. As you can see from the glue puddle on the base I have tried several times and with both thin and thick superglue. Recon I'll take her with me to the Games Workshop store and ask them to give it a try for me. Maybe they have a trick. Worst case I will have to do some drilling and pin her to the pile in front and greenstuff her other foot to the ground.

After this I also managed to finish another figure that has been around for a while. That is not a Games Workshop miniature (don't have many that aren't) but it is a female Commissar. She is also made of resin, but she was quite easy to glue together with thin superglue. I plan to paint her up and put her in my Imprial Guard army, but I will leave her out of the game if I go to play at Games Workshop. I plan to prime her along in the first batch of figures to be primed, and paint her up soon after that is done. I know most of the colors I want to use to paint her.

Armies on Parade, finished board (picture heavy)

This weekend was Parade day, and I got everything ready for the event just in time (as usual).
I was washing and basing a lot of Dwarfs Friday afternoon and in to the night.

I see that I have not taken a good picture of the lower table before I put the top on, but hopefully the pictures that are taken under the board shows what needs to be seen.

First up is two pics of the entire table, and then we'll get to closeups of the units.

At the front of the table there was a separate little cave where my White Dwarf subscription Vampire hunter model was located. This model has been laying around my workspace for a long time, but I'm really glad I pulled myself together and finished it, as I think it is a great little model. The next Subscription model to be worked on is the White Dwarf World War 1-style pilot.

Then we have come to the pictures from the mine on the lower level.  The first picture is taken from the front. The Grudge Ponies are going up the hill with full wagons. For this event they were loaded with chocolate that looks like rocks. In the front of the picture the unit with 15 Miners working in the mine can be seen from behind. Then in the middle the Ironbreakers are marching to stop the Goblins in the back. To the far right you can barely spot the old Prospector working on a potential new place to make a mineshaft.

And here are the same scenes seen from the back of the board. I am quite pleased with how the Night Goblins turned out, and look forward to painting up a whole lot of them for my greenskin army in the future.

This picture doesn't really show much of the figures, but I think it shows some of the terrain in a nice way. The small knolls were made with expanding foam (byggskum as we call it in Norway). It was just sprayed in a big lump on a piece of plastic, and when it was all dried up then I carved out the pieces I wanted to use. Next time I work on a board I might use this instead of styrofoam as it looks much more natural. This was proven by the winning entry in Oslo. She had used this material to build up hills on her board.

Here is a closeup of the Grude Pony coming out of the mine, up the ramp. I had a little accident with the moss to the left of the pic, as it was damaged in transport. So I had to do a hasty repair in store before the competition.My wife came up with the idea of attaching moss to the front and side of the opening of the mine to make it look better, and I think it worked well. Next time I plan to do something like this I want to make sure I have dry moss, as that could be glued on. The moss here is attached with wire and gluedots.

To the left of the ramp up from the mine, I had lined up my Dwarf Rangers. They are basically Quarrelers with an axe glued to their back. This used to be a separate unit entry back in the days...

This is the Warden King, and he is the leader of the dwarfs in this keep. He is standing on an oath stone in the front of the outer walls of the keep, rallying his troops around him.

Next up is my Longbeards. I only had time to paint up one box for this competition, but I have two more so this unit will grow in the future. The boxes can be made up as either Hammerers or Longbeards, but I want to use my old metal Hammerers so these new looking dwarfs will all be Longbeards. I'll make one more unit with full command, so I can field two units of 15 or one unit of 20 and one of 10.

An old metal Dwarf Thane on the left. The Thanes seems to have disappeared from the Duardin model range, and I find this a little sad as they used to be the leaders of  their clans. There are many lovely sculpts of Thanes, and I hope to find a way to use several of them in my army.
To the right is a slightly newer metal model, a Dwarf Engineer with lots of guns. 

I am very happy with the beard on the Engineer, and I wish I could remember what color and wash I used to get that look as I would like to have more dwarfs looking like this. It might be the perfect color for my Fyreslayers army. I will try and experiment a bit on spare heads and see if I can recreate it.

I love the old dwarfs, so I just had to have this unit in a visible place on the board. They are in the middle of the board, and have just marched out of the keeps gates. This is a unit of 16 warriors, and they have two handed axes slung over their shoulders. They have a lot of soul and character, and quite a different look from the regular plastic dwarf warriors. They have a more slim look to them, and some of them wears leather vests or sheep skin vests outside their chainmail. They also appear to have groomed beards, not the wild and bushy beards that comes with newer dwarf boxes.
My back story for them is that they have returned from the big city where they live among humans, to assist their clan in times of war. Living around humans have made them adopt some of the human traditions in clothes and style.

The two gun crews are lined up on each side of the gate. I originally had planned to have them on top of the gates, but  in order to do that I would need to modify the gates quite heavily with plastic sheets and I never got to drag myself to a store where I could find what I needed. So I put them on each side of the gate instead. It is not so visible on the pictures, but they both have a trolley of extra ammunition, a scope for aiming and a trough for dipping the rod they use to ready the cannon in. Both cannons also have a shell inside them.
I had a gap between the wall and the mountainside, so it was fixed by adding moss to look like a bush or a small tree.

On the top of the keep a Gyrobomber is hovering. The number is just to indicate that I was the 3rd entry in to the competition, so pay no attention to that. This set was a lot of fun to build and paint right until it was time to build the rotors. I did exactly as the instructions said, and still the rotor blades did not attach perfect. I have more of these, so I will try again at a later time. I had originally planned to have a blimp, but I never got around to making the cabin on it. I will make one in the future though, and maybe a few balloons, so that my Dwarfs can have that even though their cousins (the Kharadron Overlords) have airships that they will bring in support if it is called for.

Here is another Engineer, this one is a resin model. He has a huge mechanical hammer. Sorry for the bad pic of him, but I had to take the pictures after my army was set up on the table, so I couln't get any better angle without messing up one of the units on front of the wall.

Then we have a former character, the Engineer who lost his arm and made a mechanical one. I belive his name was Burlok Damminson, but I am not sure what he will be named in my army yet. In the Games Workshop catalogue he is now only known as Cogsmith. I think it's really sad that they removed so many nice characters without introducing new ones, but at least they kept many of the models in the range.

Here are my two Runelord figures. The figure came with alternate heads and arms, so naturally I had to buy two so I could make one of each. They will get names eventually...

This is the last unit I finished before the competition. It is 16 warriors with hand weapons and shields. I like this configuration, as I love the shields the dwarfs have.
I plan to have more Dwarfs armed like this, but also some Warriors with two handed weapons to have this configuration represented as well.
There is a big possibility that this unit will be extended to 30 warriors in the not too distant future.

I also managed to paint up a unit of Irondrakes. Originally I wanted to have more Ironbreakers, but the new plastic Ironbreakers looks so different from the old metal ones that I made them in to Irondrakes instead. I have more boxes of these, so I will do the same as with the Longbeards longer up in this post, and make it so that I can use larger or more units depending on the gameplay. I would also like some more of the old Ironbreakers, so I might look around for some used ones to repaint.

And finally I have two more Grudge Ponies These are loaded with equipment, so I felt it would be better to have them above ground. These will accompany the Dwarfs on their march to war, carrying equipment to the front, and maybe some riches back to the Keep when the fighting is over.

All in all this was a nice event, and there were plenty of people who came by to look and vote. I do not know how many votes I got (and I don't really want to know either). I have come a long way towards getting a Dwarf army ready for the tables by working on this project, and I have many more dwarfs to come in the future. For a little while now I think I will work on something else, but I will continue to expand my Dwarf army until all sets I have bought are assembled, primed and painted. 

And who knows, when that is done, I might return to the army and make another display just for my self...

Armies on Parade - Board update

Yesterday I told about the snags I had while building the Armies on Parade (AoP) board, and that I felt it looked a bit like something a 10-year old kid would do for his home project.

I complained even more to my wife about it from the day I started working on the board and experience the snags, and while I was out leading a youth bigband yesterday she helped me a bit with the finish of the mine (the lower table).

For a long time she has been into scapbooking, and she know a thing or two (maybe even three or four) about washes, shading, and things like that as this is techniques that also is used in that hobby. So she made the mine come more to life with some shadows on the recessed areas and a bit more light where that could be expected. And also she added on some gold and silver areas in the mine, to show off that there are rich mineral ores down there. 

I am very grateful for her assistance, and I think the board increased its quality at once. There are still some work to do on the top table, but this is minor work compared to what needed to be done down in the mines.

My board will automatically look a little less shiny compared to other boards for many reasons. First mine is made of plywood and is thinner and flatter than a Games Workshop tile, second it is a mountain area, so it is mostly gray compared to other boards that can have more color on them.

I had hoped to use a Games Workshop tile for my top, but when I got to the store to see if they had tiles for sale, they were sold out on the Age of Sigmar tiles, and the 40K tiles were city tiles and they are way too futuristic for my purpose. So I ended up with plywood both on top and on the bottom.

And even though my tiles are Mechanicus Standard Gray (with some added shades and highlights) I plan to brighten them up a bit with the dwarfs I bring to the table.

The dwarfs uses many colors, and some of them are quite striking while others are more neutral. There are metal, silver, bronze, gold, greens, blues, yellows and other colors to help lighten the table up a bit. There are also quite a lot of figures that will go on the tables:

Down in the mine I will have 2 Grudge Ponies with carts, and a third on the ramp going either up or down.

20 Nightgoblins as one unit

15 Dwarf Miners working along one wall

1 Dwarf Prospector (old Miner) working as a sort of mini diorama, on a little hill down in the mine. He will have a wheelbarrow and dynamite around him.

10 Dwarf Ironbrakers (the old metal ones) marching to stop the Nightgoblins

and in a special cave I have the White Dwarf subscription Vampire hunter miniature with a coffin with a goblin in it.

On the top table there will be:

2 Grudge Ponies pulling carts loaded with equipment that the dwarfs will carry to war with them.

2 Dwarf Engineers

1 Dwarf Warden King

1 or 2 Dwarf Runelords (little uncertain if I have 1 or 2 of them)

10 Longbeards

10 Irondrakes

20 Dwarf Rangers with crossbows and axes

16 Dwarf Warriors with shields and hand weapons

16 Dwarf Warriors with long axes (the old type of plastic dwarfs)

3 Goblin Nasty skulkers 

2 Cannons with 3 Dwarf crew each (6 figures in total)

1 Dwarf Gyrobomber (helicopter)

This leaves me with 47 figures on the lower level, and 86 figures on the top level (if I get to place them all I will see how much space it actually takes when I set up the board). That is a grand total of 133 figures. 

As promised yesterday, pics will come. I will try to take some pictures on Friday while finishing the boards, and then I will take pictures as I set the board up on Saturday.

Armies on Parade - just a few days away now...

It's just a few days left until Armies on Parade for Age of Sigmar (they split it in two this year and completely forgot the Middle Earth/Hobitt brand while doing it).
My Dwarf board looks like something a 10-year old has put together at the moment, but I am hoping that with a little touch-up with some more paint and details it will look ok before I go to bed on Friday night.
I have encountered almost every snag possible on this project. First of all my glue did not set as I supposed. I bouth special glue for styrofoam, but insted of melting the two plates together it made a small gap between them. But they stuck togehter for the most part... This was very obvious when I started to cut the plates in to the correct basic shapes.

Then the plates were cut in to rough shapes, but now it was almost impossible to cut them in to the detailed shape I wanted to make the mountan sides. Here you can see my design drawn on the styrofoam, but it diodn't end up quite that way.

I thought I could make some nice terrain with plaster, but that dried so fast it was dry before I got it out of the mixing bowl.So the result looked like this when I gave up. The rest of the board was painted over with PVA glue. This took 24 hours to dry, so I lost a lot of time to work on the board while I waited for this. I had thought it might take some hours, but not 24...

There are quite a lot of dwarfs that needs to be painted up and based. Here are some work in progress pictures from the weekend. They are now painted up, but still needs their bases done and a thin layer of wash.

My centerpiece on the top board is the tower gate, and this is what it looks like after wash but before I tried drybrushing it. I was so sure I had gray dry-paint to use for the drybrushing, but that was about the only paint pot I didn't have when I looked through my paint boxes. So I ended up using regular paint and making sure I got most of it out of the brush before I stated. This is the one thing I am satisfied with on the board so far.

The plan for Friday is to base about 60 dwarfs, wash about 30 more and about 25 goblins. Then I will clean up some paint on the boards and add some streaks of gold and silver down in the mine and glue some turf and moss to the top board. Somehow I don't think my wife will see a lot of me before after the AoP event is over...

I will add some pictures of the finished board when I set it up at Games Workshop on Saturday, and post it here when I get home.

More Dwarf progress

Another weekend has passed, and things are still going the right way.
This weekend I have completed the Longbeards and Miners from the last post, so that they now just need their bases done and a thin coat of wash to finish them off. I will do that when I have some more units ready, as this can be done as part of an assembly line.

This weekend I completed my Subscription only Vampire hunter model. The base is done, but I will need to give everything a thin coat of wash after I have glued the different parts together.
I am quite pleased with how it turned out, and while painting this I have found a new color to use for the skin of my Goblin army when I continue to work on them. One unit will be done up for the Armies on Parade (AoP) board, as they will have sneaked in to the mine, and I am hoping to have some Nasty Skulkers ready to hide out on the top level of the board as well.

I have also started to assemble my first Gyrobomber (the long version of the Gyrocopter), and I hope to get this done so that I can add it to my board. The hardest painting is already done, as it was a whole lot of details on the pilot and inside the cockpit that was painted up earlier. This will never be seen, but I was not 100% sure of that when I painted it.
I still have to assemble the rotors, and I will probably do that later this week, and then paint them up separately.
I will need to give everything a nice coat of paint before I assemble any more, as there are lots of details that will be very hard to reach once everything is assembled. But I have a clear plan for what I need and want to do, so hopefully it should be rather easy to get it all painted up in the timeframe I have to my disposal.

The next unit to be painted up is the Imperial Dwarfs, and they have gotten a lot done to them this weekend. I have painted their heads, and glued them on to the torsos I had painted earlier.
All the arms are fully primed. The arms carrying the axes have gotten the first color on them (Rhinox hide for the axe handles) and will get more paint this afternoon.
I love these old Dwarfs as they have a lot of character, and I hope to do them justice so that people who see my board on Parade day will be positive to them. They will be quite visible, as they will be in front of the wall or mountain side, marching towards the Dwarf camp to join up for the battle the Dwarfs are rallying for.

So far I am thinking of putting my Miners and Ironbreakers on the lower level, along with the Vampire hunter and an old Miner figure. If I have time I will make a small mini diorama around the old miner. I will also put some Grudge Ponies in the mine and on the ramp going up or down.

On top there will be some characters (finished), some Engineers (one finished one needs wash), my Ranger unit (finished) the Imperial Dwarfs, and if I get them done in time I have one unit of warriors, one unit of Irondrakes and a unit of Thunderers that can join the army. Also the Gyrobomber will stand on top of a mountainside and I will have a gate that will be guarded, hopefully, by two cannons with crew.

finally some real progress on dwarf units

As the headline says, I finally have some real progress on my dwarfs for Armies on Parade.

The event is on October 28th, so I have just about a month to finish up. After spending almost two years and not getting much finished (but a lot is partially painted), I have finally gotten some real progress.

Yesterday I finished painting the arms and weapons on my first 10 Longbeards. They will be the only Longbeards for the AoP board, but I will paint up 20 more in the future in the same way. It felt good gluing them together and seeing them as a unit for the first time. There are still a little work before they are 100% complete, but not much. 

I have some shoulder guards to glue on and paint, and the banner needs to be finished and glued to the arm of the banner bearer. 

I am still debating as to what color to use on the details of the banner, as there is a wide seam that should be in a contrasting color to the banner itself. The banner is purple, and I am thinking either silver or light gray for the seams, but I am not entirely sure yet. I will have to look in to it this afternoon.

Pictures will be posted when this work is done.

I have also done about 90% on my Miners unit. There are a few details that I need to paint on some of the Dwarfs, and they need a cleanup before they get a gentle wash. But I would have no problem bringing them to the tabletop for a game as they stand today.

Pictures of these will follow.

I am also working on a single model to be located at a special place on my AoP board, and that is the Grombrindal dressed as a Vampire slayer. He was sold with a one year subscription on White Dwarf some years back, and I now see real progress in the process of presenting him in the display.

The base is done, and all parts are assembled and primed.

I started this weekend by painting the skin on his face, but when he is standing up the brim of the hat hides most of it. I will paint his beard gray, as I did with my Longbeards, and his coat will be brown leather. Then I am trying to figure what colors I want to use for the smaller details. 

The base is a stone floor, and on top of that there is a table with a coffin on top. The table is falling apart and a goblet of wine is falling off it. In the coffin there is a Goblin vampire, and I am trying to find out what paint that is best to use to give him sort of a pale green skin.

The table and coffin is painted up and glued together, but I am missing some metal details on the coffin. And I have to paint the goblin inside it...

The next step now is to finish the units and character mentioned above to 100% and then take their pictures.

Then I will start this afternoon to prime the weapons of the next unit that needs finishing, as I have several Dwarf units that are waiting to have their arms and weapons primed and painted. I need to finish three units like this before the parade day, and I would also like to paint a fourth unit that is assembled in the time I have left. I also need to build and paint my board, and my gate and maybe some trees to go on top of it.

Progress on new units

I have gotten in some more painting time, and there are two units that are progessing nicely. 

They are: Dwarf Miners, 15 Dwarfs with musician and standard bearer. I'm not sure where I have them from, but I think they may have been bought on Ebay a long time ago.
My first unit of Miners that I painted many years ago got very dark, with the darkest of blue on their armor, so this time I wanted to do something a little lighter. I went for Death Guard Green, as it looks like a little muted color that I haven't used on any other dwarf units yet.
The chainmail is painted Leadbelcher instead of a more shiny metal color as the Miners wear their armor as much for protection in their daily work as for going to war. I hope to get some more painting done on them this weekend, as I am missing the hair, candles on top of their helmets (with flames on the candles) and some details (lanterns, leather pouches, golden medallions and so on).

The second unit I am working on is a unit I have started some time ago. That is my first unit of Longbeards, 10 Dwarfs with full command. The torsos have been "almost ready" for a while, but now I have primed the arms and heads and have started to paint the heads. My plan is to paint the beards before gluing the heads to the torsos so that I don't spill a lot of gray paint on to the already painted torsos. The arms and shoulderguards are being primed seperately, and I plan to keep them like that until they are painted and ready to be glued on to the torsos.
When this unit is done I can start to prime arms for my Thunderers as I don't have space for too many different small pieces on my table at the same time.

I also have an old metal Miner that I am painting up, and my plan is to have him standing by himself working on locating new oars to mine down in the lower level on my AoP board. The idea is to set him up so that he is visible from at least two sides when you look in to the board.
I think it's cool to see the difference between this old dwarf and the newer figures, as this metal figure has a much more outstanding nose that gives him a totally different character compared to the newer dwarfs that GW have produced. That is some of the beauty (hopefully people seeing my board will agree) of showing off models from different times and ages mixed up together. They are all legitimate GW figures, but some of them are just from a forgotten generation. I am sure the GW team will remember them, but not sure that the young people in the store have ever seen these old metal figures.

I have also sorted all my Chaos models, and placed them in tubs after what chaos god they worship. I didn't think I had that many Chaos Warriors, but almost all the tubs have 20 or 30 warriors in them. But then again, they are the models that introduced me to the Warhammer hobby so they have a special place in my heart.

There are four gods, but I only have figures to follow three of them.
I have a large goup of Chaos warriors that follow Khorne, and that tub also includealmost all the new Blood-something releases that came with the Age of Sigmar starter set and after. There are also some heavy cavalry, represented by 6 Scullcrushers (and I think I have more somewhere else)
The Nurgle tub have the largest model in my army, the Maggoth Lord Bloab Rotspawned, along with several relatively new Nurgle models from the end times releases. Also there are some Plaguebearers, Plague Drones, two sorcerers and the big unit of Chaos Warriros.
The third tray is dedicated to Slaanesh, and here I have a big unit of Chaos Warriors (seeing a pattern yet?) a Sorcerer, and when I find the box he is currently in, I will move Sigvald the Magnifient over to this box. Along with this gang I can field my Daemonettes, and a chariot but they are not in this box.
The last box have the units that doesn't have a Chaos mark, what used to be known as Chaos Undivided. These are Chaos Warriors that will have black armor  and in this box I also have a large chunk of Warriors, some Chosen ones, some Knights in all stages from just awaiting to be based to just been taken off the sprues and a lot of hounds that is only missing their bases.
When my dwarf army is ready for AoS I will try and spend some time painting and basing my Chaos army alongside building other Age of Sigmar sets and 40K stuff.

Progress on the dwarfs

Yesterday I assembled a unit of Dwarf Irondrakes for my slowly growing Dwarf army (or Duardin or Dispossessed as Games Workshop calls them now). The unit has 10 Irondrakes, but I am already thinking of making it twice as big, as I have several boxes of these tough little warriors.
For my Armies on Parade (AoP) board I might settle for 10, but for all other purposes I think I need at least a 20 strong unit. I know Age of Sigmar is often played with smaller units than the old Warhammer FB editions, but still it looks very impressive on the table. I'll check with my local Dwarf expert at GW if he is at wok on Saturday...
Anoter solution for the AoP board is to have a unit of 10 on its way down in the mines, and a bigger unit (or at least a same size unit) marching towards the gate. I'll see how much time it takes to paint this first box to the standard I would like and decide after that.

The Ironbreaker box will either make 10 Ironbreakers or Irondrakes. The difference between them is that the Ironbreakers have axes or hammers and shields while the Irondrakes have special guns (almost like miniature cannons).
My plan originally was to have some Irondrakes and some Ironbreakers, so I think I bought 3 or 4 boxes of these minis. But when I opened the first box I found that they look very different from the original metal Ironbreakers so they will not look good being in the same unit. I think these boxes was the first ones I bought after Games Workshop came out with their new design for the dwarf models.
I remember I was a little disappointed that they had a new look at the time, but not anymore. The new design is good, it just doesn't blend seamlessly with the old one. So the solution is to keep the old ones as Ironbreakers and the new ones as Irondrakes. That way they will be separate units, and the different appearance does not matter anymore.

The next step with the Irondrakes now are priming and painting. As most of the miniature will be silver, I plan to spray them with black primer, and when that is dry I will spray with Leadbeltcher to get the metal on them. Then I think I will try and drybrush them to get a more shiny metal as I usually use silver colors on my dwarfs. My old Ironbreakers was painted with Mithril Silver, but that color is no longer available in the paint range. They have a new paint called Stormhost Silver and for the metal Ironbreakers that I have from the huge Dwarf lot I got, I think this will work well to get them looking the same. For the Irondrakes I think a drybrush with Necron Compound might do the trick, if not I will try some highlighting with Stormhost Silver on them as well.

The nice things with all the different dwarfs is that the arms blend seemlessly between the boxes for most of the units, so it is easy to make units look apart from each other.
An easy swap to make some difference is switching between different banners and poles. And it is also possible to swap hands between units if the dwarf you want to make different is holding one handed weapons or tools.

Space Marines from both sides... and a little dwarf update too

There has been a while (again) since my last update, but from now on there is no excuses for not working with miniatures and updating the blog regularly.
Since my last blogpost I have moved to another house, and even though I still have to find out the best way to organize myself around my workplace, I am up and running.
I have the same sideboard/desk that I had before, but my storage facilites are a little different at the new house, so I am trying to find the best way to set up how I want to have my desk organized regarding building new models and painting existing ones.

Since the last blogpost I have finished assembling all miniatures in the Dark Imperium Startbox.
When I bought the box I didn't really plan to ever field the Death Guard traitor Marines, but when I built them I really got a liking to them so I have decided to field them in my Chaos army. They will probably be their own command, as my original Chaos army is not tainted by any of the Chaos Gods. They will probably field as allies, but I am leaning towards painting them all the same, but add rust and Nurgle Rot to the Death Guard minis. The regular Chaos Space Marines have Chaos Cultists fighting alongside them, and they will also keep their distance to the Poxwalkers fighting alongside the Death Gruard. A possible back story can be that The Knights of Oblivion have been fighting in two different warzones for a very long time and one of the forces has been lured to join Nurgle. I think I can make that work when it comes to fluff, and this will also add a little more backstory to the Chaos Marines.

I have also painted up a smaller starter set called "First Strike". This is a start set with a lot less figures than the Dark Imperuim box, and because of this it is also a lot cheaper. The miniatues in this set can also be bought in four separate boxes, but then they cost a lot more. There are six Primaris Marines in the box. Three Intercessors (the Primaris version of Tactical Marines) and three Reivers (mix between scouts and Assault Marines without jump packs). The box also includes three Death Guard Plague Marines and six Poxwalkers. These models are designed to just snap-fit together, but I glued them anyway as I don't plan to take them apart and I don't want them to loose bodyparts on the battlefield or in transit.

These figures comes in colored plastic, and the Primaris Marines are blue and the traitors green. They still need a good priming and painting though...

The Gatekeepers have also gotten some heavy fire support with a Primaris Redemptor Dreadnought. This Dreadnought is a lot bigger than the classic ones, and was a fun but frustrating build. There are several parts that are supposed to be moveable. Some I understand, others are getting glued together later in the building process anyway... I built mine ending up with one arm that can't rotate, but apart from that all moveable parts work as intended.

I will now take a small break from my Marines to work on my Dwarfs for Armies on Parade.
I assembled two cannons and crew these last days, and I plan on building some scenery for them as part of the Armies on Parade (AoP) board. One cannon is an Organ gun, and the other is a regular cannon.
I had originally planned to field them on top of the wall I have, but they are so wide they will have to go on the ground instead, and I will use two other cannons on the wall.

I hope to find a good place to stand and prime my models in the near future, so I can get started on the painting.

8th edition is out

Saturday was the official release for the new edition of Warhammer 40.000. We have reached the 8th edition now, and the storyline has been moved forward a bit through the last releases in the 7th edition with the resurrection of Robute Guilliman, the fall of Cadia and all the other things that happened.

For the relase there was a new boxed set called Dark Imperium. With this box Games Worskhop have done many great moves.
- They have included the rulebok with all the rules you need to play 8th edition right in the box. -this means you can atually play after just buying the set, no hidden costs to start. They still want you to buy the codexes and other books though.
- The box is really beautifully packaged
- It introduces the Primaris Marines, a new type of super-Space Marines made to keep the Imperium safe and destroy the forces of Chaos.

I had to get this box, and spent the entire day yesterday at Games Worshop in Oslo building Primaris Marines and trying out the new rules in a game.

I hope I can prime my first models later today (weather permitting), so I can start painting them during the comming week. I plan to paint them up just like my other Gatekeepers. Since I started painting my Space Marines chapter many years ago, Games Workshop has replaced their paints a few times. But I am armed with the colors that will match the best to what I have used before.

The Dark Imperium box includes two types of Marines. You have the noble Ultramarines with their new and improved Primaris Marines, and then you have the foul Deathguard with their Plague Marines and their minions and partners.

Today I assembled 13 of 22 Primaris Marines from the box.

I assembled 2 Space Marine Lieutenants. They are something new, as we only had Captains and Sergeants before. This has made me think that we will see Guilliman doing some exceptions from the Codex Astartes and that we will have chapters with more than 100 Space Marines soon. After all, what else would we need Lieutenants for?

The Captain I left for building the way I usually do (painting as I build), as he has a cape that needs to get special attention,

The Standard Bearer is a veteran Marine called an Ancient with some pretty nifty rules. He was the first Marine I assembled from the box. I had to glue his backpack twice to get it to sit tight, so hopefully there will be no future issues with it.

Then there are 2 5-man Intercessor squads, and I have assembled 1 of them. This is the equivalent of the regular Space Marine 10-man squad, and the basic troops of the Primaris Marines.

The box also contains a 3 man Inceptor squad and this is the buffed up version of the assault marines. I have not built these yet. This edition GW want the flying troops to be in the air, so they come with some new flying stems that makes it possible to field them in the air. I am not sure about how I like these compared to the old assault marines, as their weapons look  little weird with shields on their barrels. But I am sure I'll grow in to liking them as I build and paint them up.

Finally for the good guys the box contain a 5 man Hellblaster squad. This is four marines and a sergeant armed with plasma rifles. They will fill the role of the old devastators. They look mean, and pack a great punch. Only problem is that plasma might blow up in your face from overheating when firing it. In the game we played, my squad ended up in a firefight with a Helldrake, and I lost 2 men to overheating in my first round of shooting.

I have not started to look at the Deathguard models yet but they include 10 Marines, 20 humans and 1 mean looking drone.

I will put pictures up here as I get everything assembled and painted up. I plan to paint at least my good guys up alongside my other projects, so I can use them if GW Oslo holds some gaming events in the future where I can participate.

Long awaited update...

I'll start with a follow-up from the last blogpost. The test models of my Daemonettes are almost done. I have painted up two of them with the same colors used on different areas, and I need to decide who I like the best. The only thing that is 100% decided is that the skin will be Daemonette Hide, I mean if I don't use that for them then who should it be for... That means my Deamonettes will be a lot darker than what other people have painted, so I must find a good combination for my palette to brighten them up a bit.

I have done some more work on the Dwarfs too, but still not finished anything new. I've started to paint the hair and beards of my Imperial Dwarfs and also done some more work on the bodies of the Longbeards. The master plan is still to have a board with Dwarfs (or Duardin or Dispossessed as they are called in Age of Sigmar) for Armies on Parade 2017, and I still plan to do it mostly as described earlier in this blog.

This Saturday Games Workshop Oslo held a record attempt. They wanted to set a new record for most infantry models on a gaming table. The rules were simple, the models had to be playable for Warhammer 40K (or Horus Heresy/30K) and they had to have at least 3 different colors on them plus a finished base. These are the same rules as Games Workshop have for using models in tournaments held in their stores. 

They had the old record with about 1700 figures (set earlier this year), and their goal this time was 3000 (later they updated their goal to 4000). 

The new record for most infantry models on a gaming table is... *drumroll* 4422 figures. 

The average number of models that people brought was 220. I managed to scrape together 28 models in total, while the one who brought the most had 750 (among them two full companies of Dark Angels).

The good thing about participating in this record attempt was that I had to get some models based, as all my finished models with wash and bases are in cabinets at the summer house in Sweden.

So i grabbed all the 40K infantry models I had that was at least primed and put them in one of my Crusade cases and set off for the painting table at the store.

The first thing I finished was the Ork Mek that I started to paint in the color class at Games Workshop in January. I gave the base a good slab of Martian Ironearth and it was the first time I used the spatula to get it on the base and not a stiff brush. I think it worked out well, so I immediately started with the base of my Imperial Pilot (don't know the official Games Workshop name for this one). When he was done I used the same basing material for 14 Space Marines from my 2nd Company. They were not 100% finished as they needed some details fixed, but they had all their colors on. I also added a Space Marine captain (master of Relics) that I originally painted up for my Armies on Parade board for 2015, but I didn't find a place for him then so he's been standing among my "almost ready" models since that. 

And finally for the Space Marines they got joined by a Dark Angels Interrogator-Chaplain that had all his basic colors done but was missing some highlighting.

When this was done, there were a little time left, so I based my Imperial Guard squad with two females in it. This time I used Astrogranite as basing material. My idea is that the Guard will be more in to the urban fighting, so this woud look better for them. Some of my Guard units will be based on the sculpted Sector Imperialis bases, and I think the grey Astrogranite goes best with this. 

This unit is not done by far, but they had 4 colours on them (black primer, Mechanicus Standard Grey, Administratum Grey and Bugmans Glow) and I managed to add Castellan Green to the canteen covers, grenades and a few other parts.

With all models that could be present for the record attempt placed in their appropriate places on the table, I still wanted to paint more. So, I started to work on my Ork Boyz. After using Naggaroth Night on my Mek I got a liking for that color, so I gave a handful of Boyz dark purple clothing and helmets. Among them were two heavy weapon Boyz armed with heavy stubbers.

I also sat for a few hours at home on Sunday working more on the Boyz, so the result now is that I have several Boyz just missing the final wash and their bases before they are ready to join the comming Waaagh. One carrying a mine (not sure if he really is part of the Boyz or some sort of speciaist) one with shoota and choppa, two with heavy stubbers and one with grenades. I also have one with a chainblade that is washed and just waiting for a base. There are several Boyz in my Crusade case just waiting for some attention, and when I get back home from a short spring holliday I will try and do both Dwarfs and Boyz.